page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 August 23, 2005: Azza Karam, Senior Policy Research Advisor of the United Nations Development Program and Coordinator for the U.N. Arab Human Development Report, discusses global development and the Arab world with Anchor, Bill Moyers. BILL MOYERS: With me now is Azza Karam. She was born in Egypt, received her doctorate from the University of Amsterdam and has spent many years working in the Middle East and Europe. She lives now in New York where she is senior advisor to the United Nations Development Program. Welcome to Wide Angle. What surprised you watching that film? AZZA KARAM: I think the determination that the women had to somehow get over a great deal of pain, whether it was a pain of loss, or the social circumstances that they seem to live in. But, also, I wouldn't say that surprised me, but what I liked was the sense of humor they seemed to maintain consistently. BILL MOYERS: Did you find, did you notice that some of the women were uncomfortable with, with one of them being in charge, being the boss? AZZA KARAM: Absolutely, I did. That was very clear at the very beginning of the film I think. It was also very typical, I think, of women when they get together-- there's not always a sense of comfort with one of them getting in charge. And it's not just those women. I think it's a pretty universal phenomenon, interestingly enough. BILL MOYERS: Their determination was inspiring actually. AZZA KARAM: Yes. BILL MOYERS: And, yet, they wound up in worse financial shape than when they had begun. BILL MOYERS: How do you account for this? What do you think went wrong? AZZA KARAM: Well, I don't think it had anything to do with their determination. I think it had a great deal probably to do with the economic and social and probably to some extent political context that they were living in. It seemed to me that there are a number of factors to take into place. Getting other investors to be interested enough to invest in a venture like this, which is run by a small group of relatively unknown women. Yes, the company may have received certain positive PR. But, at the same time, it's not like buying a very well established economic enterprise or company. It's still like investing in a group of women. And I don't think that would have been something that your average investor would have wanted to take as a risk. So, I think that must have featured as one of the reasons why it was very difficult to raise the kind of funds that they would have needed in order to maintain that economic investment. I'm sure there were other factors related to how well they were able to publicize their product. How far they could get because a number of references were made throughout the film to trying to get into the Israeli market a little bit more in depth. Extend their networks and contacts there, which is clearly something they probably didn't do as well as they would have wanted or needed to for financial reasons. BILL MOYERS: Marketing seems a sort of new endeavor to them. A whole new idea. AZZA KARAM: It's like the lady said--once she got into it, she found it was such a new and exciting world that she couldn't get out of it in a sense. And she enjoyed it so much. So, yes. BILL MOYERS: You've traveled and worked so much in that part of the world. Is what you saw with these women atypical or typical of what's happening to other women elsewhere? I know generalizations are generally wrong. But is there something unique about this situation? Or is there something endemic in this situation? AZZA KARAM: I think I wouldn't say there's something unique. I think that women who have--women and men-- but, in this case, women who have confronted a number of difficulties in their lives, the tougher the circumstances they go through, the more the determination to somehow make it in some other domain of their existence. And I think, to me, there has been a great deal of these kinds of initiatives around the world. You find them particularly in rural areas. But especially amongst poor communities where women find that it's very difficult for them to make ends meet, they become creative about how they can do this. And when they get together, there are many, many ventures in the Arab world where on a very small scale, a group of women will come together and see how they can each save and every month, for example, one gets the sum total of everybody's saving. And the next month, it's the other one's turn. BILL MOYERS: Sort of like a swap. AZZA KARAM: Exactly. And many, many different creative ways of being able to make the money go around so that they can somehow keep afloat, so to speak. And sometimes not just keep afloat, but have a relatively OK standard of living for the children to make sure that they can get through school, get through university, whatever it is. So, it's not atypical. But it's still nevertheless very heartening to be able to see and observe and see how it develops. BILL MOYERS: How do you read the impact of being widows? Eight widows. It's almost like a movie made in Hollywood. AZZA KARAM: Right, right. No, there was a lot of salt and pepper so to speak, spice, in the movie--the fact that they were widows in the Arab world in general. But, I think also in many Mediterranean cultures widowhood is usually traditionally seen as a difficult stage to be in. Not only because of the financial implications that women might find themselves in. But also because a widow is potentially attractive to married men. So, interestingly enough, it's usually women--married women who tend to be the least friendly towards widows--because they see in many incidences, of course we're generalizing again, but in many incidences widowed women are seen as a threat to the social fabric. BILL MOYERS: Generalizing from human nature, not just Arab culture. Right? AZZA KARAM: Absolutely. AZZA KARAM: Absolutely. So, I think that this was an interesting point in commonality that they all would have shared. That the fact that they're widows. They face similar social restrictions or perceptions and cultural norms. I think that might have been a reason why they also managed to find such a common ground that gave them each the strength to take on such an endeavor. BILL MOYERS: So their obstacle also became their bond? AZZA KARAM: Absolutely. BILL MOYERS: And they're all widows. AZZA KARAM: That's exactly true, I would say. BILL MOYERS: Is it unusual for widows to try to go into business in the Arab world? AZZA KARAM: No. I don't think it's unusual. I think what makes this particularly nuanced as a film is that it is perhaps unusual to see a group of widows all coming together at the same time for the same purpose. I mean, you hear of different economic endeavors that women will go through. And, in fact, a good chunk of the wealth in the Arab world actually happens to be in Arab women's hands. But that's not something that we would all hear of or know of or that would be made public. But what is unusual about this movie is that somehow they all turned out to be widows and they decided to do this venture all as widows. If they had been different women from different walks of life, it would have made it a bit of it more normal if you will. But I think the nuance of all of them being widows makes it particularly interesting. BILL MOYERS: I'm taken with what you're saying that the film was nuanced. And, yet, as I watched it and as I hear you talk, it is so rare for us in this culture to think of that culture as being nuanced. Particularly since 9/11. AZZA KARAM: Yes. BILL MOYERS: It's been black and white. Good and evil. Right and wrong. AZZA KARAM: Unfortunately. It's a very good point. I think one of the things that has been particularly frustrating is observing the way that my part of the world has been portrayed. And not just about women. But generally. It has precisely been that dimension that there's either good people and they usually think like us, and bad people and they usually would be like them. And I think that particular lack of, again, nuance tends to obscure so much of the reality, which is like any other reality, full of different things. It's very diverse. It's very dynamic. It's in no way stagnant as it seems to be portrayed. I think there is a huge misperception in the Western world in general that Arab women and Muslim women more broadly tend to be very oppressed and subjugated and oppressed and they need to be liberated and all that sort of talk. But I think that that obscures a very diverse reality. BILL MOYERS: I was struck in the film by how the conflict in the Middle East, the tensions between the Israelis and the Jews, the Jews and the Arabs, affects these ordinary people at the everyday level of life. What's your take on how they manage to go on day in and day out? AZZA KARAM: I think that, again, is another very fine nuance of this particular movie. Because it sort of refers to it, but doesn't really ever refer to it in words. In the sense that you know that the women are not going to be speaking necessarily--they speak in Arabic to each other. They have to speak sometimes in Hebrew to the interviewer. And yet they're quite comfortable with the interviewer, with the camera being with them. It's very, very understated--the extent to which the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians affect everyday men and women's lives. But especially women's lives, since their life is difficult anyway as a woman. And then, especially difficult when it's a situation of conflict. It's not unusual because you know that in many other conflict societies, whether they're African or Asian or Latin American, women do tend to have a much more difficult social, political context-- BILL MOYERS: Right. AZZA KARAM: --to live through. But, the Palestinian context tends to be particularly underappreciated I would say. BILL MOYERS: Why? AZZA KARAM: The focus usually when you talk about Palestine, Israel and the difficulties they're in, the focus usually tends to be on the politicians, on the big picture. Very rarely does that focus go to the everyday person's life. And even more rarely will it go to the everyday woman's life. And if it is going to be made from that angle ever, then it would be usually on how difficult and tough and sort of a very negative--generally, a stereotypical view--of how just everything is very, very tough. And I think the nice thing about this movie is it shows that, well, yes, everything's very tough and so on. But life goes on and you find ways of living and you're creative in how you find that. And you make your friendships and build your life. And life goes on in the midst of all that. Definitely colored by what's happening, but it doesn't stop your life. BILL MOYERS: Were you surprised that these eight Muslim women finally agreed to cooperate with two Jewish filmmakers from Tel Aviv? Is that unusual? AZZA KARAM: I think to some extent, it's unusual because one does imagine that there isn't going to be that much room for friction or engagement between the two communities. And this was not just an ordinary engagement. This was letting the Jewish women into their lives and their very private moments and sorrows and so on. And joys. So I think if you take a much more realistic outlook on life and you begin to look at how these communities do and have actually for a long time coexisted, then it gives you a totally different perspective and you realize, yes, it can happen. Of course it can happen. The reality of Palestine-Israel is that the communities of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish have coexisted in that part of the world for an awfully long period of time. BILL MOYERS: What's aggravating it now so intensely in your opinion? I mean, we know all the obvious forces-- AZZA KARAM: Well, I think it's been aggravated by political ambitions and issues. It's been aggravated by different vested interests. It's been aggravated by the same old, same old. There's nothing that I'm going to say that's going to add-- BILL MOYERS: Right. AZZA KARAM: --to the right reason behind why the situation is so complicated. But I think that that is an old issue. It's an old young issue in a sense that it started relatively recently in human history. But I think it's a situation that will go on with us for some time, unfortunately. page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 continue to next page Azza Karam, Senior Policy Research Advisor for the United Nations Development Program and Coordinator for the U.N. Arab Human Development Report

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