PROFILES- Esther Fahmy Wissa: A ‘Woman Warrior’
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Esther Fahmy Wissa (1895 - 1990) –a staunch nationalist and feminist- can be described as one in a series of Egyptian ‘women warriors’ * whose name has been forgotten if not utterly obliterated. Her most effective ammunition against oppression was her fluency in three languages, resulting in her being ever ready to put pen to paper in strong protest. Her articulateness, often impulsive and spontaneous transformed her passionate speeches, lectures and addresses into feminist radical discourse. She fought fiercely and singlemindedly for two objectives and two freedoms, which, from her own point of view, were indivisible: freedom from foreign occupation and freedom from the crippling fetters of womanhood. In 1936, in her column in one of the American journals, Eleanor Roosevelt wrote of Esther Wissa, “I think women everywhere will feel a sense of kinship in her interests and ideals”.
 
Esther was born in Assiut into an affluent land owning Coptic family and was drawn into politics in 1919 through the family’s connection with Makram Ebeid. Thus at the early age of twenty-four she was propelled centrestage on to the political and social arena and, in a sense, she never left it. It all started when, together with her aunt Regina Khayatt, she figured prominently in the famous Women’s March of 1919. Almost instantaneously, she was introduced to Hoda Shaarawi and the seeds of the
Central Wafdist Committee for Women were sown, a movement envisioned by the founders to work parallel with the Wafdists to achieve independence for Egypt and at the same time emancipation for women. Defying the government ban on political meetings, a group of three thousand women held their first historic and formative meeting in January 1920 at the Morkossia Church when Esther was elected Secretary under the Presidentship of Hoda Shaarawi (later Esther became Vice President). The Morkossia Church was also the venue from which the ‘Women of Egypt’ initiated and launched their strident attack on the Milner Commission in December 1919. In Esther’s speech in 1969 on the occasion of the Jubilee of the Emancipation of Women when she was honoured for her part in the 1919 struggle, she said:
 
We started by sending protests, writing articles in the daily papers, and our work was of great value. After the liberation of Zaghloul Pasha from Malta we held a big meeting to celebrate him and his colleagues. As Miss Fikreya Hosni rose to give her speech, being veiled, Zaghloul Pasha got up and removed her veil. Since that time all women went about unveiled.
 
(Hanna Wissa, Assiout: The Saga of an Egyptian Family, Sussex : The Guild Book ,1994, p.144)
 
Esther became embroiled in a period of intense activity which involved forming societies for social welfare for women, writing articles in newspapers either in her own capacity or as a member of the Movement. In one such article, most certainly instigated by Esther, the Central Wafdist Committee for Women tore to shreds an article written by Valentine Chirol in The Times, -entitled ‘Women of Egypt’- 2nd January, 1920. Referring to Chirol’s derogatory ‘future harvest of social demoralisation’, they wrote:
 
We stand at a most interesting page in Egypt’s history, and we have all hopes that our women may stand at the forefront of noble womanhood leading the human race to brighter futures, as women did in Ancient Egypt.
 
Between 1922 -1925 Esther conducted a long, spirited and persistent correspondence with Lord Allenby, the then High Commissioner in Egypt, where she unerringly identified the crucial issues of the time: Saad Zaghloul’s release, Egypt’s independence from Britain, and the release from Egypt of Egyptian prisoners.
 
In 1928, much to Esther’s dismay, Saad Zaghloul’s successor was Nahas Pasha, who did not want women “interfering” in politics and, although she was still considered a leading light in the feminist movement, she began to withdraw from politics and turned her attention to the improvement of the conditions of women and girls. It is interesting to note that when Esther moved into the field of social development, she concentrated on the same two causes, as in her political life, that she felt so strongly about. Thus in 1924 she founded the Work for Egypt Society. Among the Society’s many aims, was to help less privileged women help themselves. This society survived until 1962 when it was taken over by The Ministry of Social Affairs. Another charity in which Esther played an important role -from the 1920s to the 1980s- was the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) which was devoted to empowering women and girls regardless of race, religion and class. Esther was, therefore, one of the earliest pioneers of the concept of Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs).
 
Whether in politics or social development Esther steadfastly fought for two freedoms, freedom from colonial rule and from male domination.
 
Nadia Gindy
 
* This term was used by Nadia El-Kholy in a Paper entitled “Rethinking the Background: Warrior Women in Arabic Popular Romance and the Western Imagination”, presented at a conference on “The Arabs and Britain: Changes and Exchanges” held in Cairo in March 1998.

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