Translated by: Yasmine Haj
Project Description: Excerpt from “The Struggle is Patriarchal”, a piece written by Najlaa Eltom which describes the levels of struggle women in general and in Sudan experience and how they navigate the often patriarchal political and social movements around and within them. The text was published in its English translation from Arabic on Specimen, an entirely multilingual web-magazine, which through translation gives voice to the multifaceted world. (2018)
You can read the original in Arabic here. You can read the English translation here.
Translated Text (excerpt):
Inside and around the city, I saw war spread over women’s faces. Areas of operation there, blood-thirsty fronts here, a normal vicious war there, and life’s ever-devouring inferno. In a region consumed by the passage of centuries, there wasn’t much for the war to ruin. And as men came back with damaged brains, women would continue facing the war life waged on a daily basis. There was economic downturn; off went the cotton projects and precarious stability they provided, having weakened the traditional infrastructure; off went unionised and civil activism; off went the men to war; and women were left to fight off destitution on their own.
النص الأصلي (مقتطف):
في طوافي في المدينة وما حولها رأيت الحرب في وجوها النساء. ها هي مناطق العمليات، ها هي الجبهة الأكول، حرب شرسة عادية، وأتون الحياة يأكل بنهم. في اقليم مستنزف منذ قرون لم يكن هناك الكثير لتقضي عليه الحرب. و بينما عاد الرجال مخربي العقول ظلت النساء في مواجهة حرب الحياة على نحو يومي. توقفت عجلة الاقتصاد، ذهبت مشاريع القطن والاستقرار الهش الذي صاحبها بعدما أفقرت البنية التقليدية، ذهب الحراك النقابي والمدني، ذهب الرجال إلى الحرب، وظل على النساء مكافحة الشظف بدون نصير.
Dalaala | دلالة 