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An Invitation to Intellectual Women To Debate And Exemplify Realities
By: Fatima Ahmed Ibrahim
Arabic version published in Al-Fajr,
Issue No. 79, Sunday November 15, 98
To start with, I emphasize the fact that we welcome constructive criticisms for a simple
reason: We, like other people, are subject to mistakes and we have our negatives and
shortcomings. In addition, the cause of women is complex and difficult. The process of
building up women's movement is even much more complex. However, it is quite easy to
criticize {such aspects}. The real difficulty is to build and achieve. What the Sudanese
Women's Union (SWU) has thus far accomplished seems to be unclear for a great many
intellectual young women for many reasons. A major reason is the occurrence of military
coups that always banned the Union. This made of the total public activity performed by
the Union only 17 years out of the Union's 46 years of age. Also, the publicity needed for
the Union was virtually weakened by meager resources. Despite all
these factors, the SWU made these achievements:-
(*) The Union established branches in most parts of the Sudan, including the southern,
western, and eastern regions. With these branches, the Union became the only grass-roots
women's organization all over the country.
(*) The Union issued the largest women's magazine in the Sudan which is almost the only
one. The Sot Al-Mara' (Voice of The Woman) magazine was banned by all military
dictatorships.
(*) The SWU organized women's masses, including housewives. They participated in the
struggles against military regimes to restore democratic rule. The martyr Bakhita
Al-Haffyan was killed and 2 members of the Union, Mahasin Abdel-Al and Amna Abdel-Ghaffar,
were wounded in the October Revolution 1964. Women's masses participated in the Popular
Uprising (1984-1985) which overthrew Nimeiri's dictatorship. In the present time, the
women led by the SWU and Al-Tajamu Al-Nissawi (The Women's Alliance) wage struggles and
demonstrations against the NIF military dictatorship inside the Sudan regardless of
repression.
(*) The Union struggled until the right of women to vote and candidacy was recognized in
1964. The Union's president won the election of 1965. She became the first parliamentarian
woman in Sudan and the whole continent of Africa.
(*) The SWU's president submitted bills for the realization of women's equality with men
in the right to work, wages, retirement, and the other terms of service. All these bills
were passed in 1968. From all walks of life, women enjoy to this moment these rights. The
law forcing the working women to resign on marriage was also abolished.
(*) The Union succeeded in making some amendments in the family law. Girls were granted
the right to choose a spouse, and marriage contracts not based on a girl's consent were
nullified by court. Mothers were granted the right to child cuustody for a daughter until
marriage consummation, and puberty for sons. A law was enacted and enforced obligating
fathers to maintain siblings after a divorce. The law of obedience, which forced a wife to
return to the husband's home under police custody even if she proved to the court the harm
suffered from such a marriage, was finally repealed.
These, in brief, are achievements made by the SWU alone. They have not yet been
accomplished in western countries up to this moment. This is why the United Nations
awarded the SWU with the Human Rights Prize of the year 1993. It thus became the first
women's organization ever awarded that prize.
This is the SWU's record which I mentioned several times ago and I still write about it
now. I will continue to mention this record until the majority of Sudanese women and men
know about it. In the light of this record, I turn now to the criticisms of the SWU by a
large number of intellectual women. The criticims say that the Union failed to keep pace
with contemporary life. The Union failed to attract to its side young intellectual women.
The Union has to renew itself and techniques of its work.
On our part, we, as I repeatedly confirmed, accept criticisms. The question is: How do we
achieve SWU renewal when no women, intellectuals or graduates, volunteered to specify
shortcomings of the Union?
Not a woman presented suggestions, or involved in activities such as lectures, verbally or
in writing, for the SWU to revitalize its role. Added to this, the association of
universities and high institutes' graduates was established and led by known personalities
and university professors at the University of Khartoum. They offered nothing in actual
fact. They did not issue bulletins or a magazine. They did not present lectures to
enlightenn SWU with the concerns of intellectual women, the modern ideas of women's
liberation, and the techniques of recruiting intellectuals and graduates to join the
women's movement. Of course, it is not conditional that they participate in the SWU.
They can establish a modern organization as an example. We are ready to support them. We
are willing to abandon the forms and styles of work that they reject as reactionary and
useless to the cause of women.
This is a warm invitation addressed to all of the young graduate and intellectual women.
The invitation is equally opened to the young males to criticize us with objective and
specific criticisms, as well as practical suggestions. It would be better if they put
forward such a model in reality through the establishment of a modern organization to
carry out their modern ideas.
The motive behind this invitation is to bring about a unity into our ideas, to work
together to eradicate the injustice and persecution of women. God is the helper.
Fatima Ahmed Ibrahim