En ze leeft nog ook….
CAIRO, Jan. 25 – The standard three-step program for any unmarried upper-class Egyptian girl who becomes pregnant is an abortion, an operation to refurbish her virginity with a new hymen and then marriage to the first unwitting suitor the family can snare. But Hind el-Hinnawy, a vivacious 27-year-old costume designer, decided she was not going to playact her way through the virgin-marriage pageant. Instead she did the unthinkable here: she had the child and then filed a public paternity suit, igniting a major scandal and prompting a national debate over the clandestine marriage contracts that young couples are using to have sex in this conservative, religious society. Advertisement “The whole society says: ‘No! No! No! Don’t say this. It’s shameful. It’s a scandal. Go have an abortion. This girl was not well raised. She’s loose,’ ” said Attiyat el-Abnoudi, a renowned Egyptian documentary maker who after hearing about the case became so involved that she has become the child’s godmother. “The importance of this case is that it is out in the open,” she said. “The whole society has to question whether it is only her, or whether the society is changing. Young people want to make love without getting married.” This case has mesmerized the country, particularly because Ms. Hinnawy says her daughter’s father is Ahmed el-Fishawy, a famous 24-year-old actor. He is the scion of a family of movie stars and well-known as the host of a now canceled television talk show dispensing advice to devout Muslim youth. He contends that the couple never had sex or even met off the set of the television comedy pilot, called “When Daddy Returned,” where she helped create his wardrobe. By filing suit, Ms. Hinnawy did more than just shatter a social taboo. She may well set an Egyptian legal precedent by requesting that the court order Mr. Fishawy to submit to a DNA test to establish whether he is the father of young Leena, born in October with a shock of soft black hair. DNA testing is relatively novel here, never before used to prove paternity in court. In Egypt and across the Arab world, respectable sex requires marriage, particularly for a woman, and especially for the first time. Ms. Hinnawy contends that the two had what is known as an urfi marriage, a practice in Sunni Islam that allows couples to marry in private with a contract they draft. Urfi marriages have become far more common in recent years because the combination of tough economic times and a renewed emphasis on Islamic mores means that normal marriages remain an elusive dream for so many. Tradition dictates that a young man who wants to wed first buy an apartment, furnish it and shower his fiancée with gold jewelry, an unreachable expense for many bachelors. Corporate tycoons and politicians who are married have found urfi marriages a convenient means to carry on affairs with everyone from secretaries to belly dancers with an Islamic seal of approval. But the clandestine nature of such marriages makes reliable statistics unavailable. Made public, Ms. Hinnawy’s story became the talk of Egypt. Conservative commentators decried the demise of the traditional Egyptian family. Gossip magazines splashed the scandal across their covers. The mufti, the highest religious authority in the country, issued an edict reminding everyone that secret marriage or no, the welfare of the baby girl was paramount. Ms. Hinnawy said she had purposely held off telling her parents, who had rejected four suitors as unacceptable, that she was pregnant until it was too late to abort. “I am trying to say to other people, not only girls, to try to have the courage to be responsible for what you do,” she said during an interview at her family home. Her baby daughter, whom she will not allow to be photographed, was bouncing on her knee. She complained that Egyptians prefer hypocrisy to what they consider public disgrace. “I did the right thing: I didn’t hide, and eventually he will have to give the baby his name,” she said. “People prefer that a woman live a psychologically troubled life; that doesn’t matter as long as it doesn’t become a scandal.”
Miko Flohr, 27/01/2005