Malak Saad Final Audio Doc Script
NARRATION: Divorce...not an easy subject to tackle but in the past years it
has increased massively in Egypt. The Central Agency for Public Mobilization
and Statistics (CAPMAS) says that there has been 83% more divorce in the
past 20 years. With an increase that high in divorce rates, it means that
anyone who’s unhappy can get out easily right?
But who can talk about divorce better than someone who has gone through
the experience themselves. Gamal Guemeih, who’s an AUC graduate and
entrepreneur explains.
SB: Gamal Guemeih (GG) “ It has become more normal, the more it happens
the more it becomes more normal, the more people resort to it as a closer
option rather than a last option like it used to be, it’s no longer the taboo it
used to be before. So that in itself while it’s good for many women who can
live better lives after divorce it has become a lot worse for people who are not
willing to really work on their marriage and give it the shot that it deserves.”
(39 sec)
NARRATION: But let’s see the sociological point of view in this, Dr Hellen
Rizzo, sociology professor at AUC gives us the reasons why this happened.
SB: Hellen Rizzo (HR) “Divorce rates are rising all over in the world, in
particular in the Middle East as people become more educated and more
women are becoming economically independent, they’re gaining more rights
to leave marriages when they’re not happy. I know there is a major reform in
2000 that allowed ‘khol3’ to make it easier for women to end marriages which
also made it easier for women in Egypt to get out of abusive, or bad or
unhappy marriages.” (40 sec)
‘Khol3’ is when a man doesn’t want to divorce a woman so she goes to court
and asks for ‘khol3’ and she gets it but she also loses all her rights in the
process.
But even with this rise there is still a stigma of being a divorcee.
SB: GG “For the females of course it comes with the stigma of being sort of
fair game. A lot of men view divorced women as acceptable targets and that
they’re probably not looking for long term relationships, more like suitable for
one-night stands and quick flings especially because they expect them to be
sexually active rather than not sexually active as the case with many women
before marriage.” (42 sec)
Narration: Unfortunately, both divorced men and women have labels that
introduce them before they even talk. Like Gamal said, quick flings and not
looking for anything serious could be one of them.
Alia Hussein, divorced single mother and marketeer gives us a woman’s
perspective.
SB: Alia Hussein (A.H) “Actually men go through different phases that are the
extreme opposite of what women go through. So a woman who gets a divorce
usually shuts herself up and people deny her and nobody ones to deal her
with her then she find it within her to just have the strength and go out again
and live again and raise her children and what not. But for men it’s the other
way round. Men at the beginning has this aura around them and other girls
want them because he has gotten married before so definitely he wants to get
married again or he just had a divorces so he wants to have fun so I’m gonna
hook up with him because that’s going to be awesome.”(50 sec)
Narration: It was out of question at the time of our grandparents or our parents
to get a divorce or even to think about it. Now in our modern world we do have
communication problems, with our modern technology and social media
taking over, our communication has become distorted. Now we talk less and
less.
SB: GG “Social media of course not only gives you the illusion that you have
more options, it does give you access to more options and at the same time I
think it has an effect on giving you the illusion of happiness of other people
more than how happy they really are because people usually post their happy
moments so you automatically assume that these people are happier than
you are. So when you compare, if you fall into that trap of comparing yourself
to what you see on social media and take this for granted, you end up feeling
miserable and feeling that you’re falling behind, that you’re not on the same
level of happiness or of glamour that you are seeing with other people, not
necessarily going on trips, being in love, sharing your time with the kids. It’s
just the surface of it but beneath it there might be much much more that you
don’t see so that trap can be quite harmful to the relationship.” (56 sec)
SB: A.H “I believe that the most successful weapon of mass control is
distraction so we are very distracted all the time, we are distracted from what
really matters all the time and they make sure that we stay distracted. On the
other hand as you mentioned looking at social media for example, you find
that there are so many pages and quotes and articles supporting living single
and being happily single and ‘get out of that bad relationship’ and ‘you don’t
need to try any harder you’ve done enough’. So everybody is made to believe
and there is just so much material around you supporting that decision of
letting go of that thing that you don’t like which is a good thing to know that
you have the option to let go of something that you don’t like. But you also
need to make that after you are sure that you’ve done everything you could to
make it work. But they don’t tell you to do that anymore, you don’t find any
quotes or supporting groups on facebook asking you or requiring you to
reconsider or to make sure that you actually did everything you could or that
you sit down and talk to the person. We don’t talk anymore, we have big
communication issues.” (1min14)
Narration: Gamal Guemeih explains the reasons why people get divorced.
SB: GG “Having, I mean having gotten married myself at a very young age, a
relatively young age, I got married at the age of 25. It is very difficult to know
who you are at that point, it is very difficult to see where you’re going so
unless you are with someone who you believe that you can
be with them despite the changes that they’re going to go through after these
years then it’s a very risky decision because you’re subscribing to something
that’s not necessarily going to stay as is. So you have to be in love with the
person and not the idea of the person because the idea might change but the
person will stay the same so that’s the first point.” (55 sec)
Narration: A lot of people get into relationships with the idea of what they want
in a person rather than the real person standing right in front of them. So
Gamal believes they need to be sure they can stay with that person despite
any struggles they face after marriage.
SB: GG “When you need to go through a marriage you need to understand
that it’s not the happy ending, a marriage is not the end, it’s actually the
beginning.” (13 sec)
Narration: Marriage is not the ending, it is the beginning of responsibilities and
compromise and working through hardships together.
SB: GG “So working on your relationship is an effort that I see many people
are not willing to do.” (6 sec)
This audio documentary was produced by Malak Saad for the audio
documentary class, spring 2017 taught by Professor Kim fox.
Special thanks to Gamal Guemeih, Alia Hussein and Professor Hellen Rizzo
for the interviews.
The music and nat sounds are from royalty free music and free nat sounds.