Mothers of the revolution
On 8 April 2019 Alaa Salah, 22, is standing on top of a car in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital. She wears a white tobe – a traditional Sudanese dress – and gold moon-shaped earrings. With one hand in the air, she addresses the crowd:
‘These military men disfigured Islam. They imprisoned us in the name of religion, burned us in the name of religion… killed us in the name of religion. But Islam tells us to speak up and fight against tyrants… The bullet doesn’t kill. What kills is the silence of the people.’ Alaa demands the fall of Sudan’s dictator, Omar al-Bashir. The crowd cries back: ‘Revolution!’
Bashir had been in power since 1989, when he took control of the country in a bloodless military coup. Fundamental to the philosophy of his Islamic state was the idea that women are biologically programmed to care for the family, while men are built to provide and protect. Under Bashir, women’s treatment became a marker of Islamic legitimacy: their behaviours at home, work and in outdoor space were dictated by intrusive, highly discriminatory laws that were heavily policed. (See box overleaf.)
Three days after Alaa’s speech, Bashir’s resignation was announced. It was the culmination of five months of countrywide demonstrations by hundreds of thousands of protesters – 70 per cent of whom were women – demanding civilian rule, ‘freedom, peace, and justice’.
Jalila Khamis Kuku
The image of Alaa on top of the car went viral. International press celebrated it as the defining image of Sudan’s ‘women’s revolution’. Like North America’s Lady Liberty and the Marianne of the French Republic before her, Alaa’s image had become the symbol of a nation.
But, as Alaa herself stated afterwards, one Muslim Arab woman from Khartoum could not represent the breathtaking diversity of Sudan. Looking in at Alaa from the crowd were hundreds of silhouettes, their faces indistinguishable, pointing their smartphones at her. They were female politicians, students, housewives, union leaders, labourers, war refugees, communists and preachers of all religions and ages. These were the women who together helped to bring down Sudan’s strongman.
But while Bashir has gone, the damage and division wrought by his 30-year dictatorship is profound and enduring. We went to meet seven women who, in their unique ways, are working to bring a new Sudan into being. And discovered that for each of them, the revolution has only just begun.
MALAZ AND THE SCISSORS: THE PROTESTER
January 2020. As the sun sets, Malaz Jaffar Abdelkarim, 18, walks down the streets of Burri, near central Khartoum. Her hair is shockingly short. A passing woman stops: ‘What did they do to your hair?’ she asks, her eyes filling with tears.
