January 2008

I spent a decent amount of time the past few months searching online for Sudanese Jews (and no in case you’re wondering, the guy in the picture is a Falasha). I thought writing a few collaborative posts on this blog would be a super cool thing to do and could potentially even count as a Guinness World Record of some sort. Yeah, imagine that, the first blog post in HISTORY co-authored by a Sudanese Muslim and a Sudanese Jew!

Okay, seriously though, I simply wanted to get in touch with one or two of them in order to satisfy my curiosity. They’re a tiny, tiny fascinating group of people, to me at least. Besides being homies, they’re also the demonized enemy.

So, I searched and searched. I also asked around at SudanForum (the largest Sudanese discussion board on the internet) if there were any Sudanese Jews because I remember coming across a half Sudanese Jew, half Dutch chick there a long time ago before I started blogging. Boohoo. Couldn’t find her and so I kept walking.

I even contacted the author of the book “Jacob’s Children in the Land of the Mahdi: Jews of the Sudan” believing he might be a Sudanese Jew and I ended up with a reply from his son telling me he passed away quite recently. Sigh! So again I continued my search, and then one day, out of nowhere, a guy named Lirun stumbled upon this blog and commented on it.

Lirun is an Israeli. His grandmother who now resides in Israel is a Sudanese Jew which makes him only 25% Sudanese. Close but not satisfactory considering what I was looking for, which leaves me with a question. To give up or not to give up? Hmm…

Yeah, that’s the inevitable question that expats always get asked. Why the sugar-coating Andrew? Tell us the complete and brutally honest truth!

Yesterday afternoon, I was invited round to a Sudanese family’s house to celebrate the arrival of a new granddaughter. About ten minutes into the party, one of the family’s sons sat down, looked me in the eye, and asked: “So, how do you find Sudan?”

I launched right in: “It’s a fascinating place, wonderful to live so close to the Nile, the people have been so friendly, an endless supply of great stories for a journalist…,” meaning almost all of it.

When I finished, I looked round at the group of 20-somethings I had been speaking to. “You are joking,” said one. “We hate this place. There is nothing to do. Life is very difficult here. All we do is study and watch DVDs.”

“How long are you staying?” asked another. “Two years? Impossible. You won’t last two months. My plan is to finish my medical studies and move to Scotland.”

Many of you by now must have read Arun Ghandi’s distasteful article in the Washington Post. I found it very shortsighted. Mideast Youth wrote a hilarious and genius response to it. Enjoy…

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Too Huge World is certainly immersing himself significantly within the “Sudanese experience”:

“Even the monkey is like a gazelle in his mother’s eyes.”

To be called a monkey is an insult, as you might expect; a gazelle is a symbol of female beauty, most especially for its eyes and its nimble form.

Yeah, sorry about that. Relatives are visiting and “vacationing” over here for a while so I don’t have as much access as I’d like to the internet at home but I’ll be back to full blogging mode in a week’s time (after I head back to campus for my final sem).

Stick around. There will be continued steady updates and changes (some of them big) as we progress through this year. The new “About Drima” section is a first step.

Again, it’s one of those pictures that evoke such conflicting emotions.

I love it.

(hat-tip: geraldine)

And the previous denials stop:

January 10, 2008 (KHARTOUM) — Sudan acknowledged Thursday that its troops shot at a United Nations convoy in Darfur, reversing an initial denial, but it in part blamed the peacekeepers saying they should have notified Khartoum of their movements.

The Sudanese government has demanded that the joint U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force give it prior notification for all its movements and not move at night, conditions the United Nations has rejected.

There will be more of these conditions. Anything that slows down the deployment or restricts the force’s freedom of mobility is good for the government.

Too Huge World has more about this. He calls it “comedy”. How true.

Why? Why only now dear government? Take your time. Oh no, please I insist. Seriously go ahead, I insist. Bleh…

About freaking time:

January 6, 2008 (KHARTOUM) – Sudanese cabinet today has decided to adopt a two-day weekend starting from January 26.

The Council of Ministers on Sunday decided to expand the weekend holiday from the current one day (Friday) to two days (Friday and Saturday) beginning from Saturday January 26, for a period of six month for studying and assessment.

AK, a new Sudanese blogger, shares some observations and thoughts:

It got me thinking. I remember several years back when this idea was widely discussed by a lot of people in Khartoum.

… the proponents of the Friday-Saturday, used the fact that having Saturday off would be a positive because it wouldn’t disrupt the banking and financial sectors as the world’s stock markets and other institutions close on Saturday as well. A (pious) friend of mine actually said that the fact that Saturday is to be added as a weekly holiday was due to the fact that many Sudanese companies had been doing business with Israel and the Jews. Made me laugh! I love how we are so paranoid about so many things, how America is out to get us and how Darfur is a Jewish conspiracy. Give me a break!!!

Hehehe, tell me about it.

… Also, how will the Christian schools change their schedules? Because I know they take both Friday and Sunday off to please both Muslim and Christian students. Will they have a three day weekend? Or will this just continue with their regular schedules? Time will tell.

Indeed.

(hat tip: Amjad)

Sometime more than a year ago, I wondered about the connection between reggae and Zionism. Occasionally you hear the word “Zion” being sung by artists like Bob Marley and even his son Damien Marley in some of their songs. I had no idea why but I did have a hunch that there was a complex story worth exploring.

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Whops, I just realized I’m supposed to be silent today in order to express solidarity for Fouad Farhan, a fellow blogger who got jailed by the Saudi authorities.

Better late than never.

I never knew Fouad before the news of his arrest made it all over the media. Today for the first time I checked out some of his old blog posts. I’m already liking him. Here’s one translated by Saudi Jeans into English.

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I rewrote the “About Drima” page. Lately I was becoming increasingly unhappy with it. It was too “rantish” and not as coherent as I’d have liked it to be.

Check out the new one. It tells an updated story.

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… so believes this idiot with a brain the size of a rat’s testicle. How cute of him to practice this patriarchal garbage and justify it by glossing it conveniently with his genius “Islam”.

The early Islam which came more than a thousand years ago liberated women. The “Islam” of today however has put them in a cage.

Excuse me while I go and puke.

Admit it. He makes the best and most uplifting speeches. Crap, I’m almost in tears.

When it comes to the Elephants I’ve been saying for a year now that I support John McCain. As for the Donkeys, it’s either Hillary or Obama. I’m sort of undecided but I gotta say I’m leaning more towards Mr. Hope. And yeah I pretty much agree with Sandmonkey.

As for now… Go Obama!

Not a good way to begin the new year.

 

KHARTOUM, Sudan - An American diplomat and his driver were shot to death Tuesday in the Sudanese capital, the U.S. Embassy said, a day after a joint African Union-United Nations force took over peacekeeping in Sudan’s Darfur region.

It was not known if the attack had a political motive or was a random crime.

Darfur, far to the west, is engulfed in violence. But the Sudanese capital and its surroundings rarely see political violence or attacks by Islamic militants.

John Granville (shown in the picture above) worked for USAID. Apparently the shooter waited early before dawn for the driver to pick up the diplomat and then made the move. The incident took place at about 4AM.

I spent the last two hours or so delving into the reports and Sudanese opinions concerning this story. Opposition parties are already using the incident as a stick to beat al-Bashir’s ruling NCP. Furthermore, at the moment there are many speculations over who did it and why. Bla bla bla, this an isolated incident. Bla bla bla, this is defintely al-Qaeda’s doing. Bla bla bla, their car got caught up in the middle of a fight unfortunately.

Even the details of where John was shot are inaccurate.

First we have this:

he was hit by five bullets in the head, neck and chest, the statement said.

And then we have this:

the American was shot five times in the hand, shoulder and stomach.

Wonderful!

The local authorities and the US embassy have begun investigations.

Sudanese authorities are expressing their regret over Tuesday’s deadly shooting of a U.S. diplomat in the capital of Khartoum.

Really? So first you stir anti-Western sentiments using the state media to deflect attention away from local issues and then you express regret? I’m not sure I get it but hey what do I know? I’m just a dumb 21 year old Sudanese kid.

The timing of the attack is interesting and may provide some clues.

The shooting happened one day after a joint United Nations-African Union force took over peacekeeping duties in Darfur.

On Monday, President Bush signed legislation allowing U.S. state and local governments to divest from Sudan because of the Darfur situation.

Indeed, Bush signed the Sudan divestment bill.

Personally, I smell al-Qaeda’s and their like-minded friends’ stink all over this but I think it’s best to wait and see. Meanwhile, I’m glad that Sudanese have been vocal in their condemnation. There are two general sentiments expressed. The first is “no matter what our differences are, this should never be the way to settle them” and the second is “this man was a guest in our country who must have been treated as such”. Nobody wants this to become a trend.

On a related note, shouldn’t we get a prize for being the African country with the highest number of gigantic crappy headlines for 2007 or something? Because seriously, we deserve one!