|
|
 Re: ثالثاً: تطفيف موازين البحث عند د. الباقر العفيف (Re: abdalla elshaikh)
|
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,
|
|
 
|
|
|
|
طلعت الطيب
فيس بوك
تويتر
انستقرام
يوتيوب
بنتيريست