Breaking a Taboo: Mr Nur and his SLM Office in Israel

Posted on March 13, 2008
Filed Under Jews, Sudan, Darfur, Israel, Sudanese |

An excellent, insightful piece by a member of the Darfur rebel group, JEM, elaborating their stance on the whole issue. On a related note, let’s see what a Western aid worker in Darfur wrote about a week ago:

A few days ago a prominent rebel leader in Darfur, Abdel Wahid Al-Nur, the head of the Sudanese Liberation Movement (SLM), announced that his group was opening an office in Tel Aviv, Israel.

… A few days ago, in the town where I now live in Darfur, the government went to great lengths to make sure the entire population knew of Abdul Wahid’s terrible transgressions and put all its power into organizing a street protest. Sound cars were sent down every street in every neighborhood - including the refugee camps - in an effort to stir up the population. And, as seems to be common practice in autocratic countries, the government strongly suggested if not required that its employees attend the planned protest.

Well, I think the government minions were probably the only ones who ended up going. The protest collected about 700 people – many half-heartedly chanting and carrying banners. State radio broadcast the speeches that followed.

No surprise there really. Just like I expected. The following also doesn’t shock me since I knew for a while that this was going on in Darfur:

… I talked to one of my Sudanese co-workers, a “non-Arab”. He said, “The government thinks that we will be upset about this because Israel has killed Arabs. But we don’t care. We’re not Arab.” Not very diplomatic… but again, the people of Darfur seem to feel very little loyalty to or identity with the Khartoum government. Oh, and the religious manipulation didn’t seem to get very far either.

There’s nothing wrong in being an Arab. I myself am an Arab… a Nubian-Arab, so it’s not like I’m overjoyed by things like this (and I’m not necessarily saddened either). If I am a little saddened then it’s because of the guy’s blunt reply. Just because I’m an Afro-Arab doesn’t mean I don’t care about the plight of Kurds for example, but I guess Darfurians have way too much to worry about to care about the plight of other people, so it’s understandable.

If anything, I think it’s interesting that Arabized African Muslims in Darfur are increasingly shedding their political Arab identity. It’s expected anyway. The policies of forced Arabization carried out by Khartoum governments for many years since Sudan’s independence will continue to increasingly backfire if the regime keeps up what it’s doing in places like Darfur and Nubia.

Comments

6 Responses to “Breaking a Taboo: Mr Nur and his SLM Office in Israel”

  1. suzanne on March 15th, 2008 10:20 am

    Interesting. Drima, I was wondering btw. Why do some people call Sudan, “the Sudan”?

    What’s the difference between Sudan and the Sudan?

  2. Andrew Brehm on March 19th, 2008 11:29 am

    “I guess Darfurians have way too much to worry about to care about the plight of other people, so it’s understandable.”

    Maybe the Darfurians have a simple world view. They see that Arabs are killing them and understand that Israel is fighting that same enemy.

    Perhaps their understanding is that all (or most) Arabs are trying to murder them (and probably others). I bet that many east-European peoples had the same view of Germans.

    The “plight” of some Arabs who, for all the Darfurians really know, might have been up to the same game as the Arabs the Darfurians experience at home, might simply not move them much.

    I have myself more sympathy for a Darfurian victim of genocide than for an Arab screaming “death to the Jews”. Maybe Darfurians, being on the same side of the war as I, see it like I do?

  3. Halfawi on March 20th, 2008 4:51 am

    Good! The Arab world has never given a hoot about Sudan. A big reason for the intolerable impasse that has become Sudan is this scourge called pan-arabism that has been marginalizing and suppressing any expression of non-arab identity and culture. Taba3an the gov’t of sudan will bend backwards and forwards to prove their tenuous 3urooba (’arabness”) bilahi 3alekum allah feekuna min al 3arab wal kalam al farigh dah. Yes to Israeli-Sudanese cooperation!
    Halfa wera, Mahas wera, Sukkot wera. Noobala wera!
    (Halfa, Mahas and Sukkot are all one. Nubia is one)

  4. Halfawi on March 20th, 2008 5:01 am

    And i pray for the day to come where we won’t be forced to learn Arabic, an imposed language and an example of cultural imperialism. Why are people so quick to complain and rant about and point out western colonialism and imperialism but never about how the arab-muslims invaded and conquered lands that were not their own in what they like to call “al-futu7aat” or “openings”. Sounds like wars of expansion and imperialism to me. We want “akhwaana al-arab” fil khartoum to leave us alone, take their arabic with them and leave it there. we have no problem with them speaking it and using it but our children have the RIGHT to receive their education in our language and we should be allowed to teach it and we have every RIGHT to resist Arabization. Its either federalism and transforming the arabo-centric and islamo-centric culture of khartoum into a culture of respect and diversity or condemning us all to perpetual war.
    Nor ikka nahja (god bless)

  5. Andrew Brehm on March 20th, 2008 6:08 am

    “A big reason for the intolerable impasse that has become Sudan is this scourge called pan-arabism that has been marginalizing and suppressing any expression of non-arab identity and culture.”

    Not to mention any existence of non-Arab people…

    I agree with you, of course. You should embrace your own culture and your own language. You should be allowed to choose which other languages to learn and which other cultures to interact with.

    Once Sudan will be free, all the peoples of Sudan will choose freely whom to associate with. And if the Arab world is still not ready by then, I wish for a strong connection between those peoples of Sudan that want it and Israel.

    Israel has a lot to offer, including expertise in irrigation systems (should be good with the Nile) and other high-tech. Israel also has excellent trade connections to Europe, the US, and Japan. Sudan could profit from that. And then there is security and arms. If a new Sudan needs to defend itself, Israel can provide expertise and weapons. And if a new Sudan wants to improve its education system, Israel can provide teachers and English-language teaching materials.

    But since the Arabs in Sudan control access to the sea, I suppose federalism is the way to go; unless the “Arabs” of Sudan wake up and realise that they are not true Arabs to the Arabs after all. I do hear that Sudanese Arabs are discriminated against by “other” Arabs. Why do they accept it in the name of Arabism?

  6. Drima on March 22nd, 2008 4:47 pm

    Salam ya Halfawi, kef 3amil ya zool. Inshallah tamam o kulu kheir. Shukran 3alal comment.

    “Its either federalism and transforming the arabo-centric and islamo-centric culture of khartoum into a culture of respect and diversity or condemning us all to perpetual war.”

    Right on! No to forced Arabization. It needs to stop.

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