Fatma Ahmed Kamal Shaker (Arabic: فاطمة أحمد كمال), better known by her stage name Shadia (b. February 8, 1931, Sharqia Governorate, Egypt – d. November 28, 2017, Cairo, Egypt), was an Egyptian actress and singer. She was famous for her roles in light comedies and drama in the 1950s and 1960s. Her first appearance was in the film el-Aql Fi Agaza (The Mind on Vacation), and she retired after her last film La Tas'alni Man Ana (Don't Ask Me Who I Am).
Born Fatma Ahmed Kamal Shaker in 1931, in the Sharqia Governorate, in Egypt. Her father, Ahmed Kamak Shaker, was an Upper Egyptian man whose family moved to El Sharqia and her mother was from a family of both Egyptian and Turk origin. She began acting at the age of thirteen.
Shaker was given the stage name "Shadia" by the film director Helmy Rafla. In her heyday during the 1950s and 1960s, Shadia acted in numerous melodramas, romance, and comedy films. However, it was her musical talent as a singer that established Shadia as one of the most important Egyptian cinema stars of her era.
Overall, as "Shadia", she performed in more than 100 films. She starred in more than 30 films with the actor Kamal el-Shennawi, and sang opposite Farid al-Atrash and Abdel Halim Hafez, such as in "The People's Idol" (1967). She also appeared with Faten Hamama in "An Appointment with Life" (1954), and in "The Unknown Woman" (1959) she played the role of Fatma in a heavy melodrama. Other notable films she starred in include "The Thief and the Dogs" (1962) and in her comedy roles in films "Wife Number 13" (1962) and "My Wife the General Manager" (1966). Indeed, Shadia was often cast in cunning and cheeky roles, however, she also played serious roles, such as in "The Road" (1964), and in the stage version of "Raya and Sakina", which was based on the true story of two Alexandrian serial killers and directed by Hussein Kama (1953).
After retiring from acting, Shadia joined a number of Egyptian actresses who took on the veil (hijab) in an act of Islamic resistance and salvation.
Shadia is considered one of the most popular and most talented singers and actresses in the Arabic movie and entertainment industry. Her songs and movies are still sought after, and her songs are popular among all generations.
Shadia was hospitalized on November 4, 2017 after suffering a massive stroke in Cairo.
On November 28, 2017, Shadia died from respiratory failure caused by the pneumonia.
Hadje Halime (b. 1930, Salamat, Chad - d. January 7, 2001) was a Chadian activist, educator, and politician called the "mother of the revolution". Hadjé Halimé Oumar was born in the town of Salamat in 1930 to a mother from Salamat and a father from Abeche. She became involved with the Parti Progressiste Tchadien (PPT) in 1950 while working as a Quranic instructor. She was able to bring in more women who did not know French due to her knowledge of Chadian Arabic. At the time she had only a limited grasp of French. She was particularly close to Gabriel Lisette, the founder of the party, and his wife, Lisette Yéyon. She became responsible for recruiting Northern women following the General Meeting of April 2, 1950. Halimé harshly criticized the colonial administration's poll tax, and declared that if the PPT secured a victory, the poll tax would be abolished for all despite the platform calling for ending the tax only on women. She declared that Lisette was the undisputed leader of the party, despite the rise of Southern Chadian politician Francois Tombalbaye, and traveled to France on Lisette's urging to meet with the French politician Rene Coty.
However, in 1959 and 1960, Tombalbaye gained power and Lisette was removed from power. Halimé became the target of repression soon after independence, unlike her PPT female colleague Kaltouma Nguembang. As part of a purge of those near to Lisette, Halimé's only son was murdered, and she was arrested in September 1963. At first, she was taken to Massenya in Chari-Baguirmi Region, then to a central prison in Chad's capital of N'Djamena, and finally to a dreaded prison at Kela. At the Kela prison, she was regularly tortured by guards through electrocution while French and Israeli army officers supervised. Her torture resulted in her losing all her fingernails and hair. Despite Tombalbaye wanting Halimé to be killed, a French officer spared her life. In an interview, she stated that only her faith was able to keep her going through the difficult circumstances of torture. She was finally released on April 28, 1975, days after the overthrow of Tombalbaye and his regime. Out of 600 people who were imprisoned during this purge, she was one of only 45 who lived.
Lisette, who had been exiled in France, helped bring her to Paris to receive medical treatment. Halimé spent time in a hospital in Cote d'Ivoire, where the president Felix Houphouet-Boigny mandated that her medical care be free. She later joined the National Liberation Front of Chad or FROLINAT, which was based in Libya. In 1978, she moved to Tripoli and returned to politics. FROLINAT members dubbed her "the mother of the revolution", and the party seized power in 1979. She also began educating girls in Libya and founded an Islamic school, the Rising New Generation, where she taught religion, home economics, and child care. She taught over 3600 girls at the school during her years there.
Halime returned to N'Djamena in 1980 with the Popular Armed Forces (FAP) leader Goukouni Oueddei. She was then the president of the women's faction of FROLINAT. After the election of Hissene Habre in 1982, she left with forces loyal to Oueddeï in Libya. While in Libya, Halimé taught military skills to exiled Chadian women. She returned to Chad in 1991, a year after the overthrow of Habré by Idriss Deby. Many people told Deby they would support him only if he received the backing of Halimé, which she eventually gave. Shortly after her return, she won a seat in Chad's parliament and served there until 1996.
In 1993, Halime participated in the National Sovereign Conference (CNS), and was one of the most fervent defenders of the Arabic language. In 1994, she created an association called Women Az-Zara. On behalf of the association, she was voted among ten women candidates to be a member of the Higher Council of Transition, staying four years. In June 1996, she ran for parliament as a member of the opposition National Front of Chad party, as it was impossible to run as an independent.She was defeated but maintained the election was rigged. Halimé afterwards cared for orphans whose parents were killed during the Habré regime. She also opened an Arabic school in N'Djamena.
Halime went on six pilgrimages to Mecca in her life, including one last trip in 2000. She died on January 7, 2001.
Ebadi, Shirin Shirin Ebadi(b. June 21, 1947, Hamadan, Iran) was an Iranian lawyer, writer, and teacher, who received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2003 for her efforts to promote democracy and human rights, especially those of women and children in Iran. She was the first Muslim woman and the first Iranian to receive the award. Ebadi was born into an educated Iranian family; her father was an author and a lecturer in commercial law. When she was an infant, her family moved to Tehran. Ebadi attended Anoshiravn Dadgar and Reza Shah Kabir schools before earning a law degree, in only three and a half years, from the University of Tehrān (1969). That same year she took an apprenticeship at the Department of Justice and became one of the first women judges in Iran. While serving as a judge, she also earned a doctorate in private law from the University of Tehrān (1971). From 1975 to 1979 she was head of the city court of Tehrān. After the 1979 revolution and the establishment of an Islamic republic, women were deemed unsuitable to serve as judges because the new leaders believed that Islam forbids it. Ebadi was subsequently forced to become a clerk of the court. After she and other female judges protested this action, they were given higher roles within the Department of Justice but were still not allowed to serve as judges. Ebadi resigned in protest. She then chose to practice law but was initially denied a lawyer’s license. In 1992, after years of struggle, she finally obtained a license to practice law and began to do so. She also taught at the University of Tehrān and became an advocate for civil rights. In court, Ebadi defended women and dissidents and represented many people who, like her, had run afoul of the Iranian government. She also distributed evidence implicating government officials in the 1999 murders of students at the University of Tehrān, for which she was jailed for three weeks in 2000. Found guilty of “disturbing public opinion,” she was given a prison term, barred from practicing law for five years, and fined, although her sentence was later suspended. Ebadi wrote a number of books on the subject of human rights. These include The Rights of the Child: A Study of Legal Aspects of Children’s Rights in Iran (1994), History and Documentation of Human Rights in Iran (2000), and The Rights of Women (2002). She also was founder and head of the Association for Support of Children’s Rights in Iran. In addition to writing books on human rights, Ebadi reflected on her own experiences in Iran Awakening: From Prison to Peace Prize, One Woman’s Struggle at the Crossroads (2006; with Azadeh Moaveni; also published as Iran Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope).
Suleiman, Fadwa Fadwa Suleiman or Fadwa Soliman (b. May 17, 1970, Aleppo, Syria – d. August 17, 2017, Paris, France) was a Syrian actress of an Alawite descent who led a Sunni-majority protest against Bashar al-Assad's government in Homs. She became one of the most recognized faces of the Syrian Civil War. Born in Aleppo, Suleiman moved to the capital Damascus to pursue an acting career where she performed in numerous plays, Maria's Voice and Media, and in at least a dozen TV shows, including in The Diary of Abou Antar and Little Ladies. She also played an art teacher at an orphanage in Small Hearts, a television series that helped raise awareness about human organ trafficking and was broadcast by several Arab channels. She also acted in an Arabic adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House at the Qabbani theater in Damascus. At the beginning of the Syrian uprising in 2011, Suleiman was one of the few outspoken actresses against Assad's government. Knowing her fate would be death or prison, Suleiman wanted to participate in the demonstration to dispel what she said was public perception that all in the Alawite community, which comprised around 10 per cent of the Syrian population, supported Assad's government. She also wanted to dismiss the government's narrative that those who participate in protests were either Islamists or armed terrorists. She appeared at rallies demanding Assad's removal, sharing the podium with soccer star Abdelbasset Sarout, one of a number of Syrian celebrities who backed the revolt. Suleiman also delivered impassioned monologues to the camera, calling for peaceful protests to continue across the country until Assad was overthrown. In one video message in 2011, Suleiman said security forces were searching Homs neighborhoods for her, and beating people to force them to reveal her hiding place. She cut her hair short like a boy, and moved from house to house to evade capture. In 2012, she fled with her husband via Lebanon and moved to France, where they resided in Paris. On August 17, 2017, Suleiman died of cancer while in exile in Paris, aged 47.
Rula Quawas, Champion of Women’s Advancement in Jordan, Dies at 57
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Rula Quawas in 2016 with students at the University of Jordan.CreditLeen Quawas
Rula Quawas, a prominent academic and champion of women’s advancement in Jordan who was removed as dean of the University of Jordan over a video project in which her female students exposed the sexual harassment they endured on campus, died on July 25 in Amman, Jordan. She was 57.
The cause was complications of a biopsy she was having performed in which her aorta ruptured, her brother Audeh said.
Rula Butros Quawas (pronounced KWA-wahs) was born in Amman on Feb. 25, 1960, into a patriarchal society — women were not given the right to vote until 1974 — that as an adult she would refuse to accept.
“I always knew in the back of my mind that I wanted to write about women,” she said in a 2011 interview with Broad Recognition, an independent feminist blog at Yale. “Feminism is something that you drink and you eat every day; for me, it was a given.”
As a graduate student at the University of Jordan, she focused her studies on feminism in literature, particularly American literature. And as an associate professor there, she became the first academic to introduce courses in feminism. In 2006, she founded the university’s Women’s Studies Center.
“An educational system should give empowerment, skills to think critically, creatively, intelligently, the ability to contest, to challenge and to say, ‘I think not,” Professor Quawas said in an interview with The New York Times in 2014. “The whole paradigm of teaching needs to change. We are graduating robots.”
For the video project, in 2012, she helped students in her feminist theory class address the sexual abuse — cat calls, groping in public spaces, unwanted encounters by men trying to pick them up on the streets — that had become rampant in Jordan.
In the video, students held up signs bearing printed comments, many of them vulgar, that men had directed at women on campus. “Can I take you home?” read one sign. “Hottest gal in the middle,” read another.
The students hid their faces behind the signs. Their images were interspersed with scenes of men sitting on benches or standing along the sides of streets.
هذه خصوصيتي.flvVideo by oualid amami
“Women do not want to be seen as a piece of meat but as a soul — as a mind, as a heart,” Professor Quawas said of the film project. “I have faith it will happen. Not in my lifetime, but it will happen.”
The video provoked a debate. Jordanian news media criticized her for encouraging students to confront harassment publicly, and conservatives on social media attacked her for allowing students to hold up signs with profane remarks. “I feel all of these eyes constantly piercing me, penetrating me, for something I believe in,” she said.
University administrators and some of her fellow faculty members said the video harmed the image and reputation of the institution. Professor Quawas was removed from her post as dean of the faculty of foreign languages but was allowed to continue to teach.
The Middle East Studies Association of North America sent a letter to high-ranking Jordanian government officials and the president of the university asking for her to be reinstated, but the university stood by its decision.
Later, more people came out in support of her effort, some apologizing for their initial silence. “After two years some of them would come and say, ‘We’re sorry, but we couldn’t,’” Professor Quawas said.
In 2013, she was named a Fulbright scholar in residence at Champlain College in Vermont. In Jordan, Princess Basma Bint Talal presented her in 2009 with a Meritorious Honor Award for Leadership and Dedication for her efforts to empower women. And she was a finalist for the State Department’s International Women of Courage Award in 2013.
In her youth, Ms. Quawas attended the private Al Ahliyyah School for Girls in Amman, where her mother, Hanneh Ghizawi, taught English. Her father, Butros Quawas, served in Jordan’s military intelligence.
She received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English language and literature from the University of Jordan and a doctorate in American literature and feminist theory from the University of North Texas.
In addition to her brother Audeh, she is survived by her sister, Reem, and another brother, Ramez.
Professor Quawas sought to help emerging female Arab writers gain readerships through book launches and by writing critiques of their work.
“I understand that you can’t force feminism on people,” she told the online publication Hybris Media. “When a young woman comes to me and tells me, ‘I have wings, but I know I will never ever use them,’ that pains me.”
*Rula Quawas, a prominent academic and champion of women’s advancement in Jordan who was removed as dean of the University of Jordan over a video project in which her female students exposed the sexual harassment they endured on campus, died in Amman, Jordan (July 25).
Rula Butros Quawas (b. February 25, 1960, Amman, Jordan - d. July 25, 2017, Amman, Jordan) was born in Amman on Feb. 25, 1960, into a patriarchal society — women were not given the right to vote until 1974 — that as an adult she would refuse to accept.
Born and raised in Jordan, Rula Quawas graduated with a Ph.D. in American Literature from the University of North Texas. At the University of Jordan, Professor Quawas began teaching a wide array of undergraduate and graduate courses pertaining to American Literature, one of which was a groundbreaking course on feminism, focusing on American feminism and its complexities. In addition, she has taught on Arab feminism and contemporary Arab women writers in translation for CIEE (Council on International Education Exchange). As founder of the Women's Studies Center at her university, she was the director for two years -- from 2006- 2008. In addition, she was the founder of Knowledge Production Unit at the Jordanian National Commission for Women in February of 2009. She also serves on many editorial boards such as the Journal of Women’s Entrepreneurship and Education, Studies in Literature in English, and the International Journal of Arabic-English Studies.
In the fall of 2012, Professor Quawas was removed from her position as Dean of Dean of the faculty of Foreign Languages at University of Jordan after a class project created by her students was uploaded to youtube. The video project entitled displayed women students holding signs that depicted insults and verbal harrassment that men have said to them in public.
Currently she is a Fulbright Scholar and scholar in residence for one year at the University of Champlain in Vermont starting in August 2013. There, Rula teaches courses pertaining to Arab feminisms and culture.
Rula Butros Quawas (b. February 25, 1960, Amman, Jordan - d. July 25, 2017, Amman, Jordan) was born in Amman, into a patriarchal society — women were not given the right to vote until 1974 — that as an adult she would refuse to accept.
Born and raised in Jordan, Rula Quawas graduated with a Ph.D. in American Literature from the University of North Texas. At the University of Jordan, Professor Quawas began teaching a wide array of undergraduate and graduate courses pertaining to American Literature, one of which was a groundbreaking course on feminism, focusing on American feminism and its complexities. In addition, she has taught on Arab feminism and contemporary Arab women writers in translation for CIEE (Council on International Education Exchange). As founder of the Women's Studies Center at her university, she was the director for two years -- from 2006- 2008. In addition, she was the founder of Knowledge Production Unit at the Jordanian National Commission for Women in February of 2009. She also serves on many editorial boards such as the Journal of Women’s Entrepreneurship and Education, Studies in Literature in English, and the International Journal of Arabic-English Studies.
In the fall of 2012, Professor Quawas was removed from her position as Dean of Dean of the faculty of Foreign Languages at University of Jordan after a class project created by her students was uploaded to youtube. The video project entitled displayed women students holding signs that depicted insults and verbal harrassment that men have said to them in public.
In 2013, she was named a Fulbright scholar in residence at Champlain College in Vermont. In Jordan, Princess Basma Bint Talal presented her in 2009 with a Meritorious Honor Award for Leadership and Dedication for her efforts to empower women. And she was a finalist for the State Department’s International Women of Courage Award in 2013.
Amina Cachalia(b. Amina Asvat; June 28, 1930 Vereeniging, South Africa – d. January 31, 2013, Johannesburg, South Africa) was a longtime friend and ally of Nelson Mandela. Her late husband was political activist Yusuf Cachalia.
Cachalia was born Amina Asvat, the ninth of eleven children in Vereeniging, South Africa, on June 28, 1930. Her parents were political activists Ebrahim and Fatima Asvat. She began campaigning against Apartheid and racial discrimination as a teenager. She became a women's rights activist, often focusing on economic issues, such as financial independence for women.
Amina and Yusuf Cachalia were friends of Nelson Mandela before his imprisonment at Robben Island in 1962. She became a staunch anti-apartheid activist. She spent fifteen years under house arrest throughout the 1960s and 1970s. She was the treasurer of the Federation of South African Women (Fedsaw), a leading supporter of the Federation of Transvaal Women, and a member of both the Transvaal Indian Youth Congress and Transvaal Indian Congress during the Apartheid era.
In 1995, Mandela asked Cachalia to marry him. At the time, he had been separated from his wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. Cachalia turned down Mandela's proposal because she said that "I'm my own person and that I had just recently lost my husband whom I had enormous regard for". Mandela divorced Madikizela-Mandela a year later and married Graca Machel in 1998.
Cachalia was elected to the National Assembly of South Africa in the 1994 South African general election, the country's first with universal adult suffrage. In 2004, she was awarded the Order of Luthuli in Bronze for her contributions to gender and racial equality and democracy.
After her death, in March 2013, her autobiography When Hope and History Rhyme was published.
Cachalia died at Milpark Hospital in Parktown West, Johannesburg, January 31, 2013, aged 82. The cause of death was complications following an emergency operation due to a perforated ulcer.
Her funeral was held in her home in Parkview, Johannesburg, according to traditional Muslim customs. It was attended by South African President Jacob Zuma, former Presidents Thabo Mbeki and Kgalema Motlanthe, ANC Deputy Cyril Ramaphosa, former First Lady Graca Machel, former Finance Minister Trevor Manuel and fellow activisti Ahmed Kathrada, among others.
