Why Sudan not New Sennar?

Why Sudan not New Sennar?

Osama Abdel-Rahman Elnur

We say that history is a well-defined term that clearly means the study of the past, that is, it literally means "writing about the past." In other words: the task of writing history according to this concept. History means every activity that includes or includes any type of historical research or investigation, including research that relies on oral sources, starting from thinking about studying the historical problem until arriving at a solution or abandoning it.

Regarding the modern history of Sudan, we can say that alongside documentary history, oral history and oral narration occupy a prominent place in what is currently written down. By oral narration, I specifically refer to oral traditions that represent a culture that is transmitted from one generation to another through the spoken word and not through the written word. Traditions or heritage are elements of culture that are passed on from successors to predecessors, generation after generation. Traditions are distinguished from customs and customs in that people feel towards them a great deal of reverence and do not see it as possible to depart from them.

But we must note a basic fact regarding the recorded modern history of Sudan, which is that it is “deficient” and “lame.” This is because it did not benefit from all the oral dialogues of all Sudanese people, but rather was satisfied with the oral dialogues of one ethnocultural group from the mosaic of Sudanese ethnocultural groups, so it came to embody a type of narratives charged with an unjustified “ethnocentric tendency.” This fact undoubtedly had a long-term impact on the structure of the contemporary Sudanese mentality, which unfortunately led to the present dangerous situation that threatens the extinction of the Sudanese nation if we do not remedy the matter.

There is no doubt that Kipling’s saying, “What can they know about England who know nothing else” applies to the reality of the situation of our people today in Sudan. What can they know about Sudan, those who only know Sudan and the Nile River with its nearby desert margins? They grew up and imbibed the traditions of specific groups without understanding the traditions of the various ethnocultural groups that gave the history of Sudan its meaning.

One of the worst products of “ethnocentrism” is our thoughtless acceptance of calling our country “Sudan”! The roots of this name go back to the medieval Arab writers who, like the ancient Greek writers, began in their descriptions of the countries south of the Sahara and its peoples by adopting a single “physical” criterion, which is skin color. Thus, we have begun to resort to defining our country in historical writings as “Sudan of the Nile Valley,” “Eastern Sudan,” “Turkish Sudan,” and “Egyptian-English Sudan” in the face of the broad designation of Sudan that covers “the country of Sudan” mentioned in medieval Arabic writings.

The new Sudan project proposed on the political intellectual arena must carry in its essence a change in the entire structure of the “Sudanese” mentality and not be limited to simply redividing wealth and power! Redistributing wealth and power without paying attention to the dominant intellectual structure will only lead to the disintegration of the Sudanese nation.

We say that it is necessary to acknowledge the fact that the Arab migrations to Sudan, “the Sudan of the Nile Valley,” represented - in Adams’ words - “one of the most important population movements in the country’s history, because they produced a radical transformation characterized by a degree of permanence in the ecological balance between the desert and the cultivated land, and led, on the other hand, to a major change in the structure of the local Sudanese cultures. The form of cultural and ethnic representation that resulted from these migrations was a two-sided process: on the one hand The Arabization of the local Sudanese, and on the other hand, the internalization of the incoming Arabs. The vast majority of the incoming Arabs were almost nomads, and their influence on the local population was almost unilateral and not diverse, while the local population who were invaded showed a variety of cultures and languages, and thus their influence on the incoming Arabs was equally diverse. Above all, there were fundamental environmental differences in Sudan, the Nile Valley, which formed a new homeland for the incoming Arabs. Which imposed on them the speed of response in order to adapt to diverse local conditions. The process of assimilation led to the emergence of a mosaic complex of peoples and cultures, the greatest common denominator of which is the Islamic religion, and the Arabic language became, with the passage of time and the interconnection of economic interests, the unifying language between those peoples and cultures” (Adams: Nubia Corridor of Africa).

Therefore, we believe that the new Sudan project must go beyond being satisfied with the frameworks of political and economic programs and take an effective step towards “revolutionizing the Sudanese mentality” based on the actual historical reality. We believe that renaming “Sudan” in a way that expresses the actual historical and cultural reality must find a place in the new Sudan project.

First, it is known that the spread of Islam in the “Sudan of the Nile Valley” in the sixteenth century was linked to the beginnings of the Sinarian Funj state. Education centers were established in the Funj region, south of Khartoum. In an effort to legalize their Islamic identity, the Funj Sultans, not the Abdalab, encouraged and financed the migration of religious teachers and preachers.

Secondly, the Sinarian Funj state was a “Blue Sultanate”, a confederation of structure with two main poles: the Funj and the Abdlab Arabs, and it reserved for all its ethnocultural groups “autonomy” under the control of the centre. It is, therefore, an Afro-Arab Islamic state that is “Sudanese” in terms of foundation, culture, and political system.

Is it here or not that among the proposed alternatives for a name that expresses our historical heritage is the call previously put forward by our late professor Jamal Muhammad Ahmed, “the Republic of Sinnar” or “the New Republic of Sinnar” instead of the current designation that is of a derogatory geopolitical nature and lacks all historical and cultural content??

Background painting: The ruins of the palace of the King of Sennar as painted by Caio in 1821