The High and Active Participation of Women in the December Revolution
Disparity/Divergence: The High and Active Participation of Women in the December Revolution
"Since the outbreak of the revolution, the ululations of women on the streets have been a manifesto to announce an existence; a battle cry on repressive regimes; and a new birthday." 1
"Who forgets the taste of the foods that the women of Wadi Howar served?"2
Unlike the previous revolutions, the Sudanese women have participated in the April-December Revolution with their different class, ethnic and professional references. The qualitative difference of women's mobilizations "has been reflected in the glorious December Revolution through its coverage of all sectors and segment of women society. Women mobilization has not been limited to the elite of young and revolutionary women, as in previous revolutions."3
Samah Bushra recounts the old and ongoing struggle of the Sudanese women. She says:
"Throughout the history of the land of the Sudan, women have not given up their pioneering and active place in social, economic, cultural and political private and public life. Since ancient history, the Sudan has known the kandakes and the mayarim, which are the titles the world today hears during the Sudanese revolution."4
Then, Samah goes on to clarify the origins of these titles. In the Sudanese culture, the word kandake means 'the great queen'. Some historians have brought back the origins of this word to the word kadis, in the Roman Latin language, whereas other historians have brought it back to the phrase kadi ki in the language of the Sudanese Kingdom of Meraoe, which rule had been succeeded by 11 kandakes in the ancient northern Sudan. The word mayram means the princess which was given to the daughter, wife and sister of the sultan. The mayarim had a political record of participation, which cannot be ignored, during the kingdom of Darfur, including the participation in the governance and the implementation of the sit-ins.5
Women's struggles have been immortalized in the modern eras of history, where "Mendi, the daughter of Sultan Ajabna, tied her baby to the back and carried her gun to lead a military reinforcement to combat the colonial troops in 1917."6
Today, in the sit-in square in front of the Sudan's army headquarters, "the kandakes and the mayarim stand on the front line, hand in hand with their heroic brothers in the face of injustice and corruption. They are addressing the masses, countering attacks of the militias, preparing food, medicating the wounded and sick people, and planning to continue resistance till victory."7
In this sit-in square, Sudanese women culminate in their long-standing attitudes against the attempt of vulnerability and exclusion, whether in time of the government of Omar Al-Bashir or against the societal concepts in the urban and rural areas. The Sudanese women "went a long way and stood for political and social change in the modern Sudan, where they entered the Constituent Assembly and headed parliamentary circles and ministries. The Sudanese women established voluntary associations and conducted awareness-raising convoys from the heart of the Sudan to its outskirts."8
The researcher, Mu'iz Al-Zein, agrees that this high participation of women is due to a number of reasons. Among these reasons: "the demographic imbalance in favor of women's groups, increased proportion of women's education or political awareness through their involvement in the public sphere, and extracting employment opportunities by engaging in various occupations and jobs. Women have become the mainstays of the families and their economic security as living conditions had deteriorated in recent years."9
But the researcher also reads this participation according to the nature of the existing regime at the time. He writes, "The experience of the 'civilizational project' applied by the Muslim Brotherhood has reflected the most obvious form of patriarchal authoritarianism of Sudanese ideological and normative society against women, in terms of being an experience of composite entity that socially and culturally targets women more than other groups."10
In the opinion of Al-Zein, the struggle of women and different youth groups against the authorities of the society, that frame individuals and eliminate their singularity, has paved the way for the revolution later. He writes:
"At the time when the political discourse was occupied with finding explanations for the fundamental roles of the feminist actors in the initiation of the protests and fueling the revolution, some urban feminist groups, in the last decades, have been going through a new phase of subordination imposed by the hideouts of the masculine and traditional social powers (family, party, public street). These groups have experienced an arduous and bitter effort through engaging in different ways and means, varies from one experience to another. Each individual experience constitutes a special narrative in resisting the guardian and social abuse and getting rid of the stereotypical practices to play the renewed and emergent roles."11
The researcher continues to say that the paradox of that experiment of emancipated subordination is that "the globalized youth groups, including women's groups, have been involved early in the last two decades in defeating the civilizational project in social terms. This defeat of the civilizational project represents a foundation for political resistance in attempt to reshape the closed patriarchal/masculine social pattern by making it open to all existential spaces and independent subjective choices. There is a huge rant that has been written, during three decades of repression and tyranny, about the ideological attempt to reshape the human and the Sudanese community."12
The researcher also defines the experiment of emancipated subordination as indicating that "every specific emancipation narrative was an intermediate stage before the stage of full emancipation from the total domination imposed by all forms of social/patriarchal powers on women. As an intermediate stage of emancipation, this experiment creates a space of autonomy in thinking, behavior and choice. It also paves the way for mitigation of adverse and negative effects of the counter masculine predicate resulting from the state of prevailing social conflict through which women try to extract their independent social position that is not subject to any coercions that might be imposed by rebound emancipation experiment. The emancipation of the experiment of subordination is twofold. The first aspect is the liberation of the same experience from the traditional masculine power, whereas the second aspect is the liberation from the projections of the experiment and its coercions that produce in specific case counter feminine/masculine dominance."13
Mu'iz Al-Zein and Limya Qasim agree that it is women's experiments against tyranny and pursuit of emancipation that have made this participation possible and effective. Limya Qasim writes:
"The extensive and impressive involvement of the Sudanese women in the glorious December Revolution is not a coincidence. Initially, this involvement has been embodied in leadership and organization, confronting the regime and addressing its repressive machine. Women's awareness has accumulated and their experiences have matured through decades of struggle against a misogynous regime in principle, according to its ideological perspective based on bringing the society to its knees through the humiliation of women, confiscation of their rights and extension of its patriarchal control by putting the burden of guarding identity and moral values on women. This represents a theoretical and cultural cover that seeks to subjugate women and society by politicizing their bodies. The ousted regime has persuaded the policy of a disastrous war that has undermined the social fabric, in which women have paid a heavy price through peaceful resistance and struggle to sustain life and to reweave the social fabric violated by civil war at all economic, social and existential levels. Women have formed an awareness that has gone beyond the political parties and their programs to solve the social problems to a qualitative (feminine) consciousness, expressing women's natural existence as beings with rights, duties and effectiveness to change lives. This is achieved in accordance with a vision that allows women to express their political presence, irrespective of their class, race or ethnicity."14
Mu'iz Al-Zein says that his reading of participation and high feminist effectiveness goes in a direction where it is perceived that "such engagement is nourished by the formation of deep consciousness of some feminist/urban groups through the experiment of emancipated subordination which has become a tool of resistance and act of protest. Therefore, each special and unique narrative of the narratives of the experiment of emancipated subordination has resulted in feminine/revolutionary singularities that in general have formed the collective singularities of the groups of mass movements engaged in all stages of the protest to nourish all stages and trajectories of the revolution."15
For instance, the Facebook group, called Minbarchat, "has not only embodied an effective political resistance tool, but also the form of a feminist presence resistant to the complex authoritarianism (the social, cultural and political). Since its establishment, the group has created what is known in the Sudanese colloquial Arabic as inbirash (the feverish attachment to the lover) as a dynamic for the liberation of aesthetically unfulfilled female eros (beauty tools and fondness for the photos of handsome guys). This dynamic has not only nourished the aesthetical trend which has enhanced the spaces of unbound exaltation, but it has also added to every unique feminine narrative a generative energy of communicative language of intrusive and debriefing nature to the masculine language in the media and the argumentative spaces. The feminine privacy of Minbarchat carries with it attempts to create a space of feminine exaltation that is ungoverned by the coercions of the masculine/intrusive form of other groups. Such feminine exaltation is characterized by being offensive to real and virtual life together."16
A report by the Ajjareeda Newspaper on May 24.2019 reflects some of the active participations of women in the sit-in in front of the army headquarters. The report is entitled: Kandakes of Wadi Howar: From Suffering to the Ecstasy of Victory. In this report, some women working in the tent of kandakes of Wadi Howar speak about the preparation of breakfast foods for the fasters in Ramadan month. Fatima Jassir says: "The area of Wadi Howar has been affected by war and conflicts, and its inhabitants have been displaced and dispersed throughout the Sudan and immigration countries. This tent has started its work by the beginning of Ramadan. The tent has been called The Kandakes of Wadi Howar because the participation rate of women in it is 90%."17 She added that women in the tent prepare 100 dishes of porridge, including the popular meals known in the region.18
Wadi Howar is "one of the Sudan's historic areas. The area is connected to the seasonal valley descended from the Upper Chad, where it was one of the largest seasonal tributaries of the Nile. Wadi Howar flew into the bend of the Nile with Wadi Al-Muqadam near the city of Addaba. By the factors of time and desertification, drought hit Wadi Howar and displaced the people lived near its banks to the north and south. It is known that the Zaghawa tribe is one of the largest tribes live around Wadi Howar. Wadi Howar is rich in nature and its main natural resources are sandstone and granites."19
About the aspirations of the women of Wadi Howar, Fatima says, "Women's demands are compatible with the demands of the revolution that is a civilian government based on the Declaration of Freedom and Change. This is in addition to addressing the issues of war-affected areas, return of displaced persons and refugees to their villages of origin and stopping wars."20
The initiator of the breakfast of fasting women in the tent of the kandakes of Wadi Howar said that the idea has come at the beginning of the sit-in for the need of the rebels for food and water. She added that she has contacted a number of the natives of the region outside the Sudan and they have responded and sent their contributions.21
About the future plans of the kandakes of Wadi Howar, Ibtisam said that they are planning to initiate awareness caravans in all areas of conflict and war in some areas of the Sudan such as Darfur, the Nuba Mountains and the Blue Nile. The objective of these caravans is to raise awareness of rights and advocate for balanced development that ensures stability and peace.22
Footnotes
1- Maysoon Anojoumi, The Revolution is Feminine, Al-Hadatha Assudaniya Magazine, September, 2020.
2- Muhammad Khalafalla, A Small Moon on the Peaks of Mountain, Al-Hadatha Assoudaniya Magazine, September, 2022.
3- Limya Qasim, The Revolution is Feminine, Al-Hadatha Assudaniya Magazine, op. cit.
4- Samah Bushra, A Report for the B.B.C. Published in Assudani Newspaper, April 19. 2019.
5- Samah Bushra, op. cit.
6- Samah Bushra, op. cit.
7- Samah Bushra, op. cit.
8- Samah Bushra, op. cit.
9- Mu'iz Al-Zein, The Arch and the Flower, Al-Hadatha Assoudaniya Magazine, op. cit.
10- Mu'iz Al-Zein, op. cit.
11. Mu'iz Al-Zein, op. cit.
12- Mu'iz Al-Zein, op. cit.
13- Mu'iz Al-Zein, op. cit.
14. Limya Qasim, op. cit.
15- Mu'iz Al-Zein, op. cit.
16- Mu'iz Al-Zein, op. cit.
17- The Kandakes of Wadi Howar, Sayid Ahmed Ibrahim and Nahid Humaida, A Report published in Ajareeda Newspaper, May 24. 2019.
18- The Kandakes of Wadi Howar, Ajareeda Newspaper, op. cit.
19. The Kandakes of Wadi Howar, Ajareeda Newspaper, op. cit.
20. The Kandakes of Wadi Howar, Ajareeda Newspaper, op. cit.
21- The Kandakes of Wadi Howar, Ajareeda Newspaper, op. cit.
22- The Kandakes of Wadi Howar, Ajareeda Newspaper, op. cit.