Both Egypt and Morocco can be termed as Arab world’s moderate censors. According to both Barney Warf and Peter Vincent, "Arab societies are complex mixtures of the traditional, the modern and the postmodern" (Warf and Vincent 2007, 38). Thus, the degree of censorship varies from one Arab country to the other. In Saudi Arabia, for example, the media is controlled by governments, "the entire Internet backbone network is state-owned" (Warf 2010, 12). Although Egypt and Morocco are relatively lenient about media censorship, censorship is always excused on the grounds of Islamic values and morality, especially with regard to women. The practice and impact of censorship becomes rather severe and strict regarding female performances in Muslim Arab countries. The burden of censorship, thus, becomes harder, because what is religiously prohibited becomes morally, socially and officially censored. Moral, religious, social and governmental systems are inseparable. In male-dominated Arab societies, like Morocco and Egypt, women are still deprived of equality with men regarding certain jobs like police, judiciary and preaching. A woman’s becoming a public figure, especially a performer, singer or an actress, is not approved by society. Thus, it is a challenge for any woman in Morocco and Egypt to become a theatre performer. Female performers, in the words of Amine (2016, 130), "devote themselves to the atre and reap only repression or frustration. Their reward is either torture or a prison cell". Although Islamic instructions are not strictly applied nor followed nowadays as before, the idea of having actresses on the stage is still a challenge for Arab societies. When, finally, females could have the least chance of acting on stage, their roles are chosen for them, because theatre is still a male-dominated field. Writers and directors keep stereotyping women’s roles into only five, as noted by Selaiha: "the virtuous virgin, the vicious vamp, the meek daughter, the obedient wife, and the selfless, saintly mother. Whatever the part, women actors have had a rough deal and either have been made to confirm the male conception of them vocally or have been exploited physically as commercial attractions" (Selaiha 2013, 38).
In Egypt, one of the threats facing females is sexual harassment. In an unprecedented phenomenon, in 2011, female protestors in Tahrir Square, were severely exposed to sexual harassment. Physical and sexual violence were disturbing to the extent that women had to go through a series of "virginity tests" (Elmeligy 2018). To the same effect, Sherine Hafez, in her writing about the female protestors in Tahrir Square, adds: "all the women’s accounts tell of police brutality, torture, rape and gang rape, virginity tests, and the killings and injuries of all dissidents" (Aoudé 2020, 319). Female protestors were considered loose women. When CNN interviewed one of the army generals about this incident, according to Elmeligy, "he voiced the views of a wide sector of Egyptian society regarding women’s morality and the public sphere: He said that ‘the arrested women were not like your daughters or mine. These were girls who had camped out in tents with male protestors’" (Elmeligy 2018, 14). In Morocco, such a social phenomenon is known as H-shuma – a highly sacred social code. Khalid Amine defines it as "an umbrella term in Morocco used to designate everything that falls into the category of acting against culturally constructed social and moral norms. As a mode of political correctness, the word h-shuma is mainly ‘applied’ to acts constituting a violation of certain norms" (Amine 2016, 123).
Moral and Religious CensorshipMoral censorship is concerned more with whatever is related to social consensus regarding respectability, decency, human body and sexual moralities, among many others. Can theatre performances meet the standards of moral censorship? O’Leary answers: "As with political censorship, there is a mistaken belief that…the theatre can be cleansed of obscenity, immorality, indecency and vulgarity, then the pretence that these do not exist in society can also be upheld" (O’Leary 2016, 12). O’Leary’s definition of moral censorship justifies the grounds upon which the two versions of Ensler’s play were rejected by the Egyptian and Moroccan societies, namely the clash between raunchy and respectable content. In Egypt, strict rules were issued to con trol artistic productions. According to Selaiha (2013), these rules include the banning of the naked human body and the omission of sexual scenes or physical and verbal expressions that are indecent or against public taste. Selaiha adds that social censorship is more powerful than governmental censorship because political systems change, but social codes remain.
By the same token, in Morocco, during the period from1960 to 1990, which is known as "The Years of Lead", moral censorship has been out of the question. There was no freedom of expression, much less artistic freedom. Many female prisoners in Morocco such as Widad Bouab, Latifa Jbaddi and Fatna ElBouih express how they are accused, arrested, punished and even kidnapped for only asking for their rights. Fatna El Bouih recalls: "We were condemned before we were even judged; we were already considered guilty. It was not for what I did but for what I wrote: I threw tracts, but I never threw bombs" (xii). In her performance of Moulat Sser, Fatima Chebchoub speaks about such sexual topics as prostitution, masturbation, rape and the female body. Chebchoub and her team are socially condemned, "because the freedom they display through dancing or acting is at odds with the social ideal of the modest, shy woman, and it is assumed their body movements reflect a moral ‘looseness’" (Jay 2016, 555).
Regarding religious censorship, there are only two scenes that must be totally deleted from Bussy Monologues. The first is the scene of the marriage between the sister and her own brother because it goes against the religious instructions of Islam. Besides, performing such a scene is legally forbidden according to Law 220, a 1976 code which requires the omission of any scene if it is "Uncovering in a revealing way that embarrasses the viewers and contradicts the customs and traditions of society" (Al-Ghannam 2009, 10). Even if incest is sometimes practised in Egypt within only poor ignorant members of the Egyptian society, it must not be told on the stage. Incest itself is a religiously forbidden crime that cannot be overcome by getting the accused married, which is another religious crime. A brother can never marry his sister even if incest occurs. The Holy Quran reads: "Prohibited for you (for marriage) are your mothers, daughters, sisters" (Ali 2020, verse 23). Psychologically, this kind of incest happens inside poor families composed of multiple members where there is no safe personal space. This is exactly what the maid reports during Bussy Shaw: "We are a poor family; the ten of us live inside one room. So, it is better for her to get married to her brother than being pregnant from any of her uncles" (Shabayek 2013).
The second scene in Bussy monologues that should be deleted is the scene of the young man who tells about sexual harassment in public transportation. The young gentleman declares that he purposefully gets on the bus twice a week to seek sexual relief since he could not marry. The scene is deemed offensive for three reasons. First, it stereotypes, time and again, the idea that women are to be blamed for sexual indiscretions because they encourage harassment by tempting young men through tight, exciting clothes. Second, the scene illustrates some women as no longer massive victims, but initiators, of harassment. The young man reflects: "They are the real experts. They move their bodies with you and rub up against you". Thirdly, it justifies harassment on financial grounds, by alluding that it might be a temporary substitute for marriage: "I only make 400 pounds. I cannot get married, not even after ten years, with a salary like that. What do you expect me to do? What!
This behaviour contradicts Islamic instructions. The Prophet of Islam said: "Oh young people! Whoever among you can marry, should marry because it helps him lower his gaze and guard his modesty [i.e., his private parts from committing illegal sexual intercourse, etc.], and whoever is not able to marry, should fast, as fasting diminishes his sexual power" (al-Almany 2009, 1133)). Besides, such allusions are strictly condemned in Egypt. Penal Code, Article 269 states that any verbal/nonverbal signs indicating or encouraging sexuality are criminalised (Mahmoud 2015).