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Re: توهان هوية الشمال في مخيلة د. العفيف ( رأي آخر ) . (Re: محمد على طه الملك)
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Dear Abdelwahab I wish you have a happy new year, and independence day You wrote
الأهم بالنسبة لي – مرة أخرى- أن نقد العفيف لظاهرة التهميش والتخلف في السودان سطحية ومتخلفة هي نفسها. وقد ذكرتُ ذلك في موضع آخر
I do agree with above statement. This is one of my major reasons for not accepting the argument that Dr. Alafif's used the dependency approach of Frantz Fanon which also addressed the mjor issues of the exploitive nature of the center, or the metrople,class conflict, ethnic conflict, gender conflict, economic inequality, and the role of the elites of the former colonies in exploiting their own peoples. Watch the videos made by Dr. Gates on Africa, particularly his simplistic reflection of the Afro- Shirazi identity of some Swahili people of Zanzibar and you will see the similarity between Dr. Gates apparoach, and Dr. Alafif's methodology. I was surprised that I didn't find any reference in Dr. Alafif's references and end notes in his original English paper of Frantz Fanon, or Henry Gates.
Attached Dr. Alafif's onclusion , and footnotes:
Conclusion
We have mentioned that Northerners believe that they are descendants of an Arab father and an African mother, and that they identify with the father and reject the mother. To the average Northerner, the mother symbolizes the Southerner within, and unless Northerners accept their mother, and identify with her, they will not accept Southerners as their Al-Baqir al-Afif Mukhtar 45 equals. Recognition of the long denied African component within the Northern self, and accommodation of the long suppressed African mother within their identity, are the prerequisite for Northerners to recognize and socially accept Southerners as a little bit different but equals. The problem of the war could be resolved through cessation of the South from the North. This could probably solve the Southern problem with the North, but will not solve Northerners’ identity crisis. It is obvious now the crisis of identity in the North has reached its peak, and the equilibrium started to swing again. Questions about identity have been posed, and Northerners have to make a choice; to continue to lurk in the margin or to create a center of their own, to continue to be second rate Arabs, or to try to be first rate Sudanese. Cultural and political entrepreneurs are split between those who suggest a construction of a new identity that enables Northerners to see the world through their eyes, and those who are defending the status quo. However, destabilizing the old identity is the point of departure for the construction of a new identity, and exposure of the paradoxes of the old identity is essential for the purpose of destabilization. This is what this paper set to do. Notes 1 The term Northern Sudan here does not designate the geographical North, but rather the ideological North, whose geographical confinements are limited to the Muslim, Arabicspeaking, central riverain Northern Sudan. 2 Oedipous’ words in Sophocles’ play Oedipous Tyranous, in Antony D. Smith, National Identity, (England: Penguin Books, 1991), 2. 3 See Address to the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva by Dr. John Garang on March 24, 1999, News Article by UNHR on March 27, 1999. 4 Francis M. Deng, War of Visions: Conflict of Identities in the Sudan, (Washington, D.C.: The Bookings Institution, 1995). Al-Baqir al-Afif Mukhtar 46 5 Ibid., 4. 6 Philip Babcock Gove, Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged, (ed.) (London: G Bell & Sons Ltd, 1959). 7 David Laitin, “A Theory of Political Identities”, in Identity in Formation: the Russian Speaking Population in the Near Abroad, (Ithaca and London: Correll University Press, 1998). 8 David L. Sills International Ensyclopaedia of Social Sciences, ed. (The Macmillan Company & the Free Press, 1968), 7, 61. 9 Ibid. 10 Maurice R. Stein, Arthur Virdich, & David M. White, Identity & Anxiety, eds. (New York: Free Press , 1960). 11 Laitin, “A Theory of Identities”, 13. 12 Ibid., 20. 13 Deng, War of Visions, 1. 14 Julius Ground & William L. Kolb (ed.) A Dictionary of Social Science, London: Tavistok Publications 1964, 314. 15 Sigmond Freud, The interpretation of Dreams, trans. J. Starchy, (London: Allen & Unwin, 1945), 150. 16 J. P. Seward, “Learning Theory and Identification”, Journal of Genetic Psychology, 84, (1954), 202. 17 Sigmond Freud, Group Psychology and the analysis of the Ego, trans. J. Starchy, (London: The International Psychological Press, 1922), 65. 18 M. Scheler, The Nature of Sympathy, (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1945), 18, 19. 19 Laitin, “A Theory of Identities”. 20 Ibid., 14. 21 Erik H. Erikson, Identity: Youth and Crisis, (New York: Norton, 1968), 19-23 22 H. M. Johnson, Sociology: A Systematic Introduction, (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1960), 128. 23 Laitin, “A Theory of Political Identities”. 24 George A. De Vos, “A Psycho-cultural Approach to Ethnic Interaction in Contemporary Research", in Marthsa E. Bernal and George P. Knight, ed. Ethnic Identity: Formation and Transmission among Hispanic and other Minoroties, (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), 235-68. 25 Laitin, "A Theory of Identity". 26 Ibid., 18. 27 Charles Taylor, “The Politics of Recognition”, in Amy Gutmann, ed., Multiculturalism Examining the Politics of Recognition, (Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1994), 25. 28 Laitin, “A Theory of Political Identities”, 21. 29 Ibid. 30 Ibid., 23. 31 Ibid., p. 22. 32 Ibid., p. 23. 33 Ibid. Al-Baqir al-Afif Mukhtar 47 34 Erikson, Young Man Luther, New York: Norton, 1958. 35 Erikson, Identity: Youth and Crisis, 19-23 36 Laitin, "A Theory of Identities", 17-18. 37 Ibid. 38 Taylor, "The Politics of Recognition". 39 Ibid., 25. 40 Ibid. 41 The writer attended this meeting which took place after a Friday prayer in 1990, in Martin Luther King Hall at Aston University in Birmingham. Most of those who attended the meeting were members of the National Islamic Front (NIF). 42 Many of my informants contested the title of my research on grounds that Northerners are not black, but brown, and accused me of being influenced by the "western" color concept. 43 A Sudanese joke says that a Northerner, who is very dark and has very soft and straight hair, was taking a taxi in Syria, and was chatting in Arabic with the Syrian taxi driver. After a while the taxi driver said to his passenger: “Are you from Senegal? ”. The offended Northerner directed the driver's attention to his (the passenger's) soft hair saying: “ Do you think this is wig?". 44 An average chap in the North usually seeks to get a white or light skin girl with a soft long hair. Girls also prefer light skin boys. 45 Janice Boddy, Wombs and Alien Spirits, Women, Men, and the Zar Cult in Northern Sudan, ((Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1989), 64. 46 The Northerners' use of the word akhdar instead of aswad is probably an effect of the Arabic culture. The early Arabs used the word akhdar to describe people of unquestionable nobility whose color, for one reason or the other, was black. An example of these is al-Fadl ibn 'Abbas ibn 'Abdel Muttalab ibn Hashim ibn 'Abd Munaf. He is said to have got the black color from his grand mother. He said about hiself: "I am the akhdar (green) for those who know me, my skin is akhdar but I am a son of an 'Arab noble home". See Abduh Badawi, al-Shura' al-Sud wa khasaisuhum fil-shi'r al-'Arabi, (Cairo: 1973), 93. 47 The use of chemical creams that lighten dark color is widely spread among young girls in the North. The side effects that these creams caused have recently become a matter of concern in the local newspapers and among Sudanese discussion groups in the Internet. For a detailed description of the local methods used by brides in Northern Sudan to soften and lighten their skin color see Boddy, Wombs and Alien Spirits, 64-65. 48 Deng, War of Vision, 5. 49 Ahmed al-Shahi, “Proverbs and Social Values in a Northern Sudanese Village”, in Ian Cunnison and Wedny James eds., Essays in Sudan Ethnography, (London: C. Hurst & Company, 1972), 97. 50 'Awn as'Sharif Qasim, Qamus al-Lahja al-'Amiyyah fi-s-Sudan, (Cairo: 1985), 298. 51 Boddy, Wombs and Alien Spirits, 64. 52 It is observed that probably all the earlier generations of Northern Scholars who studied in the west, and who married European or America women, got married to white women. Al-Baqir al-Afif Mukhtar 48 Neither my informants nor myself know of a single case where one of them got married to a black woman. Even among the younger generations the vast majority is married to white women, and very few of them married black women. 53 Because marriage between Muslim women and non-Muslim men is forbidden in Islam, Northerners, in case of Europeans, usually accept the nominal Islam declared by the individual before marriage is conducted. 54 Mohamed Ahmed Mahgoub, Democracy on Trial, Reflections on Arab and African Politics, (Cheshire: Andre' Deutsch, 1974), 59. 55 This period is from independence in 1956 until the end of the second democracy in May 1969. During this time "Arabism" was the undeclared identity and ideology of the governments. However, starting from May 1969, governments took "socialist" and then "Islamic" identities and started to take sides with their allies in the Arab countries. For an elaborate discussion of Sudan's foreign policy, during these eras see Mansur Khalid's Nimeiri and the Revolution of Dismay, (London: Boston Routledge & K., 1985); The Government they Deserve: the Role of the Elite in Sudan Political Evolution, London / New York: Kegan Paul International 1990). 56 Mahgoub, Democracy on Trial, 136. 57 R.S. O’Fahey, Arabic Literature of Africa, the writing of Eastern Sudanic Africa to c. 1990, (Leiden, New York, Koln, E. J. Brill, 1994), xi. 58 For more information about the White Flag League of 1924 see Yushiku Kurira, Ali Abdel Latif and 1924 Revolution: Researching the Origins of the Sudanese Revolution, trans. Majdi al-Na'im, (Cairo: Center for Sudanese Studies, 1997). For more information about the unionist movement see Khalid, the Governemet they deserve; Mahgoub, Democracy on Trial. 59 Although I have not so far come across a study of this phenomenon, it is widely observed. 60 Abdellahi Ali Abrahim, al-Thaqafa wal-Dimogratiyya fil-Sudan, (Cairo: Dar al-Amin, 1996), 31. 61 Ibid., 30. 62 Ibid., 31. 63 Al-Sharif Zein al-'Abidin al-Hindi, see end note 131. 64 Abdella al-Tayeb, in the Sudanese Studies Association triennial Conference in Darham in 1990. 65 Salah Ahmed Ibrahim, a well known statement. 66 Al-Sadiq al-Mahdi, Interview, Masarat Jadida, (Cairo: 1998), 171. 67 Mohammed Omer Beshir, Revolution and Nationalism in the Sudan, (Barnes and Noble, 1974), 2-3. 68 Lloyd A. Binagi, The Genesis of Modern Sudan: An Interpretive Study of the rise of Afro-Arab Hegemony in the Nile Valley, A.D. 1260-1826”, Ph.D. Dissertation, (Temple University, 1981), 3-4. 69 Abd el-Fatah Ibrahim el-Sayed Baddour, Sudanese Egyptian relations, (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1960), 17. 70 Ibid. 71 William Y. Adam, Nubia Corridor to Africa, (Prenciton: N.J.: Prenciton University Press, 1977). Al-Baqir al-Afif Mukhtar 49 72 R. S. O'Fahey and J. L. Spaulding, Kingdoms of the Sudan, (London: Methuen & Co LTD, 1974), 15. 73 Ibid., p. 31. 74 Ibid, p. 30. 75 Ibid., p. 30. 76 Ibid., p. 31. 77 Ibid., p. 28. 78 Muhammad Ibrahim Abu Salim & Jay Spaulding, Some Documents from Eighteenth- Century Sinnar, (Kartom: Kartoum University Press, 1992), 8. 79 There are many theories trying to explain the Funj conversion to Islam. One theory is that they did it out of fear of the Turks who eventually invaded and destroyed the kingdom. Another theory maintains that they did it in response to a persuasion from the 'Abdallab, their Muslim allies. For more information see R. S. O'Fahey and J. L. Spaulding, Kingdoms of the Sudan, 31-33. 80 Islam, of course, reinforced the use of Arabic, for the Muslim population "held Arabic in great esteem for religious reasons". See R. S. O'Fahey and J. L. Spaulding, Kingdoms of the Sudan, p. 31. 80 Ibid., p. 31. 81 Ibid., p. 75. 82 Ibid., p. 86. 83 Laitin, "A Theory of Political Identities". 84 Ibid., 40. 85 Muhammad Ibn Jarir al-Tabari, Tafsir al-Tabar: Jami' al-Bayan 'An Ta'wil 'Ulum al- Qur'an, ed. Mahmoud Mohammad Shakir, (Cairo: Dar al-Ma'arif, no date), vol. 8, 104. 86 Yusuf Fadl Hasan, The Arabs and the Sudan from the Seventh to the Early Sixteenth Century, Edinburgh: EUP, 1967), 146. 87 It is known that Muslims purify themselves by washing their limbs and faces five times a day in preparation for prayer. The idea is that in prayer you will stand in front of God, and therefore you should be pure. The physical washing of the limbs is a means to and a symbol of the moral and psychological washing of sins committed through these limbs, by the mouth, the tongue, the ear, the eye and the nose. The process of purification includes worship, doing good and abstaining from evil. 88 See The Qur'an, 33:33. 89 Aya (verse) 103 in sura (section) 16 says: "And the tongue of whom they wickedly refer is foreign 'A'jamiyyun and this is a clear pure Arabic tongue (lisanun 'Arabiyyun Mubin). 90 C. G. Seligman and Brenda Z. Seligman, Pagan Tribes of the Nilotic Sudan, (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul ltd., First published in 1932, Revised 1965), XVIII. 91 J. S. Trimingham, The Christian Approach, 25. 92 Heather J. Sharkey, Colonialism and the Culture of Colonialism in the Northern Sudan, Ph.D. Dissertation, (Princeton: Priceton University, 1998), vol. 1, 40. 92 Deng, War of Visions, 4. 93 Sharkey, Colonialism and the Culture, vol., 1, 40- 58. 94 Ibid., 34. 95 Ibid., 34. Al-Baqir al-Afif Mukhtar 50 96 Ibid., 35. 97 Ibid., 40. 98 Paul Doornbos, "On Becoming a Sudanese", in Tony Barnett and Abbas Abdelkarim, eds. Sudan: State, Capital and Transformation, (London, New York, Sydney: Croom Helm, 1988), 100 &101. 99 99 Sharkey, Colonialism and the Culture, vol., 1, 34. 100 'Abduh Badawi, al-shu'ara' al-sud wa khasa'isuhum fi-l Shi'r al-'Arabi, (Cairo, 1973), 223-4. 101 John Hunwick, West Africa and the Arab World: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, (Accra: Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, the J. B. Danquah Memorial Lectures, series 23 Febryary 1990, 1991), 2. 102 'Abduh Badawi, al-shu'ara' al-sud, 223-4, in Hunwick, West Africa and the Arab World, 12. 103 This story is common place knowledge in the Muslim world. 104 B. Lewis, "The African Diaspora and the Civilization of Islam", in M. I. Kilson & R. I. Roteberg, The African Diaspora (Harvard University Press, 1976), 48-9. 105 Ibid, p. 7. 106 Abduh Badawi, al-Sud wal-Hadara al-'Arabiyya,(Cairo: al-Hay'a al-Masriyya al- 'Amma Lil-kitab, 1976), 22. 107 Hunwick, West Africa and the Arab World, 1990, 6 & 7. 108 Ibid., p. 5. 109 Ibid., 5. 110 Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah, trans. Franz Rosenthal (2nd edn, Princeton University press, 1967), i, 186-9. Cited in John Hunwick, West Africa and the African World, 6. 111 Badawi, al-shu'ara' al-sud, (Cairo: 1973), 223-4, in Hunwick, West Africa and the Arab World, 11 & 12. 112 Ibid., 108. 113 Ibid., 6. 114 Ibid., 6. 115 Badawi, al-Shu'ra al-Sud, 31. 116 Badawi, al-Sud wal-Hadara al-'Arabiyya, 23. 117 Carolyn-Fluehr-Lobban, “A Critical Anthropological review of the Race concept in the Nile Valley”, a paper presented at the Fourth International conference of Sudan Studies at the (American University in Cairo, 1997), 5. 118 Ibid., 5. 119 Abduh Badawi, al-Shu'ra al-Sud, p.78. 120 Ibid., 42. 121 Ibid., 34. 122 Ibid., 5. 123 Ibid., 111. 124 Ibid., 111. 125 Badawi, al-Sud wal-Hadara al-Arabiyya, 185-186 126 A. Yusuf Ali, The Holy Qur’an, Text, Translation and Commentary, 3rd ed., (Cambridge, Massachusetts, Murry Printing Co, 1938). 127 Ibid. Al-Baqir al-Afif Mukhtar 51 128 Ibid. 129 Ibid. 130 Mahmoud Muhammad Taha, The Second Message of Islam, (Beirut: 1968). 131 Ibid. 132 Teresa Brennan, History After lacan, (London, New York: Routledge, 1993). 133 Deng, War of Visions, 64. 134 Ahmed S. al-Sahi, “Proverbs and Social Values in a Northern Sudanese Village” in Ian Cunnison and Wedny James, eds., Essays in Sudan Ethnography (London: C Hurst & Company, 1972), 95. 135 Al-Hindi is the current Secretary General of the democratic Unionist party (DUP General Secretariat), the minority faction which has split from the mainstream Democratic Unionist Party led by Muhammad Osman al-Mirghani. This statement was made in a speech he delivered to a Sudanese audience in London in 1995. 136 W. E. Burghardt Du Bois, The Souls of the Black Folk, Essays and Sketches, (Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co, 1908), 3. 137 Al-Tayeb Salih, al-Majala Magazine, issue 78, 18/6/1989. 138 Sharkey, Colonialism and the Culture, vol. 1, 36. 139 In the 19th century the influx of slaves flooded the Northern markets, causing a sharp fall in the prices of slaves to the extent that as Sharkey puts it "even the humblest families in the central riverain North were able to purchase a slave or two". Sharkey, ibid., 37. 140 Khalid H. A Osman, The Effendiyya and the Concept of nationalism in the Sudan, Ph.D. Dissertation, (University of Reading, 1987),122; See also Sharkey, ibid, 71. 141 Deng, War of Vision,
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