Kandake of the Sudanese Revolution (also known as Woman in White and Lady Liberty of the Sudanese Revolution) is a photograph of Alaa Salah, a 22-year-old student, standing on top of a car, dressed in white and gold, and leading a crowd of demonstrators in chant during the Sudanese anti-government protests on 8 April 2019. The photograph, taken by activist Lana Haroun using a smartphone, gained world-wide media attention and went viral in April 2019, and was described by several media organisations as iconic, representing women's participation in the revolution who were dubbed the Kandakas.
Background
Since December 2018, a series of protests against President Omar al-Bashir took place, demanding economic reforms and the resignation of the president. A state of emergency was declared in February 2019 as a result of the protests; yet, 6 and 7 April saw the largest protests. As protests continued, the army was observed protecting protesters from security forces on 10 April. Eventually the protests led to the military removing al-Bashir from power, installing a transitional council in his place led by Ahmed Awad Ibn Auf. The move was seen as a change of leadership of the same regime by the protesters who demanded a civilian transitional council.
On 6 April, the Sudanese Professionals Association called for a march to the military headquarters in Khartoum. Hundreds of thousands of people protested and converged at the headquarters, where the security forces and military appeared to be divided in their allegiances. Some security forces tried to attack the protesters, while the military took the protesters' side and fired at the security forces. The following Sunday, social media was blocked and the power was cut in Sudan as protesters began a sit-in at the military headquarters in Khartoum, which lasted for a week until the Khartoum massacre on 3 June.
The photograph
On the morning of 8 April, the army and secret services faced off at the headquarters, resulting in six deaths, 57 injuries, and 2,500 arrests in Khartoum over the weekend. The police were instructed not to intervene. “Every day I was there, capturing photos,” Haroun recalls. “It felt like history itself.”
On the same day, Lana Haroun took four images, using her smartphone (Huawei Mate 10, back camera, HDR technic), of an initially unknown woman dressed in a white thoub standing on top of a car, who spoke to and sang with other women around her during a sit-in near the army headquarters and the presidential palace. A line from Sudanese poet, Azhari Mohamed Ali's poem recited by the woman, “The bullet doesn’t kill. What kills is the silence of people”, has been a well-known slogan chanted by protesters during the 2018-2019 Sudanese protests and earlier in the 2011–2013 Sudanese protests. Haroun shared the image online.
Response and impact
Salah's white robe, a traditional Sudanese thoub, resembles the dress of female Sudanese protesters against previous dictatorships, as well as that of student protesters who were referred to as "Kandake" after ancient Nubian queens. Her golden earrings are traditional feminine wedding attire. The image has been seen as a symbol of the Sudanese people's pride in their culture and identity. According to Nesrine Malik from The Guardian, the image captured the energy and determination of the Sudanese people as they called for political change and social justice. Commentators referred to her pose as "the image of the revolution".
The image that came to be known as the Kandake of the Sudanese Revolution (also known as Woman in White and Lady Liberty of the Sudanese Revolution) was widely shared on social media and caught international media attention. According to Lana Haroun, there was a dearth of global attention on the events unfolding in Sudan, but after her picture gained traction, it seemed as if there was a sudden shift in the world's attention and people from all over the world started taking notice of the situation in Sudan.