The Legacy of Sudanese Fashion and Politics
By now the image is familiar. A lone woman, with arm outstretched, stands on top of a car in a crowd of protesters. She is dressed in an impeccable white cotton garment, called a tobe; her gold disk earring catches the fading evening light. The woman, identified as university student Alaa Salah, is one of thousands of Sudanese who have been demonstrating against the government since December 2018.
For those unacquainted with Sudan’s history, the aesthetics of the photo are what make it so striking. The soft folds of the tobe and the oversized earring stand in sharp contrast to the surrounding sea of smartphones. But for Sudanese audiences, the tobe is an instantly recognizable marker of national identity. Many have noted the garment’s links to kandakas, the Nubian queens of the Kush dynasty (established in the eighth century BCE). But Salah and her white tobe also reference a more recent history of women’s public engagement and activism: a moment in which Sudanese fashion and political protest operated hand in hand.
Meaning “bolt of cloth,” the tobe is a rectangular piece of fabric –several meters long, which Sudanese women wrap around their bodies and heads whenever they are in public. First introduced in the eighteenth century, the tobe did not gain widespread popularity until the twentieth. Young girls donned the tobe on their way to school and a nascent class of professional women: teachers, nurses, and midwives all adopted the white tobe as their uniform. This connection to women’s progress earned the tobe its status as Sudan’s “national costume.”
Then as now, the tobe’s ability to carry multiple messages has made it a vital instrument in women’s activism. The tobe’s loose folds satisfied past and present standards of modesty. This, in turn, allowed women and girls to attend school, work, and eventually enter the political arena. In 1953, in one of the country’s first nationalist demonstration, hundreds of women defied the social conventions of seclusion and marched from Omdurman to Khartoum shouting, “Long live Sudan!” All were wearing white tobes. For the next two decades, women activists from across the political spectrum concisely styled themselves in modest, unassuming clothing so that they might be radical and outspoken in their demands.
Salah uses her tobe to similar effect. In videos of her protest, Salah’s gestures and exhortations to the crowd cause the fabric covering her head to slip. Gracefully, without missing a beat, she positions her tobe back in place. She too, combines modesty and radical action as she upholds the standards of propriety while chanting “Revolution.”
In a socio-political climate dominated by men and patriarchal control, the large number of female protestors over the last four months signals the state’s failure to address or protect women’s interests. For the past thirty years. Sudanese women and an increasingly conservative government have been locked in a tug-of-war over women’s social rights. In 1991, two years after the coup that brought Omar al-Bashir to power, a morality clause in the federal penal code criminalized behaviors and clothing deemed “contrary to public morals” and made such acts punishable by flogging. Consequently, thousands of women and their bodies have become targets of police crackdowns, humiliation, and abuse.
Today, facing tear-gas, rubber bullets, gender-based harassment, and arrest, Sudanese women are consciously placing their bodies as risk. In so doing, they revoke the authority of the government to control their movements and claim membership in the reform process. The woman who snapped the iconic image of Salah shares this sense of belonging; as Lana Haroun told CNN, “This is my revolution.”
The twinned history of fashion and activism grounds women’s ownership of the unfolding political moment. In donning the national dress, Salah stakes a claim to the legitimacy and cultural authenticity of her protests. Her tobe assures audiences of the rightness of her actions. This is not a revolution from without, but from within. Again, there is historical precedent. At a national conference in 1969, activist and first female member of Sudan’s Parliament, Fatima Ahmed Ibrahim argued that women’s rights were in keeping with Sudanese traditions. As evidence of this, Ibrahim asked the audience to compare her tobe with the western business suit of then-President Gaafar Numeiri, who stood next to her. With this comparison, Ibrahim suggested that it was Numeiri who was out of touch with Sudanese values and systems. Numeiri well understood the bite of Ibrahim’s comments; three years later Fatima Ahmed Ibrahim was arrested and forced into exile.
Then as now, the tobe’s ability to carry multiple messages has made it a vital instrument in women’s activism.
In April, Alaa Salah posed a similar challenge to Omar al-Bashir. In her stark white tobe, she asks Which side are you on? The side of authoritarianism and isolation? Or the side of nation with a proud history of women’s political participation and activism? Though al-Bashir is gone from power, this challenge holds –perhaps even more so, for the new Transitional Military Council, which has suspended the constitution and declared a three-month state of emergency.
The revolution is far from over. Sit-ins outside army headquarters continue even as Ramadan, a month of daytime fasting for Muslims, begins. Protest leaders and the Transitional Military Council disagree over the timing and transition to a civilian-led government as well as the role Islam and Islamic law will play in the new government. In this moment of political crossroads, the image of Salah gains rather than loses significance. Women’s notable presence at these demonstrations and the esteem with which they’ve been received must serve as a guideline for any future government.
A lone woman, standing on top of a car. But woven into the threads of her garment is a rich history of women’s education, work, and activism. These spirits of these women, alongside their daughters and granddaughters, look to Salah and her tobe and say “my revolution” as well.
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