Gendering the millennium: globalising women

As the century has just changed for the Western calendar it may be appropriate to bear in mind that for a vast part of the world the centuries are different and rolling at a different time and under different conditions. So, although we live and trade in a global village we are yet divided by time, space, and ideologies. The hope is that the twentieth century will enable us to have a closer look at each other and that the global network, the websites, and the electronic mailing systems will work as a bridge rather than a new means of widening the gaps. This article is a plea for a better understanding of the different priorities and views that Islamist women have of themselves, of their place in history, and what it is that they need to fight for. It is also a call for the universality of sisterhood and a wish that the solidarity that was forged in latter part of the twentieth century will not be fragmented into smithereens in the new millennium. This article is freely available as a chapter in Debating Development: NGOs and the Future and in Development and Culture.