Abstract :
Beyond the geographical borders of the Middle East, discourses and debates about Middle Eastern women played an important role in the Arabic immigrant press in the Mahjar (diaspora). This article explores the particular case of al-Istiklaal1 in the final moments and aftermath of the Great Syrian Revolt, “the largest, longest, and most destructive of the Arab Middle Eastern revolts” (Provence, 2005, p. 12). From its first issue in June 1926 until late 1929, this Arab-Argentine newspaper systematically attacked the French Mandate and advocated for an independent Syria and Lebanon, which should be part of a larger pan-Arab political entity. Although al-Istiklaal was a political publication produced by men and intended for a male audience,2 it nonetheless introduced women as an iconographic and discursive element. Al-Istiklaal incorporated in its issues visual images of female activists and prominent Middle Eastern and European women along with editorial articles on debates about the veil and education that, to some extent, reproduced those taking place in Syria and Lebanon. What were the reasons that led a pan-Arab political publication in Buenos Aires to include women? What was the relationship with the politics expressed in the publication? How did al-Istiklaal reproduce or transform general debates on women and gender in the late 1920s in the Middle East?
