بعض الافكار الخاطئية عن اهلنا في الجنوب ؟؟

Quote: Some Misconceptions about Southern Sudanese Abdel A’al Abdalla Osman I am a Northern Sudanese educated through colonial teaching programs which were intended to motivate Sudanese intellectuals towards Western Christian culture, with the ultimate objective of its adoption as a substitute for our own Muslim values. The latter were made to appear to be the real cause for our backwardness. As for Southern Sudanese, we were not given any useful information about their past history. When I finished my education in Hantoub Secondary School, I was left with three impressions concerning Southern Sudan and its peoples. Firstly, Africans are savage and sub-human compared to European Whiteman. Secondly, they have no cultural heritage. Thirdly, Southern Sudanese are totally different from and do not in any way relate to Northern Sudanese. INFERIOR? After graduation, I was fortunate to serve for three years in Equatoria as a doctor in Yei Civil Hospital. The nature of my profession enabled me to interact very closely with many people and families in the society. This experience changed my views about the inferiority of the black African. I came to understand and believe, as stated in Holy Qur’an that Southern Sudanese are human beings like myself who came into the world by God’s creation and not evolution from lower animals, as is still being taught today to our children in some schools in the North and South alike. They enjoy the same sound mental, physical and spiritual faculties as any other human being on this earth. NO CULTURE? My second service in the South, as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Juba, gave me a golden chance to learn more about Southern Sudanese. The University is an institution of higher learning where students from the North and South live and interact. My appointment coincided with the division of the Southern Region and the start of fighting in Upper Nile. I was thus a witness to the differences in behavior between nomadic cultures and the settled Equatorian cultures. I acquired new knowledge which enabled me to refute the second misconception about lack of cultural heritage. I am now fully convinced that Southern tribes of today did have systems of social life long before the advent of imperialism, and were in contact with other systems in the North and outside the boundaries of modern Sudan. It is now certain that ancient Sudan, then known as Kush, and Ethiopia did interact with and were influenced by Judaism and Christianity. That the Nilotic tribes were part of that ancient Sudan is indicates, for example, by the derivation of the name Khartoum from the Dinka word ‘kiertoum’ (meeting rivers). Their presence is also referred to in religious mythology and in the Bible. Verses 1-2 of Chapter 18 of the Book of Isaiah read as follows: “Beyond the rivers of Sudan, there is land where the sound of wings is heard. From that land ambassadors come down the Nile in boats made of reeds. Go back home, swift messengers! Take a message back to your land divided by rivers, to your strong and powerful nation, to your tall and smooth-skinned people, who are feared all over the world.” Further evidence comes from the Egyptian Pharaonic temples (around 2000 B.C.) where portraits of Nilotes, with V-scars on their foreheads, making offerings to the pharaoh, are found. NO INTERACTION WITH NORTHERN SUDANESE? The following arguments from a strong refutation of the third misconception that relations between Southern and Northern tribal systems were absent. All inhabitants of modern Sudan, whether their ancestors lived in the Meroitic Kingdom, in the Christian kingdoms of Dongola and Soba, in the Black Sultanates of Funj and Fur, or in the kingdoms of the Shilluk and the Azande, are of pure African stock. The little Arab blood, that came with sporadic waves of male Arab immigrants, was assimilated via marriage with indigenous girls from Nubia, Beja, and Dinka. It could have barely affected the genes of El Mahadi, Osman Digna, Ali Dinar and Ali Abdel Latif with the end of Arab migration, the Arab blood in the Sudanese population continues to be diluted and African stock is dominant. Those great heroes of the Sudan retained much of their original African cultures including tribal “tongues”, despite the fact that their ancestors evolved through different religious faiths, Christian and Muslim. This phenomenon is peculiar to Sudanese society and is due to the gradual assimilation and integration of local cultures with those, such as Christianity or Islam, coming from outside. The two great natural barriers (the Sahara in the North and the Sudd in the South) ensured that the process of cultural integration took place slowly over centuries. A relatively recent example of cultural borrowing comes from the Mahadia. Dinka sub-tribes, which came into close contact with Ansar, adopted and incorporated Mahdism into Dinka religious beliefs. The Mahdi became one of the sons of Dengdit, the supreme divinity of the Dinka, and his name was invoked along with the rest of the minor Dnka Gods. He was no longer the Mahdi we know in Islam. CONCLUSION: This process of cultural interaction and the associated transformation of religious faiths from traditional beliefs into Christianity or Islam took place during PEACEFUL time only. Any conflict between the interacting components stops the process of cultural integration and may convert it into long-lasting enmity. Under no circumstances should the interacting individuals or groups underrate or belittle each other’s traditions or customs. The delicate equilibrium of cultural integration among Sudanese tribal systems should be considered as SACRED. Individual and group should maintain PEACE to ensure its promotion, whatever the sacrifice or cost. We should never forget that in our call and struggle for National Unity, the support of Christian colleagues in the South is most necessary. In fact, many of them are already working for national unity in spite of the odds facing them in the prevailing dismal circumstances. It is my hope that all the papers presented at this conference will challenge and refute misleading and biased views about the history of the South and its peoples, and thus enable Sudanese intellectuals to correctly understand may of the misrepresented facts about our past and handle the problems of the Sudan with equality and trust.