Fatima Ahmed Ibrahim

Fatima Ahmed Ibrahim (1933^[1] – 12 August 2017), Arabic: فاطمة أحمد إبراهيم‎, Sudanese writer, women rights activist and Socialist leader.^[2]

Early life

Ibrahim was born in 1933^[3] in Khartoum. She came from an educated family; her grandfather was headmaster at the first Sudanese School for boys as well as Imam at his neighborhood's mosque. Fatima's father graduated from Gordon Memorial College and worked as a teacher. Fatima's mother was amongst the first generation of girls who attended the school. Fatima grew up during the time of colonial Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. Her father was expelled from teaching in a government school when he refused to teach lessons using English.^[4] After that her father moved to teach in a popular school.

Career

After she started at Omdurman Girls' Secondary School she began to support women's rights. She created a wall newspaper called Elra'edda, or in Arabic الرائدة or in English Pioneer girls. Her newspaper focused on women's rights and she also wrote in newspapers at that time again under a pen name.^[4] Fatima conducted the first women's strike in Sudan because her school administration decided to cancel science lessons and replaced them by 'family science' lessons. The strike was successful. Her activities went beyond school; in 1947 she founded the Intellectual Women's Association, and in 1952 she worked with other women and founded Aletahad Elnees'y Alsodanni or Arabic الاتحاد النسائي السوداني or Sudanese Women's Union, where she served on the executive committee; then a sphere of action of the Women's Union opened membership to all women in Sudan and the WU opened branches in different provinces in Sudan. The agenda of the Women's Union at that time, according to an amendment to its constitution in 1954, focused on the right to vote, women's suffrage, and the right of women to act as representatives in all legislative, political, and administrative corporations. At the WU she also worked to establish equality with men in wages and technical training, and helped to remove illiteracy among women. Because of the WU's objectives, there occurred clashes with the political right such as Jabihat El-methaiq elaslami or the Islamic Pledge Front. In 1955 Fatima became a chief editor of Sawat al-Maraa Magazine or Woman's Voice Magazine (published by the Women's Union), and this magazine later played an essential role in the overthrow of the Ibrahim Abboud regime.

In 1954 Fatima joined the Sudanese Communist Party (SCP), and for a short period Fatima became a member of the Central Committee of the SCP (the SCP was the first Sudanese Party which had an internal women's structure, since 1946). In 1956–57, Fatima became the president of the Women's Union. One of her objectives was for the independence of the union from their affiliation with and domination by the SCP, and she widened the participation of women with difference backgrounds. In 1965 Fatima was elected to parliament, becoming the first Sudanese women deputy.^[2] The constitutional crisis caused by the illegal exclusion of the democratically elected SCP members from the Sudanese parliament, which was spearheaded by Sadiq al Mahdi, caused much acrimony between the SCP and the Umma Party. In 1969, when Jaafar Muhammad al-Nemieri took power in a military coup supported by the SCP, the activities of the Women's Union broadened and women gained many rights in different fields. The honeymoon between the Sudanese Communist Party and Jaafar al-Nemieri ended after a huge dispute which led in July 1971 to a military coup supported by SCP led by Hashim Elatta, but the coup failed after a few days and Nimiri returned to power, which led to the execution of the SCP coup leaders, among them Alshafi Ahmed Elshikh a workers union leader and Fatima's husband. After that Fatima was placed under house arrest for several years, and arrested many times during the Nemieri regime.

In 1990 Fatima left Sudan after the Omar Hassan al-Bashir military coup, and joined the opposition in exile as the President of the banned Sudanese Women's Union. In 1991 Fatima was elected President of the Women's International Democratic Federation. She returned to Sudan in 2005 after a reconciliation between the government and opposition, and was appointed as a deputy in the parliament representing the SCP. Her brother is also a writer and involved in politics Salah Ahmed Ibrahim,^[4] she has one son from her husband Elshafi, named Mohammed Ahmed.

She retired from political leadership in 2011.^[2] She died in London on 12 August 2017, aged 84,^[5] and her funeral was held in Khartoum on 16 August.^[6]

Awards

• UN award for Outstanding Achievements in the Field of Human Rights.(1993)
• The Ibn Rushd Prize for Freedom of Thought for the year 2006 in Berlin.

Works

• Hassadanna Khill'al Ashroon A'mm'a, Arabic حصادنا خلال عشرين عاماً, or (Our Harvest During Twenty Years). Khartoum: Sudanese Women's Union Press, n.d.
• Tariqnu ila el-Tuharur (Our Road to Emancipation). (n.d.).
• el-Mara el-Arabiyya wal Taghyir el-Ijtimai, Arabic المرأة العربية والتغيير الاجتماعي or Arab Women and Social Change. 1986
• Holla Gadie'a alahoal al-shekhssia, Arabic حول قضايا الأحوال الشخصية or Personal Status Affairs.

• Gadie'a Alm'ar'a el-A'mela Al-sodania, Arabic قضايا المرأة العاملة السودانية, or The Affairs of Sudanese Workers Women's.
• An'a Awaan Eltageir Lakeen!,Arabic !آن آوان التغيير ولكن or It's Time for Change but!
• Atfallana we'l Re'aia El-sehi'a, Arabic أطفالنا والرعاية الصحية, or Our Children and Health Care.
• "Arrow at Rest". In Women in Exile, ed. Mahnaz Afkhami, 191–208: University Press of Virginia, 1994.
• "Sudan's Attack on Women's Rights Exploits Islam". Africa News 37, no. 5 (1992): 5.

References

Further reading

• Lichter, Ida (2009). Muslim women reformers : inspiring voices against oppression. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books. p. 321-324. ISBN 978-1591027164.