Her Story ... Feminist & Activist
XXI. Home Arrest
Milestones:
DS placed under house arrest at age 48
End of her career and public activism
Following her hunger strike, Doria was put under house arrest, ending her career and public activism permanently, and entering a period of near total seclusion at the age of 48. During her confinement of nearly eighteen years, Doria turned to writing and to her great love, poetry, to alleviate the burden of solitude (see Poet and Author section). This was a most difficult period, which is touchingly portrayed in Nelson’s biography and which ended with her suicide in 1975.
With this tragic event, her name and her accomplishments once more made front page news in all Egyptian newspapers and across international media. Touching tributes poured in including the following by the prominent journalist Mustafa Amin: (Nelson p 274):
“Doria Shafik, this woman, who filled the world with noise and declarations, this woman upon whom the world’s lights were directed wherever she went, this woman, who was the star of Egyptian, Arab, European and Egyptian society. People forgot her charge into parliament, demanding the right to vote; they forgot her hunger strike in 1954 for the rights of women, and they forgot she lost her freedom and her magazines, her money and her husband because she demanded human rights for the Egyptian people. She paid a horrible price for her resistance when other people gave up. She paid a horrible price for her boldness when all those around her quivered in fear from the sword and the whip.”
