Valentine's Day in Sudan: Limited freedoms, for how long?

After years of pushing an Islamist agenda, Khartoum's regime appears to have relaxed its policing of social mores, to some extent, and perhaps not for long

Mejahed Mohamed, a 24-year-old Sudanese medical student, was exceptionally excited about Valentine's Day this year as it was the first time he had a significant other to celebrate with.
He bought an expensive bottle of perfume for Samira, his fiance, from a gift shop in the upscale area of Khartoum where he lives. The couple dined in Starbox, the Sudanese knock-off version of the international coffee shop chain. Then they drank tea in a make-shift cafe along the banks of the Nile. “Last night could not have been better,” Mohamed said the day after.
Unlike Saudi Arabia or Iran —where conservative Islamic rulers ban the celebration Valentine's Day —Sudan lets its citizens enjoy the international day of love without much interference. On 14 February, gift shops across Khartoum's affluent neighbourhoods brandished red hearts and flowers on their window fronts as restaurants and coffee-shops bustled with young couples well into midnight.
But it wasn't always like that for the Arab-African nation.
“In its first 10 years, this government was very strict in applying Sharia (law), to the extent that it raided weddings and private parties,” Magdi Al-Gizouli, a fellow at the Rift Valley Institute, said. “But they now realised that these actions are very costly, they generate harsh anti-government sentiment,” he added.
President Omar Al-Bashir has been the president of Sudan since coming to power in a 1989 Islamist-backed coup. In the following 10 years, the government oversaw strict application of Islamic codes as Hassan Al-Turabi —Sudan's leading Islamist theorist —effectively ruled the country. In 1999, Bashir consolidated his power and ousted Turabi from his role as parliament speaker.
Since then, the government gradually allowed more social freedoms, despite continuing to flaunt the same Islamic slogans, Gizouli said. Oil-driven economic growth at the turn of the millennium and the signing of the 2005 peace agreement that ended two decades of civil war in Sudan contributed to opening up the country.
“Five years ago, not many people knew what Valentine's Day was,” Jamal Zarif, owner of Glory gift shop in Khartoum's moneyed district of Riyadh. “Now we do our best business on that day.”
Never safe
The government's leniency in recent years “is not an ideological shift by any means,” Gizouli said. “They learned this by experience,”
Sudan still upholds a controversial 1991 criminal law that punishes acts that "breach public morality" with flogging or even the death penalty. Such acts includes men and women having premarital sex, homosexuality or simply women accompanying men to whom they are not married.
Nonetheless, Abbas and Sanaa, a couple celebrating Valentine's Day at a secluded table in a classy restaurant in Khartoum, did not seem worried about the risk of being flogged.
“No one has the right to stop us in the street when we are walking together; they would arrest half of Khartoum if they do so,” Abbas, a 22-year-old engineering student, said.
But Abbas's confidence could prove risky. In November, police arrested two Sudanese activists, Najlaa Ali and Amin Senada, for public indecency, according to Amnesty International. Senada was accused of placing his hands on Ali's shoulder, and the couple could have been flogged with up to 40 lashes. Charges against them were later dropped after their case caught international attention.
“Generally, marginalised women living in poorer areas are more likely to be subjected to this law,” a Sudanese political activist, asking not to be named, said. “But in many cases, application of the law is subject to the whims of individual officers; the system of enforcement of this law is very unclear, so you are never safe.”
The minister of information and the Sudanese police spokesperson did not answer phone calls seeking comment.
Ominous rumbling
As they tolerate the celebration of Western holidays, Sudan's rulers run the risk of being outflanked on their right by the more conservative Salafists. “The government needs to maintain its status as a protector of morals,” Gizouli said.
One way the government mitigates this risk is by inviting Salafist elements to participate in the ruling establishment. Another is by shoring up its conservative discourse. “They do more preaching now, but with less action,” Gizouli explained.
Hardliner Islamic scholars consider observing such celebrations as Valentine's as haram, or forbidden.
“Islam has only two celebrations, Eid Al-Fitr and Eid Al-Adha,” Daf'Allah Hasab Al-Rasool, an outspoken conservative member of the Sudanese parliament said. “All those other celebrations are for the infidels. I warn the youth because whoever imitates the infidels becomes one of them.”
Hasab Al-Rasool's admonishing is not at all alien to the public discourse in Sudan. Newspapers on Friday morning ran several op-eds explaining the dangers of observing Valentine's Day. The preacher at one major mosque in central Khartoum took special care during the Friday sermon to highlight that Sudanese society is morally disintegrating because of the “infiltration of Western culture.”
Yet the youth who showed up on Khartoum's streets to celebrate love turn a deaf ear to all the ominous rumbling.
“Why is our culture so bleak?” Abbas asked as he looked at a street poster carrying religious warnings of celebrating Christmas and New Year. “There is no right or wrong here; today is just a day that brings lovers together.”
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