If we were to hear: English Nuba Mountains

If only we would listen or reason

The Nuba Mountains.. English!

Kamal Al-Jazouli

(1)

(1/1) Two press reports, no more than two weeks apart, about an exceptional event that has been taking place for some time in the Nuba Mountains, with the aim of replacing Arabic with English (English, not the Nubian languages!) in education and communication. They have drawn my thoughts and raised my anxiety, throughout the past period, until I began to fear, more than ever before:

A/ We, the Muslim Musta’rab community in Sudan, have not yet qualified to be humble with the Gentiles over the arrangements for diverse cohabitation in one homeland as we should, given that there are necessary and urgently required preliminaries that have not been available, so far, (within) this ethnic group of ours, in a way that would enable it, even if at a minimum,  to resolve (its conflicts) over its very different perceptions (of the national project), first, and to be upright on the path of united pluralism among its components. It is itself, before it calls on any energy to arrange its accommodation for others;

B/ And that the Gentiles, for their part, were perhaps deeper in this historical impasse than we were, at least in terms of the fact that their element (the cultural component) suffers from a chronic weakness in self-awareness, despite the undeniable contribution of this (component), despite its faults, in directing their national awakening (Abdullah Ali Ibrahim, 2001).

A/ Therefore, what the two negotiating parties in (Nivasha) are currently preoccupied with is neither the most important nor the most dangerous. Rather, both of them, in the midst of being preoccupied with the (discordance) raging between them over (power and wealth), for some time now, are neglecting the basic issue: (national unity), intentionally or negligently... it is the same!

(1/2) Both reports are from (Kauda), which is located within the areas affiliated with the administration of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army:

The first is by Anthony Morland, AFP correspondent, published on 11/29/2003 under the title (Language as a Political Issue in the Nuba Mountains), where primary school classrooms alone are now crowded with more than 560 students between the ages of five and ten, excluding adults, including a full batch of 60 teachers being trained within the new program to replace Arabic with English!

B/ As for the other report, by the American Washington Post correspondent, which it published on 12/16/2003 under the title (Linguistic Obstacle on the Path to Peace), it describes the scene of students flocking at dawn, in light of the ceasefire agreement, from the grassy hilltops on foot, for an hour or two, towards their new school, where they are waiting for them, on a blackboard inside a clay cave, with the title of the morning lesson: Ethnicity (Ethnic Relations)!

(2)

(2/1) The Washington Post correspondent was not surprised by the blatantly political nature of the lesson included in a textbook prepared by the movement’s authorities, as much as he was surprised by the language of the lesson itself: English (!). He commented, saying: It seems, with the Arabic-speaking northerners and the black southern Africans approaching the signing of a final peace agreement after years of protracted civil war, that the language that will be used in the midst represents a problem that must be dealt with seriously. The mountain people speak Arabic, the country’s official language “throughout centuries of the slave trade and forced displacement,” as he put it, “but nevertheless they say that they are ethnically and culturally closer to the south” where English has been dominant since the days of the British administration.(!) Therefore, the Nuba in the areas affiliated with the movement, who number 400,000 people, voted (voted?!) two years ago, according to the report, for English to become the language of communication (lingua franca) instead of Arabic!

(2/2) The reporter quotes Simon Kalo, the director of education in the region, as saying: “It is not an adventure. As you can see, we are Africans, not Arabs. We will build the new Sudan and decide our fate. This transfer to English took place, in fact, with the desire of all the Nuba!” In support of this statement, the reporter adds his direct personal testimony that (the move) actually enjoys broad support among citizens, “...all those I spoke to there stressed that they consider it as the first step in determining their new status (separation!) from the north.” He cites what Amna Ismail (18 years old) told him about her strong attachment to English lessons, “...speaking Arabic hurts me because it is not my language” (!), as well as the strict assurances of Aisha Mahmoud (24 years old) to him, saying: “If we are prevented from learning English, we will return to fighting again”!

(2/3) The report also quotes Alex DeWall, director of the organization (Justice Africa) and author of the book (Facing Genocide: The Nuba of Sudan - The Nuba of Sudan Confronting Genocide), saying: “It is completely understandable that the transition to English took place at this particular juncture in the history of this people... who are victims of a plan that can only be described as systematic ethnic cleansing. “The negative effects of the experience of jihad, and mass displacement in particular, have been deeply embedded in the consciousness of these people.” The correspondent follows up on this conversation by saying that 20% of the Nuba are Muslims, but they oppose the Islamic model that the government has sought to impose since the 1990s. This is supported by part of what he heard from Imam Adam Atroun that the northerners bombed his mosque in Kauda, and that his case is documented by various rights groups. Man, and that “..the northerners persecute us because we are black, so now I want my children to learn English” etc. etc.!

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(3/1) As for Anthony Moreland, AFP correspondent, he was interested, for his part, in the political nature of the decision issued in 2001 by the movement’s local government authorities, which decided to replace Arabic with English as the language of communication and instruction in forest schools! He mentioned what Simon Callow said to a small group of foreign journalists, explaining the background of the decision that the old educational system in the mountains was primarily aimed at Arabizing and Islamizing the Nuba, and “...I converted to Islam myself when I was a student and changed my name to Ismail, otherwise I would not have completed my education”! The report goes on to tell how the war caused schools to close for many years, and as soon as they were reopened following the 2002 ceasefire agreement, people, young and old, turned to them. However, the project quickly encountered the problem of not having a sufficient number of local teachers. “So we were forced to fill this shortage by bringing in dozens of Kenyan and Ugandan teachers who wanted to contribute to this linguistic revolution,” in the words of the movement’s official!

(3/2) Moreland also quotes Daniel Koko Mandi, one of the local future teachers who is being prepared for a training course with the help of UNICEF: “We don’t want Arabic anymore. It is the language of the Arabs, not ours. As for teaching English, it is a good thing. They speak it all over the world, meaning you can communicate with anyone in it!”

(3/3) Perhaps the most important aspect of Moreland’s report is its aspect related to the new curriculum for the subject (National Education), which aims to correct the wrong concept about Sudan that is often portrayed by the media as its north belongs to Muslim Arabs while its south belongs to Christian Africans. When journalists asked the teacher, who was using a book prescribed by the movement, if he thought that such topics were political at a level that was not appropriate for primary school students, he immediately answered: Of course, it is political, otherwise they would not have called it (national education)!

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(4/1) As usual, those with above-average acumen and intelligence will spend most of their efforts to catch these two reporters red-handed with blatant fabrication, blatant exaggeration, and naive contradiction, and perhaps also (for the purpose) which is, without a doubt, (disease)! They will certainly find in the two reports a wealth of all of that, especially the cramming of obvious fabrications into the folds of established facts, or which can, at least, be accepted rationally in light of the data of marginal injustices witnessed throughout the economic, political, social and cultural history of our country, as well as some of the words that have been placed, and with remarkable deliberateness, on the tongues of (the Nuba), as in their calling the jellaba. “By the northerners” (!) In addition to some conclusions that were arranged, paradoxically to the logic of the context, on premises that were not of their kind at all, such as Imam Atroun, whose mosque was destroyed in response to his grievances, seeking to learn English (!), or Aisha Mahmoud warning, if her people were deprived of learning English, to enter the forest... just like that (!)

(4/2) But what we should hear, understand, and be well aware of is another matter entirely. What is truly regrettable is that all the contradictions that can be observed and classified here or fabrications there remain insufficient on their own to completely refute these two reports, as the basic root of the concrete truth in them remains present in what has actually resulted in both Arabic and its burden of the culture of the Muslim Mozarab group in the country, as a result of their transformation into weapons in the hands of the (authoritarian) movement within this group, which in its name has historically ruled over the Gentiles living in the language. Culture, religion and ethnicity.

(4/3) Perhaps one of the most clear signs of this fate is the neglect and insignificance of the language and culture of this group, in their lived and tangible present, among the new generations of their own people, who seem to have completely abandoned them to this (authoritarian) current, which has filled them with vulgarity, obstinacy, and misuse, to the point that it has now almost completely submerged them, not to mention their lack of the slightest elements of immunity to various matters. The types of external plans aimed at making them a loophole through which not only the longings of (national unity) can come, but also (the existence) of the Muslim Musta’rab group itself, as one of the components of the Sudanese pluralistic system, regardless of the degree of clarity or lack of this targeting. Not to mention what the two reports revealed about the activity of UNICEF (even UNICEF!) in providing direct support to accelerate the replacement of Arabic by English, and bringing in teachers from Kenya and Uganda (meaning neither southerners, nor northerners, nor even Nuba!) to teach reading, mathematics, health awareness, and.. civic education (!) This came after it became clear that most of the Nuba teachers, who enthusiastically approached this training program at the Kauda School, did not know, in fact, the least bit about English! The process, then, is similar, in essence, to reproducing (the missionary scene) at the beginning of the last century, except that it is (evangelization), this time, (in language)! Perhaps this is exactly what was revealed, in a way, by Redinto Laroko, the retired Ugandan school principal who is currently assigned to help train the new batch of these teachers, when he said to a Washington Post reporter: “I often feel like a ‘missionary’ while I work here teaching English... but I think, in any case, that it is a good job. This is what people really want!”

(4/4) And truly, how miserable is a language that we thought, due to our heedlessness, grew up in the tablets of “Al-Faqra” and aspired to bring out “Al-Jalaba,” so it emerged on the tongues of the inhabitants as a project of unity that does not truly bury itself in cultural uniqueness, and a tool of communication that does not sever ties with the mother’s languages. Then we wake up, at the end of the night, to the last nightmare we were waiting for: that these people will turn over and kick it, in the end, as a pebble is kicked in the On the side of the road, they scrape it from their consciences just as scribbles on an ancient wall are scraped off, or they dregs it, just as a smear of blood is dregs from the throat! Who is the one who questions history about this outcome: the trend of arrogance from the Sultanate of Al-Kakr to the authority of the Front, deceiving the Holy of Holies in “Islamizing” others and “Arabizing” them?! Or is the trend of indifference to the entitlements of (unity) as an objective necessity, from (Anyanya One) to the (Popular Movement), delusional that the hateful (Jellaba’s arrogance) will not be suppressed without the opposing (marginal arrogance), even if the matter requires seeking the strength of the (external) factor, be it politics, culture, or.. language?! Since the complete answer is not as easy as the question can be asked, but rather requires, without a doubt, an extensive study into the political economy of ethnic relations in Sudan, we will limit ourselves here to referring to some of that in order to serve the purposes of this short article.

(5)

(5/1) When addressing the first part of the question, the most important facts that should be taken into account are that the majority of the Muslim Mozarab community belongs, with its economic, political and socio-cultural weight in our country, to the Nubian element (Nubian, not Nubawi) spread throughout the geographical area from the far north to the triangle of the Golden Center (Khartoum - Kosti - Sennar), which is the element to which Ghalib (the Jellaba), or the castes, belong. And the social segments that have been able, for five centuries, to concentrate the bulk of the wealth in their hands (Sandra Hill - within B. Woodward, 2002), and in whose womb, historically, the (authoritarian) trend was formed that is superior to others in the nation due to the (Arabs!) race, the religion (Islam), and its culture, in addition to the (Arabic) language, of course. Despite the Nubian origins of most of those who belong to these social forces, they no longer internalize awareness of this (identity), which itself has turned into a (margin), but rather claim to constitute a (national) model defined by Islam and Arabism. In other words, and to be more clear, the problem does not lie in this identity process itself as much as it lies in the oppressive method that these social forces have followed in arrogance, through their Arabization and Islamization, over all those whom they have come to imagine to be (below them), a necessary blow, from all people of other races, religions, cultures, and languages. The old identity has, to a large extent, dissolved in its conscience, and its Nubia no longer has any real meaning, but it began to present itself as a (national) model or (national) culture based on the Arabic language, Arab-Islamic culture, and the Islamic religion, without fulfilling the conditions for it to constitute a comprehensive model that expresses (the totality of) Sudanese cultures, or reflects the Sudanese (diversity) system. It still expresses only the pure “perception and understanding of Nili-Shamali.” For this rising Sudanese identity” (Dorenbos, in Barnett and Karim - same source).

(5/2) The accumulation of wealth in the hands of these people (the jellaba), therefore, formed the historical background for the emergence of the authoritarian, authoritarian movement among them, (by enabling it) to impose its style (religiosity) and the appropriate level of Arab culture and the Arabic language. Because it is not one of the goals of this article, and indeed it is not in its capacity, to trace the long historical process that produced the current parasitic Muslim Arabist capitalism, we will suffice here to point out its most important stations, such as the great push that I found, for example, from the British administration (1898 - 1955), when the latter needed to create a (Sudanese institution) to support it from a segment of major merchants who were enabled by their service to foreign capital in the local market. At that time, they accumulated wealth that they reinvested, mainly, in the field of import and export, or in some light manufacturing industries, in the post-independence phase (T. Niblock, 1990), before they devoted themselves completely, since the late seventies of the last century, to speculation in real estate, currencies, etc., in addition to the tribal and sectarian aristocracy that was empowered to dispose of lands and wealth, and the upper segments of the society. Early college graduates whose high incomes played an important role in shaping their conservative tendencies (T. Niblock, 1990).

(5/3) However, what concerns us, however, is to draw attention to the exceptional historical importance of the early initial formation of the higher social groups and strata, belonging primarily to the Muslim Mozarab community, and to the economic, political, and socio-cultural conditions that took shape in the aftermath of the collapse of the Christian kingdoms and the establishment of the (Kingdom of Sennar), as follows:

A/ This formation and the conditions that resulted from it took place in the circumstances of the first emergence of a simple trade system in the style of pre-capitalist formation since the beginning of the sixteenth century (K. Polanyi, same source), and the prosperity of foreign trade under the supervision and patronage of the Sultans, similar to the seasonal trade caravans in Mecca with the beginnings of the class division and the completion of the dissolution of the primitive system during the fifth and sixth centuries AD (Belyaev, 1973), and the integration of the various segments of merchants and employees. And the jurists and Sharia judges (people of apparent knowledge), or the middle class under formation at that time, in (temporal power) as a result of the support they were providing to the upper aristocratic class of sultans, rulers, and governors of the regions, and the benefit they were reaping from the privileges of their hovering around the center of power with what they were obtaining and reinvesting commercially from small shares of gold, slaves, and the like (Ovahi, Spaulding, Al-Kursani, and Al-Bashri - including T. Niblock, 1990).

B/ Because accumulation is, by its nature, a slow process whose results can hardly be discerned except according to the general laws of the movement of development, it was possible, only at the end of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth century, for the quantitative accumulation of contradictions of disparate interests among the various segments of merchants to lead to a qualitative change in the commercial system itself, which led, in the long run, to the disintegration and dissolution of the Sinarian state itself during the first quarter of the nineteenth century. One of the most prominent factors for this is the decline in the role of the sultans in that system during the eighteenth century, as a result of foreign merchants encouraging small local merchants to enter foreign trade and deal in foreign currencies, such as the Spanish dollar, in order to free themselves from the subservience to the sultan’s trade and his absolute control over prices through his control of the quantities of gold that reach the markets, and the dissolution of the sultans’ grip, as a result, on the Sultanate’s lands with the advent of the system of private ownership of lands replacing state ownership, so wealthy merchants and influential people acquired them. The shackles of pastoralists, slave farmers, and semi-slaves with more overlapping slave and feudal production relations (T. Niblock, 1990), in addition to the deepening of the contradiction between the inability of dismantled political authority, and the accelerating growth of commercial activity with its increasing need for a central force that imposes security, stability, the unified market, and geographical borders, and limits the obstacles of the multiple tax system due to the multiplicity of political systems in the regions (Al-Qaddal, 2002). Then, on top of all of that, came the exacerbation of secessionist movements, putting pressure on Ibala, in an atmosphere of divisions of power and conflicts between its wings, which resulted in the separation of entire regions, such as the Shayqiya region, from the entity of the kingdom (T. Niblock, 1990), and even the launch of explicit calls from other regions for Muhammad Ali Pasha to intervene (Al-Qaddal, 2002).

A/ On the other hand, there were Bedouin productive forces at the bottom of society, made up of slaves, camel and livestock herders, artisans of small commodity production in the villages, and farmers of rain-fed land and artificial irrigation, who were stuck between the hammer of the absolute control of the Sultan, and the anvil of the economic influence of the merchants, on the “shill” system at times, and then on the “forced labor” or “participation” systems in production, as the case may be, as a result of the acquisition of wealthy merchants and wealthy people. Influence over lands comes at a later stage in the conflict of interests, as mentioned above. The tribes of the South, the Nuba Mountains, the Funj (south of the Blue Nile), and the White Nile belong to this bottom of society, who were considered a major supplier of slaves, ivory, and other commodities that were “extracted by force...which made this process have negative effects on the aforementioned regions” (T. Niblock, 1990).

D/ These influences had to cast a negative shadow also on the culture and language front. While the collapse of the Christian kingdoms did not lead to the (wiping out) of Christianity itself as a dominant religion and culture, in one fell swoop, as some writers mistakenly believe (for example: Jaafar Bakhit, 1987), let alone the African religions and the cultures associated with them, the characteristics of the spiritual space of that material activity had begun to take shape, according to the cultural standards of the economically dominant, politically powerful (Al-Jalabi) institution, just as it had begun to form an identity. What is called (the Sudanese personality), from the perspective of this same culture, that is, the personality (Al-Jalabi) descended from the local Nubian Arabized element under the influence of the Arab element that has been flowing into Sudanese territory since before Islam, and under the influence of the Arab-Islamic culture that has been making its way, since 641 AD, through treaties, and through commercial exchanges, and then, later, under the influence of the Al-Azhar missions, the jurists brought by the Sultans of Sennar from Egypt, the Sufis and sheikhs. Roads who came from the East and the West. With the passage of time, these characteristics began to revolve around the imagined (national) model according to the identity measurements of the mind and conscience of (Al-Jalabi), which were formed on the fear of the hidden metaphysical world of the non-Muslims residing or neighboring, most of whom were Negroes who brought to them and from them his goods, throwing himself into the depths of dangers with which he had nothing to protect himself from except reliance, to the point of sanctification, and not on jurists and Sharia judges (scholars of knowledge). Al-Dhaheri), and these people he found wandering with him in the courtyards of the markets and the halls of the court, and their prestige fell in his soul, but rather to the (spiritual) authority of the saints, the righteous, and the sheikhs of the Sufis (people of esoteric knowledge), descended, essentially, from his own Muslim Mozarabic ethnic group, and ascetic in the gold and influence of the sultans, and alone capable of (attaching and assisting) with the miracles and miracles that they create. Miracles, for him, are mostly linked to (linguistic) formulas represented by what they (read), (write), and (erase), so whatever good or evil touches him (they say) touches him (!), which increased his clinging to (the esoteric knowledge) of language and culture, and doubled his awe of the metaphysical secrets inherent in them (see “The Classes” by Lud Dhaif Allah), and also exacerbated his disdain. (The jars) of the Zanj and (their arrogance), and the foundations of his supremacy over them. All of this paved the way, over time, for a thick veil between these two elements in the general social consciousness, as the Negro element, along with its language and culture, was isolated from the forest and the mountain, and almost the same thing happened in the Sultanate of Fur and the Kingdom of Taqli (Muhammad Al-Makki Ibrahim, 1976). Although all of this was limited to the circumstances of those separate kingdoms, the model was generalized with the Turkish-Egyptian rule in 1820 AD, and the establishment of the modern unified state that “possessed highly efficient implementation tools, so the subsidiarity approach to Arab-Islamic culture emerged in its blatant form” (Abakar Adam Ismail, 1999).

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(6/1) Many historians and researchers, such as MacMichael, Trimingham, Hamilton, Youssef Fadl, Sayyid Hariz, and others, highlight that inverted position that tends to the imagined (emphasis) on the (purity) of the Arab race, as well as the language and culture, with which the “jellaba” later received the image of the homeland and the meaning of patriotism and citizenship, in contradiction to the realities of the hybridization that resulted over five centuries - between the ninth and the fourteenth centuries. - From the mixing of imported Arab blood with local blood, Nubian blood in particular, without forgetting that this also occurs with regard to Bejawi and Negro blood, albeit in a varying manner. “...the pure Arabs were not large in number...at any given time, and they mixed where they resided and intermarried with the local population, whether they were Nubians, Beja, or Negroes” (Hamilton, 1935). Despite this historical fact, and even though the “visible hybridity,” in its entirety, “does not make them pure Arabs” (Youssef Fadl, 1988), Ajli’s tourism in “Tabaqat Wad Dhaif Allah” or “Kateb al-Shouna” or any of the genealogies and their trees, most of which are fabricated or created later, such as the land ownership documents of the Funj, for example, or other historical sources for the Islamic kingdoms and sheikhdoms in the country. It may be enough to reveal the extent of the effort, time, and emotion that the “Jellaba” wasted in “purifying” their origins from the local element, and returning them, not only to the most ancient Quraysh lineages in the Arabian Peninsula, but also to the House of Prophethood itself! Some writers have tried to explain this phenomenon from different cognitive standpoints. For example, Youssef Fadl (1975) refers it to a mere “mistake out of ignorance,” or an attempt to rely on a civilizational basis after the defeat of the Mahdism. However, it is difficult to agree on the interpretation of the collective mentality, especially when it constitutes an extended phenomenon in history, or is affiliated with social classes and segments of such size and impact on the course of the general development of an entire nation, merely through “error” or “ignorance.” The history of the phenomenon itself goes back, as we have seen, to long historical stages before Karary’s defeat. Some writers call this phenomenon (the ideology of authenticity), and propose a funny approach to approaching it from the perspective of clinical psychology, by referring it to a mere (inferiority complex) regarding the hierarchical status of the sources’ origins in Arab-Islamic culture. From this angle, the Arabs of Sudan continued to face the view of questioning their Arabism, which is considered third-class, as “the original Arabs are in the Arabian Peninsula and the Levant, the second-class Arabs are in Egypt and the Maghreb, and the rest are in Sudan, Mauritania, and Somalia” (Abakar Adam Ismail, 1999). The writer believes that the phenomenon is linked to “certain historical circumstances, as the overwhelming majority of the transmitters of Arab-Islamic culture over those long centuries are Bedouins who represent marginal tribes in the Arabian Peninsula and other Arab regions. They are not of prestige or knowledge of Islam and the thought that resulted from it, so it was natural for them to convey with them their reality framed, thus mixing truth with claim at the level of thought and genealogy” (the source). Whatever the case, We agree with what Youssef Fadl (1988) argued that the reality of hybridization and mixing of Arab and Nubian blood (we focus on the race from which Ghalib Al-Jalaba descended) appears (visibly visible) with a force that cannot tolerate fallacy. In addition, it is worth dealing with it as an epistemological fact whose value does not detract from the fact that its claim regarding its racial origins according to MacMichael and its cultural manifestations according to Trimmingham is understood by some thinkers as “involving a hypothesis of decadence,” as was said, for example, by Dr. Abdullah Ali Ibrahim (1996).

(6/2) Al-Jalabi set out to project his awareness of his pure, pure and impersonated race onto the present and future image of the homeland, not as it was in reality, but rather as he formulated it in his grandiose (delusion), based on his initial accumulation of wealth, especially under the simple system of trade and plundering of resources in the days of the Sennar Kingdom, from what was mentioned above, and paving the way for the emergence and dominance of the trend of authoritarian supremacy. In politics, society and culture. We find it difficult to agree with Abkar Adam Ismail, who believes that this arrogance, which he calls (subordination) and (militancy), dates back to the early days of Arab-Islamic culture in Sudan, but it remained soft throughout that time due to his lack of state authority, which was only available to him with the emergence of Islamic kingdoms in northern and central Sudan (same source). With all our respect to the writer, he presents (superiority/subordination/extremism) here as a latent idea that has already achieved its own effect in Arab-Islamic culture, and all it needs for it to appear anywhere is (state authority), as it has no root in the reality of the material activity of the particular society. I would have liked that he had sought to base this hypothesis on a close historical fact, as it has been proven cognitively so far that the Arabization and Islamization movement naturally engulfed its deep course in some parts of the country, especially on the Nile strip from the north to the center, and especially during the centuries that followed the Treaty of the Baqt in 652 AD, through intermarriage, cross-races, the smooth flow of peaceful religiosity, and the flow of language and culture through acculturation and mixing between Islam and spiritual and material elements in the local heritage. Any sound appreciation of the historical Arabization and Islamization movement in our country must be based on looking at it, first, as a supposed source of enrichment, not only for the Sudanese ethnic map, but also for the Arab-Islamic culture in the entire region. Hybridity does not challenge the eligibility of belonging to this culture, nor does belonging to this culture cancel out any of the characteristics of this hybridity, let alone prevent peaceful dialogue with other components of what may be called in the future (Sudanese culture) and (the Sudanese nation)! Therefore, the problem is not in the cognitive absorption of the facts of hybridity or the facts of culture, but, on the contrary, in denying or falsifying them ideologically, and then marketing them, in this way, in the general social consciousness! The Arab migrations to Sudan and the Nile Valley “resulted in a radical transformation characterized by a degree of permanence in the ecological balance between the desert and the cultivated land, and led to a major change in the structure of local Sudanese cultures (and) the cultural and ethnic assimilation that resulted from those migrations was a two-sided process: on the part of the local Sudanese, and on the part of the arriving Arabs (as) the vast majority of the Arab arrivals were Bedouins. (f) Their influence on the local population was unilateral, while the local population displayed a diverse array of cultures and languages, and thus their influence on the incoming Arabs was equally diverse. The process of assimilation has 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 has become, with the passage of time and the interconnectedness of economic interests, the unifying language between those peoples and cultures” (Osama Abdel-Rahman Elnur; “The New Sudan Project and Rewriting the History of Sudan,” Sudanile 4/14/04). Therefore, from the perspective of cognitive truth, one of the most important factors in achieving this (mosaic) is the occurrence of hybridization in some parts of the country and not in other parts. From the point of view of ideological truth, although the (authoritarian/deconstructive) supremacy trend has continued to consider this (mosaic) a curse, the national democratic sections of the (rationalist/theistic) trend, especially among the creators and thinkers, have always considered it a blessing. Perhaps this is precisely what they realized, albeit with varying degrees of consistency and consistency, and what they sought to sense, represent and express, albeit with different levels of consistency and clarity of vision. Generations of Muslim thinkers, writers, poets, and artists, since the call of Hamza al-Malik Tumbul: “O Sudanese poets, believe, enough is enough!” passing through many trends, the most famous of which are (The Forest and the Desert), the (Khartoum School) in composition, and the (Apadmak) group, in addition to the intellectual efforts that were launched, since the sixties of the last century, stimulated by these creative approaches, towards a more comprehensive approach to the problem from different angles. Sociopolitics and socioculturalism are more broad.

(6/3) Only through the events of the three centuries that followed the sixteenth century, and while they began to dissipate in that historical juncture, with the setting of the sun in Sennar, one of the first rare opportunities for the country to unite its regions, formulate itself, and belong to itself, was (Al-Jalabi) busy in the circumstances of the struggle for wealth and power:

A/ With the plunder of the kingdom, which he had been active in dismantling in collusion with foreign merchants, he counts what has become of the huge legacy of Al-Kakr: internal and external trade free from the control of the sultans, and vast lands that emerged from the loose grip of the state, which he acquired with his wealth and influence.

B/ And by establishing his own perspective on the country that was no longer, from one end to the other, anything other than a foothold for his privilege alone in land, agriculture, livestock, trade, and slaves, and his privilege, accordingly, in race, language, style of religiosity, and culture. As for everything (less) than that, it is empty space, or a mere project for (Islamization) and (Arabization) by which he draws closer to God in the hope of reward!

C/ And by deepening his profound vision of the self and the other, since his origin alone is noble and his tongue alone is noble, while everyone other than him is uncircumcised slaves, and their tongues are as well! His blood alone is forbidden, his honor alone is forbidden, and his wealth alone is forbidden, but (the other) is an infidel and neither his blood nor his honor nor his wealth are sacred! The color of (the other) is either black or blue. As for its color, it is the authority that God has sent down regarding its attributes: sometimes golden, sometimes wheat, sometimes honey, and sometimes (multicolored), until when it darkens and becomes closer to the blackness of the thorns, then it is (a delicate numbness) or (tan) that rivals in its charm the sticks in the cities and the drums at the drivers! The presence of (the other) on the forehead is a dark tattoo of a shock, while his own skin is illuminated on his cheeks by the hammers of T&H and (the sweet path of a bird in tranquility), or as it kept blaring day and night, through the government’s radio and television, until this day of the people, his singer who never dies or is missed! He looks at the palms, smells the scent of the armpits, stares intently at the nose and the waterfalls, examines even the color of the insides of the arms in order to avoid those with (sweat) on them, so as not to (fall silent) or become intermarriage with (someone), and that is what was learned from his saying (may God bless him and grant him peace): “Choose your sperm, for race is an impurity,” as a form of subjecting the religious text to the service of an ideology. Arrogance! Although “the Islamic religion considers such trends to be detestable and ignorant,” it interprets the hadith in an ethnic manner, even though it is “clear in urging believers to choose a wife from a good background, in a moral and religious sense, and not in any way ethnic” (Al-Sadiq Al-Mahdi, “Different Identities in Sudan: Conflict or Integration,” paper at the Women’s Studies Center symposium, Sharjah Hall, Khartoum, 3/23/2004). (Al-Jalabi) does all of this without bothering himself, even for a moment, with the question of who he thinks his (uncle) is, or about the origin of his first grandmother on the day he married her, hundreds of years ago, an Arab Muslim who came to these parts via the sea, river, or desert! No wonder, this is a biography that he does not like. Rather, he lets it sink into the depths of his subconscious, hoping it will fade away in silence.. Why?

D/ And by emphasizing all of this as a loud supremacy in the load of social awareness of popular (wisdom) and linguistic formulations that “form a psychological barrier between the people of Sudan... such as: Jins Abd Manu Al-Khair Jad - Abd Takftou without Ghabina - Sijm Al-Hilla, the evidence is Persian, and its eloquent one is Rattan - Al-Humala, the Sut, the slave is jawed... etc.” (Al-Sadiq Al-Mahdi, “Reconciliation and Building Confidence in Sudan,” a paper in Symposium on “Peace between Partnership and Participation”, Sharjah Hall - March 7, 2004).

(6/4) Some researchers prefer to call this (authoritarian) supremacy trend the (deconstructionist) trend, as opposed to another (theistic) trend, which we call (the rationalist), among the (elites) of the dominant Muslim Arabized group. In addition, they also note, and rightly, the similarity of the two trends at the level of expressions of the “marginal elites” themselves, politically and culturally. Dr. stresses. Osama Abdel-Rahman Elnur states that these labels do not express an actual (popular) reality as much as they express an intellectual (elite) reality that shows a degree of what is known in anthropology as (ethnocentric) “which reflects the tendency of contempt and misjudgment within a culture towards other cultures” (Osama Abdel-Rahman Elnur 2001). Although we generally have reservations about bourgeois sociology’s use of the term “elite” in terms of the elevation of the status of the “excellent elite” over the “common people,” and attributing the credit for setting history in motion to the first bloc, we can easily indicate that its use here is limited to indicating the responsibility of groups and segments equipped with high levels of specialized knowledge for fueling the tendency of superiority from the position of being biased toward the social classes that have an interest in its spread and taking its character. Popular, even if false. Therefore, we agree with the researcher that this tendency, although known in all cultures, is, due to the trends of the (elite) currently prevailing in Sudan, threatening, more than ever before, the issue of (unity) with a real and imminent danger, which necessitates the establishment of a negotiating position (for the rationalists/monotheists) of the Muslim Mozarab group to remove the masks from all (the covered), and expose what is hidden from our ethnic history, considering that this is the only correct way out. From our current national predicament, “what separates the Sudanese is what is not said” (Francis Deng, same source), which places on the intellectual and cultural movement the task of working to eliminate the “internal contradiction” that “is the source of confusion among the people of the south and the north, most of them, about their identity” (Mansour Khaled, same source). It also requires us, in the face of future challenges, “to acknowledge, we Arab Muslims, that our culture has exercised cultural superiority over others.” (Because) cultural arrogance in its worst form is a Western commodity and was practiced by all the central cultures of yesterday’s world, but humanity realized its harms and the journey of righteousness and justice began” (Al-Sadiq Al-Mahdi, “Reconciliation and Building Trust...”, 2004). Indeed, it should, according to Dr. Abdullah Ali Ibrahim, went beyond mere recognition to “penetrating forcefully, with soul chips and the vigilance of culture, into the secrets of the institutional, social and historical weakness of the peoples of the Sudanese marginal... (so that we do not become) a burden on the movement of the oppressed and not an addition to it. 5/17/2004).

(6/5) However, what particularly worries us, despite all these calls and others, is the inability of the political energies of the (rationalist/ monotheistic) movement among the Muslim Arabist group so far, with its predominant historical fragility, and the various “elites” that represent it, to carry out its tasks in confronting its other (authoritarian/supremacist/deconstructive) movement, with the level of ability required to absolve the first movement of its share of the blame. Responsibility he bears so far:

A/ At the level of the grievances of the “margin” that have shaken their weight, taken their weight out, and generated all this hatred for the Muslim Mozarab group and its cultural and linguistic symbolisms, to the point that a counter-current (superiorism/deconstructionism) has now become increasingly expressed in the midst of the “margin” protest movement, which has become a serious threat to the project of “national unity”, this time, with extinction and non-existence.

B/ At the level of the grievances of the Muslim Mustarab community itself, as a result of its allowing its (authoritarian/deconstructionist) movement to be unique, under its nose and ears, by claiming to express what it believes to be its historical (sacred) mission to (Arabize and Islamize) others, with all the meanings of coercion, oppression, and reparation that the content of this process carries. Perhaps it is appropriate to bring to mind here what we mentioned above, which was quoted by Anthony Morland, AFP correspondent, from a speech by Simon Callow, Director of Education in the administration of the Popular Movement in Kauda, to a group of foreign journalists, as he explains the backgrounds of the movement’s decision to switch from Arabic to English in education and communication, that the (old) educational system in the mountains was primarily aimed at Arabizing and Islamizing the Nuba and “...I myself converted to Islam when I was a student and changed my name.” To Ismail, otherwise I would not have completed my education! The truth is that this sharp, blade-like statement is hurtful enough to bloody the consciences of all thinkers and intellectuals of the (rationalist/theistic) movement, of all generations, and to make them hang their heads in shame at what they considered to be a distinguished effort they had made and precious time they had spent in producing and spreading democratic awareness of issues of identity, unity in diversity, and the rights of minorities to distinction. Culturally, the result was a ravage, or complete, tragic devastation!

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