I was a child in 1989; I can hardly remember the incidents of the Islamic Front’s military coup. All I remember is what a big fan of my elder sister I was. She was a very elegant university student who had loads of coloured peeps & sandals. I remember spending hours inside her big closet playing with her makeup, wearing her clothes and walking in her shoes. I also remember our neighbour, an editor in Al Sibian Magazine, passing by our house in the early mornings and saying that she could not come in and have a cup of tea because I would start crying and ask her to style my hair like hers. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, her hair always immaculately styled.
When I was in grade two
at primary school and about seven years old, our class teacher used to beat me
every morning with a piece of hose asking me, “Where is your khimar?” I
never knew why she was so angry, or what a “khimar” was. Once my mother
came to know, she transferred me to another school but this time she bought me
a white scarf which I had to put on every day.
Years
passed and I was in grade seven when my mother, for the first time, talked to
me about “decent attire”, which meant long skirts and covering my hair with a
scarf. She told me if I didn't dress decently she and my father would go to
hell for not having raised me well. I deplored her orders, because my mother
herself was neither wearing long skirts nor covering her hair. I refused to
cover my hair - although I had to wear the long skirts -there was no option in
the market other than long skirts.
In the midst of this
confusing time for me, my older sister had to leave the country to find a
decent job. Our beautiful neighbour had to wear a scarf beneath her Sudanese thobe
to sustain her new job in the Ministry of Education, after Al Sibian
Magazine, the Sabah Magazine and other periodicals were cut. There were
concerns about attending wedding parties, with men and women sharing a dance.
Lots of stories were spreading about police raiding private parties and
arresting people. All our neighbours started to wear hijab, saying it
was for their husbands’ job promotions, and they kept asking my mother to wear
it as well. My mother who considered herself a true believer of Islam rejected
this hypocrisy, saying that, since she didn’t wear the hijab after
pilgrimage, she would not wear it for my father's job promotion. I asked her
once why she wanted me to wear hijab while rejecting it herself. She
answered, "You are young will probably be harassed if you are not wearing
the hijab.”
There were two periods in
my life during which I wore hijab; the first time lasted for a whole
year while the second lasted five months.
The first time was when my application to
Khartoum University had been accepted. I decided to try the hijab for two
different reasons. One was that according to University rules, I had to sign a
pledge that I would wear it on the campus. Secondly, I was depending on public
transport and my brothers told me that girls without hijab are being
harassed a lot. I thought that, with a scarf covering my hair, I'd get
more freedom to move. Many girls I know wear hijab and some are veiled
for this reason. In addition to that, styling my frizzy hair every day would
otherwise consume a lot of time and money.
Surprisingly, my life
with hijab was not as smooth as I expected. One day I got an opportunity
to express my thoughts in a public discussion of the Congress of Independent
Students. Their speaker claimed that Islam was the reason behind all the
troubles of Sudan. I replied that it was not a matter of Islam, rather of the
Islamists who are ruining our life and spreading false concepts of Islam.
This three-minute
intervention of mine resulted in me receiving a long letter on how
inappropriate it was for a woman to raise her voice in public and talk about
Islam, particularly whilst she herself was being a bad example of a Muslim
woman, wearing indecent clothes and speaking loudly in front of men. I kept
receiving such assaults for years. I was even more shocked when, every other
day, the guards at the university prevented me from entering the university
campus - for not using pins in my scarf; having a split in my skirt; wearing a
T-Shirt or a tight shirt and one day, for wearing leggings under a maxi dress.
At that time, I realised
that the hijab has no standards. Whilst I thought myself to be “veiled”,
many other people thought I was dressing indecently. I concluded that my dress
style should be about me and what I like - not about others and what they think.
Most interestingly the harassment never stopped – instead, it even increased with
even more Islamists staring at me - those same people who offered me guidance
to wear hijab. They have never heard about lowering their gaze or the
sins of staring. I often used to tell them that Allah said, “You cannot guide
whoever you wish”.
During my college years
it was a widely held belief that girls without hijab will not find a man
to marry. Most of my class mates started to wear hijab and, from one day
to the next, they used to be stricter in their dress code - even in shaking
hands with boys for greetings. Many friends displayed more signs of
religiousness, like reading the Qur’an in public, holding a sibha - the
prayer beads, and not missing an occasion to recite a duaa loudly.
Unfortunately, they forgot the soul of Islam, which is being kind to people;
not to be talking about people behind their backs; focusing on your own behaviour
and avoiding judging others.
My second time to wear hijab was in 2009,
after doing everything I could think of to try to stop harassment committed by
my work mates and my boss in a public service office - that was full of Islamists
and NCP affiliates - had failed. I had submitted written complaints against
some work mates after personally rebuking them severely and even in front of
other employees. My complaints were never taken seriously and the people in
charge always used to find excuses for the harassers, even when one incident
ended with an injury as a harasser squeezed my fingers against a ring I was
wearing while shaking hands for greeting. I was told several times that a
trainee like me could never get a permanent job while wearing such clothes. At
a certain point, I realized that neither raising a complaint, nor shouting
loudly at harassers was going to change anything when my boss who received the
complaints was also staring at my legs under the table as I was wearing a mid
length skirt in a meeting. On another occasion, he asked me to cover my neck
because he cannot handle staring anymore.
On that
day I cried my eyes out. I stayed at home for two days. I made up my mind that,
if this humiliation continued, I'd have to quit my job and my career as well.
If I could not build my future because of my dress style and I could not
control my own body either, I would lose self-esteem, sacrificing it for my
career development. That was when I decided to quit my career and the hijab.
I am going back to my lovely mother who, during
all this hesitation, has always been there. She supported all my decisions to
wear hijab or to take it off. She encouraged me to defend myself against the harassers. At home, when I used to
cry from anger and subjugation she used to get sad and tell me, “I didn't raise
you to cry like a little girl. You should go there and fight for your rights
and teach those abusive Islamists a lesson”.
She panicked after Lubna Hussein was arrested for
wearing trousers and always thought something like this would be the revenge of
my work mates. She also used to tell me what the dress code was till the 1980s.
People used to wear all kinds of clothes which are now considered revealing and
indecent. At that time, no man would dare to harass a woman, regardless how
much of her body was visible and, for sure, they were Muslims - just not in way
of the harassers of women, regardless of how much of their body is covered.
We regularly used to attend the speeches
preceding the Friday prayers together and criticize when women were portrayed
as the evil of the nation. All our confusion ended up with both of us being
convinced that it was not wearing a hijab that would protect women but
the power of using their minds, having self-esteem and not allowing any person
to define what's wrong and right on their behalf.
