Our zealousness for the idea of "We are all Laila" and the clarity of the idea in our own minds mislead s into thinking it was as clear for everyone. Lately, we realized that some points were ambiguous for some people and participants and need to be clarified, and in this context, we thank all of you who read and drew our attention to the shortcoming and provided constructive criticism.
First: "We are all Laila" is for women, but not - and will not be - in any way against men. Laila is only to talk about the other side of the coin and society's double standard in prohibiting women from doing what is totally acceptable for men to do, just because we are women. We are not naive to exclude half of the society from our dream of a better society. We are not the "wild women" association, nor are we calling for a revolution. Nor are we just complaining or seeking compassion, that is not conducive to change in our ways of thinking. We know very well that cultural change does not happen overnight. We still have a lot to accomplish, and we want thinking to start now, because the welfare of a community is dependent on the efforts of all its members.
Second: "We are all Laila" is not an exclusionary club or campaign. When we thought of the initiative, we thought of it as a special day for Laila, and, if it's right to call it a "campaign", then it's not a campaign against men, but against a culture and social heritage which we all suffer from, women and men. Therefore it does not exclude men, but on the contrary, we expected - and we were right to expect - men's participation with us, whether to support us such as: Akhenaten II, Mokhtar Azizi and others, or to provide constructive criticism like did Tareq, Yahya Mujahid, and Abu Yusuf. The reason for maintaining confidentiality and our insistence on beginning the day with women's voices only was to make sure women speak and present their side of the story first before entering into a dialogue around it. We were also keen to present problems through multiple voices because previous attempts by individuals were dismissed as individual cases and not reflective of the majority. And I think we have succeeded in presenting diverse views of people from varying ages, cultural backgrounds, and social statuses, and even the style of presentation was different from one blog to another.
Third: Some criticized us for not having a clear agenda or ideology, and we actually see this as a strength. We have no backgrounds or preconceived notions; what we attempt to do is open the dialogue about a discriminatory reality we experience in our personal lives. This is then an open invitation for participation in writing the agenda collaboratively.
Fourth: Our choice of the blogsphere is not to create clusters among bloggers. Never! It's actually the opposite! We wanted to take advantage of the free space allowed within the blogsphere for dialogue. We also wanted to build on our credibility as previously established independent bloggers; we are not just a number in foreign equations. We speak of the reality of our personal experiences and not because we are pushed by certain entities to do this. We also emphasize that our blogs will not turn into platforms for one-way directions or thinking that is only interested in Leila's problems. Our blogs started as personal pages that critique and interact with many of the events and views we see on the national scene ... and they will remain so.
Fifth: We know that some of our voices spoke angrily and sharply, but that was because of the preceding long period of congestion and suppression, and we are sure it will not continue. As we prepared for this day, what impressed us most was the reactions of those who said they had thought they were completely alone and that there was something wrong with them. Everything around them told them they must accept what is there and not object. It's normal to have angry voices the first time, but our hope is to foster an atmosphere of dialogue where we converse and add to each other so that in the end we reach solutions to the imbalances in the society as a whole.
Finally: Laila's first day, 9-9, is not the end in itself, but on the contrary, is a start.
We knew that the first launch would have technical mistakes and we admit that as a matter of self-criticism - such as posting a large number of blog posts in a single day, causing distraction to some and surprise to others who thought it was a targeted campaign. We intend to rectify these errors next time. What we want for this initiative, is for it to have continuity so that the discussion and development of ideas are done in depth and over a long time with the participation of all parties. We repeat that we only wanted the beginning to be all women, but the result will not be achieved without dialogue and constructive criticism addressing different angles of problems we all see and live with and that reflect on you one way or another.
