The Engineer Imam

This one of the funniest post to Sudaenese List (an Email based group) by our Friend Hisham Mageed: Very clever reading into the mindset of the ruling elite of Sudan:
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Surfing the Web site of the Sudan National Telecom Corp. (
http://www.ntc.org.sd/English/index.htm ), I came across something very funny! Mr. El-Tayeb
Mustafa, director general of the NTC, is posting his curriculum vitae (see below)
on the Web site, as if the NTC were his own personal property. Here Mr.
Mustafa describes himself as an "engineer." I noticed that wherever his name is
mentioned in the Inqaz and the Khartoum media it is preceded with the title
"engineer." I could not understand how a person could graduate from the Faculty of
Arts and call himself Engineer? Can I study medicine and call myself a lawyer,
or can I study economics and call myself a veterinarian?!! But it seems
everything is possible in Sudan, especially if you have a VIP nephew!

Do not tell me getting a so-called "diploma" for a one- or two-year (or
whatever-it-takes) study at the Telecom Institute (AKA ma3had al-bareed wa al-barq
in the 1960s) would entitle a person to claim being an engineer! There is a
formal education and certain prerequisites leading one to becoming an engineer.
Engineering professional associations, international or domestic, clearly
state what constitutes being an engineer. A degree from the Faculty of Arts and a
"diploma" from the Sudanese Telecom Institute do not qualify a person as an
engineer. What is wrong with being a technician?! Why are we in Sudan fond of
titles that are in most cases incorrect or inaccurate? One can lead a very
admirable respectable career as a nurse (for example), but one would be making a
fraudulent claim if he calls himself a medical doctor (also for example)!

Mr. Mustafa has posted his CV on the public (personal) Web site of the NTC
probably for us, subjects of the Inqaz Emirate, to know more about him. Thank
you, ya Mr. Mustafa. As a good citizen of NIFistan, I could not help but notice
the sudden huge jump in your career in the very early 1990s. Your CV tells us
that you had worked as a "translator" and as a "secretary" in some place
called Abu Dubai (sic) in the UAE until 1990. Then, all of a sudden, you returned
to Sudan to become a director general and a minister! You are a man with a
mission, you returned to save our souls according to your Islamist fundamentalist
Northern separatist doctrine. Your TV (Fi Sahat al-Fidaa) has been
broadcasting to the four corners of Sudan the culture of war and killing, sorry I mean
jihad and martyrdom, against our own brothers and fellow citizens. And as a
custodian of "our values," you have been censoring the Internet. Thank you, our
Engineer Imam, on behalf of the Sudanese nation (at least the Northern
portion!!) for the great learning experience you gave us!

Hisham

From:
Discussion group for Sudan concerns