Peacebuilders Reinforcing a Gendered Citizenship in Sudan
Liv Tønnessen, researcher at Chr. Michelsen Institute
List of abbreviations:
CEDAW Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women
CPA Comprehensive Peace Agreement
DUP Democratic Unionist Party
GNU Government of National Unity
GOSS Government of Southern Sudan
NCP National Congress Party
SANO Sudan African National Union
SPLM Sudan People’s Liberation Movement
UP Ummah Party
1
Introduction1
Despite the growing international awareness of the need to include women in peace
negotiations fostered by UNSCR 13252, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) largely
excluded women. Sonia Aziz Malik from Ahfad University of Women has stated that “a
major problem with this peace agreement is that it is an agreement negotiated without the
participation of other political parties or civil society organizations in which more women are
represented”.3 The different roles taken on by and given to various actors in a post-conflict
transition period are likely to determine future power structures. In part because women were
not involved in any substantive way, issues with a particular gender impact were not
elaborated in the “gender neutral” 4 document signed on the 9th of January 2005.5 What are
the implications for Sudanese women? I argue that the CPA reinforces and continues a
gendered citizenship in Sudan. The issue of women’s rights has been a battlefield in politics
throughout modern Sudanese history and continues to be so also after the CPA and the new
interim constitution because the Sudanese state has, like most states in the Middle East,
abdicated in favour of religious communities with regards to the family law. In Sudan, the
citizen as a legal subject has thereby been constituted through membership in religious
communities, institutionalizing religious identity as political identity.6 Religion is thus central
in explaining the reinforcement of a gendered citizenship in Sudan. Counter to much of the
essentialist literature and discourse surrounding resolution 1325 on women and peacebuilding which basically claims that women, in contrast to men, are able to transcend deep
1
I conducted fieldwork in Khartoum Sudan from the 6th of November until the 20th of November where I
interviewed 11 elite women including parliamentarians, activist within NGOs and academic researchers from
both the North and the South of Sudan. I also participated at Training for Political Leadership workshop
organized by UNDP at Afhad University for Women for women lawyers and a workshop organized by The
Initiative for Inclusive Security.
2
UNSCR 1325 reaffirms “the important role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts and in
peace-building, and … [stresses] the importance of their equal participation and full involvement in all efforts for
the maintenance and promotion of peace and security”. It also mandates that states “ensure increased
representation of women at all decision-making levels in national, regional and international institutions and
mechanisms for the prevention, management, and resolution of conflict”.
3
Quoted in Nadia Musytafa Ali, Endagering Peace by Ignoring Women. Found at
http://www.fmreview.org/FMRpdfs/FMR24/FMR2427.pdf
4
Sanam Naraghi Anderlini, The Untapped Resource; Women in Peace Negotiations. Found at
http://www.accord.org.za/ct/2003-3/pg18-22.pdf
5
The Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Found at http://www.unmis.org/english/documents/cpa-en.pdf
6
Religious communities are not viewed as coherent, bounded or fixed entities with shared mutual interests. They
are differentiated by class, status, region, ethnicity and so on.
2
political, ethnic and religious divides, I claim that religion is one of the overlapping identities
effectively dividing the women’s movement in Sudan. The plurality of family laws has
thereby left women in a vacuum without a common legal framework for working through this
arena of citizenship. Since the family law is contested within the women’s movements, their
agenda has mainly focused on issues such as a quota (30%) for women in the legislative
assembly. However, so far there has been little if any legislative output from the Government
of National Unity with regards to women. The female power holders are situated at each end
of the left-right political spectrum, and there is more competition than cooperation between
the power holders themselves as well as with civil society organizations.
Gendering Citizenship
As a direct consequence of women’s exclusion from the CPA negotiations and
implementation process, I argue, it effectively reinforces a gendered citizenship in Sudan.
Religion has been a central force in politics in Sudan as well as in the Middle East at large.7
In Sudan, the citizen as a legal subject has been constituted through membership in religious
communities, institutionalizing religious identity as political identity.8 Citizenship is here
understood as the legal processes by which subjects of a state are defined. These processes set
out the criteria for citizenship and the rights and obligations of citizens in relation to the
state.9 Citizenship "constructs the subject of law".10 Citizenship, however, is also a set of
legal, political and cultural practices.11 The practices of citizenship, while influenced by the
laws, differ from the written laws. Citizenship also generates social processes by which
subjects are made, invented, constructed. Since classical political thinkers usually discussed
the citizen in terms of an abstract personhood; the citizen as an "individual" with
undifferentiated, uniform and universal properties, rights, and duties. The citizen appeared in
7
Nikki Keddie , Women in the Middle East : past and present , Princeton : Princeton University Press, 2007;
Sondra Hale, “The Islamic State and Gendered Citizenship in Sudan” I n Suad Joseph, (ed.) Gender and
Citizenship in the Middle East. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2000.
8
Religious communities are not viewed as coherent, bounded or fixed entities with shared mutual interests. They
are differentiated by class, status, region, ethnicity and so on.
9
Bryan Turner, “Islam, Civil Society and Citizenship” in Butenschøn, Davis and Hassassain (eds), Citizenship
and the State in the Middle East, New York: Syracuse, 2000.
10
Collier, Maurer and Suarez-Navaz, “Sanctioned Identities: Legal Constructions of Modern Personhood”,
Identities Vol. 2 1995, pp.5.
11
Bryan Turner, Citizenship and Social Theory, London: Sage 1993,
3
much of classical political theory to be neutral in cultural and gender terms.12 And because
constitutions and laws are written in terms of such an abstract citizen, they may appear
equitable. But recent research has revealed, according to Suad Joseph, systematic means by
which citizenship, in most countries of the world, has been a highly gendered enterprise, in
practice and on paper.13 The “civic myths” which underlie notions of citizenship in most
states often conceal inequalities or attempt to justify them on the basis of family, religion,
history or other cultural terms.14
The CPA is “gender neutral”.15 There is an implicit notion that references to human rights and
justice encompass all citizens viewed of course as an abstract personhood.16 Although
women’s political rights which render political participation in the public sphere is awarded
in the interim Constitution based on the CPA,17 the state has failed to deal with the family law
also called personal status law (referring to mainly marriage, divorce, child custody and
inheritance) in the private sphere. According to the CPA “all personal matters, including
marriage, divorce, inheritance, succession and affiliation may be governed by the personal
laws (including Shari’a or other religious laws, customs and traditions) of those concerned”.18
12
See for example Marshall, Class, Citizenship and Social Development, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1950. Marshall developed a theory of postwar societies through an analysis of the relationship between
social class, welfare and citizenship. He did not incorporate religious difference into his study of modern
citizenship.
13
Suad Joseph, Gender and Citizenship in the Middle East. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2000. See also
Carole Pateman, The Sexual Contract, Oxford: Oxford Polity Press, 1988.
14
Suad Joseph, Gender and Citizenship in the Middle East. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2000
15
The Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Found at http://www.unmis.org/english/documents/cpa-en.pdf
16
Sanam Naraghi Anderlini, The Untapped Resource; Women in Peace Negotiations. Found at
http://www.accord.org.za/ct/2003-3/pg18-22.pdf
17
The interim constitution establishing the Government of National Unity (GNU), adopted on July 6 2005,
provides for power sharing nationwide between the NCP and the SPLM. A three-member presidency heads the
government and consists of a president, Omar Hassan El-Bashir (NCP); a first vice President, Mayardit Salva
Kiir (SPLM); and a vice president, Ali Taha (NCP). A bicameral legislature is composed of the 450-member
National Assembly and 52-member Council of States. Legislative and cabinet positions are allocated by a CPAspecified formula that reserves 52 percent of the positions for the NCP, 28 percent for the SPLM, 14 percent for
northern opposition parties, and 6 percent for southern parties. GNU members took office on September 22, and
on October 23, Salva Kiir Mayardit, the country's first vice president and president of the Government of
Southern Sudan (GOSS), appointed the cabinet of the GOSS. On September 21, Kiir appointed governors of the
10 states of southern Sudan, and each southern state also formed its legislative assembly with 48 members
allocated proportionally as stipulated in the CPA: 70 percent to the SPLM, 15 percent to the NCP, and 15 percent
to other southern political forces. Southern Sudan's legislative assembly approved an interim constitution on
October 24, which President Kiir signed on December 5.
18
State and Religion, article 6.4 in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Found at
http://www.unmis.org/english/documents/cpa-en.pdf
4
The constitution states that “nationally enacted legislation having effect only in respect of the
states outside Southern Sudan shall have as its sources of legislation Shari’a and the
consensus of the people”.19 In the words of a Southern peace activist Sudan is effectively,
“one country with two systems”.20 The Sudanese state has, like most states in the Middle
East, abdicated in favour of religious communities with regards to the family law. This
practise builds on the millet system established under the Ottoman Empire.21 The millet
system has a long history in the Middle East, and is closely linked to Islamic rules on the
treatment of non-Muslim minorities (dhimmi). The Ottoman term specifically refers to the
separate legal courts pertaining to personal law under which minorities were allowed to rule
themselves.
To use Stein Rokkan’s22 model, the standardization of the legal domain is thus divided
between a decentralized peripherical juridical system which is responsible for the personal
status law/family law and a centralized state juridical system which manages all other legal
areas.23 As long as women remain in a subordinate legal position according to the personal
status law, her formal political rights are thereby undermined.24 Such religious constraints
have disproportionate impacted women for example when it comes to marriage. Muslim
women have not been allowed to marry non-Muslims in most Arab countries including
Sudan, giving Muslim men more marriage choices than Muslim women.25 Since it has been
19
Draft of the Sudan Interim National Constitution. Found at
http://www.reliefweb.int/library/documents/2005/govsud-sud-16mar.pdf
20
Interview with a SPLM parliamentarian, Khartoum Sudan November 11th of November 2006.
21
Empire was based around the Turkish sultan, lasting from 1300 until 1922, and covering at its peak (1683- 99)
an area including today's Hungary, Yugoslavia, Croatia, Bosnia, Albania, Macedonia, Greece, Romania,
Moldova, Bulgaria, southern Ukraine, Turkey, Georgia, Armenia Iraq, Kuwait, Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon, Israel,
Palestine, Jordan, eastern and western Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, eastern Yemen, Egypt, northern Libya,
Tunisia, and northern Algeria.
22
Stein Rokkan, Stat, Nasjon, Klasse, Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1981.
23
Argument found in Rania Maktabi, “Kvinners medborgerskap i Midtøsten- Problemstillinger knyttet til
politiske rettigheter før konsolideringen av sivile rettigheter”, unpublished paper presented at the national
conference in political science, Bergen, January 2006
24
Argument found in Rania Maktabi, “Kvinners medborgerskap i Midtøsten- Problemstillinger knyttet til
politiske rettigheter før konsolideringen av sivile rettigheter”, unpublished paper presented at the national
conference in political science, Bergen, January 2006 and in Mary Ann Tetrault ”Gender, Citizenship and State
in the Middle East” in Butenschøn, Davis and Hassassain (eds), Citizenship and the State in the Middle East,
New York: Syracuse, 2000.
25
The Sudanese Islamist Hassan al- Turabi, who masterminded the coup d’etat in 1989 (in opposition from
1999) , has recently issued a fatwa saying that Muslim women should be allowed to marry men of “people of the
5
assumed that women will change their religion to that of their husbands and that children
follow the religion of their fathers, the consequence of inter-marriage is negligible for men,
but often profound for women. Muslim and Christian women, but not men, usually have lost
their religious identities in inter-religious marriages. The sanctification of the patriarchal
family by most religious communities -Muslim and Christian- has thus come to have legal
force.26 Suzanne Samson Jambo, a southern Sudanese, describes the “women problem” in
southern Sudan as by referring to “customs and traditions” which may be attributed to the
exercise of family law within Christianity and indigenous religions;
Sudanese women have traditionally suffered from discriminative
customs and traditions, which relegate them to the status of lesser
beings. Such negative customs and traditions…include forced and
arranged marriages, forced wife inheritance, bride prices and relegation
of the girl-child to a mere object which must be sold to the highest
bidder, preferably at a tender age [….] Undoubtedly, Sudanese women
and girls are the most marginalized of the marginalized groups in
southern Sudan”.27
Equally, Anne Itto, who is the minister (state) of Agriculture and Forestry, claims that;
“cases related to families are handled by the traditional courts which
involves going through many courts and too costly for a woman in
terms of time and self-esteem to pursue. Many women give up on
serious cases such as rape and abusive husbands as they expect no
justice to be delivered to her”.28
Although women are formally given equal rights to men in the Constitution, there is a general
view among women that the government “give with one hand and take with the other hand”.
A northern lawyer and activist said a consequence of the application of the Shari’a family law
is that “we are not allowed to move without the permission of our husband. I cannot get a visa
book” (Christian and Jews); that women should be allowed to lead men in prayer (imams). This is a controversial
fatwa in and outside of Sudan. Interview with Hassan al-Turabi in Khartoum, Sudan 13th of November 2006.
26
Suad Joseph, Gender and Citizenship in the Middle East. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2000.
27
Suzanne Samson Jambo, Overcoming Gender Conflict and Bias: The Case of New Sudan Women and Girls,
Publication sponsored by the Netherlands Organization for International Development (NOVIB), 2001, pp 13.
28
Anne Itto, “Women in the New Sudan: Factors affecting women’s participation, access to, control and
ownership to social, economic and political resources”, unpublished paper presented at a workshop on the status
of women in the new Sudan, Nairobi Kenya, November 2001, pp 10.
6
without the permission of my husband, father or uncle […]”.29 Consequently, she claims that
this makes the exercise of her political rights more difficult. However, the same northern
lawyer does not regard it as a problem with the Shari’a as such, but the understanding is that
“they [men] take the hardest interpretations and apply it”. Additionally, she told me that in
her view “most parts of it is not Shari’a”, but cultural traditions where Islam and Shari’a is
“used” and “interpreted” in a way that will uphold these cultural and patriarchal traditions
which favors men and disadvantages women.30
However, to my knowledge there has not been any study conducted on mapping litigation
processes in neither Shari’a courts in the north nor southern “traditional” courts from a
gender perspective in Sudan. Whether such a system with a decentralized peripherical
juridical system where local courts are responsible for rulings concerning the personal status
law/family law in fact operates to the disadvantage of women's citizenship rights is a
contested issue. Judith Tucker for example, shows that Islamic muftis and qadis (legal
scholars and jurists) of seventeenth and eighteenth century Syria and Palestine often
negotiated between the four Islamic schools of law to protect women's rights.31 Nahda Younis
Shehada argues that the application of Shari’a in the Gaza strip is flexible. She states that
“contrary to stereotypical views, qadis play a significant role in protecting women from their
male relative’s abuses”.32 The courts thereby alter structured gender inequalities. One could
argue that such as system where the state has left the responsibility of implementing the
family law, whether regarded as discriminative toward women or not, is too dependent on the
responsiveness of the specific courts and the individual judge’s capability and gender
sensitive approach.33 Sudanese woman thus experience very different legal realities
depending on which religious community they belong to. The plurality of family laws (lack of
29
Interview with a woman lawyer and activist in Omdurman Sudan 18th of November 2006.
30
Interview with a woman lawyer and activist in Omdurman Sudan 18th of November 2006.
31
Judith Tucker, In the House of the Law: Gender and Islamic Law in Ottoman Syria and Palestine, Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1998.
32
Nahda Younis Shehada, “Justice without Drama: Observations from Gaza City Sharia Court” in Inger Marie
Okkenhaug and Ingvild Flaskerud, Gender, Religion and Change in the Middle East, Oxford: Berg, 2005, pp 13.
33
The concepts “court responsiveness” and “judges’ capability” is taken from Siri Gloppen, “Courts and Social
Transformation: An Analytical Framework” in Gargarella, Domingo and Roux (eds.), Courts and Social
Transformation in New Democracies, Aldershot : Ashgate, 2006.
7
codification) has thereby left women in a vacuum without a common legal framework for
working through this arena of citizenship.
Additionally, interpretations of Islamic positions on gender have changed significantly over
time. In Sudan the diversity of interpretations is vast. Hassan al-Turabi, who masterminded
the coup d’etat in 1989 and is now an oppositional leader of the Popular Congress Party,
claims that women and men have the same obligations and rights and according to the Shari’a
are counterparts as “the underlying presumption in the Shari’a is that gender is immaterial”.34
Turabi recommends granting women full equality with men with regards to rights, including
the right to be admitted to any public position including the judiciary. In contrast to his more
recent works, he now not only advocates for political “public” rights of women, but also for
civil “private” rights within the family law.35 Sadiq al-Mahdi, the leader of the Umma Party
and former prime minister in Sudan, argues for gender equality and the ratification of
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
With regards to women’s rights within Islam, Sadiq al-Mahdi seems overall to be in
agreement with his brother-in-law Hassan al-Turabi Mahmoud Taha was the leader of the
Republican Brothers in Sudan and declared an apostate and executed for his views in 1985.
He stated in The Second Message that all Quran versus related to gender issues are only valid
for the people of Medina.36 He deems segregation, the veil and polygamy are un-Islamic.37
The forth interpretation which Balghis al-Badri highlights is that of Ansar al-Sunna which she
describes as conservative influenced by the Hanbali school. According to al-Badri their
political influence is gaining grounds among the leaders in NCP.38
34
Hassan al-Turabi, “Al- Mar`a bayna Ta’alim al-Din wa Taqalid al-Mujtama’” (Khartoum, 1973) 6, 11,
[Translation mine].
35
Hassan al-Turabi, Emancipation of Women; An Islamic Perspective. Muslim Information Center, UK. Found
in Balghis al-Badri, ”Moslem Feminism in Sudan: A Critical Review”, an unpublished paper presented at the
conference on Islamic feminism in Barcelona Spain, November 2006.
36
Balghis al-Badri, ”Moslem Feminism in Sudan: A Critical Review”, an unpublished paper presented at the
conference on Islamic feminism in Barcelona Spain, November 2006.
37
Mahmoud Taha, Islams annet budskap; en religiøs nyorientering. Oversatt av Einar Berg, Oslo:
Universitetsforlaget, 1984.
38
Balghis al-Badri, ”Moslem Feminism in Sudan: A Critical Review”, an unpublished paper presented at the
conference on Islamic feminism in Barcelona Spain, November 2006.
8
“Patriarchy” rather than “Islam”
The majority of the women I interviewed identified patriarchy as the main obstacle to
political participation in Sudan. I would like to emphasize that patriarchy was a word that
Sudanese women themselves used. In the study of gender relations in the Middle East, several
scholars have argued that the word patriarchy is ideologically loaded and problematic. The
differences in the ways that women are subordinated to men have been interpreted merely as
an outcome of different expressions or stages of the same system. This has resulted,
according to Okkenhaug, in an abstract and monolithic conception of male dominance.39 In
some usages the term conjures up unrealistic static and deterministic structures of oppression.
This description diverts attention from the active agency used by women to advance and
protect their own interests, according to Kandiyoti who speaks about the “patriarchal bargain”
to which both genders accommodate and acquiesce, yet which may nevertheless be contested,
redefined and renegotiated.40 My impression is that Sudanese women are well aware of their
“bargain” powers within the patriarchal structures in which they operate. One of my
informant made it pretty clear that her husband “irons his own shirts” thereby telling me that
she had authority within the household.41
A northern activist stated that Sudanese men are under the illusion that “Politics is a God
given thing for men”.42 This is why “decision making positions remain male dominated”.43 A
northern activist and lawyer stated at a workshop for training for political leadership that “we
will not have the chance to become leaders because of culture and custom”. 44 Philister Baya,
representing the Southern Women Solidarity for Peace and Development, claims that there
are “ideological and psychological hindrances which include the traditional cultural value
against the advancement of women and the emphasis to women’s primary role as mothers and
39
Inger Marie Okkenhaug and Ingvild Flaskerud, Gender, Religion and Change in the Middle East, Oxford:
Berg, 2005.
40
Kandiyoti, Women, Islam and the State, London: Macmillan, 1991.
41
Interview with a northern activist at a Workshop at Afhad University, training for political leadership of
lawyers, Omdurman, Sudan 9th of November 2006.
42
Interview with a northern activist in Khartoum Sudan 16th of November 2006.
43
Philister Baya, Southern Women Solidarity for Peace and Development in Khartoum Monitor, Advocacy for
Women’s Political Participation, November 14th 2006.
44
Interview with a northern activist in Khartoum Sudan 16th of November 2006.
9
housewives”.45 Women are culturally regarded as weak and in need of male protection. They
are perceived as “emotional, of less intelligence, wisdom and rationale” and are therefore
considered as more suitable to be “relegated to the household sphere with minimum decision
making power […]”.
46
As such it seems like the attitudes toward women participation in
politics have not changes much since the first woman was elected to parliament in 1965 upon
which a male MP uttered “I did not know I should bring my wife to parliament”.47 Even
Turabi, who is considered liberal in terms of women’s rights, spoke of women’s “fragile state
of mind”, “emotional nature” and clearly uttered that he had to “make sure that the women
did not misuse the freedom granted to them”.48
Balghis al Badri who is the head of the Institute of Women, Gender and Development Studies
at Afhad University for Women describes this as a “dominant ideology” which uses
“biological differences, selected religious texts and myths to legitimize the subjugation and
subordination of women”.49 An illustrative example of this was an event organized by the
ruling National Congress Party (NCP) to commemorate the International Women’s Day in
Khartoum, 8 March 2006, invoked women as “mothers, educators and […] supporters of
women’s work,” and told they were “decision-makers within the household, while political
decisions must be left to men”.50 In general the view expressed by various women activists
was that there is a “lack of political will, policy and strategy to achieve gender equality at
government level”.51 In the words of a female member of the Democratic Unionist Party;
45
Philister Baya, Southern Women Solidarity for Peace and Development in Khartoum Monitor, Advocacy for
Women’s Political Participation, November 14th 2006.
46
Balghis al-Badri, ”Sudanese Women Profile: Indicators and Empowerment Strategies” unpublished paper
presented at a workshop on Pathways to Wellbeing and Justice: Constructing a Concept of Women’s
Empowerment, Cairo September 2006.
47
Guest lecture given by Dr. Fadwa A. A. Taha at the University of Bergen 30th of August 2004 with the title:
“Sudanese Women Achievements and Setbacks 1964-2004”.
48
Interview with Hassan al-Turabi in Khartoum Sudan the 13th of November 2006.
Balghis al-Badri, ”Sudanese Women Profile: Indicators and Empowerment Strategies” unpublished paper
presented at a workshop on Pathways to Wellbeing and Justice: Constructing a Concept of Women’s
Empowerment, Cairo September 2006.
49
50
Quoted in Beyond Victimhood: Women's Peacebuilding in Sudan, Congo and Uganda, International Crisis
Group Africa Report No 112, June 2006.
51
Balghis al-Badri,”Sudanese Women Profile: Indicators and Empowerment Strategies” unpublished paper
presented at a workshop on Pathways to Wellbeing and Justice: Constructing a Concept of Women’s
Empowerment, Cairo September 2006, pp 7.
10
“They are cheating us. They talk the talk, but they do not practice what they preach”.52 The
root cause of the deficient of political will toward gender equality and subsequent inferior
position of women in Sudanese society stem, according to Balghis al-Badri, from the
“dominant patriarchal ideology. 53
Feminism in Sudan
Margot Badran defines feminism as “the awareness of constraints placed upon women
because of their gender and attempts to remove these constraints and to evolve a more
equitable gender system involving new roles of women and new relations between men and
women”.54 The feminist struggle in Sudan has many varieties. As Benhabib points out (not
referring to Sudan as such), “there is not a single organization with the agenda of which a
majority of women would agree […] Relishing in diversity, basking in fragmentation,
enjoying the play of differences, and celebrating opacity, fracturing, and heteronomy”.55 Poststructuralists such as Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe have argued that each person
belongs to numerous overlapping groups and holds multiple intersecting identities.56 In
contrast to much of the literature on women and peace-building which claims that “on the
basis of their women’s interests, they are able to form coalitions bridging deep political,
ethnic and religious divides”,57 I claim that religion is one of the overlapping identities
dividing the women’s movement in Sudan. Nafisa Ahmed el-Amin, who spearheaded the
female emancipation movement in Sudan more than 50 years ago, has stated that “the
question of Shari’a law will divide the women’s movement”.58
52
Interview with a member of the Democratic Union Party (DUP) in Khartoum Sudan 16th of November 2006.
53
Balghis al-Badri,”Sudanese Women Profile: Indicators and Empowerment Strategies” unpublished paper
presented at a workshop on Pathways to Wellbeing and Justice: Constructing a Concept of Women’s
Empowerment, Cairo September 2006, pp 7.
54
Margor Badran, Feminists, Islam, and Nation: Gender and the Making of Modern Egypt (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1995), pp 19-20.
55
S Benhabib, Democracy and Difference: Contesting the Boundaries of the Political (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1996,) pp 29
56
Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe in D Trend, ed. Radical Democracy: Identity, Citizenship and the
State, New York: Routledge, 1996, p 11.
57
Tsjeard Bouta and Gerorg Frerks, Women’s roles in Conflict Prevention, Conflict Resolution, and PostConflict Reconstruction (Netherlands Institute of International Relations, 2002) pp 8.
58
Sudan Tribune, “FEATURE-Sudan’s women hope for peace, divided over sharia”, January 2005. Found at
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article7402
11
The Sudanese women’s movements thus have a diverse stance on the issue of women’s rights
in light of religion. I would like to emphasize that religion is not viewed as a MuslimChristian cleavage line, but rather a continuum of the degree and form of religious influence
on gender issues. Along a left- right political spectrum we have the secular feminists who
include Muslims, Christians and adherents to indigenous religions. They claim that religion
should not be a source of legislation. Although they consider themselves as adherent to their
respective faiths, they advocate for a separation between religion and state. Moderate Islamist
feminists who “try to make new interpretations or refer to other new ones done by male and
they try to create feminism within Islam”.59 They thereby try to “react against a state that
attempted to usurp some of their rights in law and constitution in the name of Islam”.60 The
moderate Islamist feminists mostly refer to the interpretations of Sudanese male Islamists like
Hassan al-Turabi, Sadiq al-Mahdi and Mahmoud Taha. To my knowledge there are not any
prominent female works contributed to a feminist ijtihad (interpretation) of Islam.61 Chela
Sandoval’s concept “oppositional consciousness” might be used to describe how they are able
to “read the current situation of power” and to choose and adapt “the ideological form best
suited to push against its configurations”.62 And lastly there are the conservative Islamist
feminists who advocate for “old conservative Islam as interpreted by the first scholars”.63 The
conservative Islamist feminists mainly advocate for women’s rights in the public sphere and
not for women’s rights in the private sphere and thereby choose their “battles” primarily
59
Balghis al-Badri, ”Moslem Feminism in Sudan: A Critical Review”, an unpublished paper presented at the
conference on Islamic feminism in Barcelona Spain, November 2006, pp 10. Balghis al-Badri’s categorization is
somewhat different, she differentiate between Islamist feminists, Islamic feminists and secular feminists.
Although our typology differ, it is merely in the names as the substantive content of each category is the same.
60
Balghis al-Badri, ”Moslem Feminism in Sudan: A Critical Review”, an unpublished paper presented at the
conference on Islamic feminism in Barcelona Spain, November 2006, pp 9.
61
Riffat Hassan is a female interpreter of Islam, originally from Pakistan. She states; “Not only does the Quran
emphasize that righteousness is identical in the case of men and women, but it affirms, clearly and consistently,
women’s equality with men and their fundamental right to actualize the human potential that they share equally
with men. In fact, when seen through a non-patriarchal lens, the Quran goes beyond egalitarianism. It exhibits
particular solicitude toward women and also toward other classes of disadvantaged persons.” Riffat Hassan in
Åsne Halskau, “Between Tradition and Modernity: A Radical Muslim View on the Interpretation of Gender
Roles in Islam” in Okkenhaug and Mæhle (eds), Women and Religion in the Middle East And the
Mediterranean, Oslo: Unipub Forlag, 2004, pp 105.
62
Margareth Meriwether and Judith Tucker, Women and Gender in the Modern Middle East. Boulder: Westview
Press, 1999, pp 92-93.
63
Balghis al-Badri, ”Moslem Feminism in Sudan: A Critical Review”, an unpublished paper presented at the
conference on Islamic feminism in Barcelona Spain, November 2006, pp 1.
12
outside the issue of the private sphere of family law.64 As Sondra hale points out, women
cannot be viewed as merely victims within the Islamist movements as they are actively
creating the definition of “what proper Muslim women ought to be”.65
Feminism itself is grounded in culture and that feminists from any society or any particular
cultural tradition hold and internalize premises and assumptions stemming out of their culture
that shape their orientation to women issues. Any feminist model, paradigm or framework is
largely informed by the framer’s culture.
66
There seem to be a plurality of perceptions of
“gender equality” and “women’s rights” which are echoed in the overall Islamist-secular
discourse in Sudan.
Female “Power Struggle”
In particular, political participation and representation seems to be a focal point among
feminists in Sudan. There is a plurality of perceptions of “gender equality” and “women’s
rights” that might be ascribed to the fact that the family law is a political battlefield between
Islamists and secularists in general and among Islamist feminists and secularist feminists in
particular. There seems to be an agreement among women from the different groups on
advocating for a quota system with “30% as a minimum threshold for women’s representation
at all levels and in all sectors”.67 Sudanese women stated in the “Sudanese Women’s Priorities
and Recommendations to the Oslo Donors’ Conference on Sudan “ established at the gender
symposium in Oslo in April 2005, that a priority within governance and the rule of law is the
enhancement of women’s effective political participation and leadership at all levels,
including within political parties with a strong and urgent support to capacity building for
women’s leadership.68 They have so far not been successful in achieving the national quota.69
64
Balghis al-Badri, ”Moslem Feminism in Sudan: A Critical Review”, an unpublished paper presented at the
conference on Islamic feminism in Barcelona Spain, November 2006.
65
Ellen Gruenbaum, ”Sudanese Women and the Islamist State” in Joseph and Slyomovics (eds), Women and
Power in the Middle East, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001.
66
Fadwa al Guindi, Georgetown University “Gendered Resistance, Feminist Veiling, Islamic Feminism”, The
Afhad Journal, Vol. 22, No. 1 June 2005.
67
“Sudanese Women’s Priorities and Recommendations to the Oslo Donors’ Conference on Sudan “. Appendix
IV in Centrality of Women’s Leadership and Gender Equality, Report written by Kari Karamè et. al on behalf of
UNIFEM, Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and NUPI in connection with the Oslo Doner’s Conference,
April 2005.
68
Sudan Tribune, “Sudanese women demand 30 percent representation”, April 2005. Found at
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article9053
13
At present, there are approximately 70 women representatives in the 450-person National
Assembly (13%), primarily form the SPLM and the NCP. There is only one female minister
in the Government of National Unity70, namely Samia Ahmed Mohamed from the NCP who
is the minister of Social Welfare, Gender and Child Affairs. Additionally, Farida Ibrahim,
also from the NCP, is the legal advisor to the President Bashir. Moreover, there are three
female ministers at the state level. They are; Anne Itto (SPLM), the minister of Agriculture
and Forestry; Triesa Siriso (SANO) the minister of Environment and Urban Development and
Angeline Jani (SPLM) the minister of Energy and Mining. The political parties represented
in the parliament and in the executive might be situated at each end of the left-right political
spectrum, from secular feminists to conservative Islamists feminists. There are very few if
any from the center of the left-right spectrum, namely the moderate Islamist feminists.
The impression that my informants gave me was that there is little cooperation between NCP
and SPLM representatives and ministers. A female SPLM parliamentarian stated that
“women in the NCP have their own agenda”.71Another female SPLM parliamentarian
claimed that “NCP women are radical and ignoring women today”.72 The representation of
women within the National Congress Party (NCP) who support conservative Islamist views
on women’s rights is, according to these women, a deliberate tactic which is consistent with
the regime’s divide-and-rule approach to a range of political issues and groups; “those women
are there [in government], because it is a way to lock other women away – to focus on those
women who will only mobilize for the men”.73 This is strengthened by the fact that there has
been little if any legislative output from the Government of National Unity with regards to
women. This contradicts the feminist theories arguing that there are theoretically coherent
69
The Constitution of Southern Sudan, however, secures women 25% representation in the legislative assembly
in the Government of Southern Sudan.
70
In the Government of Southern Sudan there are two female ministers; Rebecca Garang, the minister of
Transport and Roads; Mary Kiden, the minister of Gender, Social Welfare & Religious Affairs. Additionally,
Awut Deng Achuil, who participated in the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) delegation at the
Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) peace negotiations and is now adviser on gender and
human rights to Vice President Salva Kiir; Agnes Lukudu, adviser on development to Vice President Salva Kiir.
71
Interview with a SPLM parliamentarian, Khartoum Sudan November 11th of November 2006.
72
Interview with a SPLM parliamentarian, Khartoum Sudan November 11th of November 2006.
73
Beyond Victimhood: Women's Peacebuilding in Sudan, Congo and Uganda, International Crisis Group Africa
Report No 112, June 2006.
14
grounds for presuming a relationship between the numbers of women elected to political
office and the passage of legislation beneficial to women as a group. These feminist political
scientists have relied on the concept of ‘critical mass’. According to its proponents, the
presence of a critical mass of women explains increased legislative attention to women’s
issues. However, the concept makes a problematic assumption: that (all) female
representatives want to act for women.74 According to the women within civil society it is
“impossible to cooperate with the women in the government, because they only want to
practice the policies of the government”.75 A southern activist implied that the level of
cooperation amongst southern women has deteriorated after the signing of the CPA, stating
that;
“before we were working as a group of women. We did not forget about our
own differences, but we have agreed to work for the common goal of peace for
the whole of Sudan […] After the signing of the CPA, it is inconsistent
76
because most of our people in the civil society have joined the government”.
According to Philister Baya, there is a “lack of cooperation and communication between
women politicians and women organizations”.77 One of the main reasons for this lack of
cooperation was according to a female member of the Democratic Unionist Party the fact that
“the women in power did not come there by election, they are afraid to loose their
positions”.78
The Sudanese case illustrates that the female representatives are polarized along a left-right
political spectrum on the issue of women’s rights and religion on the national level. For
example, several women activists emphasized that the ratification of the International
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) as
a political battle ground; “on the issue of CEDAW in the North they see it from the point of
74
Sarah Childs and Mona Lena Krook, “Gender and Politics: The State of the Art”, Politics Vol 26 (1), 18-28,
2006.
75
Interview with a northern activist lawyer at a workshop training for political leadership of lawyers at Afhad
University, Omdurman, Sudan 9th of November 2006.
76
Interview with a southern activist in Khartoum Sudan the 15th of November 2006.
77
Philister Baya, Southern Women Solidarity for Peace and Development in Khartoum Monitor, Advocacy for
Women’s Political Participation, November 14th 2006.
78
Interview with a member of the Democratic Union Party (DUP) in Khartoum Sudan 16th of November 2006.
15
Islam, but in the South it is not a problem. The difficult part is that the South cannot ratify
CEDAW because it is a national issue”.79 A southern activist told me that the women within
NCP are working against the Oslo recommendations and priorities because the document
states that the women present were “guided by […]the Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) […] as well as other existing
commitments, principles, goals and actions set out in the various national, regional,
continental and international instruments on women’s human rights” as Sudan has not yet
ratified the convention.80 She further claimed that after Oslo “nothing came out because some
of the women belonging to the ruling party said that there is something there, which is
CEDAW. So we came in vacuum”.81 It seems like the conservative Islamist feminists in the
government are actively attempting to avoid the ratification of CEDAW. In a recent article on
International Women’s Day, 8 March 2006, Farida Ibrahim, a presidential legal adviser,
characterized the CEDAW as “against Shari’a law and it does not represent the government’s
stance on women’s rights. It destroys family values, legalizes abortion and prostitution under
the umbrella of family values, gives equality to prostitutes and married women and legalizes
lesbianism. It is a disaster for human beings”.82 The moderate feminist Islamists and the
secular feminists are advocating for the ratification of CEDAW in coalition with oppositional
forces within the civil society at large. The secular feminists and moderate feminists see
themselves in an alliance with for instance Sadiq al-Mahdi, knowing that it might be a fragile
alliance. A northern activist stated;
“Very few Sudanese men are full hearted for women emancipation. We have learnt
that we have to make alliances […] it is about politics. For example, when Sadiq
al-mahdi was in power he was never for CEDAW. Now that he is out of office he
uses CEDAW to come back to power. So it is all about politics. I am quite sure that
79
Beyond Victimhood: Women's Peacebuilding in Sudan, Congo and Uganda, International Crisis Group Africa
Report No 112, June 2006; Interview with a SPLM parliamentarian, Khartoum Sudan November 11th of
November 2006; Interview with a southern activist Khartoum Sudan 15th of November 2006.
80
Centrality of Women’s Leadership and Gender Equality, Report written by Kari Karamè et. al on behalf of
UNIFEM, Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and NUPI in connection with the Oslo Doner’s Conference,
April 2005.
81
Interview with a southern activist Khartoum, 15th of November 2006.
82
Farida Ibrahim, in Osrati (My Family, a monthly magazine published in Khartoum), March 2006. Quoted in
Beyond Victimhood: Women's Peacebuilding in Sudan, Congo and Uganda, International Crisis Group Africa
Report No 112, June 2006.
16
Sadiq al-Mahdi will upset the fundamentalist if he wins the elections, he will never
go for CEDAW although he now says that CEDAW is not against Islam. Still I
have to use him.”83
Conclusion
The “gender neutral” CPA and the interim constitution reinforce and continue a gendered
citizenship in Sudan. The issue of women’s rights has been a battlefield in politics throughout
modern Sudanese history and continues to be so also after the CPA because the Sudanese
state has, like most states in the Middle East, abdicated in favour of religious communities
with regards to the family law. To use Stein Rokkan’s model, the standardization of the legal
domain is thus divided between a decentralized peripherical juridical system which is
responsible for the personal status law/family law and a centralized state juridical system
which manages all other legal areas. As long as women remain in a subordinate legal position
according to the personal status law, her formal political rights are thereby undermined.
Sudanese woman thus experience very different legal realities depending on which religious
community they belong to.
Grounded in theoretical claim that women belong to numerous overlapping groups and holds
multiple intersecting identities, I claim that religion is one of the overlapping identities
dividing the women’s movement in Sudan. This is in stark contrast to the literature on women
and peace-building which tells us little about the diversity of a “woman’s perspective” and is
falsely universalising in its premise. There seem to be a plurality of perceptions of “gender
equality” and “women’s rights” which are echoed in the overall Islamist-secular discourse in
Sudan. This is effectively hindering coalitions building both among female representatives in
government as well as with civil society organizations and political parties.
83
Interview with a northern activist in Khartoum, Sudan the 16th of November 2006.
17