SUDAN INSIGHT ALERT: AFP - In post-Bashir Sudan, change comes in many guises

1/9/19: AFP - In post-Bashir Sudan, change comes in many guises

 AFP’s feature piece explores social changes in Sudan following the overthrow of Omar Al Bashir – addressing contrasting priorities between urban and rural Sudanese.

 Hairdresser Mazin Kamel told of new personal freedoms for young men to have “modern hairstyles that would have incurred punishment” under Al Bashir’s regime. AFP add that the sight of young women wearing jeans outside Khartoum University or smoking shisha is no longer uncommon.

 Meanwhile, outside of Khartoum, “the most tangible change that Sudan’s revolution against Bashir” brought for Samya Siddiq – a single mother of three – is the right to earn a living by selling tea.

 Women were banned from selling tea under public order laws, due to the assumption that they were involved in prostitution, as they were often internally displaced from Sudanese conflict zones.

 Siddiq says she did not follow Sudanese politics closely, and her ability to work again is the only change she knows.