(traduction de Viviane Calfon Jaslet)

Are they uneducated, indifferent to knowledge or hostile to culture? A Nazi leader once said, “When I hear the word culture, I draw my pistol”. One thing that never leaves dictators, or regimes filled with ideologies, indifferent is History. They use it as a simple way to justify and legitimize. Dictators make it their own, the rightful owners, perpetuators.  However, if history, the real history is not convenient and contradicts official ideology, then it takes a beating. Deny and manipulate the past by inversing it’s meaning or creating a shiny myth, be it heroic, national, religious or other, totally fabricated, any means to rectify the real history is justified to maintain control. Khartoum’s Islamic regime is no exception, no more than any of its other militant fascist counterparts throughout modern history however crude or roughly drafted. There is no salvation outside of Islam. There was no Sudanese history, or very little, prior to the arrival of the seventh century or certainly not an African history. Erasing, as much as possible, the African nature and heritage of Sudan, regardless of the fact that Sudan signifies “country of the black”, is the constant desire of El-Béchir, the “Arab” or the so-called “Arab”. There is so little “Arab” in him that to compensate, though in a not so intelligent and completely megalomaniac fashion, he pretends to be the descendent of the Prophet. With this absurd lineage, he fools no one, apart from himself and has everyone laughing along the Nile. Yesterday I visited the Louvre exhibition on the Kingdom of Meroe. It is a beautiful and moving exhibit for the Sudanese man that I am. This kingdom of Meroe, named after its capital along the Nile by the fifth cataract but, which has now disappeared into the sand leaving behind only a myriad of small pyramids in ruin, extended from the fourth century B.C. to the third century. It was the last pagan kingdom in the area before the short period of Christianity and the passing into Islam. It was also the least African of the great Sudanese kingdoms that had previously ruled and the most Egyptian. Pyramids preceded by small pylons; the Amun god, double writing (cursive and hieroglyphics); associated with Amun, only subsisting Sudanese god, Dedun, the first in Nubia, Apedemak, great god of the south and his scar-faced wife: the kingdom of Meroe, as glorious as it was, appears mostly to be a brilliant avatar of the Egyptian civilization of Pharaohs. The Khartoum museum, which mostly locked up previous Sudanese civilizations confining the essential of African history under lock and key, generously lent half of the artifacts of the exhibition. Other Sudanese kingdoms, entirely African, preceded Meroe for over two millenniums. The most ancient of these kingdoms is the kingdom of Kush which dates back to the beginning of the third millennium B.C. Its capital was Kerma located near the middle of the Nile, south of the current town of Nubia. The influence of the south of African Sudan, and beyond to Central Africa seems to be predominant. The Egypt of pharaohs, political enemy along with the commercial corruption (gold, ivory and precious goods coming from Central Africa), was continually kept at a distance thanks to the buffering town of Nubia. A second kingdom of Kerma is formed in the twenty first century B.C., this time at war with the Egypt of the pharaohs obliging them to fortify their towns. Then came the third kingdom of Kerma from the eighteenth century to the sixteenth century B.C., this time extending to Aswan before retreating and being destroyed by the pharaohs of the New Kingdom of Egypt. The splitting of Egypt into rival kingdoms led to the end of Egyptian domination over the Sudan in the eleventh century and the creation of the kingdom of Napata building a strong Sudanese empire in the heart of central and occidental Africa which will even conquer Nubia and Upper Egypt to the point where the Sudanese kings will sit on the pharaohs’ throne and give rise to the twenty fifth dynasty. This Sudanese/Egyptian empire will end with the conquest of Egypt by the Assyrians in the seventh century who will retreat to Meroe, last of the Sudanese kingdoms to fall under the Christian kings of Ethiopia in the fourth century. The Christianization of the small Nubian kingdoms begins around 540 B.C. and ends with the Arab conquest of the Sudan at the end of the seventh century. Much to the displeasure of Khartoum, this large Sudanese African past, we can well imagine, has left traces still present today in the Sudanese culture and language, above and beyond the “Islamisation” and “Arabisation” of the Sudan, beginning with Darfur. I would like to give several examples concerning Darfur whose history in the Sudanese school books are summed up in only one and a half pages, trying to clear history and remove from our brains that prior to Islam and before becoming Muslims, we were Africans, that we will remain so and that we are proud of it. My grandmother’s name was Koa, the same as the leader of the Nouba resistance, Yossif Koa; Koa comes from Kousch. Kuas in Fur means going from place to place. Nabata means constructing or building after the rainy season and comes from Nepta, the second largest kingdom in the history of Sudan. Marawi means the land is vast and comes directly from Meroe. There is also the heritage of the Old Testament. Nouba can be divided into Nu (Noah) and Ba (the father) means the children of Noah. We can find the five divisions of the people of Moses in the ancient hierarchy of men in Darfur going from the “dalinga”, religious soldiers, followed by the “basinga”, men of the law, the Kurumo, carriers of the sacred book, the maraiga, builders and finally the “arbaga”, workers and farmers. Our imams carry a cane, (the “buri” in Fur) which directly reminds us of Moses, the patriarch, leading the Hebrew people to the Red Sea. There also exists a ceremony, in honor of the dead, forty days after death, as in the biblical calendar. As for first names, one of my dearest friend’s name is Adam. Names such as Moussa (for Moses), Haroun (Aaron), Issac, Daoud (David), Suleiman (Soloman) are, along with Mohammed, the most common names in Darfur. In the mountains of Jebel Marra and in Sindo in the Wadi Salah of West Darfur, one can see a bit everywhere Torah Houses, stone edifices covering caves where the ancients assembled. A large village in the forest part of Jebel Marra is called Turang Toanga. The oldest mosque in Darfur is named Tourra Mosk and the first capital of the Sultana of Darfur was also named Tourra. The janjawid destroyed the tombs of the Fur Sultans. As for the star of David, called in Darfur the star of Solomon, they are placed on pieces of paper and glued to the walls at the birth of a child in order to ward off the evil spirits and are also made for oneself out of paper or other materials prior to combat or for an important occasion. We have two words, one which means voyager, the one who brings food: he is the “Canaanite” (from the land of Canaan) ; and the discoverer, the explorer of new lands called the “Sumerian” from Sumer. As for the Christian heritage, the women of Darfur divide their traditional African hairstyle into four equal parts in the form of a cross on the top of their heads as in the old benedictions on the heads of the newborn and the pummels of the swords used in combat are all in the shape of the cross. Many people in Darfur are named Matta, Mati, Motore and Metere, all deformations of the apostle Mathieu who preached in Ethiopia. Dong Kela, in Fur, means “we have come to graze” and this word comes from the green Christian region of Dongola, the ancient Nepta. A large wall still remains from a Christian church, Ambolangwarry (door of the ambulance), the belt surrounding the two villages of Aramba and Sabanga.  The Islam of Darfur, implanted in the sixteenth century is programmed in the University of Al Azar in Cairo in a study section entitled Darfur. There is no section on the Sudan. The Sultan of Darfur, even though he was dispossessed, had numerous wells built in Jeddah during his pilgrimages to Mecca, which were since named after him, Ali Dinar. He had an area built and closed off by a large wall in Jeddah to house those from Darfur that would accompany him. The area still exists and is called by the Saudis “Hosh Ali” and was never given to the people in Khartoum… Darfour, land of travelers, was once a crossroad of religions which were superimposed one upon the other. This syncretizing, still alive, has become today the target of the Islamists of Khartoum and their executioners in the field. It is not without reason that the janjawids have named us the Torah Bora! As we can see, the history of the Sudan does not begin with Islam, nor with the kingdom of Meroe. The men of Darfur and Kurdufan were, with other populations of the southern Nile, middle Nile and Nubia, were the great craftsmen of the African kingdom of Sudan for two millennia. If Sudan could be free of the present clique, the Sudanese from all origins could reclaim their past and their historical heritage, speak freely in their native tongues in addition to Arabic and become themselves in addition to being Sudanese. This battle for historical truth is as important as the battle with politics or with arms. It is inseparable from all the other actions required for the freedom of Darfur and the Sudan.