ABSTRACT
‘For Our Muslim Sisters’ It is not as if we know of no quest, no ideals; we are like many others yearning for the daily sun, in our dreams fulfilling our most beautiful aspirations only because of the prejudices of this world, must we confine ourselves to the kitchen, idling away the sunlight? ah, Muslim sisters – when today, the surging tides of the reform are pressing on the shores of our motherland, and our fellow believers so as to promote the cause of their people are at work day and night, How can we confine ourselves to the closed courtyards? may the eyes of the world stare us into faltering, but for Islam we must go forth to meet the movements of change, ah, Muslim sisters – let us go out of this door to purify ourselves in the light of sun, release our life-energies, give our existence still greater meaning, and our life, splendour. Sisters, let us walk arm-in-arm! (Lu & Wang, 1993) Lu Jiye and Wang Hailan, writers of the poem which appeared in Minzu Yilin (a magazine devoted to ethnic minorities’ arts and literature), address their ‘sisters’ as Muslims, as active participants in current reforms, and as Chinese women. They call upon them to brave prejudices and cross the domestic threshold separating them from realisation of cherished aspirations. Islamic rites of purification fuse with Maoist calls to emancipate women from fetters of patriarchy, creating a potent imagery of liberating sun light with the power to purify and release energies that are life itself. Women are implored to extend their site of activity beyond the home, making the world their own: for Islam, for the cause of reform. The site of change must be the world itself: women’s visibility in social spaces outside family homes; women’s yearning for life beyond confinement; women’s capacity for subjective intervention in times of political, economic and social changes to create opportunities of transformative potential for themselves; women’s relationship with their fellow believers in pursuit of a common cause, Islam; – this remarkable poem foreshadows some of the most important themes in our book.
