Sudan... and Women's Rights

The Sudanese woman has sent forth her voice...
Sent it forth on high to every quarter of the inhabited world...

She has willed to search out her lost right, and to exercise her civil and political rights like the man in her country...

And the voice reached Lebanon; so the League of Women's Organizations delegated Mrs. Emily Wadih Nasrallah — director of publicity in the League and president of the Child Nursery Association in Zahle — as its representative to the festival held by the Sudanese Women's Union in Khartoum.

Mrs. Nasrallah spoke to us of the festival, which was attended by upwards of ten thousand souls... The countries of the Far East were represented in it, and certain European states, as were the women's organizations of the Arab countries... Mrs. Nasrallah said that the festival lasted ten days, during which speeches were made and lectures delivered... The Sudanese woman stood on the platform demanding her right... and more than once the reactionary factions rose against her to choke her voice — one of the ministers even mounted the platform and addressed the women, saying: If there were among you a woman like our lady Aisha, we would allow you to plunge into the arena of politics... Whereupon one of the bold Sudanese women, called al-Hajja Kashif, a university graduate and one of the leaders of the women's movement, sprang up and answered him: "By your Lord, you men, tell me: is there among you anyone resembling Omar ibn al-Khattab?.. And yet we see you exercising the very right of which we have been deprived."

Her voice was seconded by the delegates of India, Finland, and the other countries taking part in the festival,

and the delegates of the Arab countries spoke of woman's participation in the politics of her country, thereby encouraging public opinion to stand behind woman...

During the congress an exhibition of handwork and the arts of every kind was held; this exhibition too was organized by the women of the Sudanese Union, who showed by it the Sudanese woman's concern for skills and handwork demanding deftness and artistic precision.

Mrs. Nasrallah remarked the Sudanese woman's passion and fondness for culture, and her inclination to draw knowledge from whatever spring; she admired, too, the renaissance whose banner is borne by an elite of accomplished ladies, among them doctors and journalists, and at their head Fatima Ahmed Ibrahim, president of the Women's Union and proprietor of the Sudanese magazine "The Woman's Voice"...

Among the things that caught her attention was the order that governs every movement woman undertakes. Among what she said: keeping order is second nature to women and men alike... Even the taxi driver keeps to this order — not from dread of the policeman, but out of respect for the law...

Mrs. Nasrallah said also that Sudan has taken a wide stride on the course of progress within a short period, and it is to be expected that woman will succeed in her endeavors and realize her ambitions, so long as she is free of illusions and lives in the world of reality, to secure for her country what is sweeter... and sounder...