Date: Mon Dec 8 17:08:25 2014
Doing Away with Sudan's Arab Supremacy
- Amir A. Nasr
Posted on
<http://africanarguments.org/2014/12/08/doing-away-with-sudans-arab-supremac
y-amir-a-nasr/> December 8, 2014
The American Pakistani playwright Ayad Akhtar
<http://www.broadway.com/buzz/164963/how-hamlet-inspired-playwright-ayad-akh
tar-to-create-a-magnetic-role-for-aasif-mandvi-in-disgraced/> once said "I
see the American experience as being defined by the immigrant paradigm of
rupture and renewal: rupture with the old world, the old ways, and renewal
of the self in a bright but difficult New World."
It might seem strange to begin a piece about Sudan with an American-sourced
quote uttered in relation to an American experience. But bear with me, for
the American experience has much to reveal about Sudan's state of affairs.
It is rare, if ever, that we look at Sudan as an immigrant nation like the
United States, and for many good reasons. The list of differences is long.
For a start, Sudan isn't a country with a centuries-old history that
involves the mass deaths and ethnic cleansing of a population native to the
land by foreign colonialists. It isn't a country that fought a civil war
over the abolishment of slavery. And it certainly isn't a country that
annually receives throngs of immigrants from across the planet.
Instead, over the span of more centuries, a growing influx of Arabs arrived
and assimilated with the native African Nubian populations in the north,
eventually transforming their local identities and Arabizing them relatively
peacefully.
>From then onwards,
<http://books.google.ca/books?id=jF2jq5JrkS4C&pg=RA1-PA198&lpg=RA1-PA198&dq=
nubia+funj&source=bl&ots=SK10gtxF7f&sig=EZf48YGbZaXxGLiZK29t5KomJA8&hl=en&sa
=X&ei=UCeFVO_ANNLyoASllYDwAw&redir_esc=y%23v=onepage&q=nubia%20funj&f=false>
starting in the 14th century, after the collapse of Christian Nubia due to a
violent confrontation with an alliance of Arabs and the Funj, and then
following the enshrining of Islam into the fabric of local life, a more
consolidated Arab identity emerged. It gave birth to what can only be
described as Arab Supremacy.
This is where America's ongoing story becomes instructive. To say Sudan's
violent contemporary history of civil wars is primarily due to the
<http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/jun/10/sudan-identity-crisis-
north-south> nation's identity crisis would be false. But only partially.
Like all violent conflicts, for decades Sudan's civil wars have always been
a struggle for power. But a defining implicit and persistent feature of that
struggle has been the continuing violent determination of Khartoum's
successive regimes since independence to uphold and maintain their myth of
Arab Supremacy, a supremacy that has culturally, economically, and
politically privileged Sudan's Arabs or 'Arabs' for generations, especially
those from the center - like me.
This is not to say that Sudanese Arabs aren't victims of the current
regime's harsh violence as international media reporting on Sudan with
simplistic 'African Vs. Arabs' narratives would have too many believe.
Sudan's Arabs absolutely have been and continue to be victims of the
regime's corruption and monstrosities, but arguably not to the same extent
as the rest of the nation.
>From Juba to Darfur to the Nuba Mountains, the government leadership's
rhetoric has always had an appallingly dehumanizing tone towards Sudan's
non-Arab(ized) peoples inhabiting those regions, calling them insects,
rubbish, and such, and subjecting them to unspeakable brutalities, the likes
of which Sudan's Arabized communities have not faced, so far, at least.
And this is where Sudan's youth and future leaders who enjoy the benefits of
Arab privilege have an important role to play if Sudan is ever to witness
better days for all of its diverse peoples. It is our duty to actively
disavow the implicit and explicit manifestations of Arab Supremacy, and to
instead nurture an expanded Sudanese identity that is inclusive and
accommodating of all Sudanese people - culturally, economically, and
politically.
The youth activist group <http://www.girifna.com/> Girifna has demonstrated
its ability in doing precisely that, in
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVDGXazSsO0> word and deed, backed by a
diverse membership that cuts across ethnic groups and classes. Moreover, a
growing number of young and progressive <http://ohyeahsudan.tumblr.com/>
social media-savvy Sudanese creators and disruptors who believe in pluralism
are slowly also beginning to feature a more equitable and
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhD_rCGjqUM> colourful Sudanese face to the
world. This shift is evident to anyone glued to YouTube and the new digital
media landscape.
Alas, this doesn't seem to be the case when one examines the youth
memberships and upcoming vanguards of the more established and influential
northern opposition parties such as Ummah, the Democratic Unionists, or the
Popular Congress. And it clearly isn't the case when one examines the
Sudanese mainstream media landscape.
The centrality of Arab identity continues to enjoy disproportionate
representation and supremacy. It is business as usual, not out of deliberate
ill intentions, but largely out of decades of oblivious habit and
conditioning. To many, if not most, who live in the seat of power, Khartoum
is Sudan and Sudan is Khartoum.
And if my conversations with many self-identified Arab Khartoumites are any
indication, "what if" anxieties are certainly a cause too in this national
predicament. The idea that our "Otherized" Sudanese fellow countrymen and
women from Darfur, the Nuba Mountains, and beyond could one day tilt
Khartoum's demographic or political scales in their favour is a worrying
prospect for some.
This leads to the stubborn rejectionist, bigoted attitudes in the capital.
"There are too many of them in Khartoum. Their numbers grew. We don't know
what their intentions are. They ought to leave!" proclaim the disgruntled.
Here too, America's story bears similarities, albeit more glaringly in
America's case given its projected
<http://mic.com/articles/87439/how-white-people-react-to-losing-their-majori
ty-status-in-america> majority-minority status, a little-discussed cause of
anxiety among many members of white America worrying about what the future
will hold for them, given the historical record.
Nevertheless, even though I've been unfairly intensely hated by too many
Southern Sudanese on too many occasions for no reason other than being an
'Arab' Sudanese who happens to look like the people who committed crimes
against them and their families, there is no doubt that Arab Supremacy in
Sudan is a fact of life. It is implicitly and obliviously so to many of us
who enjoy its benefits, and explicitly and clearly so to those on the other
side who bear its brunt.
As a Khartoum-born Afro-Arab these realities have become much more apparent
to me ever since I relocated to North America and began undergoing the
disorienting process of making it my adopted home. One can't help but
reflect on Sudan when viewing news about Ferguson.
It takes courage, trust, understanding, forgiveness, and healing to
relinquish mutually-harmful notions of supremacy and power. Mandela mustered
what it takes. Roosevelt and Truman mustered it.
John Garang came close
<http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/01/201211873055142443.html>
with his New Sudan vision charm offensive, winning over many Arab-identified
Sudanese, so much so that they confessed they "wouldn't mind voting for
him." Not the best way of showcasing progress, but it was progress
nonetheless.
Indeed, Sudan really could use a larger, more embracing identity. Even
though we're not an immigrant nation in the American sense, all we have to
do is just go back far enough, and our assimilative, diverse past will
reveal itself.
It is therefore incumbent upon us to break away from our current reality,
and create a renewal of self within a new better Sudan of our making. That's
a tall, near impossible order to fulfill anytime soon, but at the very
least, we can start with our narratives and media representations, and we
the youth must lead the way.
As for identities expanded enough to include and accommodate our religious,
non-religious, and yes, even irreligious diversities, that is a bigger
challenge and a whole other matter altogether.
<http://africanarguments.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/amir.png> amirAmir
A. Nasr is the author of the memoir <http://www.myislambook.com/> My Isl_at_m:
How Fundamentalism Stole My Mind - And Doubt Freed My Soul. Subscribe to his
Insiders List email updates on <http://www.amirahmadnasr.com/>
www.AmirAhmadNasr.com and follow him on Twitter where he is
<https://twitter.com/SudaneseThinker> _at_SudaneseThinker.
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