The Crisis of Identity in Northern Sudan

Al-Baqir al-Afif Mukhtar
The Crisis of Identity in Northern Sudan:1 A Dilemma of a Black people with a White Culture
A paper presented at the CODSRIA African Humanities Institute Tenured by the Program of African Studies at the Northwestern University, Evanston
I ask to be no other man than that who I am. And will know who I am.2
Background of the Study In Sudan, Africas largest land, there is a civil war, the longest in Africa, and probably in the whole world. It has continued for thirty-six years, claimed 1.9 million lives, and displaced five million people. Since 1989, when the current government came to power, more people have been killed, by war and war related famine, than in the Bosnian, Rwandan and Somalia wars combined.3 Attempting to understand the roots of the war, Sudanese historians and political analysts generally adopted two main approaches. The first generation of these focused mainly on the colonial powers, and their calculated measures to separate the South from the North, by sowing the seeds of hatred in the South. However, after more than four decades of national rule, the problem is not only there, but has aggravated, and its latent religious tone has now taken a full-fledged form. This matter has motivated new generations of Sudanese to do some rethinking. Thus the second approach came into being and shifted the focus from the enemy without to the enemy within; it identifies the roots of
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the war as a conflict between the two main identities in the country, Northern and Southern. Now there is a wide consensus among Sudanese, Northern and Southern alike, that the country is in a state of a crisis of national identity. The war is basically viewed as a war of vision, and a conflict of identities, as Francis Deng, the prominent Southern Sudanese intellectual, eloquently puts it.4 The North, feeling that it is Arab and Muslim, has always sought to define the whole country in these terms. It did not only resist any attempts by the non-Arab segment of the country to identify Sudan with black Africa,5 but also tried relentlessly to assimilate the South through Arabization and Islamization policies, and to turn the Southern identity into a distorted image of the Northern self. The South, on the other hand, perceiving this scheme as a kind of cultural cloning, has always resisted it. However, this study goes a step further and investigates a deeper level of the roots of the war. It focuses on the conflict within the Northern identity, which underlies the conflict between Southern and Northern identities. It tries to reveal the connection between the cleavage caused by the ruling Northern elite in the country and the fissures of the Northern self, and whether the former is both manifestation and sign of the latter. Thus this study makes another shift of focus from the external duality characterizing the North/South divide to the internal duality characterizing the Northern self-divide. A Definition of Identity Identity is defined by The Websters Third New Dictionary of the English Language as the sameness of essential genetic character in different examples or instances. Or Sameness of all that constitutes the objective reality of a thing: self-sameness, oneness; sameness of that which is
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distinguishable only in some accidental fashion. The sense arising in shared experience, an instance of such sameness. Or unity and persistence of personality: unity or individual comprehensiveness of a life or character. Or the condition of being the same with something described, claimed or asserted, or of possessing a character claimed.6 If we want to establish a persons identity, we may need to know his or her name, color, ethnic and cultural background and the position one occupies in the community. Thus there are two faces to identity, one primordial and given, and the other constructed and chosen. Identity is both subjective and objective, personal and social, and hence its illusive nature. Individuals have a wide range of possible identities. They can have racial or ethnic identities, national or religious identities, or even hometown identities.7 The talk about personal identities is firmly connected to the realm of genetic discourse. Although biological characteristics are objective, personal identities mean much more than these; they also include a subjective sense of a continuous existence and a coherent memory.8 The subjective sense of identity is the sense of sameness and continuity as an individual,9 a sense of belonging to a deep-rooted set of values which forms ones mental and moral attitude, and gives individuals their unique characters. It enables the individual to live life more fully and intensely. At such moments, it can be said that an individual has become himself or herself, and is at home with his or her body, and in harmony with his or her environment and symbolic order. However, what underlie such a subjective sense are objective attributes, which can be recognized by others. Identity is also dynamic and responsive to changing conditions. It is bound to shift with changing technologies, cultures and political systems.10
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It is also strategic. People claim certain identity for strategic reasons, such as empowerment. Above and underlying these factors are the historical legacies of our ancestors which weigh heavily on who we are and who we can become.11 Identity is therefore a claim for membership based on all sorts of typologies such as race, ethnicity, gender, class, caste, religion, culture, etc.12 It is the way by which people define themselves and are defined by others on the basis of the above typologies.13 A Definition of Identification Identification is defined by the Dictionary of Social Sciences as a tendency to imitate and or the process of imitating the behavior of an object. It may also denotes the process of merging emotionally, or the state of having so merged, with the same object.14 S. Freud introduced the term into psychology in 1899. He stated that identification is the earliest expression of an emotional tie with another person". An individual identifies with another person as an ego ideal someone he or she would like to be, rather than someone he or she would like to have. This is why it is relevant to group behavior. He explained the need and capacity of the individual to affiliate, and the strength of the emotional ties involved, as essential attributes of human beings. He also mentions the infantile origin of the process of identification, and postulates that this particular infantile origin accounts for its operation at the subconscious level, for its strength as a motivational factor, and for its irrational and, sometimes, regressive manifestation. To him identification is not simple imitation, but rather assimilation on the basis of similar aetological pretension.15 N. Sanford takes issues with Freud and states that, on the contrary, identification is a conscious process, while imitation is unconscious. J.P. Seward defines identification as a general disposition to imitate the
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behavior of a model.16 Freud speaks of three levels of identification. His thesis is that, first it takes the form of emotional tie with an object. Then it becomes a substitute for a libidinal tie, as if it takes the form of introjection of the object into the ego. Finally it gives rise to new perception of a common quality shared with some other person,17 or group. Scheler differentiates between two types of identification, idiopathic and heteropathic. In the first type, identification comes about through the total eclipse and absorption of another self by ones own, whereas in the second type, the identified is overwhelmed and hypnotically bound by the model.18 Identity Formation The classical idea was that social identities are primordially given and inherited like the biological traits. This view started to give way to the idea that identities are constructed by choice,19 and are always subject to reconstruction.20 However, peoples choices of identities are limited or constrained by the given and primordial factors such as their features, families, communities, histories, cultures, etc. Identity formation, according to Erikson, is a process by which [T]he individual judges himself in the light of what he perceives to be the way in which others judge him in comparison to themselves and to a typology significant to them; while he judges their way of judging him in the light of how he perceives himself in comparison to them and to types that become relevant to him.21 Social Psychologists hold that an individuals identification with a group, for example, a social class, or a racial or ethnic group, is probably the most pervasive of all the psychological processes that are directly relevant to social behavior. Identification with a dominant group, for instance, takes
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place when one internalizes the role system of the group and considers oneself a member of it.22 This happens through the process of cultural assimilation. As David Laitin puts it: [C]ultural assimilation is like religious conversion, and as the literature of religion conversion makes clear, what one generation considers simple pragmatism the next considers natural. Thus the children who are brought up in a religious community will, egged up by religious authorities castigates their parents for what they see as their hypocrisy.23 This view corresponds to De Vos perception of constructed identities as deviant. To him, they demonstrate excessive instrumental expediency and a sign of inner maladjustment,24 which occurs in certain social conditions that have a huge impact on self-perception of own identity.25 Despite their constructed nature, identity categories have the power to subsume and even to colonize individuals.26 In the formation of social identities, there is always an in-group, which represents the desired social identity, and a peripheral group, which have to adjust in order to identify with the model. In such cases the former represents the core, and occupies the center stage of that social identity whereas the latter represents the outer circle and occupies the margin. The former is privileged, and the latter seeks to be so. The former has the power to legitimize or de-legitimize the latter. To describe a similar concept, Chalres Taylor uses the term "recognition / misrecognition". He postulates that peoples identity is: "partly shaped by the recognition or its absence, often by misrecognition of others".27 For instance, whereas the white middle to upper class represents the center of the American identity, the blacks, Japanese, etc., Americans represent the peripheries of that identity. The center monopolizes the power
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to recognize or misrecognize these groups. The tension between the center and the peripheries may lay dormant or works at a low key in normal and peaceful times. At such times the umbrella of identity seems to embrace all the social groups that share the nation. But in times of severe conflicts the center uses and often abuses the power of recognition. It can withdraw the umbrella from any of the peripheral social groups whenever it sees it necessary to do so. This actually had happened during World War 11, when the Japanese Americans were detained in concentration camps, for their loyalty to America was questioned by the center of the American identity. The selectivity of the center in using the power of recognition and misrecognition can be demonstrated by the fact that German Americans were not detained in the same scale, despite the fact that Germany was the major force of the European Axis. Thus the center decided to misrecognize the Japanese Americans during the war, and to restore recognition to them after the war. The same thing can be said about Britain, where the English identity represents the center of the British identity. It is noticed that the term English is frequently used by the media community in Britain when it means British, the matter which irritates nationalists in Scotland and Wales. It is also observed by the black British community that the mainstream British media some times refer to Afro-Caribbean athletes as "British" when they won medals for Britain, and as "Caribbean" when they lost. These examples illustrate the tensions between the center and the peripheries in each identity as well as the dynamics and processes of recognition and misrecognition that operate between the center and the peripheries. Change of Identity Relying on a model developed by Thomas Schelling, Laitin interprets identity shifts in terms of cascades and tips. Cascades occur when
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peoples behavior and actions are motivated by or based on their anticipation of what other people will do. When so many people in the community think that others will think on the same lines and behave accordingly, suddenly the community tips from its stable order before the cascade to a new stable order. To demonstrate how communities tip and cascade, Laitin gives the following example: Consider the case of one or two African Americans who buy homes in a stable white neighborhood. Suddenly the white families, fearing that they will be the last whites in the neighborhood, all seek to sell out at the same time. But only African Americans who are willing to buy. Very quickly the neighborhood tips from a stable white to a stable African American.28 Identity shifts in the same manner, i.e. it can also cascade.29 In his empirical study of the Russian community in Astonia, after the collapse of the USSR, and the shrinkage of its borders, David Laitin gives us a clear example of how identity shifts. He described the efforts Russian individuals, who found themselves foreigners in the communities they once dominated, were exerting in order to accommodate to the new realities. Russians in Astonia struggled to obtain the Astonian nationality. They started to learn the Estonian language, which they did not feel the need to learn before the collapse of the union, as the Estonian were compelled to speak Russian. Laitin concludes that the quest of these people to keep their families intact, and to avoid deportation, gave then an incentive for an identity shift. This in turn lays the foundation for the construction of an Estonian identity for their grandchildren, and that, as a community, they are moving towards an identity tip.30 Communities normally live in equilibrium. In such situations communities feel that the world is completely stable. Identities do not come
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under question, and there will be no incentive for change. All people share a tacit understanding of who they are. Cultural and political elite of such a group step in to give meaning to this equilibrium by providing it with beliefs, constraints, principles,31 myth, and a symbolic order. At this stage the community can be described as being itself, i.e. it lives in harmony with its environment, and sees the world through their own eyes. However, turbulent events can shake the equilibrium, bring instability to the community, result in an identity crisis, and motivate some people to explore new identities. At this stage cultural and political elite normally split between those who try to defend the status quo, and those who will seek to induce a cascade towards a new equilibrium.32 Three Dimensions of Identity None of the identity theories summarized above can alone explain the complexities of the Northern Sudanese identity, and a synthesis of them is therefore essential for that purpose. Thus on the basis of the foregoing one can identify three elements that interact to define any social identity. The first element is a groups perception of itself. The second is the others perception of the group. The third is recognition or lack of recognition of the group by the center of identity. If these three elements interact in a harmonious way, i.e. if peoples definition of themselves matches with other peoples definition of them, and that the center of that identity grants them recognition, then this particular community is said to be living in equilibrium. Here is where the cultural and political elite steps in to give meaning to this equilibrium by providing it with a set of beliefs, constraints, principle,33 myth, and symbolic order. The symbolic order seeks to harmonize the whole universe around the communitys identity, or in other words, to make the universe looks as though emanating from the
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communitys collective self, or as if it is an extension of their identity. At this stage the community can be described as being itself, and as seeing the world through their own eyes. An example of how the symbolic order works is the way by which western cultures have reconstructed the image of Jesus Christ to make him look like an Anglo Saxonian. This happened regardless of the fact that he was a Jew, and by no means that he had blonde hair and green eyes. But nevertheless, this reconstruction is essential for harmonizing the white people's identity, for people make better sense of the universe when they worship a God that looks like them, not one that is alien to them. On the other hand, if the three elements interact contradictorily, i.e. if peoples perception of themselves does not match with the way other people define them, or, more seriously, if the legitimizing powers did not recognize the communitys definition of itself, then this particular community is said to live in disharmony. In such a case, the symbolic order does not emanate from the community's collective self, but is usually borrowed from the center of the identity that the community is aspiring for, and wants to "be". These conditions set the scene for the paradoxes of identity to become visible, for instability to creep into the community, and for the crisis of identity to loom in the horizon.
Crisis of Identity A crisis of identity can occur at both the personal and the social levels. At the personal level, a crisis ensues when infantile identifications are brought to conform to urgent new self-definition and irreversible role choices.34 Also, personal identity is a lifetime quest, as Erikson postulates, and failure to attain it represents a crisis, which can have a damaging effect on individuals.35 At the social level, a crisis may ensue when people, while
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constructing their identities, fail to find a label that adequately fits them, or when they do not like the identity they have chosen or were compelled to go by. And because social identities are usually constructed from the available repertoire of social categories, misfits are inevitable.36 Also a crisis may occur when people are ambiguous about their identity, or lack a clear identity.37 A crisis may also ensue when there is a disparity between self-perception of ones identity and others perception of the same identity. Finally a crisis may exist if the center of identity, i.e. the legitimizing power, does not recognize the peripheral's claims. Elements of the Crisis in Northern Sudan Among the elements that constitute a crisis of identity in any community, one can identify three that are applicable to the Northern Sudanese. First, there is a disparity between Northerners self-perception of their identity and others perception of them. Northerners think of themselves as Arabs, whereas the Arabs think otherwise. Northerners experience in the Arab world, and especially in the Gulf, proved to them beyond any doubt that the Arabs do not really consider them as Arabs, but rather as abid, (sing. abd), slaves. Almost every Northerner in the Gulf has had the unpleasant experience of being called abd. The Arabs of the Middle East, and especially those of the Arab Peninsula, and the Fertile Crescent, represent the in-group of the Arab identity that Northerners aspire to. These real Arabs occupy the center stage of this identity, and enjoy the power of legitimizing or de-legitimizing the peripheries claims. The Northerners, on the other hand, represent the outer circle of the Arab identity, occupy the periphery and wait to be drawn closer to the center, as a sign of recognition. Mis-recognition of any group by others, especially if these others represent the center of identity, can inflict serious damage in that group.38 In Charles
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Taylor's own words, "a person or a group of people can suffer real damage, real distortion, if the people or society around them mirrors back to them a confining or demeaning or contemptible picture of themselves".39 Far from recognizing Northerners as Arabs, the center dubbed them abid, and thus kept them, to use Taylors term, in a reduced mode of being. 40 The second element of the crisis of identity in Northern Sudan is concerning ambiguity about identity. Northerners came face to face with this symptom especially in Europe and America where people are classified into ethnic and social categories. In 1990, a group of Northern Sudanese in Birmingham in Britain convened a meeting to discuss how to fill in the Local Councils Form, and especially the question about the social category. They felt that they did not fit in any of the categories that include, among others, White, Afro-Caribbean, Asian, Black African, and Others. It was clear to them to tick on Others, but what was not clear was whether to specify as Sudanese, Sudanese Arab, or just Arab. There was a heated discussion before they finally settled on Sudanese Arab. When the question why not to tick on the category of Black African was raised, the immediate response was that, but we are not blacks. When another question raised the point why not just say Sudanese, the answer was that: Sudanese include Northerners and Southerners, and, therefore, does not give an accurate description of us.41 Ambiguity about identity was also observed in the feeling of dismay Northerners usually experience when they discover, for the first time, that they are considered blacks in Europe and America. It is also observed in their attitude towards the black communities there. To be called black was a shocking experience to the average Northern individual. Southerners usually joke by saying to their Northern friends thank God here we are all blacks and its variant here we are all abid.
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Northerners attitude towards the black population in these countries is similar to their attitude towards the Southerners. They usually refer to them by the word abid, and one of my interviewees, once, referred to the Afro Caribbeans as Southerners janubiyyin.42 The third element of the crisis is concerning misfits of identity. Northerners live in a split world. While they believe that they are the descendants of an Arab father and an African mother, they seem to identify with the father, albeit invisible, and despise the mother who is so visible in their features. There is an internal fissure in the Northern self between the looks and the outlook, the body and the mind, the skin color and the culture, and, in one word, between the mother and the father. Arabic culture standardizes the white color, and despises the black color. Northerners, in using the signification system of the Arabic language, and the value system and symbolic order of the Arabic culture, do not find themselves, but they find the embodiment of the center. The Northern self is absent as a subject in this order. It is only seen, as an object, through the eyes of the center, and hence the misfits. The Impact of Marginal Identity on the Northern Psyche This inferior position has undoubtedly had its impact on the psychology of the Northern individual. Recognizing that the standard features of the in-group as white or light complexion, soft straight hair, and non-flat nose, the average Northern individual has a sense of lacking in some of these traits and attributes, and a desire to complement or compensate for them. The understanding was that the lighter the color of the skin, the closer the person is to the center, and the more authentic his or her claim to Arab ancestry. Failing to comply with the standard color, as is the case with most of the Northerners, the individual seeks a second resort in the hair, in order
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to prove his or her Arab descent; the softer the hair the closer the individual to the center.43 Failing to meet the hair criteria, the individual takes the last resort in the shape of the nose, the closer to the standard the better, for, at least, it can stand as a prove of non-Negroid origin. Colour Consciousness An individual lacking in the standard features normally seeks to compensate or complement them. And because marriage offers these individuals an opportunity to compensate and complement, the average Northerner aspires and seeks, as far as possible, to marry a partner who is closer to the standard features and color.44 Such a union gives the individual an immediate compensation for his or her darkness and offers an opportunity of recovery from it in his or her offspring. In her remarkable study of a Northern Sudanese village that she gave the pseudo name Hofriyat, Janice Boddy found out how the villagers are color conscious. She learned from them that the ranking of skin color according to desirability "ranges from 'yellow' or light through increasingly darker shades called 'red', 'green', and 'blue'". She then continues to say that the term aswad (black) is usually reserved for Southern Sudanese or Africans".45 Whereas Boddy's quotation proves the point of desirability of the lighter color among Northerners, her literal translation of the terms of the Northern color codes asfar, asmar, akhdar, and azrag, may cause some confusion, if not explained. And in order to explain it, one would rephrase Boddy's quotation as follows. The first color in ranking is asfar. This literally means "yellow", but used interchangeably with ahmar to denote "whiteness". The second in ranking is asmar. This literally means reddish, but it is used to describe a range of color shades from light to dark brown. This range usually includes subdivisions such as dahabi (golden), gamhi (the
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color of ripe wheat), and khamri (the color of red wine). The third in ranking is akhdar. This literally means green, but it is used as a polite alternative of the word "black" in describing the color of a dark Northerner.46 Last and least is azrag. This literally means "blue", but it is used interchangeably with aswad to mean "black", which is the color of the 'abid. The average Northerner views dark color as a problem that should be dealt with. Whereas females deal with it directly through local or imported color lighteners, males usually resort to indirect methods, i.e. a conjugal union with a light-colored partner.47 But whatever satisfaction this latter complementary and compensatory measure may offer the individual, still there remains a great deal of anxiety generated by the consciousness that one is moving around with the wrong color. In order to counter such an anxiety, defense mechanisms must be put to work; thus the color brown becomes the standard, and the color black takes a different name. In order to avoid describing the self as aswad (black), the collective Northern consciousness renamed the word as akhdar, which originally used to describe the dark color of the soil. Thus, accordingly, whereas a very dark Northerner is only akhdar, an equally dark Southerner is bluntly aswad. In discussing the Northerners color concept, Deng writes the following: Northern racial pride focuses on the right brown color of the skin, considered the standard for the North and therefore for the Sudan. To be too light for a Sudanese is to risk being considered a foreigner, a khawaja (European), a Middle Eastern Arab, or worse, a Halabi, a term used for the Gypsytype racial group, considered among the lowest of the lightskinned races. The other side of the coin is of course, looking down on the black race as inferior, a condition from which one has mercifully been redeemed. Northern Sudanese racism and
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cultural chauvinism, therefore, condemns both the very dark and the very light.48 While Dengs observation is generally true, his conclusion needs many qualifications. It is my contention that ahmar (white) is the ultimate standard color for the average Northerner. It is considered the standard color of the in-group, i.e. the center of the Arab identity. Whereas the brown color is standard only at a lower level, and as a way of defense mechanism that had to accommodate it as an inescapable reality. Unlike the white color, brown is good not on its own right, but only as a second best alternative. Although popular music frequently flatters the magical looks of the brown sweet heart asmar ya sahir al-manzar, the overriding signification system of the Arabic Islamic culture standardizes the white color, as we will demonstrate later. Had Northerners developed a comprehensive and consistent signification system that standardizes the brown color, they could have solved a great deal of their identity crisis. Although it is true that Northerners stigmatize the very light ahmar and the very dark, aswad or azrag, this stigma is not at the same level. The social stigma attached to the color aswad is because it is associated with the color of the abid (slaves). Whereas the social stigma attached to the color ahmar (white) is because it is associated with color of the halab (Gypsies). The halab, who are looked upon as people with lax morality and demeaning behavior, are considered as social outcasts.49 The cultural formulations that prejudice the color aswad are overwhelmingly abundant and deeply rooted in the Arabic culture and literature, unlike those that prejudice the color ahmar which are scant and only developed later on, during the Turkish occupation of the Sudan. These latter cultural formulations came about as a result of the atrocities inflicted by the Turks upon the population, for
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Northerners came to view the Turks as the embodiment of corruption, greed, and cowardice. The Mahdist revolution against the Turks and his decisive victory over them intensified and augmented their contemptible image in the eyes of Northerners. This was when the popular catch phrase al-humra alabaha al-Mahdi, came into usage. The phrase can be translated as the redness, (meaning whiteness) that the Mahdi had detested. Ahmar is therefore condemned, with these limitations and connotations in mind, not in absolute terms. Indeed ahmar is essentially viewed, by both the Arabic culture and by the Sudanese local culture, as the embodiment of beauty. In his Qamus al-Lahja al-'Amiyyah fil-Sudan, A Dictionary of Colloquial Arabic in Sudan, 'Awn ash-Sharif Qasim has this to say about the white color. They [the Arabs] call an individual with a white complexion ahmar. 'Aisha, wife of the Prophet, was called al-humaira, (a diminutive form of the word ahmar) because her skin was white. The Arabs also used to call the Persians and the Romans humr (plural of ahmar) because the color of their skins is white. And they mean the white color when they say al-husnu ahmar (beauty is white).50 Janice Boddy shows how the women of Hofriyat village are conscious of skin color. To them, "white skin is clean, beautiful, and a mark of potential holiness". They repeatedly told her that, as a white woman, she had far greater chances to get into heaven, if she converted to Islam, than them or any other Sudanese. Their reasoning was that "this is because the Prophet Mohammad was white, and all white-skinned peoples are in the favored position of belonging to his tribal group".51 Also, condemnation of ahmar (white) remains only at the level of discourse and is not reflected in the social behavior of the Northern
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Sudanese. For instance, Northerners showed readiness to intermarry with white people, be they Europeans or Arabs, but they demonstrated reluctance to intermarry with black people, be they Southerners or Africans in general.52 More precisely, whereas Northerners do not have problems in marrying off their daughters to the first category, they do not even contemplate marrying them off to second category.53 Marginality Consciousness Another sign of the impact of the marginal identity on the Northern psyche might be observed in the political behavior of Northern ruling class. One of the first decisions to be taken by the Northern ruling class after independence was to join the Arab League. Mohamed Ahmed Mahgoub tells us that "we had hasten to join the Arab League immediately on the declaration of our independence".54 Recognizing its place in the margin of the Arab world, this government kept a low profile within the Arab world, and did not take sides in the Arab internal disputes, neither with the radicals nor with the conservatives.55 Like any other marginalized categories, Sudan was almost forgotten by the Arab world in normal and stable times. History teaches us that only during turbulent times of wars and upheavals that severely shook or torn the social fabric of societies, that women and slaves, as marginalized categories, got recognized by the center. Equally, only when the Arabs were demoralized and humiliated by the stunning defeat that they suffered at the hands of Israel in 1967, that Sudan was remembered, drawn close to the center, and allowed to play a significant role within the Arab League. It's neutrality, or rather its bystander role, qualified it to host the 1967 Arab Summit. Mahgoub tells us that "Khartoum was the only politically acceptable conference site for both conservative and extremist Arab leaders".56 What he does not tell us, though, is that the margin had
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become a convenient place for the center to withdraw to, in order to lick the wounds. Carrying the Luggage Another sign of the impact of the marginal identity is what may be called carrying-the-luggage attitude. The marginal identity always looks forward to the center for cultural, religious, and political inspirations and intellectual pursuits. It has an inclination to borrow cultural products from the center, and is not expected to produce or lend. Sean OFahey tells us that the northern riverain Sudan always interacted with Egypt or looked across the Red Sea to Arabia.57 The cultural relationship between Northerners and the Arab world is more or less a one way road, in which cultural materials flow from beyond the northern borders, against the tide of the Nile, and from the east, across the Red See. It is remarkable that almost every political party in the Arab world has a branch in Northern Sudan. The Bath Arab Nationalist Party, in its both factions, the Syrian and the Iraqi, the Nasirite Party, Qaddafis Peoples Conferences, Saudis Wahabbi movement and Egyptians Muslim Brothers movement all have offshoots in the North. The 1924 political movement, and later the Unionist movements in the 1940s worked under the patronage of the Egyptians, and both aimed at the political unity with Egypt.58 To the center, the margin is a cultural and political vacuum, if not a dust bin, which is there to be filled. This is why the different entities within the center compete to fill it up. Conformity with the Center Another sign of the impact of the marginal identity on the psychology of the Northern individual is what I may call the conformist attitude. It is observed that the majority of Northerners that work in the different countries of the Arab world adopt the accent spoken in the country they find
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themselves in. Even when they return to Sudan, there is a high possibility that these accents, or at least, certain words and expressions may become part of the individuals language repertoire. It is also observed that the few Arabs who come to Sudan do not change their accents even if they lived among the Sudanese for years. Moreover, Northerners that mix with these Arabs in Sudan are more likely to amend their language and accent in order to conform to that of the Arabs who live among them.59
Agency to the Center
One of the most prevailing statements among Northern cultural enterpreneaurs is that Sudan is a bridge between the Arab world and Africa, usually referring to it as the dark continent, emparting to it Arabic culture and Islamic religion. Consequently, Sudan became the home of many organisations and institutions that propogate Arabic Islamic culture, such as Khartoum International Institution for Arabic language, The Institute for Teaching Arabic to non-Arabic Speakers, the African Islamic Institute, the Organisation for the Propogation of Islam, and its specialised offshoot, the African Islamic Agency for Relief, Dan Fodio Humanitarian Corporation for Trade, The African Council for Private Education, and the African Humanitarian Association for Childhood and Motherhood. The ultimate objective of these institutions is to work towards the spread of Islam and the Deepening of Islamic Culture in Africa. Sudan, the margin, is the agent through which the center, the Arab World, is to carry this objective out.60 Describing the role of an agent that Northerners play for the center, Ibrahim has said the following: This role which had been designed for us by the Arabic Islamic Propagation Appoach has caused us great hardship. As a result
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of our readiness to undertake this task, we looked down upon our fellow citizens as worthless and primitive people who have no culture or religion. We have accused their language of intelligibility (ujma), and their religion of paganism, and we set out, aided with the state machinery, to destroy their languages and cultures, and to substitute them with the correct language (Arabic) and the right religion (Islam). The consequent was a fundamental misunderstanding or clash between the Arabic Islamic group and the African group, a clash which has resulted in the civil war.61 The designated role of the agent for the Arabic Islamic culture has led Northerners to two main distortions with regard to the nation building in Sudan, according to Ibrahim. The first distortion is with regard to the drive to build an Islamic state in Sudan, for this call has never emanated from an internal need that yearns for social justice and an ethical state. Propagation of Islam through jihad and missionary methods has always been the main factor behind this call. The second distortion is with regard to the ruling class. The majority of this class has confused their official role as state men who are supposed to serve all citizens, and their role as agents of the Arabic Islamic culture. Their second role has mostly prevailed. In their pursuance to get military help to fight the rebel movement in the South, the ruling class has always relied on the Arab countries. Their main argument was that Arabisim and Islam in Sudan, and not Sudan itself, are threatened by the rebel movement. As Ibrahim has rightly observed, that who set out to mopolise people and obtain help was not the statesman but rather the agent. He continued to say:
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What we fear is that the future ruling class will come out of those who have been fed and brought up in the Institutions of the propagation of Arabic Islamic culture (with its lucrative work conditions - for they pay in dollars, and are exempt from taxes, and have regional and international connections), who deeply believe that the Arabic Islamic group in Sudan is there on behalf of the Arabs and the Muslims, and not on behalf of themselves. If this happens, we fear that the role of agency will completely take over the role of statesmanship.62 Invisibility Consciousness Because the margin is conscious of its invisibility to the center, there is a need to advertise itself. Thus another sign of the Northerners' marginal identity is their overemphasis on Arab descent. Northerners, and especially the elite, usually state and reiterate that they are Arabs. Statements such as "I am an Arab. I have a genealogy"63, or "I am an Arab, whether you like it or not"64, or "we are the Arabs of the Arabs",65 or "I am an Arab, nationally and culturally"66, are repeatedly issued by the political and cultural entrepreneurs. Unlike the elite of the Arab world, who do not need to state the obvious, Northerners feel the need to complement their lack in features by words. One sees this phenomenon as a continuation of the old Northerners quest to create family genealogies, for both phenomena reflect the disputable nature of Northerners claim to be Arabs. All these signs provide evidence that Northerners have all the symptoms of misrecognition that Charles Taylor discusses in his Politics of Recognition; namely internalization of inferiority, self-depreciation, and a crippling self-hatred.
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The Construction of Arabic Islamic Identity in the North The present Northern Sudan was the home of the Nubian civilization that flourished several thousand years before Christ, as well as the home of the great Nubian kingdoms. The pyramids in Nubia stand to this day, living monuments of the greatness of the Nubian race. In the 8th century, Nubia conquered the whole of Egypt and dominated the Nile Valley.67 Nubia was an active player in the international stage of the ancient world and came in contact with many civilizations. As Lloyds Binagi has explained, The Northern Sudan has a long and rich civilization that pre-dates Pharaonic Egypt and the rise of Islam. Nubia has had contact with every civilization that has appeared in Egypt: the Greeks the Romans, Arabs, Turks and British.68 Christianity found its way to Nubia in the sixth century, transforming it into a Christian kingdom that lasted for a thousand years. Soon after the rise of Islam in the seventh century, the Muslims conquered Egypt and knocked on the doors of Dongola the capital of Nubia. The Nubians resistance, although stopped the Islamic march, could not drive the Arabs out of the Nubian land.69 A stalemate between the two parties furnished the ground for a political settlement. A treaty between the Nubians and the Arabs was reached in 651-52 A.D. The terms of the treaty are interpreted differently by different contemporary writers. Whereas some of these writers consider it to be in the advantage of the Arabs,70 others see it as a victory for the Nubians.71 However, the undisputed fact is that the Nubian kingdom achieved what no other kingdom had achieved in the ancient world, i.e. to stop the hitherto unstoppable Muslims' march. Muslims divide world into dar al-Islam and dar al-Harb (territory of Islam and territory of war). With Nubia maintaining its territorial integrity, Muslims had to create a third
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category, which is neither dar al-harb nor dar al-Islam came into being. This is called dar al-'Ahd (territory of pact). Although the treaty secured the sovereignty of the Nubian kingdom for almost a thousand years, it opened the land for the Arabs to trade freely, and therefore set the process of Arabization and Islamzation in motion, the matter that ultimately led to the kingdoms demise. Although its roots can be traced in the coming of the Arabs to the Sudan, the Arabic Islamic identity in the North is a relatively recent creation. The 14th and the 15th centuries were considered as a period of change in the riverain Sudan. Social movements, especially of the Arabs and the Funj, along with economic and cultural developments coming from the surrounding countries,72 set the scene for more favorable conditions for the processes of Islamization, and identification with the Arabs. Travelers into the Funj kingdom in the first quarter of the 16th century described an ethnic composition of the country very similar to that of present day Sudan. References to tribes such as Shaiqiyya, Ja'aliyyin, and Rubatab as "Berabra", meaning Northern Nubians, were made by Gailliaud who visited the Funj kingdom in 1523.73 Gailliaud found that the population of the kingdom was classified ethnically into six categories, which are "so distinct that there is no one individual who does not know to which he belongs".74 Five of these classes were classified mainly by the color of their skins. The color of the Funj is azraq (blue=black). "Their color", he maintained, "is that of copper". The 'Abdallab are close in complexion and features to the Funj, apart from their curly hair, and their color is akhdar (green, meaning dark brown to black). The Barabra, i.e. the Ja'liyyin, the Rubatab, the Shayqiyya, and the Danagla, are described as Khatif lunayn (of two colors mixed). "The individuals of this class", said Gailliaud,"are half
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yellow [asfar] and half green [akhdar]. .. the blood strain which predominates in them is that of the Ethiopians".75 The Arabs' color was described as asfar (yellow meaning white). He said of them the following: These are the least colored, and belong to the tribes of nomadic Arabs. They have straight hair. This race crosses only rarely with the others It is easy to recognize, not only from the traits of their visage, but from the purity with which they still speak the Arabic language. Strikingly enough, he also spoke of the abid who had been brought into Sinnar from the South and the west (the Nuba mountains).76 This is more or less the same ethnic and color classification at present. Probably, the only difference is that in the 16th century the Ja'aliyyin, the Rubatab and the shaygiyya still spoke their Nubian languages. They continued to speak it until the early 19th century.77 These conditions sowed the ingredients of the Northern identity in the soil of the North. These ingredients are Arabic language, claims of Arab ancestry, Islam, and the legacy of slavery. The inhabitants of this part of Sudan exhibited a special liking for the Arabs. It looks that they took every opportunity, whether a remote link, imaginative, or even fabricated, to identify with the Arabs, and to adopt their language. The Funj give us a clear example of identity shift that may shed light on the phenomenon of identification with the Arabs. At the beginning of their Kingdom, the Funj were pagans in religion and spoke their own language, which was the kingdom's official language until the 18th century. They also administered justice in their courts according to their own tradition.78 Their first king, 'Amara Dungas converted to nominal Islam in the early years of his rule for political expedience.79 Three centuries later, i.e. during the 18th century the administration of justice was founded on Islamic law, and official documents
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were written in Arabic language, which also became the lingua franca of the kingdom.80 Not only that, the Funj king, Badi III, announced officially in a circular to his subjects that he and his folk "descended from Arab, and indeed from Ummayads". He made that announcement in response to a whisper campaign, which accompanied a revolt in the northern provinces, and which branded them "pagans from the White Nile". The circular, which was sent to Dongola, concluded that "and so you have seen the facts the tongues are silent, and the slave 'Aziz may see the virtue of the use of discretion in regard to injurious speech".81 And part of this injurious speech is obviously that he was "accused" of not having Arab ancestry. As the class of Muslim merchants strengthened, and the religious sufi communities spread, and the power of the ulama, individuals learned in Islamic law, increased, the kings sought to retain their eroding judicial power by studying Islamic law and become ulama on their own right. Therefore, the Funj ruling class, according to Spaulding "joined the Orthodox merchant families in promulgating claims to Arab origin" and they "discovered a fact hitherto unknown- they were Ummayyads".82 Thus the identity shift, which started in the 16th century for political convenience, was completed in the 18th century. And as David Laitin says, "what one generation considers simple pragmatism the next considers natural".83 If the Funj kings were able to become Arabs by a royal decree, the tribes of the riverain North secured the desired ancestry for themselves by other means. They were able to write their own genealogies which "have been known to be traced with many jumps or lacunae back to Arabia, and in cases where the Sudanese lineage is politically or religiously prominent, back to the Prophet Mohammed, his tribe, the Quraysh, his relatives, or his close associates.84
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It was clear that for the Nubians as well as for the Funj, the world was no longer stable. Old identities came under questions, and people could no longer be themselves. The incentives for an identity shift we1re abundant, and the conditions for a tip and cascade were complete. The result was that Schelers two types of identification seem to have taken place, idiopathic and heteropathic. Idiopathic identification can be observed in the areas where the indigenous languages were lost, and Arabic was adopted instead. Heteropathic identification, on the other hand, can be observed in the areas where indigenous languages survived. Three Salient Features of Arabic Islamic Culture In the pervious section I tried to answer the "why" part of the question, i.e. why Northerners identified with the Arabs, or, in other words what motivated the shift of identity they experienced. In this section I try to look into the "how" part of the question, i.e. what made it possible for the Northerners, and indeed for a whole lot of people across the Islamic world, to bid for Arab descent. To my mind there are three salient features of Arabic Islamic culture that made it fairly easy for individuals and groups to lay claims to Arab ancestry without being seriously and vocally challenged by the center of the Arab identity. The first feature is the patriarchal order of the Arab tribes. In this order children are linked to their father, while the mother count little in the lineage, for she is the field (harth) or the bowl (ma'un) of the husband. The concept of the wife as the field of her husband, entails that whereas she bears his seeds, the harvest is his, and not hers.85 This is how any intervention of Arabic blood, in the Nubian family line, whether real, imagined, or contrived, immediately put an end to all the lineage before the moment of
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intervention. Thus, according to the popular belief in the North, the Arab personality from whom the three main Ja'aliyyin groups in the North, i.e. the Shaigiyya, Rubatab, and the Ja'aliyyin proper, have descended is Ibahim Ja'al. Through this eponymous ancestor, the lineage of these three Nubian groups have been diverted to Arabia (Qurraish) and linked to al-Abbas uncle of the Prophet Muhammad. However, this claim, according to a prominent historian who belongs to the same group, is "difficult to substantiate".86 Another feature of the Arabian patriarchal society is that strong tribes have a set of satellite groups, such as clients, slaves and other forms of affiliation, revolving around it. The hierarchical system of the tribe accommodates all these groups in well-stratified social categories, and enables them to claim affiliation to the tribe, although they know their place. An individual belonging to these lower strata can be elevated to a higher position on merit, or/and recognition of parentage, as the case of 'Antra shows. This characteristic made it easier for the Arabs to accommodate the Northerns' affiliation, and to place them in a lower stratum of their hierarchical system. The second feature is the concept of purity in Islam. Purity is central to the Islamic faith, and although it can be acquired by all Muslims through a definite purification process,87 it is also God given to the Prophet and his family. The Qur'an says: "God has willed to remove all abomination from you, ye ahl al-Bayt, (house of the Prophet) and to purify you through and through".88 Thus accordingly, the closer the person to the Prophet's clan the better, and the best of all is to descend directly from the Prophet's daughter Fatima. But nonetheless a drop of Arab blood is enough to purify you and your descendants. One observes that western white culture has exactly the
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opposite concept, where one drop of black blood contaminates you and makes you black even if your skin color is predominantly white. The third feature is the relationship between Islam and Arabic language. The fact that Islam was revealed to an Arab Prophet, and that it was spread by the Arabs, and that Arabic is the language of the Qur'an, all these factors have made the Arab race, the most prestigious race in the eyes of Northerners and Arabic not only a prestigious language, but also divine. Although absence of Arabic did not prevent non-Arabic speakers in the Muslim world, such as in Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, and even in Sudan, from laying claims of Arab descent, speaking Arabic as the mother tongue has sealed the myth of Arab descent among certain Northerners with a proof of lisanun Arabiyyun Mubin, a clear and pure Arab tongue.89 A Continuous process Nevertheless, the construction of an Arabic Islamic identity in the North is a continuous process. The Turks augmented the process of Arabization and introduced Orthodox scholarly Islam, and a long with the Arabs, Europeans and Northerners, they led slave hunt expeditions into the land of non-Arabised group, namely in the South and the Nuba Mountains. The Mahdist State that replaced the defunct Turkish in 1885 further augmented the process of Arabization and Islamization. The Mahdist State was not different from the Turks with regard to slave raids. When the British colonized the Sudan in 1898, they ranked the Arabized groups over the black African groups. Anthropologist C. G. Seligman, who was sponsored by the colonial government in Khartoum to study the groups inhabiting Sudan, for the purpose of helping the administration to rule effectively, described the Southern tribes as savages.90 The British showed a great deference to the Arabized groups of the North, and maintained, respected and enhanced their
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Arabic-Islamic identity.91 Education policies focused mainly on the Arabicspeaking, Muslim communities of the central riverain North.92 Within these communities the beneficiaries of this education were sons of prominent families; the Mahdi and Khalifa families, the Madhist amirs (commanders), and "fine Arab" notable families.93 In the early twentieth century, nationalism started to nurture among the young-modern-educatedgenerations of these families.94 "They explored "Sudanese"-ness in Arabic poems, essays, and other literary forms, and glorified the Arabic language, an Arab ethnic heritage, and Islam as the core values of this nationalism".95 However, been conscious of the long history of the term Sudani and the negative connotations attached to it, they assigned to it a double meaning. At one level Sudani remained as it had always been, i.e. synonymous to 'abd. At another level the term was seized upon "as a field for nationalist definition".96 They treated it as an evacuated frame, and tried to fill it with their own image. Thus the term Sudani, at this level, became a "label of national identity that placed great value on Islamic and Arabic culture".97 Thus from the viewpoint of other ethnicities, becoming a Sudani at this level is synonymous to becoming a Northerner. It means an
"imitation of a more 'Arab' way of life", and a conversion to a "lifestyle which has historically emerged along the Nile".98 This definition has later proved to be so narrow, shortsighted as well as highly problematic. It is exclusionist, at one end, and assimilationist at the other end. Those who misfit the new definition of Sudani, are either to be cut off from the body politics, physically (cessation) or politically (marginalization), or to be changed in order to fit (i.e. to be turned Northerners). As Heather Sharkey has rightly observed "by failing to recognize cultural contributions the territory's non-Muslim and non-Arabic-speaking populations, their
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nationalist pogrom alienated, rather than attracted, many groups, specially in the South. The civil war, ranging intermittently since 1955, is the bitter fruit of this nationalism".99 An even more bitter fruit of this narrow definition of identity is the National Islamic Front (NIF) which usurped power in 1989, and set out to remove the misfits by the use of brute force. Arabic Culture & the Black Color In his al-shu'ara' al-sud wa khsa'isuhum fi 'lshi'r al-'arabi (the Black Poets and their Distinctive Characteristics in 'Arabic Poetry), 'Abduh Badawi tells us the following: The Arabs hate the black color, and like the white color. They describe anything pleasant (whether material or psychological) as white. Having a white skin is a matter of pride for a man, and a trait of beauty to the woman. Whiteness to them is a sign of honor. A man is praised by being described as the son of a white woman. Indeed they pride themselves of having white women as concubines. They call the black poets aghribat alArab, the ravens of the Arabs, in simile to that detested black bird whose blackness is traditionally considered bad omen".100 Detestation of the black color stems from the historical experience of the Arabs with African people. The stereotypical image of the black African in the Arabic culture is that he is malodorous, deficient in body and mind, and depraved of passions. The Arabic proverb "the Negro, if he is hungry, steals, and if his stomach is full he commits adultery",101 sums it all up. The name 'son of a black woman' was the ultimate insult that black people were assaulted with. Before Islam Before Islam, the children of an Arab father and an African mother were not accepted as full members of the tribe even when the tribe depended on them in its wars, as the story of 'Antra reveals. Badawi shows how the
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black color represented a great barrier in front of these poets. somebody ghurab (a raven) was an insult. Badawi says:
Calling
[T]here was a sharp sensitivity over color among the black poets before Islam. This was because they were a depressed and downtrodden group and because they were excluded, sometimes roughly, sometimes gently, from entering the social fabric of the tribe. Thus they lived on the edge of society as a poor and depressed group. They were only acknowledged under conditions of extreme pressure, as we know from the life of 'Antra. Although this poet was the defender of his tribe, and its supreme poetical voice, his own tribe's attitude towards him continued to pain him and to weigh on his mind. The name 'son of a black woman' stuck to him even when returning from victory in battle.102 During the Prophet's life Although Islam preached the unity and equality of human kind despite differences in tongues and colors and that "the most noble of you in the eyes of God is the most pious", the Arabs' attitude towards the blacks never changed. The Prophet has taught that: "no Arab shall enjoy superiority over the non-Arab, nor shall the white ever excel the black, nor the red the yellow, except in piety". Yet this did not prevent Abu Dhar al-Ghiffari, one of the prominent Companions of the Prophet to call his black brother Bilal ibn Rabah, another prominent Companion and mu'ezzin, caller for prayer, of the Prophet, "son of a black woman". The Prophet, when heard about this, reprimanded Abu Dhar so severely that the latter felt that a mere apology to Bilal would not do. So Abu Dhar lied on the ground, put his cheek on dust and asked Bilal to step on it, as a sign of humiliation, and humbleness.103 The Middle Ages If this was the situation during the life of the Prophet, who preached the equality of the believers, it is all natural that the Arabs' attitude towards
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the blacks would worsen after his death. Bernard Lewis mentions this in the following passage: While the exponents of religion preached a doctrine of equality, albeit in somewhat ambiguous terms, the facts of life determined otherwise. Prevailing attitudes were shaped not by preachers and relaters of tradition but by the conquerors and slave owners who formed the ruling group in Islamic society. The resulting contempt- towards non-Arabs in general and the dark skinned in particular- is expressed in a thousand ways in the documents, literature and art that have come down to us from the Islamic Middle Ages This literature, and especially popular literature, depicts [the black man] in the form of hostile stereotypes- as a demon in fairy tales, as a savage in the stories of travel and adventure, or commonly as a lazy stupid, evilsmelling and lecherous slave. The evidence of literature was confirmed by art. In Arab, Persian and Turkish paintings, blacks frequently appear, sometimes as mythological figures of evil, sometimes as primitive or performing some menial tasks, or as eunuchs in the palace or in the household.104 Ibn Khaldun sees the blacks as "characterized by levity and excitability and great emotionalism" and that "they are everywhere described as stupid". He offers an explanation for this stupidity and love of joy by attributing it to the "expansion and diffusion of the animal spirit".105 The Old Testament myth that the black people are the descendants of Ham, and that blackness of skin came about as a result of Noah's curse on his son Ham, was adopted and propounded by some Arab writers such as Ibn Jarir.106 However, Ibn Khaldun did not accept this prevailing wisdom of his time, and tried to provide an alternative "scientific" explanation for the blackness of the Africans based on the heat.107 In his description of the inhabitants of the Equator, al-Dimashqi had to say the following: The Equator is inhabited by communities of blacks who may be numbered among the savage beasts. Their complexion and hair
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are burnt and they are physically and morally abnormal. Their brains almost boil from the sun's heat.108 Ibn al-Faqih al-Hamadhani follows the same line of reasoning. He founded his opinion on an ancient Greek geographical theory that divides the earth into seven latitudinal zones where zone 1 and zone 7 represent extreme heat and extreme cold respectively. He postulates that these two extremes
produce savages whereas the middle zone, where the climate is moderate, people are well civilized. To him, the people of Iraq have "sound minds, commendable passions, balanced nature, and high proficiency in very art, together with well proportioned limbs, and a pale brown color, which the most apt and proper color". But the zanj who inhabitant zone 1 are
"overdone until they are burned so that the child comes out between black, murky, malodorous, stinking, and crinkly-haired, with uneven limbs, deficient minds, and depraved passions".109 John Hunwick observes that while al-Hamadani's prejudice against the Slavs is only limited to their "leprous" color, his prejudices regarding the zanj go beyond color to depict their "deformed bodies", "feeble minds", and "stinking smell". Ibn Khaldun believed that the Africans are closer to animals than to humans, and that they are cannibals as well. "Their qualities of character", says Ibn Khaldun, "are close to those of dump animals. .. they dwell in caves, eat herbs, live in savage isolation, and do not congregate and eat each other".110 Response of the Blacks With such manifest prejudices, two kinds of reactions are predictable, resistance and internalizing contempt. While some blacks rose up to counter these prejudices, others accepted their ill fate, and saw themselves mirrored through the Arabs' eyes. However, resistance itself took two approaches; one challenged the stereotypical image and declared that black is beautiful, and
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the other accepted the prevailing prejudice that it is ugly, apologized for it, and celebrated the human moral qualities. 'Abduh Badawi tells us that: The poets saw themselves and their people as downtrodden, and although this sense of being downtrodden varies from century to century, and from poet to poet, yet the black man could not refrain from being a voice of protest against the life around him and the tragedy of his own situation. Later we see [black poets] exploding in the face of those who allude to their color as may be seen in the poetry of the 'three angry poets' alHayqutan, Sunayh, & 'Akim [of the early 8th century]. For them it was not enough just to defend themselves. We see them taking pride in their blackness and in the history of black people and the lands they came from and attacking the Arabs on points in which they prided themselves.111 Internalizing Contempt An example of internalizing contempt is Nasib al-Akbar, another poet of Nubian origins. His attitude was similar to that of Uncle Tom in western culture. He chose not to confront the society and to conform to its prejudices. When his own son proposed to a lady from the family of his former owners, who were willing to accept him, Nasib came and ordered some of his black slaves to drag his son from his legs and to beat him hard. The slaves beat up his son. Then Nasib saw a young man of nobility and said to the lady's uncle "marry your brother's daughter to this man, and I will pay the dowry".112 Thus he did not find his own son fit to marry a woman of nobility, and beat him in order to know his place. Another story reported that the Ummayyads Caliph, 'Abdel Malik ibn Murwan asked Nasib to join his drinking group, but the poet apologized that he was too low to deserve such an honor. He said to the caliph: Oh Amir al-Mu'minin (commander of the faithful) my skin is black, my frame is deformed, and my face is ugly and I am not fit to be in this position (of being the Caliph's drinking partner).113
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Another story reported that he resorted to invisibility. He wanted to conceal his blackness from his audience, when he was asked to read his poetry to some women, in order not to injure their feelings. He said: "Let me perform behind a veil. Why should they see me? My skin is black and my hair is white. Let them listen to me behind a veil".114 'Antra, the heroic poet, gives us another example of internalizing contempt. He seemed to resent his Ethiopian mother, Zabiba, as the one who was responsible for his blackness. He viewed her as ugliness in incarnation. He called her to a she hyena, and he resembles her legs to those of an ostrich, and her hair to black pepper.115 Resistance (1) An example of resistance based on the first approach is the work of the great classical writer al-Jahiz who lived in Bagdad in the 3rd century of Islam (9th century A.D.), and who was black himself. He tried to remind the 'Arabs that the black people are the creation of God, and that it cannot be true that God intended to distort His own creation, as the Arabs might have believed. He said: God did not deform us by creating us black. Our black color came as a result of the country (environment). The evidence is that even among the Arab tribes there are blacks, such as Bani Salim Ibn Mansour who live in al-Harrah. All the inhabitance of al-Harrah are black, even its bears, ostriches, foxes, wolves, donkeys horses, goats, and birds are black, and even its air is black.116 Al-Jahiz also wrote Fakhr al-Sudan ala al-Bidan, (the boast of the superiority of the black people over the white people). Al-Jahiz exalts the black complexion comparing it to the sacred black stone of the Kaba, as well as to elements of the natural world that are dark-hued, beautiful and strong, dates, ebony, lions, female camels, musk, night and shade.117 Three
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centuries later al-Jawzi, another Bagdadian writer who lived in the end of the 6th century of Islam (13th century A.D.) would rise to defend the blacks. AlJawzi wrote Tanwir al-Ghabash fi fadl al-Sudan wa al-Habash, The Illumination of the darkness on the Merits of the Blacks and Ethiopians). In this works he also exalts the black color, praised the nobility and morality of the kings and queens of Sudan and Ethiopia, as well as the black Companions of the Prophet.118 Resistance (2) The resistance based on the second approach usually accepted the negativity of blackness but asserted moral and intellectual qualities. The line of argument this approach preferred is "yes black but virtuous". The poet Sahim 'Abd Bani al-Hassas, who was a Nubian, says: " if I have been a slave my soul is free, and if my skin is black my virtues are white". He also says, "had I been rosy white, they (women) would have adored me, but my God has cursed me with a black skin".119 Khifaf Ibn Nadba, another black poet, followed the same pattern. He accepted that his blackness is a negative mark, but he prided himself as a great warrior who settled his account with his detractors in the battlefield: "I said to him while my spear dripping his blood, this is me right here over your body". And "I marred his body with his blood until he turned real black".120 'Antra followed the approach as well. He said; "during peacetime they call me son of Zabiba, and when it is war, they say to me 'come on attack them son of nobility". And, "I am the black slave who throws himself in the battle field when its dust rises high in the sky. My sword and spear are my noble origin, and they are my best friends when fear strikes people".121 However, the few works of resistance had no effect more than making a point. Prejudicing the black color intensified in Arabic Islamic culture as
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the empire grew and the Arabs set out to hunt slaves. Eventually an association between slavery and al-Sudan, i.e. the blacks, became instilled. As Akbar Muhammad writes, with the expansion of the empire: almost the egalitarianism of the Prophets age crumbled under the heavy weight of urbanism, acculturation, internal ethnic factionalism, and Arab ethnocentrism.122 Such ethnocentrism and racism is abundantly reflected in the classical Arabic literature. The Arabs usually did not address black people by their names, but by the word al-Aswad (the black) or al-'abd al-Aswad (the black slave). When a black poet read his poetry in front of an Amir or a Caliph, the usual response was "ahsant ya aswad", (hey black man you have excelled).123 The Arab poets usually felt bitter whenever a black poet produced excellent poetry. Their usual reaction when they heard an excellent poetry was "I wished I had said that before the black slave". Their favorite way to taunt their black colleagues was to say to them "qul ghagh", i.e. "make the sound of the raven".124 Al-Mutanabbis satirical poems on Kafur al-Ikhshidi, the black ruler of Egypt during the Middle Ages, are another proof of this point. AlMutanabbi is widely recognized as the most talented Arab poet of all times. He approached Kafur, a freed Nubian slave, who ascended to power through his superior military and administrational skills, hoping for an amara, i.e. to be appointed ruler of one of the regions. He composed poems that hail praise on Kafur. He even praised his black color and considered it the embodiment of beauty. Failing to get the job he was aspiring to, he fell out with his benefactor, sneaked out of Egypt, and started a campaign of defamation against Kafur. He composed a number of satirical poems, considered the best in artistic terms, against Kafur, calling him eunuch slave, ugly Nubian,
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and stinking pig. In all these poems, al-Mutanabbi mocks Kafur's black color. He says in one of them, "a black slave whose lower lip is half his size, yet people say to him 'you are the full moon in the midnight'". He also mocks the Egyptians, and calls them the world's laughing stock, because they had Kafur as their ruler. In one of his poems he says, "many things in Egypt are funny, but they are the kind of funny things that make you cry".125 It is remarkable that when Northerners read these poems, they identify themselves with al-Mutanabbi and not with Kafur, despite the fact that Kafur was actually a Nubian, i.e. in modern terms, he was a Northern Sudanese. The Sources of Islam & Color Symbolism It has been mentioned that in its symbolic order, Arabic Islamic culture standardizes the white color and prejudices the black color. In preIslamic poetry, in the Quran, in classical Islamic jurisprudence, fiqh, and in classical as well as modern literature, the white color symbolizes beauty, innocence, purity, hope, etc, whereas the black color symbolizes the opposite of these concepts. The Quran contains two types of discourse; one is color conscious and the other is color blind; one standardizes white and prejudices black, and the other is totally neutral. Examples of the first type of discourse are the following verses: On the Day when some faces will turn white and some faces will turn black, to those whose faces have blackened (we will say) 'Did you reject the Faith after Accepting it? Do taste then the Penalty of rejecting Faith'. But those whose faces have become white, they are (enjoying) Gods Mercy; therein to dwell for ever (S. 111, Ay. 106 & 107).126 On the Day of Judgement wilt thou see those who have told lies against God; Their faces will be turned Black, Is there not in Hell an abode for the Arrogant, (S. xxxix, Ay. 60). When news is brought to one of them
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of a birth of a female, his face turned black, and he is filled with inward grief (S.XLIII, 17).127 Examples of the second type of discourse are the following verses: Among Gods signs are the creation of heavens and of the earth and the diversity of your languages and of your colors. (S. XXX, Ay. 22).128 O people! We have created you from male and female and we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may come to know one another. The noblest among you in the eyes of God is the most pious (S.XLIX: Ay. 13).129 The Prophetic hadiths also have the same characteristic of the parallel levels of discourses. Example of the lower level of discourse is "Listen to and obey your ruler even if he an Ethiopian slave with crincky hair". The higher level of the prophetic hadiths preaches the unity and equality of the human race despite differences in color, tongues, and customs. Example of this is "all humans are as equal as a teeth of a comb", and "all of you have descended from Adam, and Adam has descended (or created) from the mud. In dealing with these two types of discourse I adopt Mahmoud Muhammed Tahas idea of the duality of the Quranic discourse. Taha perceived the Quran as having two levels of discourse: lower and higher, particular and universal, temporal and eternal. The lower level reflects, to some degree, the seventh century Arabs particular values, ideology and culture. It is historically bound, and, therefore, it accommodates some of the Arabs shortcomings and prejudices. The higher level, on the other hand, reflects the universal human values and therefore, aims to elevate the Arabs, and all the Muslims, to these universal values. The lower level abrogated the higher level.130 The problem of the Muslims is that they think of this abrogation as eternal and irreversible. Taha, on the other hand, preaches that
40
abrogation is neither eternal nor irreversible, and calls Muslims to move from the lower level to the higher level by reversing the process of the abrogation, and to build a new renaissance on its basis.131 As demonstrated by the above selection of the Qur'anic verses and the Prophetic hadiths, in the lower level of discourse, white and black are used to symbolize good and evil, good omen and bad omen, and happiness and sadness. The transitional level of the Qur'an and the hadiths reflects the Arabs prejudice against the black people, and standardizes the white color. On the basis of the foregoing one can say that there are visible elements that show that the mainstream Arabic Islamic culture sees itself as a white culture. Alienation from the Self The Arabs cultural identity is an outwardly projection of the Arab self. It reflects their sense of the world, which must be different from others sense of the world, for people make sense of the world in a cultural way not in a natural way. The Arabic language reflects the world as seen through the Arabs eyes, for there is a strong relation between the word and the world, between the discourse and the universe. What in the universe is verbalized in a given discourse. In his psychoanalysis of western cultures, Lacan concluded that western cultures and languages are masculine. In using these languages, women cannot be subjects as women. In so far as women can speak, they speak male language. Within such language order women cannot fulfill their desire as speaking beings.132 Lacan also showed how the child enters the world of language through its social symbolic. This process takes place through identification with the father and alienation from the mother. As a speaking being, the child proceeds into the fathers world.
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An analogous point could be made in relation to Northern Sudanese and Arabic language. When a Northern Sudanese enters the world of Arabic language, he or she enters into a process of identification with the Arab father, and alienation from the African mother. But Northerners feel the visible presence of the mother in their faces and skins, and as Deng has explained, it does not require a professional social psychologist to presume that such a disdain for elements visible in their physiognomy must at some degree of consciousness be a source of tension and disorientation.133 Northerners way of resolving this tension, however, was rather unique. Instead of trying to reinvent or indigenize the Arabic language to fit their physiognomy, they fantasize about their physiognomy in order to fit the language. Hence the avoidance of using the word black to describe themselves, and the over-emphasis of their Arab origin. Ahmed al-Shahi, who studied the Shaiqiyya tribe, tells us that: it is rude to refer to a Shaiqi person, as being azraq (black) even though if his skin is of this color because such reference equates him with the abid.134 A stark example that demonstrates this tension is the following passage which was uttered by al-Sharif Zein al-Abdin al-Hindi, a prominent political leader in the North. He said: I am an Arab. I know I am an Arab. No one can dispute this fact with me. I have a genealogy. I am so, son of so, (fulan ibn fulan) son of Muhammad Rasoul Allah (Prophet Muhammad). Yet, on the other hand, nobody can dispute my Africanness. We have come and mixed with them, and the result is these ugly figures of ours.135 We, in the quotation, indicates the Arabs, them indicates the Nubians, and the expression ugly figures of ours indicates present day Northerners. The statement reflects identification with the father (We), alienation from the mother (Them), and detestation of the self (ugly figures of ours). This is an
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optimal example of Du Bois black person who sees himself through the revelation of the other world, and who measures ones soul by a tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.136 Northerners' identification with al-Mutunabbi, in his satirical poetry against Kafur, the Nubian, is yet another example of a dislocated psyche. Northern cultural and political elite feels the need to reiterate frequently that they are Arabs. They also feel uneasy with the word Sudan. Altayeb Salih, a novelist of international fame, said the following: I wish that our leaders had named this country Sinnar. May be one of the reasons behind the instability of this country that its named (Sudan) does not mean anything to its people. What is Sudan? Egypt is Egypt, Yemen is Yemen, Iraq is Iraq, and Lebanon is Lebanon. But what is Sudan? The colonialists have given this name to the area from Ethiopia in the east to the Senegal in the west. The other nations have given their countries names that mean something to them, and we were left alone bearing this legacy on our shoulders.137 Loathing the name Sudan stems from the detestation of blackness. Detestation of blackness stems from identification with the Arabs and adopting their worldview. The suggestion to change the name of the country was not new, it came into being immediately after independence. The main reason behind the suggestion was its meaning and connotations. The word Sudani is used by Northerners in a way identical to aswad, and abd (slave). All these terms are used by Northerners to refer to "slaves, or those of slaves descent, whose relatives belonged to a non-Muslim group of the South or Nuba Mountains".138 For the Northerner, being Sudani meant being black, and being black meant in turn of a low social status and low origins. Many Sudanist scholars, such as Heather Sharkey, and Ahmed Shahi, are in consensus that the stigma of "blackness" is rooted in the legacy of slavery, especially that almost every family in the central riverain North used to hold
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slaves.139 Although this is true, but to my mind, it is not the whole story. There is a deeper level in which stigma of "blackness" is rooted, and that is the Arabic culture, which despises the blacks, as we have seen earlier. Northerners internalized not indiginized, the Arabic culture, and the Arabic language and value system. This is why they see the world through the Arabs' eyes, despite the paradoxes, and the self-debasement that such an outlook generates. It is generally observed that the more the Northerner becomes learned in Arabic language and literature the more he exaggerates his Arabic identity, and the more he detests blackness and the word Sudani. Osman tells us that members of the prominent literary society Abu Rawf Group "refused, after independence, to apply for passports because they had to register themselves as Sudanese nationals before they could get one".140 Al-Tayeb Salihs statement represents a continuation of an old Northern wish to break away from the curse of the name Sudani. And if we read it along with al-Hindi's passage we can identify a wish to escape from ones own skin, or to bleach it, through discourse, to resemble that of an Arab. Deng rightly explains the tendency of Northern Sudanese to exaggerate Arabism and Islam and to look down on the blacks as slaves as a deepseated inferiority complex, or, to put it in reverse, a superiority complex as a compensational device for their obvious marginality as Arabs.141
Conclusion We have mentioned that Northerners believe that they are descendants of an Arab father and an African mother, and that they identify with the father and reject the mother. To the average Northerner, the mother symbolizes the Southerner within, and unless Northerners accept their mother, and identify with her, they will not accept Southerners as their
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equals. Recognition of the long denied African component within the Northern self, and accommodation of the long suppressed African mother within their identity, are the prerequisite for Northerners to recognize and socially accept Southerners as a little bit different but equals. The problem of the war could be resolved through cessation of the South from the North. This could probably solve the Southern problem with the North, but will not solve Northerners identity crisis. It is obvious now the crisis of identity in the North has reached its peak, and the equilibrium started to swing again. Questions about identity have been posed, and Northerners have to make a choice; to continue to lurk in the margin or to create a center of their own, to continue to be second rate Arabs, or to try to be first rate Sudanese. Cultural and political entrepreneurs are split between those who suggest a construction of a new identity that enables Northerners to see the world through their eyes, and those who are defending the status quo. However, destabilizing the old identity is the point of departure for the construction of a new identity, and exposure of the paradoxes of the old identity is essential for the purpose of destabilization. This is what this paper set to do.
Notes
The term Northern Sudan here does not designate the geographical North, but rather the ideological North, whose geographical confinements are limited to the Muslim, Arabicspeaking, central riverain Northern Sudan. 2 Oedipous words in Sophocles play Oedipous Tyranous, in Antony D. Smith, National Identity, (England: Penguin Books, 1991), 2. 3 See Address to the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva by Dr. John Garang on March 24, 1999, News Article by UNHR on March 27, 1999. 4 Francis M. Deng, War of Visions: Conflict of Identities in the Sudan, (Washington, D.C.: The Bookings Institution, 1995).
1
45
Ibid., 4. Philip Babcock Gove, Websters Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged, (ed.) (London: G Bell & Sons Ltd, 1959). 7 David Laitin, A Theory of Political Identities, in Identity in Formation: the Russian Speaking Population in the Near Abroad, (Ithaca and London: Correll University Press, 1998). 8 David L. Sills International Ensyclopaedia of Social Sciences, ed. (The Macmillan Company & the Free Press, 1968), 7, 61. 9 Ibid. 10 Maurice R. Stein, Arthur Virdich, & David M. White, Identity & Anxiety, eds. (New York: Free Press, 1960). 11 Laitin, A Theory of Identities, 13. 12 Ibid., 20. 13 Deng, War of Visions, 1. 14 Julius Ground & William L. Kolb (ed.) A Dictionary of Social Science, London: Tavistok Publications 1964, 314. 15 Sigmond Freud, The interpretation of Dreams, trans. J. Starchy, (London: Allen & Unwin, 1945), 150. 16 J. P. Seward, Learning Theory and Identification, Journal of Genetic Psychology, 84, (1954), 202. 17 Sigmond Freud, Group Psychology and the analysis of the Ego, trans. J. Starchy, (London: The International Psychological Press, 1922), 65. 18 M. Scheler, The Nature of Sympathy, (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1945), 18, 19. 19 Laitin, A Theory of Identities. 20 Ibid., 14. 21 Erik H. Erikson, Identity: Youth and Crisis, (New York: Norton, 1968), 19-23 22 H. M. Johnson, Sociology: A Systematic Introduction, (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1960), 128. 23 Laitin, A Theory of Political Identities. 24 George A. De Vos, A Psycho-cultural Approach to Ethnic Interaction in Contemporary Research", in Marthsa E. Bernal and George P. Knight, ed. Ethnic Identity: Formation and Transmission among Hispanic and other Minoroties, (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), 235-68. 25 Laitin, "A Theory of Identity". 26 Ibid., 18. 27 Charles Taylor, The Politics of Recognition, in Amy Gutmann, ed., Multiculturalism Examining the Politics of Recognition, (Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1994), 25. 28 Laitin, A Theory of Political Identities, 21. 29 Ibid. 30 Ibid., 23. 31 Ibid., p. 22. 32 Ibid., p. 23. 33 Ibid.
6
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Erikson, Young Man Luther, New York: Norton, 1958. Erikson, Identity: Youth and Crisis, 19-23 36 Laitin, "A Theory of Identities", 17-18. 37 Ibid. 38 Taylor, "The Politics of Recognition". 39 Ibid., 25. 40 Ibid. 41 The writer attended this meeting which took place after a Friday prayer in 1990, in Martin Luther King Hall at Aston University in Birmingham. Most of those who attended the meeting were members of the National Islamic Front (NIF). 42 Many of my informants contested the title of my research on grounds that Northerners are not black, but brown, and accused me of being influenced by the "western" color concept.
35
34
A Sudanese joke says that a Northerner, who is very dark and has very soft and straight hair, was taking a taxi in Syria, and was chatting in Arabic with the Syrian taxi driver. After a while the taxi driver said to his passenger: Are you from Senegal? . The offended Northerner directed the driver's attention to his (the passenger's) soft hair saying: Do you think this is wig?". 44 An average chap in the North usually seeks to get a white or light skin girl with a soft long hair. Girls also prefer light skin boys. 45 Janice Boddy, Wombs and Alien Spirits, Women, Men, and the Zar Cult in Northern Sudan, ((Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1989), 64. The Northerners' use of the word akhdar instead of aswad is probably an effect of the Arabic culture. The early Arabs used the word akhdar to describe people of unquestionable nobility whose color, for one reason or the other, was black. An example of these is al-Fadl ibn 'Abbas ibn 'Abdel Muttalab ibn Hashim ibn 'Abd Munaf. He is said to have got the black color from his grand mother. He said about hiself: "I am the akhdar (green) for those who know me, my skin is akhdar but I am a son of an 'Arab noble home". See Abduh Badawi, al-Shura' al-Sud wa khasaisuhum fil-shi'r al-'Arabi, (Cairo: 1973), 93. 47 The use of chemical creams that lighten dark color is widely spread among young girls in the North. The side effects that these creams caused have recently become a matter of concern in the local newspapers and among Sudanese discussion groups in the Internet. For a detailed description of the local methods used by brides in Northern Sudan to soften and lighten their skin color see Boddy, Wombs and Alien Spirits, 64-65. 48 Deng, War of Vision, 5. 49 Ahmed al-Shahi, Proverbs and Social Values in a Northern Sudanese Village, in Ian Cunnison and Wedny James eds., Essays in Sudan Ethnography, (London: C. Hurst & Company, 1972), 97. 50 'Awn as'Sharif Qasim, Qamus al-Lahja al-'Amiyyah fi-s-Sudan, (Cairo: 1985), 298. 51 Boddy, Wombs and Alien Spirits, 64. 52 It is observed that probably all the earlier generations of Northern Scholars who studied in the west, and who married European or America women, got married to white women.
46
43
47
Neither my informants nor myself know of a single case where one of them got married to a black woman. Even among the younger generations the vast majority is married to white women, and very few of them married black women. 53 Because marriage between Muslim women and non-Muslim men is forbidden in Islam, Northerners, in case of Europeans, usually accept the nominal Islam declared by the individual before marriage is conducted. 54 Mohamed Ahmed Mahgoub, Democracy on Trial, Reflections on Arab and African Politics, (Cheshire: Andre' Deutsch, 1974), 59. 55 This period is from independence in 1956 until the end of the second democracy in May 1969. During this time "Arabism" was the undeclared identity and ideology of the governments. However, starting from May 1969, governments took "socialist" and then "Islamic" identities and started to take sides with their allies in the Arab countries. For an elaborate discussion of Sudan's foreign policy, during these eras see Mansur Khalid's Nimeiri and the Revolution of Dismay, (London: Boston Routledge & K., 1985); The Government they Deserve: the Role of the Elite in Sudan Political Evolution, London / New York: Kegan Paul International 1990). 56 Mahgoub, Democracy on Trial, 136. 57 R.S. OFahey, Arabic Literature of Africa, the writing of Eastern Sudanic Africa to c. 1990, (Leiden, New York, Koln, E. J. Brill, 1994), xi. 58 For more information about the White Flag League of 1924 see Yushiku Kurira, Ali Abdel Latif and 1924 Revolution: Researching the Origins of the Sudanese Revolution, trans. Majdi al-Na'im, (Cairo: Center for Sudanese Studies, 1997). For more information about the unionist movement see Khalid, the Governemet they deserve; Mahgoub, Democracy on Trial. 59 Although I have not so far come across a study of this phenomenon, it is widely observed. 60 Abdellahi Ali Abrahim, al-Thaqafa wal-Dimogratiyya fil-Sudan, (Cairo: Dar al-Amin, 1996), 31. 61 Ibid., 30. 62 Ibid., 31. 63 Al-Sharif Zein al-'Abidin al-Hindi, see end note 131. 64 Abdella al-Tayeb, in the Sudanese Studies Association triennial Conference in Darham in 1990. 65 Salah Ahmed Ibrahim, a well known statement. 66 Al-Sadiq al-Mahdi, Interview, Masarat Jadida, (Cairo: 1998), 171. 67 Mohammed Omer Beshir, Revolution and Nationalism in the Sudan, (Barnes and Noble, 1974), 2-3. 68 Lloyd A. Binagi, The Genesis of Modern Sudan: An Interpretive Study of the rise of Afro-Arab Hegemony in the Nile Valley, A.D. 1260-1826, Ph.D. Dissertation, (Temple University, 1981), 3-4. 69 Abd el-Fatah Ibrahim el-Sayed Baddour, Sudanese Egyptian relations, (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1960), 17. 70 Ibid. 71 William Y. Adam, Nubia Corridor to Africa, (Prenciton: N.J.: Prenciton University Press, 1977).
48
R. S. O'Fahey and J. L. Spaulding, Kingdoms of the Sudan, (London: Methuen & Co LTD, 1974), 15. 73 Ibid., p. 31. 74 Ibid, p. 30. 75 Ibid., p. 30. 76 Ibid., p. 31. 77 Ibid., p. 28. 78 Muhammad Ibrahim Abu Salim & Jay Spaulding, Some Documents from EighteenthCentury Sinnar, (Kartom: Kartoum University Press, 1992), 8. 79 There are many theories trying to explain the Funj conversion to Islam. One theory is that they did it out of fear of the Turks who eventually invaded and destroyed the kingdom. Another theory maintains that they did it in response to a persuasion from the 'Abdallab, their Muslim allies. For more information see R. S. O'Fahey and J. L. Spaulding, Kingdoms of the Sudan, 31-33. 80 Islam, of course, reinforced the use of Arabic, for the Muslim population "held Arabic in great esteem for religious reasons". See R. S. O'Fahey and J. L. Spaulding, Kingdoms of the Sudan, p. 31. 80 Ibid., p. 31. 81 Ibid., p. 75. 82 Ibid., p. 86. 83 Laitin, "A Theory of Political Identities". 84 Ibid., 40. 85 Muhammad Ibn Jarir al-Tabari, Tafsir al-Tabar: Jami' al-Bayan 'An Ta'wil 'Ulum alQur'an, ed. Mahmoud Mohammad Shakir, (Cairo: Dar al-Ma'arif, no date), vol. 8, 104. 86 Yusuf Fadl Hasan, The Arabs and the Sudan from the Seventh to the Early Sixteenth Century, Edinburgh: EUP, 1967), 146. 87 It is known that Muslims purify themselves by washing their limbs and faces five times a day in preparation for prayer. The idea is that in prayer you will stand in front of God, and therefore you should be pure. The physical washing of the limbs is a means to and a symbol of the moral and psychological washing of sins committed through these limbs, by the mouth, the tongue, the ear, the eye and the nose. The process of purification includes worship, doing good and abstaining from evil. 88 See The Qur'an, 33:33. 89 Aya (verse) 103 in sura (section) 16 says: "And the tongue of whom they wickedly refer is foreign 'A'jamiyyun and this is a clear pure Arabic tongue (lisanun 'Arabiyyun Mubin). 90 C. G. Seligman and Brenda Z. Seligman, Pagan Tribes of the Nilotic Sudan, (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul ltd., First published in 1932, Revised 1965), XVIII. 91 J. S. Trimingham, The Christian Approach, 25. 92 Heather J. Sharkey, Colonialism and the Culture of Colonialism in the Northern Sudan, Ph.D. Dissertation, (Princeton: Priceton University, 1998), vol. 1, 40. 92 Deng, War of Visions, 4. 93 Sharkey, Colonialism and the Culture, vol., 1, 40- 58. 94 Ibid., 34. 95 Ibid., 34.
72
49
Ibid., 35. Ibid., 40. 98 Paul Doornbos, "On Becoming a Sudanese", in Tony Barnett and Abbas Abdelkarim, eds. Sudan: State, Capital and Transformation, (London, New York, Sydney: Croom Helm, 1988), 100 &101. 99 99 Sharkey, Colonialism and the Culture, vol., 1, 34. 100 'Abduh Badawi, al-shu'ara' al-sud wa khasa'isuhum fi-l Shi'r al-'Arabi, (Cairo, 1973), 223-4. 101 John Hunwick, West Africa and the Arab World: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, (Accra: Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, the J. B. Danquah Memorial Lectures, series 23 Febryary 1990, 1991), 2. 102 'Abduh Badawi, al-shu'ara' al-sud, 223-4, in Hunwick, West Africa and the Arab World, 12. 103 This story is common place knowledge in the Muslim world. 104 B. Lewis, "The African Diaspora and the Civilization of Islam", in M. I. Kilson & R. I. Roteberg, The African Diaspora (Harvard University Press, 1976), 48-9. 105 Ibid, p. 7. 106 Abduh Badawi, al-Sud wal-Hadara al-'Arabiyya,(Cairo: al-Hay'a al-Masriyya al'Amma Lil-kitab, 1976), 22. 107 Hunwick, West Africa and the Arab World, 1990, 6 & 7. 108 Ibid., p. 5. 109 Ibid., 5. 110 Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah, trans. Franz Rosenthal (2nd edn, Princeton University press, 1967), i, 186-9. Cited in John Hunwick, West Africa and the African World, 6. 111 Badawi, al-shu'ara' al-sud, (Cairo: 1973), 223-4, in Hunwick, West Africa and the Arab World, 11 & 12. 112 Ibid., 108. 113 Ibid., 6. 114 Ibid., 6. 115 Badawi, al-Shu'ra al-Sud, 31. 116 Badawi, al-Sud wal-Hadara al-'Arabiyya, 23. 117 Carolyn-Fluehr-Lobban, A Critical Anthropological review of the Race concept in the Nile Valley, a paper presented at the Fourth International conference of Sudan Studies at the (American University in Cairo, 1997), 5. 118 Ibid., 5. 119 Abduh Badawi, al-Shu'ra al-Sud, p.78. 120 Ibid., 42. 121 Ibid., 34. 122 Ibid., 5. 123 Ibid., 111. 124 Ibid., 111. 125 Badawi, al-Sud wal-Hadara al-Arabiyya, 185-186 126 A. Yusuf Ali, The Holy Quran, Text, Translation and Commentary, 3rd ed., (Cambridge, Massachusetts, Murry Printing Co, 1938). 127 Ibid.
97
96
50
Ibid. Ibid. 130 Mahmoud Muhammad Taha, The Second Message of Islam, (Beirut: 1968). 131 Ibid. 132 Teresa Brennan, History After lacan, (London, New York: Routledge, 1993). 133 Deng, War of Visions, 64. 134 Ahmed S. al-Sahi, Proverbs and Social Values in a Northern Sudanese Village in Ian Cunnison and Wedny James, eds., Essays in Sudan Ethnography (London: C Hurst & Company, 1972), 95. 135 Al-Hindi is the current Secretary General of the democratic Unionist party (DUP General Secretariat), the minority faction which has split from the mainstream Democratic Unionist Party led by Muhammad Osman al-Mirghani. This statement was made in a speech he delivered to a Sudanese audience in London in 1995. 136 W. E. Burghardt Du Bois, The Souls of the Black Folk, Essays and Sketches, (Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co, 1908), 3. 137 Al-Tayeb Salih, al-Majala Magazine, issue 78, 18/6/1989. 138 Sharkey, Colonialism and the Culture, vol. 1, 36. 139 In the 19th century the influx of slaves flooded the Northern markets, causing a sharp fall in the prices of slaves to the extent that as Sharkey puts it "even the humblest families in the central riverain North were able to purchase a slave or two". Sharkey, ibid., 37. 140 Khalid H. A Osman, The Effendiyya and the Concept of nationalism in the Sudan, Ph.D. Dissertation, (University of Reading, 1987),122; See also Sharkey, ibid, 71. 141 Deng, War of Vision, 64.
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