Demystifying the Secular State...Sudan, Why aren't We Having this Discussion Yet?

Last June Sudan’s National Congress Party (NCP) celebrated 22 years in power. Most may agree that this period will go down in history as the darkest, not just for Sudanese citizens but for humanity as whole. Since after Hitler, Stalin and Mao it is Omar Al Bashir that has resided over the largest massacre in the history of mankind, mainly under the banner of religion and ethnic-based discrimination.

However, what is more striking is that when discussions of a post-NCP scenario take place amongst ordinary apolitical Sudanese citizens of any class a common and boring response is often, “minu al badil?” (meaning: who is the alternative?). This question reflects the real challenge we are facing as a nation, which is changing people’s mind-sets, who have for the past 22 years lived under a dictatorship that normalized the status-quo and closed people’s minds in a box forbidding them to think critically and creatively; especially when it comes to questioning the relationship between the state and religion.

Although most Sudanese citizens today would agree that the NCP’s so called “civilization project” and its Islamic state is a failed experiment that we should quickly discard, there remains a great vacuum in making this debate more mainstream. So far the discussion on a Sudanese secular state has been limited to a select elite community whose audience is small and homogeneous, and whose thoughts, ideas and publications are ferociously censored by the regime.

This makes the transition, at the level of the Sudanese street, from the question of “who is the alternative” to the more particle terrain of “what is the alternative” a difficult but important and urgent move that we need to make as a nation. Otherwise, if we are ever lucky enough to join the club of the “Arab Spring”, we will find ourselves in limbo without a common agreement on a conceptualized vision for the future state of Sudan, a state where all citizens, including religious and ethnic minorities, enjoy equal rights.

Having said that, I want to start making this debate mainstream now by sharing with you a discussion by normal citizens of a nearby country who are not intellectuals and who did not publish books that are banned by their regime. And who managed to have a civilized discussion about the secular state as seen below in the selected tweets I compiled from a recent tweet "nadwa" on the subject.

Sudan’s Women Where are You? The World is Calling

 

Almost a year after a disturbing video surfaced on the web of a Sudanese woman being flogged at a Khartoum police station, Nobel Laureate, Toni Morrison wrote a letter directly addressing the woman in the video and indirectly all Sudanese women. She writes, not with pity nor advice but with encouragement for resisting a vicious regime and showing dignity under the most undignified and inhumane situations, saying, “You did not crouch or kneel or assume a fetal position. You shouted. You fell. But you kept rising…It also moved me to see your reactions; I interpreted them as glimmers of hope, of principled defiance.” Morrison ends her letter with optimism, trusting that Sudanese women are fighting for their rights the best they can, she says, “Each cut tearing your back hurts women all over the world. Each scar you bear is ours as well”.

This, to me, is a direct call of solidarity with the strife of Sudanese women. A reminder that we are not alone, and that the very little that is shared with the world—especially through visual online content and Satellite TV—is causing ripples of shock and creating sisterly bonds. 

However, these bonds remain weak, and will not become stronger before women in Sudan and Sudan’s women’s rights movement start to communicate better within themselves and link with a wider following inside Sudan and with the outside world intentionally, frequently and directly.

The Sudanese women’s rights movement is one of the most vibrant in the country, and its struggle for women’s rights spans decades and has seen many successes. However, lately they tend to get too busy and forget to reach out to the rest of the world. Even within Sudan their reach, and their ability to change hearts and minds and to mobilize Sudanese women and men around pivotal issues that affect women’s lives, is lacking. 

This is the not the first time that we have seen hands extending and calls of solidarity from the global community. We saw that in 2009 when the case of Lubna Hussien (dubbed the “trousers journalist”) captured the imagination of the world. And again in early 2011 with the case of Safia Ishag, the young activist who was brutally subjected to multiple rape by state security agents in Khartoum, and was the first Sudanese woman to ever speak publicly of being raped.  

Both these women where courageous and selfless by speaking up against injustices that were not only inflicted on them, but that are a daily reality for countless Sudanese women around the country. Rape (used most systematically in Darfur) and harassment by public order police for “indecent dress”  (a problem all over the country) are the state’s “weapons of mass destruction” directed at the dignity and pride of women in Sudan. Lubna and Safia, gave these two forms of state abuse a face and a voice that talked to all Sudanese citizens and to citizens of the world. 

Using Satellite TV channels and the Internet (mainly through the technical support of the Sudanese Diaspora community) these two women took tremendous risks and social pressures to tell their stories. They challenged a regime that capitalizes on a conservative society’s silence and shame when it comes to violence against women. Their personal stories were more compelling than any statistics and abstract reports from the human rights movement and international NGOs. 

Their voices were hard for the regime in Khartoum to ignore, prompting the government to start its own propaganda to justify these acts by spreading despicable lies and rumors about these women—a usual tactic aimed at distracting attention from the real issues and that, unfortunately, Sudanese citizens fall for each time. The regime’s security agency went as far as filing a case against several journalists who wrote about the rape of Safia Ishag in national daily newspapers.  

The women’s rights community was also quick to react, organizing protests, press conferences as well as initiating an ongoing campaign called, “No to the Oppression of Women”. They demanded a transparent investigation by the state into the case of the woman in the video as well as Safia’s case; and that Article 152 of the penal code that justifies the flogging of women and men is eliminated.   

Today article 152 is still in place and neither of the two cases were transparently investigated. In Darfur the incidents of the rape of women and girls are on the rise and in Khartoum the regime heralded its “second republic”, and openly shared its intention to annul all rights under the Interim National Constitution (Sudan’s first constitution with a Bill of Rights) and return us to the dark ages and an extreme interpretation of Shari’a law that fits its needs. 

Wondering why the human rights and women’s rights community in Sudan are not able to keep the momentum and visibility on issues related to violence against women and specifically the public order law and the targeted rape of women in Darfur and elsewhere, I directed my questions at some prominent women rights activists. 

Niemat Koko, an old time activist and one of the founders of the Gender Center said, “we are constantly reacting and never following through an issue for a long time, because we are stretched thin with limited resources, and the problems and challenges are plenty”. She added that, “the problem with the campaigns for Lubna and Safia is that we rallied around two personalities, that at the time gave us an opportunity, but the personalities eventually overshadowed the issues and that was a tactical mistake”. 

A poster from a demonstration organized by Sudanese women residing in Kenya in support of the elimination of the Public Order Law, September 15, 2009, Nairobi.

Nahid Mohamed Al Hassan, a young writer and activist and one of the founders of the, “No to the Oppression of Women” campaign, gave me a more nuanced critique of the campaign and the women’s rights movement in general. According to her the women’s rights movement lacks strategic direction and is not able to have in-depth discussions and to agree on the intellectual and legal framework linked to women’s rights. She agrees with Koko on the reactionary character of the movement and the lack of long-term strategic plans. And points to internal personal conflicts among the older generation of women in the movement, which tends to hinder constructive debate. 

Al Hassan adds that, “although there is a lot of potential and talent, the organizational, human resource and funding challenges are stifling progress”. She explains that most activities by the movement are funded through personal donations and that organizations that are funded are avoiding the real issues because they don’t want a clash with the government. For example, she says that, “no one is dedicated to working on CEDAW, because it is a delicate topic with the regime”. 

Al Hassan also adds that the women’s rights movement lacks a grassroots reach and is not able to mobilize the street. “When we organize protests there are about 50 women who are usually ready to hit the street on women’s rights or political issues”. She clarifies that most of these activists belong to political parties and are not fully dedicated to women’s rights issues, because of the demands of their parties, which do not prioritize women’s rights. “In all honesty, the political parties are not committed to women’s issues. To them this is a distraction from the more important goal of regime change”, says Al Hassan. 

*This article appeared in the online daily newspaper, Sudan Tribune and can also be accessed here. 

What are Sudanese Youth Learning from Online Activism?

The end of September 2011 witnessed scattered renewed protests in Sudan against the hike in prices of food and other basic necessities. There is hope that these “food protests” can be a game changer for Sudan’s citizens if we take the time to learn from recent mistakes and from the successes of others. 

I have seen the euphoria amongst Sudanese youth activists, after Tunis and during Egypt’s revolution that made those activists conclude, rather naively, that it is the digital tools that make revolutions and not the people. In mid-January 2011, a group, calling itself “Sharara-Youth for Change” (Sharara, meaning spark) created a Facebook page and called for national protests on January 30. 

Not only were the organizers of this protest not known even to the mainstream civil society, but the call for protests was limited to Facebook, and lacked coordination and clear communication with civil society groups, political opposition parties and most importantly, normal citizens. The call for protests was within a week after the creation of the Facebook page, not giving enough time for fans of the page to grow in number, to communicate, to create strong links, to discuss strategies, and to share tips on how to handle police violence or arrests, and how and where to assemble before heading to the assigned protest locations. 

Regardless of all these apparent organizational weaknesses, a few thousand people (mainly youth and university students) responded to this call, with protests taking place in Khartoum and Omdurman. The January 30 protests lasted a good two weeks, with a considerable number of reported arrests and torture during detention--a clear sign that the regime wants to deter future protests. However, the protests were eventually repressed by the regime. 

It is obvious that in this case, the events in Egypt were taken out of their historical context by assuming that picking a date and calling for national protests on social media platforms will generate the same street reaction seen in Egypt. This makes me recall timely advice that a member of the April 6 Egyptian youth movement told me earlier this year: “Revolutions cannot be imported nor exported”.  

A Sudanese activist who was arrested in the January 30 protests gave me the following account: 

Most of us heard of the protests online from Facebook. We did not know the organizers in person and in most cases none of us knew who else would show up. There was a feeling of optimism as it was after the Tunisian revolt. As we arrived in pairs or small groups, we were at first fooled because we did not see any police presence—the Sudanese security agents were wearing civilian clothes and mingled well. They started arresting us as we arrived and forced us into vehicles. It was easy for them, we were not prepared and we could not resist given our limited numbers. 

The culprit was partly the lack of experience of those who called for these protests coupled with, what at first was, overly optimistic media coverage of the Egyptian and Tunisian revolts that focused (probably too much) on the use of digital social media by tech savvy middle class youth in the short weeks before the protests and during the protests. This made it seem as if those revolts were the work of spontaneous coincidence and good luck.  But if we dig deeper the picture is different, especially when we consider that only 25 percent of Egypt’s population has internet access and about 5 million reported to have Facebook accounts before the revolution (the statistics are probably similar in Tunisia). 

This selective media narrative neglected to focus on the long-term struggle of labor and trade union movements, activists, civil society groups, opposition movements, and bloggers and citizen journalists in both Tunisia and Egypt (where some Egyptian activists assert that this revolution was in the making for at least the last decade if not more. Some even claim that the roots go as far back as the bread riots of 1977). 

There were strong social networks and organizing in those countries long before social media came into being. I am not trying to totally discredit the role that digital technology played here; what I am trying to do is caution against the thinking that technology can be the main catalyst of revolutions.  

The level of coordination and organization that was witnessed in Egypt before and after January 25 reflected longer-term relationships and linkages between civil society groups, opposition parties and communities that had limited online presence. For example, a pamphlet entitled, How to Protest Intelligently was circulated on the streets of Cairo prior to the Friday January 28 protests. It showed that there was a high level of strategic thinking behind the planning of these protests. This pamphlet was a step by step guide to protesters covering Cairo’s most populated districts (distributed mainly through e-mail and by hand). The hope was that a high number of rallies would strain the security forces. The pamphlet detailed the main demands behind the protests as well as gave clear directions on peaceful civil disobedience and advice on what to wear, how to protect one’s self and others from attacks by the police, and how to expand the size of protests while avoiding security forces.

Some reports indicate that the organizers engaged in strategic non-violence by announcing locations of assembly and then changing them on the day of the protest to trick security forces and minimize direct clashes with the protesters. 

The main message we are getting from Egyptian activists (like Alaa Abd el Fattah and Wael Ghonim) about the role technology played in mobilizing the masses, is that new-media and social networking tools helped provide a platform where, “a single narrative that talks about revolution” can be shared with a diverse public that was otherwise difficult to reach. 

In Sudan, we are still not seeing the level of coordination and collaboration seen before and during the Egyptian revolt—whether online or offline. However, the recent food protests are a sign that the street is ready, so when will Sudanese activists and political parties get their act together and join forces with the citizens? 

*A version of this article appeared on TechChange's blog here.