The common woman

This has been the year of the Tahrir Square and its momentous three-tiered dissent. First its republic of tents brought down the Mubarak regime in a glorious revolution of 18 days. It convulsed again as the military,originally the friend of the uprising,turned coats and insidiously tried to protect its interests and protract the transition of power. And now thousands of women have come out in their abayas and headscarves,protesting against the rule of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and the military’s brutal treatment of women. Post-revolution days are complicated,messy,but what has arguably been the biggest rally of women in modern Cairo conveys something else: how it invariably emboldens those who have been on the margins. In conservative,patriarchal Egypt,as for the entire region to which it is central,that moment of thousands of women taking to the streets is invested with enormous political significance.

In the recent clashes between protesters and police that left at least a dozen dead,it was a shocking image that signalled to the world outside the attacks on women: a girl lying on the ground,surrounded by the military,is stripped of her abaya even as a foot is raised over her. Both the US and the UN have condemned the abuse of women. The Egyptian military has expressed regret over the incident,which it has brushed off as an aberration,but has not apologised.

Egyptians may have returned to the polling booths since as the staggered parliamentary election enters the second round,but the military council headed by Husain Tantawi has to listen to the people. A ruler draws legitimacy from them — and the SCAF is losing it on almost all sides,on almost all counts.