Culture or acculturation

Culture or Acculturation : Sudan and the War of Identity

Atif Abdallah Ghasm El-Sid

Culture or culture: Sudan and the war of identities

Atef Abdullah Qesm Al-Sayed

This research was previously published in Al-Ittihad newspaper and republished in Sudanile

Presenting the previously suspended Machakos negotiations, which will be resumed in the coming days, between the Sudanese government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), a group of hot Sudanese files and papers to the negotiating table. presentation

The material of these papers is the political, economic, and social pains and injustices that have exhausted the nation and consumed nearly five decades of Sudan’s independence. The war taking place now, which flared up in 1983, has its roots in 1955, the year before the declaration of independence.

If political, economic and social injustices and the marginalization of others and their lack of recognition are the fuel that continued to ignite the fire of that war, then the cultural aspect linked to identity rights and the recognition of linguistic, cultural and ethnic diversity also represents a major component of that war, its fuel and its substance.

Sudanese thought has a rich and connected heritage of writings and contributions devoted to addressing issues of linguistic, cultural, religious and ethnic diversity, cultural democracy and citizenship rights linked to identity. Among these related contributions, the Union took the initiative to publish this study, which is now available to the reader, on the Sudanese identity war. In it, the writer Atef Abdullah intended to introduce the most important cultural trends and visions conflicting with each other. Within this and in its context, the writer presents a general historical background that raises more questions than it provides answers about the components of the Sudanese personality and the mosaic of the multiple ethnolinguistic and cultural composition of Sudanese society.

In the same context, it also shows how all this diversity turned from a blessing into a curse, and how the curse of the identity war struck the body of society with the arrows and poisons of racial, religious and cultural superiority. Regardless of the results that Machakos will reach as a step towards a solution, these issues will remain on the table of contemplation, research and action until the war of identities ends one day in the country of Sudan.

Introduction: It was stated in a report prepared on the cusp of independence that Sudan consists of 570 tribes, divided into 56 or 57 ethnic groups on the basis of linguistic, cultural and ethnographic characteristics, and speaks 114 spoken and written languages, 50 of which are in South Sudan. These 57 ethnic groups were regrouped into eight main groups: 39% Arabs or of Arab descent, 30% Southerners or African origins, 12% Beja, 15% Nubians. There are also other groups such as the Fur, the Nuba, the Anqasana, and foreign-born people who have been classified within the above groups. 51% speak Arabic, 49% speak other languages ​​and dialects, 60% are Muslims, 10% are Christians, and 30% are pagans and people of different African religions.

The above groups have been divided into two main cultural groups: the Muslim Arab North and the Christian-led Southern Africa. (1)

After nearly half a century has passed since this report and the conflict is still raging over identity and cultural affiliation in Sudan, we find ourselves still running behind the dream homeland and aspiring to have a unified national state and build awareness of a common identity that guarantees the building of a true and sustainable national unity. The difficulty lies in this pluralism and linguistic and ethnic diversity in the Sudanese subcontinent and in that external environment with borders and peoples overlapping with it, which makes it difficult to dream of achieving unity for this diversity and a homeland that unites these opposites and in which these different cultures, diverse ethnic origins, and multiple religious and ethnic beliefs coexist in peace and harmony.

I am not going to present a systematic study of cultural identity in Sudan, as much as I will try to shed light on the different cultural viewpoints and introduce them to whatever sources are available to me, and open the door to dialogue about cultural identity in Sudan. But shedding light on the conflicting cultural visions and ignoring the ethnic identity in Sudan with its many ramifications is impossible. Therefore, we must first pass through identity.

What distinguishes man from all other creatures is the mind that has given us awareness of distinction. In order for our humanity to be complete, we must belong to a group: “Man is a social being.” The group begins with the family and the tribe and ends with the nation and humanity as a whole. Professor Taha Ibrahim Al-Lawyer defines the meaning of identity as the feeling of belonging to a specific group, and he says that the individual’s feeling of belonging to a specific group or society is what determines his patriotism, and in some sense the extent of his loyalty to that society. As for the legal aspect of identity, it has crystallized in what is known as the right to nationality, where identity here coincides with the meaning of nationality (2). Identity is also defined as what distinguishes any group in terms of its material, emotional, spiritual, and ethnic characteristics from others.

Asking any question about the identity of the Sudanese character cannot be complete without asking more questions, and it will seem as if it has no end because the questions never run out. However, the requirements of scientific research and adherence to objectivity and science, far from fanaticism, can provide a vision and image in which we focus on what unites, and reduce what divides. The introduction to the topic of this study will be to ask the following questions:

What are the components of the Sudanese personality? What distinguishes it from others? What are the material and spiritual characteristics that brought the Sudanese together and united them, or those that divided them, reconciled and fought over them for more than half a century? What is the impact of Islam and Arabism on these components? What are the solutions proposed by the different viewpoints on the issue of cultural identity? On what, I wonder, were the dualities (the forest and the desert), (the forest and the rain), and (the man of Sennar and the noble African) culturally based? What is the cultural incubator for the Sudanese personality? Is it Arabism or Islamism and the call for cultural rooting as some see it? Or is it Afro-Arabism, as advocated by Hamza King Tambal and the pioneers of the Fajr School in the 1930s? The mother of pastoralism and the asceticism of Sufism, as Professor Muhammad Abdel Qadir Sabeel mentions, or the mother of African Negroism, as some northern intellectuals seeking salvation from the restrictions of social and religious commitment and some southerners who disavow the Arab and Islamic culture in Sudan wish, is it a mixture of all of that, or is it only Sudanese and nothing else?

Historical Components (Ethiopia) is the name given by the ancient Greeks to the land that extended from the first cataract at Aswan to the far reaches of Abyssinia in the north and south, and from Suakin and Massawa on the Red Sea to the Libyan desert in the east and west. The word (Ethiopia) means the burnt or black face. Historian Naoum Choucair mentioned that the first people to inhabit it were blacks. As for the name (Kush), it was mentioned in the Torah, Genesis, chapter two, “And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden to the east... and a river came out of Eden to water the garden. And from there it divided to become four heads. The name of the one is Pishon, and it surrounds all the land of Havilah, where the gold is. And the gold of that land is good. There are the forks and the onyx stone, and the name of the second river is Gihon, which surrounds all the land of Kush, and the name of the third river is Hadakal, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river, the Euphrates.

[For more problems in naming ancient Sudan, see Arkamani]

The Kingdom of Kush and its first capital was Napata. Then, for vital reasons, after it expanded agriculture, the capital moved to Meroe. The Pyramids of Bagrawiya will remain a witness to a great civilization. The Kushites are most known for being protectors and trustees of the ancient Egyptian civilization. They embraced the religion of Amun and were the first to unite the two countries for a period of time when they conquered Egypt under the leadership of Ankhi in 751 BC.

(The Land of Punt)  And the Punts are the name given by the ancient Egyptians to the land and the inhabitants who resided between the Berber road, Suakin, and the mountains of Abyssinia. “And King Methuvis (of the Sixth Dynasty) sent the leader Harkhaf to invade the country of the Punts, and he returned with spoils of incense, ebony, ivory, and hides, which he carried on 300 donkeys...etc.”

(Christian Kingdoms) Nobadia, with its capital, Faras - Maqoura, with its capital, Dongola Al-Ajda - Alwa, with its capital, Soba. (Sudan) This is the name given by the Arabs to the semi-desert African region that extends from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea, and which has been Islamized. It is not, in fact, a homeland for the Negroes, but it is the intermediate region that lies between the Protecting Group of North Africa and the Negro Group of Central Africa, which was later divided into “Western Sudan” for the region that includes the Senegal Basin, Gambia, Upper Volta, and Niger, and “General Sudan,” which includes the Lake Chad Basin, And "Eastern Sudan", which means the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, which is the subject of this study.

Sudan is a country of one million square miles. With its current borders, it is considered a recent formation or one created at the beginning of the last century. It annexed Darfur in 1916, where it was an independent kingdom for more than three decades. Dar Masalit was also an independent sultanate that was annexed as an autonomous region and then became part of what became known as Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. As for Bahr al-Ghazal, it was part of the possessions of King Leopold of Belgium and was gifted to the British at the beginning of the twentieth century in the framework of Colonial exchange.

Geography and history of Sudan. What distinguishes Sudan from others is this unique geographical reality, the distinct nature that surrounds it, and the different climates, from the rainy tropical savannah climate in the south to the Mediterranean climate in the farthest part of Jebel Marra in the west, and the dry desert climate in the north, to the maritime plain and the Red Sea mountains in the east, which rain in winter.

The external environment also contributed, as Sudan is surrounded by nine countries, from Egypt in the north, Libya, Chad, and Central Africa in the west to Kenya, Uganda, Zaire, and Ethiopia in the south, and Eritrea and the Red Sea, which separates it from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the east, which distinguishes Sudan from any other country. Add to this the diverse historical legacy and the cultural, economic and ethnic disparity between each region and another and between each region and another.

The impact of external and internal migrations. The composition of the indigenous population of the land of northern and central Sudan before the migrations consisted of the Nuba, a hybrid people of Caucasian and Negroid lineages who lived on the banks of the Nile from Dongola to Aswan, the Nubians in the central north, the Beja in eastern Sudan, the Fur and Masalit in western Sudan and in the southwest, and the Nilotic tribes in the south, except for the Shilluk tribe, whose borders extended to the confluence of the Nile.

Migrations to the land of Sudan began before Islam, and the migrations of the first Christians were from Egypt. There were also migrations of Arabs before the emergence of Islam, but they were not codified like the migrations that followed the emergence of Islam, when the migrations of Muslim Arabs to the land of Sudan continued after the seventh century AD. Arab immigrants did not penetrate south due to the difficult terrain, with dense savannah and predatory animals.

The process of Arabization of the indigenous people continued for more than a thousand years and produced this hybrid known as the Arab Muslim North. Arabization took place smoothly and slowly through ethnic and cultural mixing. However, Islamization processes did not take place (for the Arabized north) until several centuries later, and this was done at the hands of Sufi jurists after the fifteenth century AD during the days of the Zarqa Sultanate.

Arab-Islamic influences After the Arabs conquered Egypt in the sixth century AD, the Muslim conquerors concluded two separate agreements, the first with Nubia (the Baqt Agreement) (the days of Caliph Omar ibn al-Khattab) and the second with the Beja (the days of Caliph al-Ma’mun), after the failure of the military campaigns to conquer Sudan or the Christian kingdoms therein (Alwa and Al-Maqoura).

Despite the failure of the Arab-Islamic military campaigns and their incurring heavy losses, the superiority of the Arabs in weapons and equipment forced the Sudanese to request a truce and negotiate to establish peace. These two agreements regulated the relationship between the two parties, although they were unfair to the Sudanese. However, they preserved the independence of their kingdoms, which the Arabs considered to be a house of peace, a place between the two positions of the house of war and the house of peace. The two agreements secured the interests of the Arabs, extended their influence, and consolidated their political positions after they were able to economically as merchants and prospectors for gold, emeralds, and rubies in the land of minerals in eastern Sudan. Finally, the distinction of their identity enabled them to reach power and rule at the end of the fourteenth century. The beginning of the fifteenth century AD.

As for internal migrations, Sudan witnessed several migrations, especially of the southern Nilotic tribes, which penetrated deep into Africa in the south. The largest of these was the displacement of the Shilluk (from the Nilotic tribes) from the banks of the White Nile, where their borders abutted Khartoum, to the stubborn forests of the south, to escape slavery after they became easy targets for slave labor and slave traders. Then Sultan Badi Abu Daqan (one of the Funj kings) culminated in expelling them from their center and their current capital, the city of Alice (Al-Kawwa).

It is also known that the first Arabs came to the country without their women, and it is known that Islam does not allow a Muslim woman to marry a non-Muslim, so this intermarriage was one-sided.  As for the arrival of Muslim Arabs to power, it occurred through their marriage and intermarriage with the ruling families, taking advantage of the matrilineal inheritance system that was in practice at the time, and their descendants reached the corridors of government and leadership positions in the state on the basis of their cultural, financial, and civilizational superiority.

Thus, the Funj Kingdom (Blue Sultanate) was established in the far south on the ruins of the Christian Kingdom of Anj or Alwa  in 1505 AD. The capital moved from Soba to Sennar, and the Sultanate dominated all Sudanese lands, and the Kingdom of Darfur shared it in the west. There is disagreement about the origins of the Funj, some say that their origin is from the Shilluk, and some say that they are indigenous to Darfur, and there is a narration that attributes them to the Umayyads. Although the rulers of this Sultanate were Muslims, its systems were derived from ancient customs and customs, such as the bond of lineage, marriage, and the sacred kingship among the Funj (3), where kings are considered sacred not as gods, but as guardians of the values ​​and traditions of their ancestors. Even after Islam became the official religion of the Kingdom and the Arabic language was the official language, the spread of Islam was nominal at the beginning of the state (the Blue Sultanate), and thus its absence from the legal, legislative, and ideological levels of the state (4). But the actual spread of Islam and its penetration into the lives of the population took place at the hands of the jurists and Sufis who came from Egypt, the Hijaz, and Morocco, such as Sheikh Ibrahim Al-Bulad, who came from Egypt and studied at Dar Al-Shayqiyah, and Sheikh Taj Al-Din Al-Bahari, who came from Baghdad and introduced the method. Sufism in the country of Funj, then Moroccan Tlemcen, etc.  As stated in the book of classes by Lud Dhifallah (5).

The Arabization and Islamization of northern Sudan took place gradually over a long period of time and within the framework of peaceful cultural cross-fertilization. Since the conquest of Egypt, there has been a gradual absorption of the Arabs by the Nubians in the north and the blacks in the center (6). From this it is clear that Islamization in Sudan began and spread through popular effort and was based on the base of society. The credit for its spread goes to Sufi preachers and Sufi orders. Then, after two centuries or more, Islam found its way to the institutions of society and its summit (7). It is also clear to us that Islamization and Arabization took place within the framework in which traditions were dominant, as the Sufis were able to integrate the prevailing pagan practices. Within the style of their own Islamic beliefs (8).  offers c. Spencer Trimingham, in his valuable book, Islam in Sudan, in his analysis of the religious transformation of the Sudanese from Christianity to Islam and the manifestation of this religion, which was described by Dr. Mansour Khalid (Islam and sectarianism are at the level of customs, and the worship is not a suspicion of paganism...) This analysis (.. The assimilation processes in Sudan were advanced, while devoid of the defects of the natural process, which was, on the one hand, a transformation of Islamic culture - in which the religious factors are less decisive than the system. On the other hand, it was the process of absorbing the spiritual cultural religious elements (paganism and religions). The local) and its dressing in Islamic forms and formulations, and its orientation towards global outlook, so a process of mutual assimilation occurred slowly, as the animistic elements cling very stubbornly during the absorption into the Islamic system. Islam itself carried within it a form of irrational contemplation filled with superstition and the lives of the saints when the “Faqra” (9) taught it for the first time in the Funj Kingdom. These men were trained in an unimaginable way in the Maliki doctrine that he intended On the one hand, orthodox Islam had no influence on life, and on the other hand, it was deeply influenced by Sufism and the ways of the Dervishes, and thus these men, among a people who had no cultural background - and the conversation is still with Spencer Trimingham - had full authority to lead them towards the superstitions that the masses believed in and integrated them into their personality, “the Faqra” (10). Trimingham explains the reasons for the distance from orthodox Islam by the turmoil in the political conditions of the Funj state, and its distance from any contact with the Islamic centers, which were It was also stagnant, and did not lead to the development of educational and/or cultural schools. Thus, the Islam that developed in this way was strongly imbued with African tendencies, whose distinctive factors were emotion and superstition (11).

Modern Sudan, or mini-Africa, brings together all the colors of the linguistic spectrum in Africa, except for the Khoisan language in South Africa (linguist Joseph Greenberg discovered four linguistic groups on the African continent. The first group is Nigerian - Congolese - Kordofanian, named after the Niger River, the Congo River, and the Kordofan region in Sudan), the second group is Nilo-Saharan, the third is Hamitic-Semitic, and the last is Khosa, which is the language of southern Africa. As Dr. Mansour Khalid mentioned in the first part of his book, South Sudan in the Arab Imagination, that Sudan is the homeland of three of these African linguistic groups, which are the first three groups. The Kordofanian (non-Arabic) dialects arose due to the languages ​​of the people of the Niger Valley and the Hamitic Semites, to which Kushite and Nubian belong, as well as Amharic and Tigrinya (12).  All of this makes Sudan a pivotal country in Africa, not only from a geographical standpoint, but also from a cultural standpoint, and with regard to the Sudanese languages, as we showed at the beginning of this study, and according to the 1956 census, the population at that time was about ten million people, 51 percent of whom spoke the Arabic language, 17.7 percent spoke the Nilotic language, and 11 percent of them spoke the Dinka language, which indicates that Sudan is not only an area of linguistic diversity, but also an area of linguistic duality (13). There is no doubt that this The linguistic map has undergone intense changes after nearly half a century, due to internal migrations and the Arabization policies of successive governments, which led to the decline of many languages and the emergence of new languages, most notably what is known locally as the “Juba Arabic” language, which flourished in the south, especially in areas controlled by the Popular Movement. The big question is: Can this diversity and diversity be a source of wealth and unity instead of being the basis of calamity, division, and disintegration? A question that seems easy to answer in theory, but is difficult to ask in reality!!

Islamism, Arabism, and advocates of cultural rooting. There are many advocates of applying Islamic rulings and legislation and Arabization in modern Sudan under the pretext that Islam is the religion of the majority. These calls have sparked the causes of ethnic conflict and fanned the fire of strife, and for the first time in the history of Sudan, religion has become a political problem and has torn the fabric of the fragile cultural unity existing in Sudan.

From the beginning of the sixties of the last century, during the days of Abboud (the beginning of the policy of Arabization of the South), through the era of Imam Numeiri (issuing Islamic laws or September legislation), ending with the obsession of the Salvationists (declaring jihad), and until the stages of democratic rule were punctuated by many political bargaining and bidding in the name of religion. The calls for Islamization and forced Arabization came under different names and clothing. From the Islam of the Awakening to the Islamic Resurrection and the advocates of the Islamic Constitution or the advocates of rooting and returning to the roots. However, among all of these we find that the programs of Islamization and Arabization that exacerbated the Sudanese problem and fueled the furnace of the civil war and turned it into a jihadist war, and turned the south of the country into a house of war. The programs that have been implemented and carried out on the ground to date, is the program of the National Islamic Front, which is the only political program that has found a way to be implemented and experimented in public life since 1976, the date of the national reconciliation that it concluded. Al-Nimeiry with the Muslim Brotherhood, and through him the Brotherhood was able to make their way to power, and they spared no effort in implementing their plan and political programmes. Neither the Intifada nor the Third Democracy stopped them from what they had begun, and when the opportunity arose to stop the bloodshed and stop the war, they took the initiative to seize power by force in June 1989.

In order to arrive at the opinion of the National Islamic Front on the issue of Sudanese identity, we return to the group’s theoretician, Dr. Hassan al-Turabi, who says in this regard: “Political life cannot be established except by the establishment of a group united by the bonds of loyalty and supported by an independent entity from the people, and then a central authority is established over it that takes care of its affairs and arranges its public relations according to a comprehensive system. But the development of unified sentiment and the establishment of the ruling regime is a difficult development that costs a lot of stress and turmoil during the nation-building stage, as it is The primary social units that form the nation are still imbued with the spirit of isolationism and remain in a state of naive freedom that is difficult to discipline. Then the nation may become senescent after its completion, and tendencies of fragmentation arise in its midst that threaten its single authority. History continues to witness the cycles of the emergence and dissolution of nations and their inheritance of the loyalty of the people and the regions of the earth. Whatever group of people chose faith, they became a single nation that would protect them and protect them from a unified religion. Then their unification would be strengthened later on due to the factors of unification that arise from the slackness in the development of other nations, such as the spread of a single language, mixing of blood, and the emergence of a single interest and a common history” (14).

I have cited this entire passage from Dr. Al-Turabi, until the Islamic theory of forming the nation’s identity becomes clear, and it is summarized in two points: the first is centered on religion (meaning here Islam) and the belief in this religion as a basic source of rule, and the second is the spread of a single language (here meaning Arabic), which is followed finally by the factor of mixing blood and unifying interests.

Whoever follows the ideological and cultural development in Sudan from a historical perspective will find that the Arabization and Islamization of its north began in complete contradiction to this theory. The beginning was the Arab migrations before and after the (Baqt) agreement, and the priority was securing commercial interests (i.e. the common interest). Then, after the settlement of those immigrants, it was followed by intermarriage with the indigenous population (the factor of mixing blood). After a sufficient time, the new language “Arabic” became widespread, followed by the spread of the new religion, “Islam,” mixing with cultures and customs. Nubian and Bejawi, and the result was the Muslim Mozarabized human being of Sennar.  But this haste in matters and anticipation of time has placed the homeland and the citizen at the bottom of the list of priorities of the ruling authority, in search of an immediate victory for the civilizational choice or martyrdom for the fateful choice.  Many Islamist researchers, and I do not say Islamists to differentiate between them, see that the Islamic option is a civilizational option (the civilizational project of the National Salvation Government), while others see it as a fateful option after the other options have proven their failure. Islamists and Arabists see that the message of the Islamic Revolution (the rescue coup) is the establishment of a model state to be emulated in Africa.  Its theorists see that Sudan is the gateway to Islam and Arabism in Africa, and they are convinced that Sudan is only a bridge to deliver the two messages (Islam and Arabism) to Africa. Here, and based on this historical message, we find that the priority of work is to complete the Islamization and Arabization of Sudan in the first place, the first success with the flesh of its bull, and what is meant is the abolition of African culture and the Arabization of southerners, then this sacred duty extends to neighboring countries and then to the world. This is why we find that Sudan is the headquarters of the Islamic Dawa Organization, the Khartoum International Institute for the Arabic Language, the African Islamic Center, the Dan Fodio Foundation, and many organizations of the League of Arab States and the International Islamic People’s Congress that are concerned with this matter.

If we look at the plan to establish a religious state in Sudan, we will find that the ruling National Islamic Front regime saw ignorance in the people of Sudan before they took power in it, so they began to claim to save the Sudanese people from misguidance and the great sin that would have culminated in the repeal of the September laws, and the implementation of national reconciliation after the Parliament and the government agreed to activate the Mirghani-Garang agreement. Therefore, when power came to them without a partner in June 1989, the people of the National Islamic Front began from the same point from which the Islamic leader Abdullah Ibn Abi al-Sarh had set out more than fourteen centuries ago, by unleashing the hand of the Arabs and Muslims in the land of blackness (the Nubian kingdoms), so they unleashed their merchants to gain control of its exhausted economy (the policy of empowerment), and they dominated and politicized all technocratic administrative functions (more empowerment) and fanned the flames of war. The Islamic Front sent its maniacs to trample their horses into the bellies of the people of the South and turned their home into a war house. They burned crops and udders, displaced people, and killed lives that all previous wars had not done. They sent young men to be fuel for their jihadist war, and no one escaped from their calamity, without caring about what happened and is happening to the descendants of the shooters, who were fed up with the situation and gave up on the values of their fathers, grandfathers, and the right religion after their debts became corrupted. The situation became difficult, and millions of people began begging for political asylum in any place that would accept them, after the land of a million square miles became limited to them.

African cultures and the identity of the people of the South Last July, in a suburb of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, and under the umbrella of the IGAD countries, the Sudanese government signed with the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement what became known as the Peace Protocol or (Machakos Protocol). The third clause of the aforementioned protocol stipulates the right to self-determination for the citizens of South Sudan. The text of paragraph No. 4 therein is as follows (At the end of the six-year transitional period, the Sudanese government and the SPLM will hold an internationally monitored referendum, in which the citizens of South Sudan will be asked to either confirm the unity of Sudan by voting in favor of the system of government approved in the peace agreement, or by voting for secession. Several years before that, in 1995 in the Eritrean capital, Asmara, in what is known as the Fateful Issues Conference or (Asmara Decisions), the northern parties, the SPLM, and the African National Parties Association signed Some national figures under the banner of the National Democratic Rally issued a resolution on the issue of self-determination, which was stated in the tenth clause, which states (that the people of South Sudan - within its existing borders on the first of January 1956 AD - will exercise their right to self-determination before the end of the transitional period).

All of this shows that all Sudanese parties, from north and south. The government and the opposition have agreed on the right to self-determination for the people of South Sudan, and the possibility of the secession of the South exists. Not only the South, but it could later be joined by the Abyei region (administratively located in the South Kordofan region) and the Nuba Mountains and Ingassana regions (south of the Blue Nile), as the assembly agreed at the Fateful Issues Conference to hold a referendum on their political future.

There is a major factor that many Arab politicians and political analysts and many northern Sudanese have relied on. They have bet on the option of Sudan’s unity after the transitional phase in the referendum that will be held for the southerners. Not because of the southerners’ convictions about the necessity of unity, but because “according to the vision of these politicians and analysts” the lack of the basic component of the nascent southern state, which is identity, as they see that there is no basis that unites the tribes inhabiting the south under the banner of an independent state, and they have many questions. And also the ready-made answers to them, because according to old axioms and information that has been packaged for decades, there are no common elements among the residents of the south, and that they are a group of pagan tribes living a primitive life that found themselves in one geographical area... And so these people surrendered to these convictions in order to spare themselves the trouble of researching and investigating the changing southern reality, and the fundamental changes that the popular movement has brought about and is making in the southern reality, the land and the people, as well as the migrations and interference caused by the war and its continuous escalation. Various tribes within rebel and refugee camps.

Everyone has the right to wonder and raise doubts about what can bring together and unite the population of this nascent country? Is it African culture?  Is there a unified southern identity that can provide belonging to this country, provide it with peace and security, and protect it from the evil of war and fighting between its disparate tribes? In the event of the secession of the South and the establishment of an independent state in its lands, this nascent state may include the Nuba Mountains and Inqasna. I will not go far, but I will rephrase the questions and ask them not in search of confirming weak convictions, but for the sake of investigation to reach the facts. Southern professor and researcher John Gay Nut Yeoh says, “There is no doubt that such questions may raise doubts among some Sudanese tribes about the feasibility of calling and fighting for secession to establish a state in southern Sudan, once the tribes residing there found themselves in one geographical area...etc.” (15) He continues his study of the unity of the political and social identity of the new state, explaining the tribal composition of southern Sudanese society (the tribal composition of southern society is like the composition of the rest Neighboring African tribes in terms of the interconnectedness of the historical roots between the tribes. If we take the linguistic roots of the tribes in the south, we find that the Nilotic tribes speak almost the same language and share many common customs and traditions. The same applies to the Nilotic and Hamitic tribes, as they speak almost the same languages and their traditions and ways of living are similar. Most importantly, these southern tribes have lost contact with their historical roots with their counterparts in eastern and southwestern Africa, since they migrated to their current regions. In southern Sudan for more than two thousand years (16), Professor John Gay Nut continues to enumerate the elements that make him optimistic about the possibility of maintaining the level of peaceful coexistence existing between the southern tribes and employing it in the prospective state. The most important of these elements that united the southerners is intermarriage, especially between the Shilluk, Nuer, Dinka and Anouk. On the other hand, this intermarriage over the past twenty-five years has produced positive family relations among many families. Then there is another element, which is peaceful coexistence among members of the southern revolutionaries within Camps in the bush, as well as boarding schools in Rumbek, Luka, Attar, and Malakal secondary schools, in addition to Sheikh Lutfi Secondary School for displaced southerners in Rifa’a, and St. Augustine Secondary School in Khartoum, which graduated many male and female students. These schools have played an important role since the sixties in raising the level of education in the south, and their graduates constitute the educated class in the south now. Boarding housing has contributed to most of the southerners’ political leaders getting to know each other. Then Professor John Gay Nut adds a third element in his analysis, which is considered the most important unifying element for the southern tribes, which is the element of the Christian religion that brought together the ranks of southerners inside and outside the country during the past twenty-five years in what he called the “spiritual renaissance” that swept all Sudanese churches after 1985 and paved the way for the creation of new social ties between the people of the south who live in camps and refugee camps in Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya and Eritrea, and in areas under the control of the Popular Movement and in camps for displaced people in The suburbs and interior of Khartoum, and in other southern and northern cities. (For many, the church became the only refuge and hope in life due to the continuation of the war and its devastating results. More importantly, the church became the only means of education in the south, because the state closed all educational outlets there.) Consequently, the “spiritual renaissance” generation in the south became a model of coexistence among the southern tribes, and close relationships and friendships were established between these young people and they married each other without tribal discrimination (17). Then he adds an element that is no less important in creating the desired political and social unity, which is the language element.  The language (Arabic of Juba) is a local language derived most of its vocabulary from the Arabic language mixed with the local languages ​​of the tropical governorates with some English vocabulary. It is similar to the Swahili language in East Africa. Dr. Mansour Khaled mentioned that when the southern commander, Dr. John Garang, addresses his forces, who numbered eighty thousand, he speaks to them in this language, i.e. (Arabic of Juba). It is also used in composing church hymns in almost all churches in the South. It is not a language that emerged from these circumstances. It had previously been used in the north, where Omdurman Radio had broadcast programs (South Corner) in Juba Arabic since the 1960s. Also, Sawt al-Haq Radio in the third stage of democracy, which was broadcasting from the city of Malakal in the south, and finally Juba Radio. These radio stations contributed to spreading the Arabic language in Juba, and many emotional songs and national anthems were spread that addressed the southerners and urged them to unite and reject war. An example of the artist Youssef Fataki’s songs is:      Oh, our country.... Sudanese, our homeland.      And we are all brothers..      Where, oh, hold my hand, Kuisya.      I am still free. Early in the morning, we will leave Lobia      in our country (and yay is one of the cities of the south, and our country is our country). Where are you, Liwa? That is, where are you, Major General? It is a military rank and it refers to the military ruler during the rule of Abboud. Hold my hand well, meaning govern my country in a good way, meaning correctly. I remain free. I am looking forward to my freedom. Early, we will plant cowpeas, meaning tomorrow we will plant cowpeas in our country, and we will plant cowpeas in the Zande language.

Northern poets also excelled in using this language, such as Mahjoub Sharif, who mastered it and expressed through it, saying: Every shot between us remains an abundance of sesame and café, sugar and tea, tetracycline, jay, jay, jay, there is no need. Good -

And from the language of political art to the language of direct political discourse in the uses of Juba Arabic, where northern politicians began to use Juba Arabic when addressing southerners, and southern politicians also used the language of Juba Arabic in their political speech and in radio and television meetings and interviews, and as an example the oldest excerpts from Dr.’s speech. John Garang in a public meeting with the Sudanese community in Cairo on December 2, 1997 in the International Conference Hall: “I am saying, I am addressing you as I am addressing people in the forest there. I am beginning to say, I extend my peace to you, I extend my peace, a lot of peace to you Sudanese, fans of Sudan in Cairo, in Egypt in general, I say to you, peace be upon all of you, women and men, young and old, In your language, go talk to the people who are coming and say to them, Dr. John Garang, I greet you.. I want to say and express our great thanks to Hosni Mubarak, the president of this country...”

This spread of Juba Arabic also led to its use in many other regions, the most important of which is the Nuba Mountains, as we find in some Nubian songs and chants. Which was repeated by the Aqd Al-Jallad band and spread throughout Sudan. Which means the ability of local languages ​​to blend with the Arabic language and also the flexibility of the Arabic language in its ability to express and use in all parts of Sudan with different tongues and linguistic moods.

There is another factor that will contribute to strengthening the foundations of the new state “in the event of separation,” which is the external factor, which is no less important according to the current global circumstances, “especially after the events of September 11.” Oil has become a major factor in unifying the emerging state and protecting it from the evil of itself and the evil of its opponents. America and the European Union have economic and strategic interests in this region. The land of the south has mineral resources, especially oil, the need for which is no secret after the declaration of the war on terrorism, and the presence of specific countries targeted by this American jihad, such as Iran and Iraq, both of which are located in oil reserve sites, which requires searching for new sources and maintaining peace and security in those regions so that Western companies can do their part. There is also the humanitarian factor of those countries and the pressures that Western governments are exposed to from ecclesiastical pressure sites within decision-making institutions and from civil institutions that are fed up with the bloodshed in the south. It is now doing everything it can to stop the war and restore security in the south, not caring about resolving the problem of governance in Sudan or its territorial integrity.

There are also some northerners calling for the framing of African culture as a response to the exploitation of religion in political affairs and the failure of successive governments to solve the Sudanese problem. These northerners became desperate and despondent over not resolving the issue of separating religion from the state and abolishing the Islamic laws initiated by Numeiri. They also lost hope and confidence in their political leaders represented in the northern parties that were torn apart and fragmented by the National Salvation Government, and they found themselves outside the arena of the struggle to repeal the laws restricting freedoms. Both on the individual and collective levels, and also outside the equations of the political settlements taking place on the scene. They cling to the edges of African culture under the pretext that Sudan is a homeland that includes everyone, religious and non-religious, Muslims and Christians. This group does not hide its hope and ambitions that Sudan will be ruled by a southern Christian leader so that he can bring about the necessary changes. Their hope has become in the political and military gains that the southern unionists can achieve in leading the popular movement, so most of them reside abroad as refugees. Politicians in Europe, Canada, America and the Gulf found themselves waiting for the popular movement to fight on their behalf to achieve their own agenda in a secular state and freedoms.

There are also some other marginalized areas (such as the Nuba Mountains and Inqasna) that were fed up with the racial arrogance and developmental backwardness in which they live, so they began searching for their African roots and clinging to their cultural origins in the face of the ethnic prejudices of those in the Arabized majority who advocate rooting and Arabization.

Afro-Arabism or the School of the Forest and the Desert In the early sixties, when the national liberation movements were at their peak, many cultural groups were established that based their poetic and cultural vision on Afro-Arabism as a civilizational project that represented reconciliation between Arab culture and African culture in Sudan. “Apadmak” was one of the products of this revolutionary tide, like many similar literary organizations, “Sennar Association” and “Ulus” in Kassala, and some of its members adopted Afro-Arabism as a solution. The cultural identity crisis in Sudan. Afro-Arabic or the jungle and desert school

Among the pioneers of the Forest and Desert School were Dr. Muhammad Abd al-Hay, Muhammad al-Makki Ibrahim, al-Nur Othman Abkar (who invented the name), Ishaq Ibrahim Ishaq, Ali al-Makkah, and the great poet Mustafa Sanad. Afro-Arabism, or the Forest and Desert School, is an indicative symbolism for the African element represented by the forest and the Arab element represented by the desert. It is similar to the Sudanese geographical reality, where we find the desert extending from the north to the borders of the center and south of the center, where the majority is of the Arab or Mozarab element, and the further south we go, the more we go south. Where the moderate savannah begins, then the rich savanna and tropical forests, we find the dominance of the Negro element, and the Afro-Arab group found its target in the model of the Sinnar human being, that black sultanate that made an alliance between the Abdlab and the Anj, meaning the cross-fertilization of the Arab element and the African element, which formed the nucleus of central Sudan that exists to this day.

Afro-Arabic as a linguistic term was responded by the poet Dr. Muhammad Abd al-Hay to the call for the Sudanization of poetry called for by the critic Hamza al-Malik Tambal and to the Al-Fajr School (a literary magazine issued by Arafat Muhammad Abdullah during the 1930s). Tambal’s call came to establish and create a distinctive critical vision for Sudanese literature far from the concepts of traditional Western literature and parallel to it in that period. His call also came to contradict the artistic postulates of the school of poetic revival in the second and third decades of the last century (the poetry of Muhammad Saeed al-Abbasi Wood Al-Banna), and his call was for Sudanese poets to express the Sudanese environment and Sudanese nature with all the diversity and distinction it carries, “so that the reader of their poetry will say that this is true Sudanese poetry, with sensitivity and the Sudanese terrain.” The whole call represented the elevation of the elite to express the whole of Sudan, and it was the search for the greatest common denominator between the Arab-African hybrid in Sudan to express it.

This school has been criticized for saying that its poets and writers did not find anything to satisfy their thirst for expression other than escaping to the African paradise. The researcher and explorer of Sudanese culture, Dr. Abdullah Ali Ibrahim, may God bless him with health and wellness, identified him in his research “Afro-Arabism or the Fugitive Alliance” (Afro-Arabism as a school of thought does not only aim to limit explicit Arab affiliation, but rather to make a radical improvement in the Arab-Islamic component of Sudanese subjectivity. Restoring the African heritage in the eyes of The Afro-Arabs are not merely correcting a dysfunctional equation, but rather their aim is to smuggle their social and intellectual agenda into the oppressive and extremist Arab-Islamic culture with the intention of urging it to be gentle and tolerant (18).

He also says in his aforementioned research, in the context of his criticism of the forest and desert group or the Afro-Arabists in their use of the African component in Sudanese culture and the rights of southerners to support their opinions in political and social life, and he was very transparent in his criticism (and in my opinion, in general, removing or diminishing the identity of Arab culture is either cultural fraud or despair. The way, I see, for southerners and other bearers of African culture to be reassured of their cultural security, passes through Muslim Arabs confronting prejudices and types of The prohibition that their culture is full of is a challenge on their own behalf, not on behalf of anyone. This requires an enlightened stance towards oneself and the ability to investigate criticism, and bear its consequences. I do not think that the bearers of African culture are those who wish to be included as major players in their agenda to open up and democratize Arab-Islamic culture. It is more correct, in my view, for someone who claims that drinking alcohol is personal freedom to fulfill his personal freedoms as an Arab Muslim, not to hide behind His lineage in Africa, where alcohol is a part of water, food, or ritual toasts, and most important of all is that the Arab Muslim should not feel sorry for the southerner losing his freedom to drink alcohol, before he feels sorry for his loss of the right itself. The bearers of African culture may want to see the Muslim Arabs in Sudan enjoying their rights to belief, opinion, and other types of passions first, before they believe in the Afro-Arab civilizational project.) (19) There is no doubt, as the doctor mentioned in his article about. Afro-Arabism or the fugitive coalition indicates that this plan has become exposed. I think that today it has become more exposed than ever before to everyone involved in solving the Sudanese problem. The truest expression of this is found in the Janubiyat of Muhammad al-Mahdi al-Majzoub, in which he says: I wish that I were among the negroes and that I had a robe with which my steps would move and be upright. And in my loins there would be a belt of beads, and in my temples of a nazim farewell. I would swallow the bitter pill in barns, and I would be wasted, neither blame nor blame.

This tendency to disintegrate and break away from the restrictions and prohibitions that surround Arab-Islamic culture has been found for a long time in Arabic literature and in Sudan, it has found its way to expression from the gate of the forest, the desert, or Afro-Arabism.

Al-Nour Othman Abkar, in his masterpiece Awakening Forgotten Words, created the name that became the main trend of poets of that era, in which he says:      Born of the forest and the desert      From this rising like the brown mountain      Like the beacon of our blue coast

The symbol and title of the Afro-Arab school is what is evident in the poem of Dr. Muhammad Abd al-Hay Return to Sennar, in some of which he says:      I will return today, O Sennar, where the symbol is a thread of black brilliance between the peaks and the foothills, the forest and the desert      and the ripe fruit and the old root      you are my language      and my spring that shelters my stars      and the shining vein of gold in my blue rock      and the fire in which I dared to have great love      so open, Sennar’s guards      open the gates of the city to the one who returns tonight. “You are a Bedouin”      No, “From the land of the Zanj”      No, I am one of you. A wanderer who returned, singing in a tongue and praying in a tongue

Afro-Arabism and the Road of Fire  The road of fire is paved with good intentions, a saying that applies to the Afro-Arabs who had good intentions and were hopeful of the mixing of Arab and African cultures, removing the obstacles between the North and the South, and calling for a meeting in the middle of the road between this southerner with an African culture and that Arab-African hybrid with an Arab culture, until a new Sanar human being is produced. Also for those looking for uniqueness away from the tyranny of Arabic literature. But this call may not differ much from the missionary call of the Islamists and Arabists, as the call for national blending among the Islamists will certainly end in southerners adopting Arab culture and Islam in exchange for nonsense and pagan sects. And what remains of their culture is transformed into something folkloric seen on stage at celebrations and official events.

Finally, the call found rejection and resistance from the southern intellectuals who refused to reproduce them, as Dr. Abdullah Ali Ibrahim mentioned (the necessities of national coexistence may require southerners to acquire the Arabic language or an Arab-Islamic custom. However, they will resist every tendency to make them adopt the Arab lineage proposed by the Afro-Arabs in addition to their confirmed African lineage. The call to reproduce them, through cultural mixing as a later edition of the Sinnar human being, will seem to them to be a kind of Cultural fraud is no dialogue. Southerners have many warnings, both sincere and invented, regarding the Arabs of the North (20).

Returning to the pasture, the Al-Masid Foundation and the Pastoral Environment. In his research (The Tendency to Pasture), Pastoral Tendencies in Sudanese Culture (21), Professor Muhammad Abdel Qadir Sabeel mentions (that the structure of our society’s culture finds its reference in two basic sources: the Al-Masid Institution, and more importantly the pasture environment, and we may add to that, relatively speaking, African cultures). Here, Professor Muhammad Sabeel reduces the Sudanese culture in its reference to two basic sources: the pasture and the pasture. As for the African culture, its reference is also pastoral, according to his proposal. Return to the pasture, Al-Masid Foundation and the Pastoral Environment

The path of the components of the Sudanese personality is identified in the two sources of Al-Masid, i.e. Sufism, which represents the living religion that was discovered and followed through its methods, as we have demonstrated elsewhere in this study. Pasture, i.e. grazing, represents the economic activity of more than two-thirds of the population.

This theoretical talk may be unacceptable to many researchers in the anthropology of Sudanese culture and its components, but so that we do not rush to pass judgment, let us see how Muhammad Abdel Qader Sabeel demonstrates his theory. He says in his aforementioned research: “From the Masid came specific values and personal characteristics that are among the characteristics of Sudanese behavior, including humility, tolerance, asceticism, glorifying poverty, siding with the weak, not recognizing distinction or genius, questioning the legitimacy of remarkable cases of success, as well as simplicity of food and clothing, and modesty.” Urbanization and many other morals and values that the individual received were transformed over time into customs and behavioral determinants (i.e., culture in the anthropological sense) that were passed down through generations, even to find their manifestations among those who had no direct connection to the upbringing of (Hiran) Al-Masid. As for the pasture environment, the Sudanese character was imprinted with most other behavioral traits, whether on the personal or collective level, including the adoption of orality instead of documentation, and clinging to freedom, without necessarily accompanying responsibility, and also rejection. Authority in principle, and boredom with entrenchment and continuity, and thus not adapting to the spirit of institutionalism as a system, firmness, accuracy and stability of principles.”

Professor Sabeel draws inferences from proverbs and popular sayings as a cultural aspect, and educational curricula that reflect pastoral culture, and presents many inferences from contemporary Sudanese reality, such as clothing, housing, and food. Agricultural activity, its fragile structure, and its lack of stability in its establishment also carry an ongoing agricultural cultural legacy. Professor Sabeel says: I still call and ask for the support of creative people and thinkers towards establishing the “Return to Pasture” school instead of “Return to Sennar” proposed by the Forest and Desert School, because the satisfactory answer to the roots of Sudanese identity, the structure of Sudanese thinking, the reference of culture, and the causes of instability, lack of growth, and the failure of liberal democratic practice, we find all of them go back to the pasture culture. This statement applies to all Sudanese tribes, including the southerners who are not originally included in the Sennar (Mulatto) model. It also applies to the Nuba, the Beja, and the Anqasna, all of whom are pastoralists and take pride in that, and this is their right - as Sabeel continues elsewhere in his paper, “It is very important to mention here a very important issue, which is that nomadism is not a characteristic that belongs to the Arabs alone.” He believes that this is a mistake into which the School of the Forest and the Desert fell in its cultural reference... Muhammad Abd al-Hay’s poem - Return to Sennar. You are a Bedouin...etc. Sabeel confirms that the culture of pastoral society even includes the tribes of the south, most of whom practice this economic activity (...I emphasize here that the most important common cultural denominator linking all Sudanese tribes is their pastoral reference). End.

If we know that man is the son of the land on which he lives, then its weather, climate, topography, output, and production relations are what constitute his basic features and behavior, given our knowledge of historical agricultural instability and the nature of rain-fed agriculture and its beginning. Agriculture has been exposed to many adversities throughout its history, the biggest of which is what Caliph Abdullah did to the farmers and tribes settled around the Nile. It is not surprising that we agree with Sabeel in some of what he proposed, but we also disagree with him, especially after our analysis of the components of the Sudanese personality... because limiting the components of the Sudanese cultural personality within the framework of the pasture and the pasture is a great deal of neglect of the other components, especially the historical components, the popular cultural overlap, the climate, and its impact on food, clothing, housing, ethnic beliefs, and pre-Islamic animism.  In general, the study is important, vital, and contains something new, and I hope that it will particularly complement the composition of Sufi orders and their impact on the religious components and practices of Muslims. I hope that the study will find its way in research and examination by specialists.

Sudanese Sudanism was known as a defining term for Sudanese identity when the Sudan People's Liberation Movement issued its manifesto declaration in 1983. Dr. John Garang, head of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, defines “Sudanese” as the crucible that will come as a result of the fusion of historical diversity “that is, the ancient compositions of the indigenous people from prehistoric times” and contemporary diversity “which is the contemporary cultural diversity with the current composition of Sudan,” without neglecting external influences and global cultural interference.  Dr. John Garang summarizes Sudanism in a mathematical way, according to the following equation (S = (A + B + C), where S is Sudan or Sudanese identity, and it is a function linked to the variables A, B, and C. A represents historical diversity, B represents contemporary diversity, and C represents the influences of other civilizations on us. As for the fixed variable (S), which represents Sudanese identity, it is the final result of these variables or components. Sudanism, as a cultural identity, is greater than the sum of its component parts (22) Many researchers in the field of Sudanese identity, led by the late Dr. Ahmed Al-Tayeb Zein Al-Abidin, wrote about Sudanism as a melting pot of diverse Sudanese cultures. Dr. Mansour Khaled mentioned in this that the social bottom of Sudanese nationalism is not Arabization or Negligence, but rather a mixture of both, and he referred to it as Sudaneseism, and Dr. Mansour defines it as the product of Arabism that became Arabized, and Nuba Arabized, and Islam and its spread at the level of customs, not worship. Suspicion of paganism... (23) Dr. Mansour Khaled believes that the most effective solution to the issue of Sudanese identity is citizenship. He says in this regard: “The Sudanese are not a single nationality in the anthropological or ancestral sense, but rather they are one people - in the political sense - whose elements are intermingled in a specific geographical space and a specific historical horizon, and each of them has a mood. In law, citizenship is based on two pillars, Jus Sanguinis and jus Solis. The Sudanese So, they are a product of the coincidences of geography and history, like many peoples that were created as a result of such coincidences (America, South Africa, Peru, Brazil, Canada). These peoples of many origins and diverse cultures realized with their conscious sense that the strongest bond that unites their people is the sense of belonging to one homeland (citizenship), and loyalty to one constitution that frames this citizenship. The choice before such groups is either to belong to the homeland directly through citizenship and its constitution, or to belong to it directly. Indirectly, through its minor identities, whether religious, ethnic, or cultural, the latter affiliation is a recipe from which nothing but disaster can result, because entrenchment in minor identities necessarily leads to the exclusion of the other who does not belong to that identity, and the exclusion of the other also necessarily leads to his isolation in his limited local identity, and perhaps to the denial of everything that is bright in the culture of the farthest and an attempt to dominate it. The excluded party will not see - by the logic of reaction - in the creations of others as anything more than an aspect of domination and abolition” (24).  Sudanism also begins by recognizing the reality of the monotheistic and traditional African-Sudanese religions and that they must be dealt with as a reality of life and their adherents must be dealt with as authentic peoples in the country and not as minorities whose religions are not recognized (25).

What is proposed from Sudanese is another form of globalization on a national scale. But does it carry all the disadvantages of globalization, or will the difference in interests and goals exonerate it from impurity? Good intentions and good intentions will save it from the disadvantages of globalization, which some interpret as another form of neo-colonialism. Will Sudanism turn into internal colonialism? This is after highlighting the pluralism, diversity and differences between one region and another within the Sudanese subcontinent.

In the face of competition and conflict of identities and cultures, Sudanism presents a sky open to all, where ultimate dominance and hegemony goes to the strongest, and where weak cultures dissolve in the tank of Sudanism, and the matter may turn into a sea in which the big fish eat the small fish, but is this what Sudanism aspires to? Will the panting for a Sudanese culture turn into a panting for the development of capital, the accumulation of wealth, and the supremacy of cultures? There is no doubt that the question is legitimate, especially when the proposal comes from a powerful and influential political faction such as the Sudan People's Liberation Movement. There are several factors that agree with Sudanism and complement its proposal, including the redistribution of wealth, parallel development, the form of government, the separation of religion from the state, and finally the liberal democracy that all parties to the political conflict, or the Sudanese factions, as the Arab press likes to call them, have accepted.

In conclusion, I do not think that it is a secret to anyone what has befallen the people of Sudan as a result of successive policies that move them against the wheel of history. From those who have the Islamic choice and the Arabs to those searching for cultural rooting in the depths of the ancient past, they are all addicted to the easy options and find it comfortable to live under ready-made conclusions and canned information until they become intellectually lethargic. They do not wish to exhaust their minds by researching the return of intellectual phenomena to their foundations or understanding the past in its historical context. They are searching For solutions to the problems of the present in that past, with all the magic it represents and its sanctity and attractive aura that caresses the dreams of the poor and the simple by establishing righteous justice as it was in the time of Al-Farouq Omar, and connects us to the causes of heaven and extends bliss and prosperity, forgetting or forgetting that the past does not live within us except to the extent that the present allows it, and the present alone forms the framework of our current life, so they soon return to the present reality with a drowning right-wing fascist ideology. The country is in bloodbaths and mazes of ignorance and darkness. a summary

Sudanese cultures have many forms and characteristics, but the people in charge of them are like the owner of a huge store who owns a variety of goods... but he offers his customers one commodity, leaving the rest of his goods to stagnate, spoil and die... so why don’t we display and show off what we have, looking for goodness and beauty in the literature of the Dinka, Shilluk and Nuer, heroism and chivalry in the literature of the Ja’aliyyin, pleasure in the stories and songs of the Shaiqiyya, wisdom in the literature and arts of the Beja and Bani Amer, and we search for what is found among the Nuba. We learn from the Baggara, Masalit, Rizeigat, Funj, and savages in the southeast...etc. Let our direction be: Towards distinct and distinguished Sudanese cultures... a democracy of content of many forms and facets.

In order for us to achieve the minimum level of a unified national state, many measures must be taken and major decisions taken at all levels. For example, but not limited to, the number of regions in Sudan must be reduced to five regions, as Professor Mahmoud Muhammad Taha called for in 1955 before independence, which are the northern, eastern, western, central and southern regions, so that the northern region consists of the area extending from the northern Omdurman border to the Egyptian border, and the eastern region includes the area that includes the Kassala District. And the land and region of the Red Sea, the western part of Kordofan and Darfur, the middle part of the Blue and White Nile region and the land of the Gezira, and the southern part of all the southern states, that is, the areas that comprised the three directorates (Bahr al-Ghazal, Upper Nile and Equatoria) at independence in 1956. With the addition of Abyei to the southern region after reviewing the wishes of its people, this division leads to a reduction in government spending on the oversized directorate institutions and structures and confirming the meanings of Sudanese national unity, while Khartoum with its three wings becomes the capital. Federal Sudan. Each region must have broad powers to issue legislation and devise the necessary laws to run the wheel of life in it, provided that they do not contradict the general constitution, which must take into account the rights of citizenship and the civil state.

The distance between Port Sudan in the far east and the city of El Fasher in the far west must be shortened so that the distance between them is closer than the distance between the cities of Port Sudan and Jeddah, which are only separated by the Red Sea. Likewise, the distance between Wadi Halfa in the far north and Nimule in the far south must become closer than Halfa to Aswan in Egypt by providing cheap means of transportation and less expensive commercial transport and communication. Sudan must be integrated commercially and economically so that goods produced in Nimule are obligatorily sold at the same price in Khartoum, Kassala, El Fasher, and in Wadi Halfa, and this matter does not require magical magic, but rather a simple government decision, such that the production fees imposed on goods must take into account the cost of transportation, which makes the local market accessible to all employers and production without any obstacles from an economic standpoint. Thus, we have achieved one of the pillars of identity unity, i.e. “exchange of interests.” There are other policies that can contribute to creating social ties and intermarriage and strengthening another pillar, which is “blood ties,” by encouraging marriage between different races, and legislation can be enacted, for example, in the case of marriage of any A southerner from a northerner should grant the spouses a residential plot of land, a farm, or a small workshop, or establish a solidarity fund to encourage such marriages, and to give these spouses priority in appointments to government jobs and in career advancement until their family structure is stabilized. There is also the issue of caring for the diverse cultures in Sudan. This can be done by teaching local languages in their regions as part of school curricula and taught optionally in the rest of the country, so that the student in Halfa has the right to learn the Dinka language if he wants, and Al-Shalkawi has the right to learn the Nubian language and so on until we prove our languages that express us from Nimuli to Halfa... Then above all of this and that we must establish a state of citizenship in which no citizen feels persecuted because of his religion, race or color. Or his culture or his language, we must all work to restore the southerners’ confidence in us, so that they give us a second chance by voting in favor of unity.

Mini Africa, or this culturally diverse Sudanese reality that is diverse in ethnicity, religion, age, customs, and neighbourhood, requires an effective institutional effort by all institutions of society, civil and governmental, official and popular, and it is a historical responsibility as we pass through this dangerous turning point in whether to be or not to be.  Protecting and nurturing the cultures of weak minorities and highlighting, disseminating and documenting them is a duty in our hands today and in the hands of others tomorrow, and that any arrogance of any ethnic or cultural group, no matter how high its status, or any attempt to suppress and obscure the culture of others, is a fatal weakness for the entire Sudanese identity. Democracy of culture is the essence of its continuity, development and launch towards the world. It is the crucible and the only way to integrate and fuse culture in broad Sudan until in the end a Sudanese culture emerges for us that contains All the features of this pluralistic society express its concerns and awareness and be a positive source of human culture, a culture with specific and special features. It will inevitably, when it comes, neither be Najdi Arab nor pure African, but will be Sudanese. We may not live to see it, but for the sake of our future children, let us pave the way for it by believing in pluralism, rejecting racial superiority, acknowledging cultural diversity, democratizing intellectual conflict and its natural development, and freeing it from rough and illegal play. Our poet, Muhammad Al-Hassan Salem Hamid, says: With how many people have been killed, you can last a long life in the Sultanate. In the name of God.. Nor is demonization coming, burning half the country in the dead of night. I have lost one dead, but it is impossible to arrogance. Ebony is a usury that becomes a palm tree, and vice versa. Do not get tired, dragging the thread of dawn. Tala Al-Asil, let the homeland take comfort, like palm trees of every color, a beautiful follower.

Footnotes (1)  Census 1955. (2) Taha Ibrahim, Sudanese identity and the relationship of religion to the state, Center for Sudanese Studies, Rabat, January 1992 (3)  Dr. Abdul Salam Sayyid Ahmed, The Jurists and the Sultanate in Sennar, Prague 1991, p. 40. (4) Ibid., p. 60 (5) Book of Classes, p. 43. (6) C. Spencer Trimingham, Islam in Sudan, translated by Fouad Muhammad Akoud, Cairo, 2001 p. 15 (7) Abdel Salam Sayed Ahmed, previous reference, p. 60 (8) Francis Deng, Conflict of Visions - Conflict of Identities in Sudan, p. 42. (9) The Fuqaras are concerned with the jurists, who are the sheikhs of the Sufi orders, who came to the country in order to spread the Islamic message. (10) c. Spencer Trimingham, op. cit., p. 111. (11) Ibid. (12) Mansour Khaled, South Sudan in the Arab Imagination, Dar Turath, London 2000, p. 53. (13) Abdullah Ali Ibrahim, Culture and Democracy in Sudan, Al-Amin Printing House, p. 144. (14) Hassan Abdullah Al-Turabi, from the book Faith and Its Impact on Human Life, Modern Age Publications, p. 219. (15) John Gay Nut Yeoh, South Sudan: Prospects and Challenges, Al-Ahlia Publishing And Distribution, p. 119. (16) Ibid., p. 119 (17) Ibid., p. 122 (18) Abdullah Ali Ibrahim, op. cit., p. 18 (19) Ibid., p. 25 (20) Ibid., p. 24 (21) Muhammad Abdel Qadir Sabeel, “An Attempt to Touch Pastoral Tendencies in Sudanese Culture,” a study submitted to the Cultural Forum, Abu Dhabi 2000 (22) John Garang, Issues of Unity And Identity, edited by Al-Wathiq Kamir, pp. 39 - 40 (23) Mansour Khaled, previous reference, p. 8 (24) Ibid., pp. 341 - 342 (25) Ibid., p. 352

Sudanese cultural heritage, challenges of national unity and regional belonging