Reading playing with fire brought to mind the story of Alaa Salah, the 22-year-old, a Sudanese university student who against all the dangers of speaking up, not only took up the courage to participate in the protests against President Omar Al-Bashir but showed her face and led the protest in the best way she knew how to - singing and poetry recitation.
President Bashir’s regime was believed to have driven the Sudanese economy down, raising the costs of living and putting the lives of his subjects in hardship. The president was also accused of genocide and crimes against humanity and had a warrant of arrest from the Hague based International Criminal Court.
During the protest, women were at the forefront because the regime was believed to have changed their lives for the worst over the decades by restricting their movements, mode of dressing and livelihoods. Alaa Salaah, also named Kanaka because of her courage and leadership, represented generations of Sudanese women’s voices in the revolution both physically and symbolically through her dressing at the protest. She embodies history as her dressing, Hind Makki, a Sudanese educator, comments are similar to the ones women activists wore in the 1940s and ’50s in protests (Jaafari, 2019).
Moreover, analyzed from a feminist standpoint theory point of view, women or the marginalized are better placed to question and speak for themselves and about their oppression, because according to the theory, knowledge is socially constructed and the position that one holds in the society either enables a person to either hold perverse and partial understandings of their environments or have complete and less understandings (Harding, 1987). This explains why as members of the marginalized groups, women’s subordinated position enables them to better understand and question their oppression in comparison to men who are in higher positions, explaining Kandaka and the collective’s passionate involvement in platforms that give them a voice. Furthermore, in line with the theory, the internalization of the women’s experiences as girls, women, Dalits and poor people, shapes the women’s perspectives of life as playing with fire demonstrates.
Lastly, the marginalized are often ignored due to their subordinated positions. Fortunately, this position privileges them in relation to their environments both at work and in their communities. Thus, they are able to organize activism with ease, and the outcomes are evident in “Playing With Fire” and Kandaka’ story.
References.
Jaafari, S (2019, April). The World. Here's the story behind the iconic image of the Sudanese woman in white. Retrieved from: https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-04-10/heres-story-behind-iconic-image-youtube-woman-white
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXiSxI0Vj3E
No comments:
Post a Comment