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Interview with Women

Interview with Soaad Ibrahim Isa (Women Initiatives Group)

November 6, 2005
Professor Soaad is a scholar, activist, and a politician (with the soft definition of the term). She is not known to have affiliated herself with any of the major political parties. But given her views in daily journals, she may be identified as middle-of-the-spectrum type of an intellectual. Soaad is very traditional in her appearance, very liberal in her views. She resembles the mixture that would make one believe that she shouldn’t have had any difficulty overcoming the stereotypes that accompanied the pioneers of the women movement. (That they are liberal and morally lackadaisical.) Yet from the interviews it seems that the task of her generation was not as easy. The interview format includes wording of interviewer, interviewee, and [analytical response of interviewer] which should help the reader follow the logical deduction formulated towards the end of the report.
Dr. Madibo: What hindered the ability of your generation to influence change ?

Prof Soaad: When we started the movement people weren’t as literate, hence we were confronted with norms and traditions.
(The term confrontation speaks more to the approach tactic than to the rigidity of tradition!)

Dr. Madibo: How does illiteracy preclude people’s understanding of their basic rights and duties ?

Prof Soaad: Issues get easily caught up in the middle of political tension, i.e., they become easily polarized.
(Given the fact that the Sudanese periphery is dominated by a culture of “obedience”, which puts greater emphasis on duties than rights, a mishandling -- that is to say use of rhetoric -- may be perceived as a challenge to the authority of the patriarchal authority which, ironically, sometimes can be a lady! The oppressed oftentimes can become an oppressor without noticing. For example, who violates the privacy of the bride? It is her mother-in-law. Who brutally removes the gentiles of her daughter? The mother. Who pokes the narcissism of the turban wearing Imam to demand religious authority from his uncle? It is the wife. Man was brilliant in the sense that he had given women thousand years ago the authority to demean themselves and “others.”
Anytime a woman issue becomes ideologized, take for example the mudawana (Moroccan family laws), it looses its objectivity and becomes a charter for the abuse of not only women but the whole society. It is true that Sudan has advanced beyond the secular/theocratic dichotomy to a liberalist/literalist ideology, but it is yet to be seen if it can advance long enough to reach a rights/duties platform. As this remains its challenge to healing its wounds long aggravated with the south and embracing humanism, gradually progressing to become a global ideal. It is true that Sudan didn’t experience high ideological tension compared to Morocco and other countries that adopted the Francophone model of governance, nonetheless given its cultural heterogeneity it teased out ethnic/religious tensions that have put the country at the brink of complete integration.)

Dr. Madibo: Isn’t the civic society supposed to be apolitical ?

Prof Soaad: Assumingly, but the state spares no effort in co-opting civic society organizations (CSO) and in the process they become politicized, either they become pro or against the state. Hence, they loose their role in mediating between the society and the state.
(Once a group becomes labeled, it looses its efficaciousness in promoting civicness and in encouraging one’s acceptance of the other. Hence, deliberation (still is) becomes an impossibility)

Dr. Madibo: Is there a difference in this regard between authoritarian and totalitarian regimes ?

Prof Soaad: Yes there is a difference. Unlike the current regime, Nimeiri didn’t attempt to monopolize the civic society. He (although aligned with the Communists) initiated the Sudanese Women Union to organize ladies but not to ideologize them. We need a national organization that includes all women and helps advance their agenda and not any political agenda.
(It seems that people are having difficulty -- at least psychologically -- to expanding the realm of politics beyond that was traditionally dominated by the state. The ideals of the colonial and post-colonial model of development have permeated deep enough into the socio-cultural roots that people limited their understanding of politics to “hard” politics: confrontation with the authority. This will unfortunately prevail until the state sees the civic society as a sophisticated mechanism that can help draw different opinions within a reasonable range manageable to the executive authority. If ten people have ten different views about an issue, the formulation of a policy becomes impossibility. Almond and Verba spoke in the sixties about the lack of balance between emotionalism and institutionalism in (under)developed societies. An attempt to artificially create consensus inhibits creativity at best and breeds monotony at worst, i.e., it infuses apathy as a major disease that the Sudanese civic society is currently suffering from.)

Dr. Madibo: Does the current regime put impediments in your work as a group?

Prof Soaad: It creates bureaucratic hurdles that make our traveling abroad very difficult, if not impossible. For example, our organization has tried once to apply for tax exemptions and it found that the procedure is tedious and artificially laborious. It quit applying for any investments that it could have utilized to make the organization more effective, if not economically independent.
(These organizations don’t have enough personnel to consistently and systematically pursue their agenda. This not to dismiss the government’s skewed agenda and its skeptical view of the role of “non-Islamist” civic society organizations in the public arena. Such attitude affirms Abdallah Annaim’s view of the “Islamic State” as a post-colonial invention because it contradicts the historical precedence and conventional wisdom of Muslim societies which followed a bottom-up approach as a developmental strategy.)

Dr. Madibo: Does one need to travel (nowadays) to have correspondence with the outside world? Do you have in your organization media correspondents, researchers, strategists, organizers, M&E personnel, etc. ?

Prof Soaad: We need all of that. We need to educate our members, enhance their capacity (as a mean to providing them with self-confidence and boosting their morale), more importantly increase deliberation within and between civic society organizations.

Dr. Madibo: What civic society organizations do you consider as mostly influential ?

Prof Soaad: SOLO, Babikr Badri Scientific Organization for Women Studies, Woman Union (contact Raga Hassan Kalifa).

Interview with Amna Sadig Badri (Vice-Chancellor of Ahfad University)

November 8, 2005
Amna Sadig Badri is a distinguished Sudanese lady who comes from an intellectually and morally privileged family. She is disciplined, concerned and soft spoken. Although she claims to be apolitical, she may be categorized as centre-to-left of the Sudanese ideologically spectrum (that is culture-demarcated). Her husband’s (Prof Gasim Badri) sympathy with the leader of the Umma Party — Sadig Al-Madhi — deceives observers into thinking that she and her husband may be centre or centre-to-right.
Dr. Madibo: What is your assessment of women participation in politics ?

Dr. Amna: More recently, women have been extensively engaged in all spheres of the peace talks: lobbying, logrolling, preparing reports, etc. Nonetheless, they weren’t given as much as they anticipated.

Dr. Madibo: Have they demanded reward for their efforts ?

Dr. Amna: No they haven’t.
(Women are probably more concerned with policy formulating that crown holding/wearing.)

Dr. Madibo: Who are some of the women organizations that were involved in the CPA ?

Dr. Amna: Babikr Badri Organization, Gender and Development Organization for Women (Dr. Balgees Badri), Peace and Development Centre, Woman Centre for Peace and Development (SWEPT), Federal Circle, etc. Not to forget the organizations headed by the President’s two wives.

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