A Spring Aborted

How Authoritarianism Violates Women's Rights in the Arab World

Yusuf M. Sidani

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781787566651
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Gender Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

The Arab Spring uprisings were not about gender; these were uprisings demanding rights for all. Yet, they presented a rare opportunity for women to let themselves be heard. And, from being some of the most memorable and lasting leaders of these revolutionary protests, female activists were particularly targeted by many regimes.
In A Spring Aborted: How Authoritarianism Violates Women's Rights in the Arab World, leadership expert Yusuf Sidani tracks the contributions of female activists, the reasons for the Arab Spring, and the abuse these leaders suffered. Including analysis of protests across Sudan, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, and Tunisia, Sidani looks at the aims of the protests, and the impact, evaluating whether the changes brought about were deep enough to disrupt governance structures.
Finally, Sidani explores how the Arab Spring has been hijacked. From deep divisions among the allies who shaped the Arab Spring, to sheer force and brutality, Sidani analyses the causes of the Spring's disintegration.

CHAPTER 1

WOMEN OF THE ARAB SPRING: VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AS A MEANS OF POLITICAL REPRESSION

“They break your spirit so that you would never – ever-say, ‘I want what’s right for my country’”

1.1. APRIL 10, 2019 | KHARTOUM, SUDAN

A Sudanese woman in a long white dress became the icon that the revolution needed.¹ Alaa Salah, a 22-year-old Sudanese student, stood on the roof of a car as she chanted a poem of resistance accompanied by a huge impromptu chorus. Protests had been going on for a few months prompted by growing frustrations over a long and persistent military rule that contributed to economic hardships and severe restrictions on free speech. As Salah chanted, she seemed to be smoothly moving in her place, as if she were partaking a solo slow dance. Her gentle but confident movements made her face different sides of the crowds. Passionate protestors completely circled the car, her improvised podium, as they jubilantly joined her. Salah suddenly became a celebrated “Kandaka,” a term used to describe a Nubian Queen in the ancient Sudanese culture.

The thobe (traditional dress) that Salah wore was the one customarily worn by Sudanese women in their day-to-day social and professional activities reflecting a “symbol of an identity of a working woman — a Sudanese woman that’s capable of doing anything but still appreciates her culture.”² The image showing her left side, with her finger rebelliously pointing upward, went viral, and was shared tens of thousands of times over Twitter and Facebook. That image would no doubt join a long list of iconic pictures firmly imprinted in memory. Activists juxtaposed her image with her right-hand finger confidently pointed upwards with the image of the statue of liberty reflecting a striking resemblance in posture.

Her golden moon earring attached additional symbolism as it shined, seemingly reflecting the sunlight that is about to rise on Sudan. This led a commentator, Hind Makki, to write:

Her entire outfit is also a callback to the clothing worn by our mothers & grandmothers in the 60s, 70s, & 80s who dressed like this while they marched the streets demonstrating against previous military dictatorships. (Harris, April 17, 2019)

This “Kandaka” became the symbol of resistance representing thousands of like-minded Sudanese men and women.

The now-famous poem chanted by Salah and written by the Sudanese poet Azhari Muhammad Ali (Alaraby, April 9, 2019), was not a new song. It was chanted years ago in the protest movements of the 1980s. Yet, the poem gained unparalleled popularity due to Salah’s captivating performance. Scores of protestors, men and women, shouted thawra (revolution) after each line³:

O Mother, grant me your forgiveness

(for breaking) the promise that I gave you

That speaking is forbidden

against that group of rulers.

O Mother, my blood boils

When the country boils

When the Military,

-Who deformed Islam-

Bring in their vanities

They imprisoned us in the name of religion

They burned us in the name of religion

They humiliated us in the name of religion

They killed us in the name of religion

Religion is guiltless, O mother.

Religion says that one

Who gives up his right

Is befriending a devil.

Religion says that you

Stand up in opposition

And confront those rulers.

Religion says a person

Who sees something wrong

Should not shut his mouth

Otherwise the wrong would be strong.

Salah became the symbol of a revolution that seemed to be a latecomer in a series of mostly unsuccessful Arab Spring movements that started eight years ago. The revolution in Sudan thus caught many by surprise. The Arab Spring was supposed to be long dead after a series of disappointments and failures. The military was back in control in Egypt, and Muhammad Morsi, the first democratically elected president in Egyptian history, was ousted and died later in prison.⁴ The opposition almost lost all in Syria subjugated by a wide alliance of forces including Russian direct military intervention and a growing Iranian influence manifested in the presence of large numbers of Iranian revolutionary guards and Iran-controlled militias.⁵ Most early activists were either killed or exiled, and what started as a peaceful revolution was overshadowed by the growing threat of ISIS. Yemen was in shambles, as the civil war turned into a regional war between Saudi Arabia supported by an Arab alliance, and the Houthi militias supported by Iran.⁶ Perhaps only Tunisia, that witnessed the first spark of the Arab Spring, was still enjoying partial freedoms generated by the 2011 revolution.

The Arab Spring and dreams for a better future for Arab populations turned into a devastating nightmare. Rejuvenated traditional Arab autocracies were fighting back aided by internal divisions among opposition forces, and apathetic – to say the least – world powers. That the Sudanese people, in a mostly repressive Arab world, were still starting a new revolution has been bewildering to many.

Both in Sudan and the earlier protest movements across many Arab Spring countries, women marked their presence in more than one way as I will explain below. This took special significance in Sudan. Women have, for decades, been active political participants despite the fact they were not represented well in the political apparatus.⁷ Women were often key drivers of, and contributors to, political opposition and resistance, but they often faced marginalization; their efforts largely went unrecognized.⁸ Such was the story of the Arab Spring, and many feared the same would happen in Sudan.

Beyond its symbolic impact, the poem that Salah chanted perfectly fit the 2019 Sudanese context. The military was still in control for several decades with no signs that they were going to waver. Omar el-Bashir who led a coup d’etat against another military dictator – Jaafar Nimiery – in 1989, was firmly in power for 30 years. A skilled demagogue, he manipulated the various, often opposing, factions within the Sudanese political scene. Together with a strong military ruling class, he coopted influential religious parties, sometimes turning them against each other.

The strange alliance between the military ruling class and some religious groups solidified el-Bashir’s position. By referring to the role of the military in implementing shari’a (Islamic law), those religious parties legitimized an ongoing military grip over Sudan. The military was applauded as being the guardians of the sacred law. Salah’s striking performance underscored this misuse of religion that had been going on for decades. The poem exposed many atrocities, killings, and humiliations against the Sudanese people that have been committed in the name of religion. Yet, religion should be blameless. Contrary to what the military and some sections of the religious class wanted to propagate, Islam, chanted Salah, is a force against oppression. In a country where religion is dearly valued, the message advocated by this poem and the understanding it provided to the masses were dangerous.

Such danger did not go unnoticed by the military. In an effort to end the sit-in and shut down the opposition, even after the Sudanese dictator Omar el-Bashir was overthrown, Sudan’s security forces cracked down on the opposition. At the time of this writing, more than one hundred people were killed, reportedly by security forces and paramilitary groups.⁹ Sudan’s transitional military council referred to a “mistake” that led to the killing of protestors while they were sleeping. This was considered by Amnesty International and other human rights organizations to be an outrageous admission of a premeditated attack which has been brushed-off as a mere mistake (Amnesty International, June 2019).

Beyond the killing of armless opposition members, there were reports of women being raped, beaten, and traumatized by the security forces (Walsh, June 15, 2019). This was very similar to a pattern implemented in several Arab countries when people in power wanted to control the opposition. For one reason or another, the female presence in protests was eyed with extreme suspicion and fear. The world media is often attracted by the symbolic message that female activism brings to resistance movements. In the Arab world, females are often pictured as passive and submissive to their male counterparts. To see women, not only participating in demonstrations, but actually leading some of them is too threatening to forces in power. Dictators hate the legitimacy that the female voice brings to political opposition. Moreover, they realize that in Arab culture, more than many other world cultures, women’s societal role is deeply connected to familial and communal honor.

Perhaps, the brutal force that the Sudanese military used in containing the protests should not have been surprising. Although Omar el-Bashir was ousted by the military, many immediately understood that the instigators of this coup still represented the ruling military class. The New York Times perfectly explained the changing Sudanese scene noting that when “Sudan ousted a brutal dictator, his successor was his enforcer.”¹⁰ The new transitional leader Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan did not send the message that any substantive change was about to happen. The pattern of replacing one old dictator to bring in a new one was strikingly similar to scenarios used in other parts of the Arab world.

In sum, and as far as women were concerned, they represented an integral component of the protest movements. Unfortunately, perhaps not totally unexpected, any new military order that would assume power, would not make significant changes to the status quo. Women have been particularly targeted by the security forces in Sudan, as they always represent – in the autocratic mindset – the soft side of the opposition. In a conservative country such as Sudan, pushing women to exit the resistance scene, would clear the road to finish all opposition. Violence against women during protest movements is not haphazard or random. It is premeditated, calculated, and done for the purpose of shaming the opposition activists and their families. El-Bashir, the autocrat who had ruled for 30 years, was not ruling alone. He was the ultimate representative of a powerful deep state reflected in a strong military structure that infiltrated the Sudanese society. The autocrat is the face by which a powerful internal apparatus operates. He represents its symbol, its external link, and interface with the world. Disposing of him, without the internal structure that he represents, would only create a temporary instability for the deep state.

Sudan’s unfolding story has repeated itself in various forms in the Arab world. Autocracy has impacted Arab masses, whether male or female. Yet, to understand what has been happening in the particular case of women, one has to go back a few years earlier, and explore what happened in other major cities of the Arab Spring, Cairo (Egypt), Homs (Syria), Sana’a (Yemen), and of course Tunis (Tunisia).

1.2. MARCH 9, 2011 | CAIRO, EGYPT

It was a day that the 25-year-old Samira Ibrahim, a marketing manager in a private Egyptian firm, would never forget. Ibrahim was politically active since her youth, but – as she realized later on – her earlier activism paled in comparison to what she was about to experience. Like many Egyptians, and millions of people who followed the news from all over the world, Ibrahim was part of what was supposed to be a deep change in Egyptian society, not paralleled in recent memory. The January 25 thawra (revolution), which received worldwide attention, seemed to be heading into the right direction. President Hosni Mubarak had already resigned in the aftermath of the revolution caving in to the massive demonstrations. The protestors were pushing for fair and impartial elections and an end to the military rule that governed Egypt for six decades.

The protestors continued their sit-in in Tahrir Square even after the resignation of Mubarak.¹¹ Wary about the intentions of the supreme military council, they wanted further assurances of a smooth transition of power to civilian forces.¹² Ibrahim was one proud participant in the early protests before Mubarak’s resignation. She was imprisoned for a few days before going back to Tahrir Square. She thought that imprisonment was a small price to pay for freedom, not only hers, but for the Egyptian people as a whole. She was not aware that, in a few weeks, the price was going to be much higher, a price she was not prepared to pay.

The years before the Arab Spring were extremely tough on Egypt. Economic challenges were mounting, and the population had been steadily increasing to reach phenomenal levels, and the repressive political apparatus was making sure that opposition forces were contained (Transparency International, 2018).¹³ Rates of unemployment for females had been significantly higher than males, and youth unemployment had always been staggering.¹⁴ A growing sentiment of frustration with the president and the ruling class was not easy to keep under the lid for long. Mubarak, his two sons, and a group of oligarchs were gradually entrenching their economic reach. The military had its own economic institutions with vested interests to keep the status quo to the extent possible, with or without Mubarak. Income disparities were growing larger and larger, and the purchasing power of the average Egyptian was dwindling. For most Egyptians, there were diminished opportunities to end the cycle of poverty.

Looking for better work opportunities, many Egyptians chose to immigrate. Egyptian labor in various other Arab countries had reached astounding figures. Still, given the steady increase in population figures, the local and foreign labor markets had been unable to absorb millions of Egyptians who entered the labor market every year.

Corruption and authoritarianism only made things worse. Opportunities to challenge the status quo and produce a peaceful transition of power were limited. Mubarak, through a series of pseudo elections and referendums, held a firm grip on the country’s economy and political scene. He needed the continuous support of the military, and in doing that, he had to give them wide economic leverage. Military capitalism was dominant at its best, led by the armed forces along with Mubarak and a small network of close family members and allies.

When President Mubarak assumed power in 1981, he was looked upon as a hero by many sections of the Egyptian population. He was a long-time veteran of the admired Egyptian air force.¹⁵ The military represented an esteemed class within the Egyptian society that had always been revered. At that time, the military was:

the most respected institution in the country. It is seen both as the only legal rational institution, and as a family that takes care of its children. It is also seen, rightly or wrongly, as the least corrupted state institution, and as the only one that really cares about the national interest.¹⁶

After the assassination of his predecessor Anwar Sadat in October 1981, Mubarak was elected through a referendum. Mubarak’s term was renewed four times, and it did not seem like he was going to relinquish power. The disappointment in Mubarak was growing, and it was clear that young people had increased expectations from the Egyptian leadership. Being a member of an esteemed institution that led Egypt into losses and victories over the past 60 years was not enough to meet the needs of a young and vibrant population. In retrospect, it is now evident that Mubarak was not able to properly assess the changing dynamics of Egyptian society. Tens of millions of people, everybody under 30 years of age, could not remember a time when Mubarak was not in power. It was clear that in January 2011, Mubarak exhausted all the usual maneuvers to stay in power. He lost all legitimacy, and it was time to change.

During the first few weeks of the Egyptian uprising, the establishment acted as if the January revolution and the Tahrir Square sit-in represented temporary jolts that would gradually diminish. Apparently, they hoped that people would eventually get bored and frustrated, and then disappear and go home. Yet people stayed, and it became clear that they were not going anywhere. In fact, their numbers started to increase. More people started to join, and the profile of protestors started to change. Older people joined, in addition to artists, actors, and some politicians in the opposition. It was becoming clear that the young rev...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Chapter 1 Women of the Arab Spring: Violence against Women as a Means of Political Repression
• Chapter 2 Why the Arab Spring?
• Chapter 3 Women, Honor, and Sexual Violence
• Chapter 4 Feminism and the Arab Spring
• Chapter 5 “Arab Spring” or “Arab Autumn”?
• Appendix: Arab Spring Timeline
• References
• Index
• Notes