A Woman's Manifesto from Exile

Writings Toward Healing: Misogyny, Gaslighting, Militarisms Preamble A dust storm gathers in my head, the color of a May sunset over Khartoum. I am the Nile in August, not water, but force, swollen with memory, pushing against banks built to contain me, flooding mud houses that were never meant to last. I am a revolution, and the punishment for daring to exist as one. I am, relentlessly, the only woman in rooms thick with male egos, where power speaks loudly and listens poorly. I am invited to speak, “let’s hear a woman’s voice”, as a performance, while irritation tightens around my words before I even finish the sentence. I am told to get a room for asking the question that exposes the room. I carry the post-colonial state of Sudan in my blood, its fractures, its unfinished wars, its inherited grief, regardless of my politics, regardless of how I contest it. History claims me before I can speak. I am too old to marry, too young to matter. Too thin to mother, too large to be desired correctly. My body is always wrong, always under review, always up for public debate. I am a slut when my labor is visible. A thief when my competence is undeniable. I am told to calm down when my voice is steady, when my tone is professional, when my refusal to soften myself is mistaken for hysteria. I am labeled crazy, excessive, dangerous for refusing the narrow life designed to keep women manageable. I am gaslit daily, by love, by tradition, by elites who benefit from my silence and resent my clarity. Yet I survive. I am the mother saved by her infant, a small hand reminding me to breathe, to eat, to stay alive in a space that does not make this easy. I am the elder before my time, the archive, the warning, the proof that survival is possible, the shoulder younger women lean on when they begin to recognize the trap. I am not what they call me. I am not what they permit me to be. I am disappointment, resignation, uncertainty, yes, but I am also continuity, memory, and unresolved struggle. I am still here. And that, too, is political.

(1) Exile Exile is not merely a place. Exile is the uncertainty of where to call home, or perhaps having too many places that feels like home. A nomadic existence, enduring grief and the unsettling realization that stability is an illusion. Exile embodies homelessness in both its physical and metaphorical essence. Being estranged from what were once intimate relationships, wondering when this rift grew so deep. When you realize you slept with the enemy. You opened your heart to treachery. Exiled from the streets of resistance, endless love for relatives and strangers alike. Exile is dominant political narratives that lack logic and honesty, meant for deception and control. Exile is a table of men and their cheerleaders, pretending to know how to make things better for people like me. Exile is ex-friendships, strained by primitive privileges and self-betrayal. Exile turns family gatherings into virtual meetings. Funerals livestreamed, condolences exchanged through phone calls and texts. Normalizing death until one day, you can nolonger hold it together. Your body and soul decide to mourn For everyone. Exile is helplessness when a loved one is sick across a border. A passport becomes a barrier, incriminating you, instead of granting passage. The refugee who is not welcome, A perceived threat to someone's prosperity, An invitation to abuse. Exile is being alone in a hospital or on a deathbed. Laughter and joy overshadowed by longing for those who are far away, Or worse, those who are no longer with us. Exile is the question: does it really worth it? Has everyone lost their mind or perhaps I have? I am exiled from places I used to call home, From spaces were once safe, From relationships once cherished, and what once was a shared political thought, yet not from my truth. And that's, in its own way, a lifelong struggle.