Sudanese migrants in the Khartoum area: fighting for educational space

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International Journal of Educational Development 25 (2005) 253–268 www.elsevier.com/locate/ijedudev

Sudanese migrants in the Khartoum area: fighting for educational space Anders Breidlid Oslo University College, P.O. Box 4, St. Olavs plass, 0130 Oslo, Norway

Abstract This article examines the situation of the internally displaced persons from Southern Sudan living in and around the capital and their experience with the dominant Islamic discourse, and particularly the educational discourse of the ruling National Congress (NC). Based on qualitative field data, the article explores the opposing discourses between the Southerners and the governing elite in the North. While the governing NC advocates an Islamic educational discourse, the Southerners in the camps in and around Khartoum are either opposed to modern education because it destroys traditional practices, or they favour an educational system which is more Western in nature. Parents, educators and community groups from the South organise resistance against what they consider an imposition of an alien value discourse, and as the article will show, small concessions have been granted. The frequent contestations of these concessions or victories show, however, that the non-secular, Islamic basis of the education system is so ingrained in the wider Islamic discourse that a more satisfactory solution can only occur within a comprehensive peace settlement. r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: International education; Development; Educational policy; Curriculum; Education for internally displaced persons; Sudan; Construction of the other

1. Introduction This article draws on a study funded by the Norwegian Research Council on cultural values and schooling in the Sudan (and South Africa) and is based on fieldwork in and around Khartoum in 2003 in which parents, pupils and community leaders in various schools in the camps for the Tel.: +47-22452160; fax: +47-22452105.

E-mail address: [email protected] (A. Breidlid).

displaced and also in ordinary Muslim schools were interviewed. Interviews were also undertaken in ordinary Muslim schools outside the camps. Additionally, central educational officials in the state bureaucracy, such as members of the allpowerful National Curriculum Committee, top bureaucrats working with issues relating to Education for All and people in UN organisations were interviewed. The article focuses upon one particular aspect of the research project, namely how the displaced

0738-0593/$ - see front matter r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijedudev.2004.08.005

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Southern Sudanese migrants in and around Khartoum who have fled to the North due to the civil war cope with an education system which, it is argued, ideologically and religiously projects a Muslim, fundamentalist discourse. The article attempts, after a brief discussion of the discourse production of the National Congress (NC) government, to explore how the various ethnic groups in and around Khartoum respond to the discursive interpellations of the government, with particular reference to education.

2. Theoretical and conceptual framework Discourse can be defined in Loomba’s words, as ‘‘a whole field of domain within which language is used in a particular way’’ (Loomba, 1998, p. 38) and is rooted in human practices, institutions and actions. It is a group of statements belonging to ‘‘a single system of formation’’ (Foucault, 1995). We are talking about a psychiatric discourse, an economic discourse, an educational discourse and even a post-colonial discourse. For our purposes here the relationship between discourse and discursive practices and power and control is particularly important. As Hayden White states: discourse constitutes ‘‘the ground whereon to decide what shall count as a fact in the matters under consideration and to determine what mode of comprehension is best suited to the understanding of the facts thus constituted.’’ (White, 1987, p. 3). A dominant discourse is thus a discourse which hegemonises a particular way of interpreting ‘‘a whole field of domain.’’ What makes the attempt to understand the situation in the Sudan complex is the operation of contradictory discourses produced by the national government headed by the NC. Although the Constitution of 1998 is couched within a Muslim framework, it is in many ways a pluralist document, safeguarding the rights of the minorities by accepting citizenship, rather than faith as a basis for equal rights and duties. Article 27 states that ‘‘Every sect or group of citizens have the right to keep their particular culture, language or religion, and to voluntarily bring up their children within the framework of these traditions. It is prohibited

to impose one’s traditions on children by coercion.’’ The contentiousness of such a Constitution can be seen in the response from the Muslim hardliners who in 1998—before the Constitution was passed—criticised, to no avail, the draft version of the Constitution for treating a Muslim and an infidel on an equal footing and enabling a nonMuslim to assume office in an Islamic state (Agence France-Presse (AFP), April 5, 1998). The educational discourse of the government of the Sudan is based on President Bashir’s educational reform from 1990. In consultation with leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic teachers and administrators who were the strongest supporters of his regime, Bashir proclaimed a new philosophy of education. It enforced an Islamic curriculum upon all schools, colleges, and universities and would consist of two parts: an obligatory and an optional course of study. The obligatory course to be studied by every student is to be based on revealed knowledge within and across all disciplines. All the essential elements of the obligatory course are to be drawn from the Qu’ran and the recognised books of the Hadith. The optional course of study will permit the student to select subjects according to individual preferences. In short, the educational reform set the stage for an all-encompassing normative Islamic value universe where the post-modern idea of cultural cross-fertilisation or hybridity are tabooed (see Breidlid, 2005). Abdul-Rahman Salih Abdullah notes that Islamic education differs from Western secular education. In the Islamic educational theory the door is left open for concepts which come from different fields of knowledge provided that they fit the Qur’anic perspective. All elements which cannot be reconciled with Islamic principles should be excluded. It has been pointed out that traditional philosophy which gives excessive weight to reason cannot offer any help to our theory. Hence, traditional philosophy of education which tries to resolve educational issues by reliance upon philosophical assumptions is not applicable (Abdullah, 1982, p. 43). This is in line with Talbani (1996) who states that subjects such as science, technology and

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history can only be permitted if they pass the ‘‘test of validity and effectiveness in fostering a deeper awareness of the Divine Presence in the universe’’ (Talbani, 1996, p. 77). Viewing divine authority as the basis of education, Islamic education as interpreted here is based on the acceptance of revealed knowledge as a priori knowledge. As Fataar states: Religious knowledge thus becomes the key conceptual guide in the selection and validation of pedagogical knowledge. (Fataar, 2003). Considering Islamic schools as totalising institutions organised around the production of a traditional Islamic discourse of power, Talbani sees these schools as producing an ideologically biased and a closed form of education, whose role is to reproduce Islamic culture and promote the islamisation of society (Talbani, 1996, p. 67). One reason for the discrepancy between the Constitution and the educational discourses is possibly the time lap between the production of the two discourses. The 1990 educational reform happened at a time when the fundamentalists were on the offensive (1 year after the coup d’etat) and President Bashir was more concerned with establishing his Islamist regime than paying attention to world opinion. The Sudan’s relations with the outside world were at a historically low level, and the IMF suspended all co-operation with the Sudan in 1990. Seven years later the IMF reinstated its link with the Sudan, and President Bashir was eager to ‘‘normalise’’ the country’s relations with Western nations. The wording of the new Constitution of 1998 can be understood as a ‘‘charm offensive’’ to appease Western criticism, but possibly also as a sign of more moderate forces within the government coming in from the cold. The constitutional critique from hard-liners and the exclusion of Hassan al-Turabi, Secretary General of Muslim Brotherhood since 1964, may reinforce such a view. The Constitution of 1998 notwithstanding, the educational discourse of 1990 has undergone no dramatic changes after 1998, signifying that constitutional reform has had little impact on practical policies in education or elsewhere. It is still the Islamists’ universaling discourse that hegemonises political and cultural life in Khartoum.

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A more detailed discussion of educational discourse production among the various Southern ethnic groups living in and around the capital will be returned to. These educational discourses are nurtured from sets of epistemological assumptions which are in direct opposition to the Islamic discourse. These discourses either propagate a Western educational discourse with no interference from religion in the traditional school subjects (the hegemonic educational discourse among Southerners), or traditional education based on the age-long cultural practices of the various ethnic groups. It is the interaction between the Islamic educational discourse and the dominant, Southern discourse that is one of the principal concerns discussed in the article. It is a basic problem in research in conflict areas to label opposed factions. As Tim Allen says: ‘‘It is an issue confronted by the actors themselves in the conflict, because they need to state who they are and who their enemies areyIn a different way, it is an issue confronted by social analysts, because they want to avoid a straightforward acceptance of the actors’s perceptions of what they are doing, and also want an objective interpretation of ideologies and events’’ (Allen, 1994, p. 113). While an objective interpretation of ideologies and events is indeed very problematic and perhaps impossible (who determines what is objective?), it is clear from this research in the Sudan that discourses on both sides of the ethnic divide are produced to harmonise one’s own position (which is often contradictory) and demonise and homogenise the enemy’s position. It is important in this article to analyse how the construction of the Other, by naming and representing the Other according to relatively preconceived images, is an important tool in solidifying old and static positions on both sides. The discourses on both sides of the major ethnic divide are seemingly buttressed by an almost Orientalist obsession with the Other (Said, 1978), giving little space for reciprocity and cultural and religious crossfertilisation. However lamentable such a fixation and rigidity may be, it will be suggested that the construction of the Other is also rooted in harsh socioeconomic, political and educational realities.

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3. Displaced persons in and around Khartoum It is the minority Muslim Arabs who since independence have had full control of the state apparatus with the exception of the liberated areas in the South which are under the control of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA). The civil war between the North and the South has been going on since 1955, only interrupted by a peaceful interim period between 1972 and 1983 which followed the Addis Ababa agreement. The numbers of displaced persons who actually live in and around the capital are uncertain, but figures ranging from 1.5 to 1.8 million may indicate the vastness of the problem. In any case, the total number of displaced persons in Sudan represents 25 per cent of the world’s internally displaced persons (IDP), putting the Sudan ‘‘at the top of the list of countries’’ containing a displaced population (Assal, 2002, p. 107). While the early migrants to the capital fled the drought in Western Sudan in the mid-80s, the Southerners who fled the terrors of war arrived at the beginning of the 1990s, reaching a peak around 1994–1995. Assal underlines the danger of homogenising the background and current situation of the displaced persons since ‘‘all displaced (,) find themselves in qualitatively different life situations and predicaments’’ (Assal, 2002, p. 104). While it is true that in Khartoum ‘‘some of the self-reliant spatially displaced persons (merchants and civil servants, who have as well been displaced) are not subjected to impoverishment’’ (Assal, 2002, p. 107), the majority of those displaced from the South living in and around Khartoum have been forced to live there due to the war and are to a large extent terribly marginalised and impoverished.1 Seeking wage employment in and around Khartoum is a result of the marginalisation of the subsistence economy which is again primarily due to the unstable situation in the war zone. 1 Clearly, the refugees’ own background in terms of education, professional skills and inter-tribal competence may impact on the possibility to get one of the few jobs in the NGO sector, and their living conditions may differ whether the areas they live in are supported by NGOs or in areas completely neglected by everybody.

Because of the very profound cultural and religious rift between the South and the North, the migrants from the South were not welcomed by the Islamic authorities as they poured into Khartoum more than a decade ago. As Scroggins states The Arabic-language newspapers called them ‘traitors’ and accused them of bringing disease, alcohol, and prostitution to the city. Since the Southerners had not crossed an international boundary, they had no legal right to protection from international agencies such as the UNHCR. Regarding them as a potential fifth column for the SPLA, the government discouraged private relief groups from working in their camps, although some groups did anyway (Scroggins, 2002, p. 84). The situation for the IDPs is thus not only a matter of severe socio-economic deprivation, but also a matter of profound political, religious and cultural alienation and animosity. This alienation takes many shapes, from the government’s deliberate eradication of their housing areas (many areas were simply bulldozed down) to more sophisticated structural and cultural impositions (see Breidlid, 2005). While the migrants in Khartoum are Sudanese citizens and in principle hold the same rights and duties as the native population in the capital (the Constitution states that ‘‘Everyone born of a Sudanese mother or father has the inalienable right to Sudanese nationality, its duties and obligations’’ (Article 22)), the reality is quite different. The Southern, Christian migrants are in many ways looked upon and treated as immigrants whose rights depend on the somewhat unpredictable support of the Islamic government.

4. The construction of a Southern identity in and around the capital The brief narrative below gives a glimpse into one of the displaced camps that was visited during the field work. The IDPs camp has been given another name due to the very tense political situation in the country:

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The history of Windhoek IDP camp dates back to the late eighties when southerners, after fleeing from the disasters of the renewed war in the South, arrived empty-handed in Khartoum. Windhoek is located on a sandy plain on the outskirts of Khartoum. It took us around 40 minutes to reach there in a minibus provided by the NGO that helped us. We travelled the last stretch on sandy desert ground and ‘‘jumped’’ across a railway line because there was no proper road. The huge camp with many roads, walled compounds, small shops, clinics, schools and churches gives in many ways the image of a traditional southern village. But here, the round tukuls with coned grass or with thatched roofs are replaced by rectangular houses constructed by the dwellers themselves. Walls and roofs are built in local material—sun dried bricks—and smeared with mud. Within the village, donkeys are used for transport and for water supply. There are no water pumps in the camp and when it is raining heavily the area is flooded due to the hard, sandy surface. A teacher told us that house building is very expensive. It is a big problem that the land or plot is not measured and registered to the owner of the house. Sometimes, the government decides to bring bulldozers and tear everything down. This happened in a different camp during Christmas. People here from various parts of the South fear that the same may happen in this camp. There is no registration system in Windhoek. It is as if these people do not existy The classification or categorisation of people into ethnic groups or tribes is contentious in social research, not the least due to the colonial connotations of such processes. Classification is useful, however, if we do not forget that the concepts ‘‘ethnic group’’ and ‘‘ethnic conflict’’ are not objective realities, ‘‘but rather act as labels that point to a range of inter-related thingsythey may be very useful because they direct attention to the manner in which antagonists manufacture, or manipulate, particular kinds of shared values’’ (Allen, 1994, pp. 113–114). While using concepts such as ‘‘ethnicity’’ or even ‘‘tribes’’ may reinforce

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stereotypical ideas and suggest static identities in isolated entities, it is nevertheless impossible to understand, as Allen states, the appalling events of the past 30 years (in the Sudan) without recourse to these terms (Allen, 1994, p. 115). Moreover, such classifications are also used by the people themselves. In the displaced camps there are ‘‘tribes’’ from various parts of the South. The classification into ‘‘tribes’’ or ‘‘ethnic groups’’ is often based on common territorial affiliation, a language and distinct cultural practices. The problem with territorial identification is, however, the migration of people within the South during the last decades due to the civil war. Moreover, many Madis and Acholis, to take two ‘‘tribal’’ examples from people near the Kenyan–Ugandan border, live in refugee camps in Uganda and Kenya. In addition, many Acholi speak Madi, and vice versa, even though Madi is a Sudanic tongue and Acholi is Nilotic (Allen, 1994, p. 127). To complicate things even more, the Madi and the Acholi, although from time to time in conflict with each other, have cultural practices that cut across the traditional borders. The multiple local identities cannot detract from the fact, however, that serious ethnic conflicts are most often referred to in ‘‘tribal’’ terms where the familial kinship unit forms, as Lesch states, ‘‘a bloodline from which the group’s solidarity is derivedy’’ (Lesch, 1998, p. 4). It can be contended that the various ‘‘tribal’’ groups in and around Khartoum shape another, Southern identity for political and pragmatic reasons which is also born out of the fact that they inhabit the same locations. This is in line with Simone who states: ‘‘Even though Southerners are tribally split and religiously divided (historically, Catholics dominated the East bank of the Nile and Protestants, the west), they are conjoined through their status as the oppressed and through a growing yet vague Pan-Africanist identification’’(Simone, 1994, p. 32). The distinguishing markers in the North of a common Southern identity are primarily linked to religion (various branches of Christianity) and to the fact that ‘‘they are all racially akin to tropical Africa and identify culturally with Africanism’’ (Wai, 1981, p. 19) This identity is also based on

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symbolic solidarity and is provided by a mythology of the past (see Lesch) characterised by a common experience of oppression, slavery and the longest lasting civil war in Africa. The existence of a homogenising Southern discourse and identity was confirmed by our informants: ‘‘I look at myself as an Acholi, Christian and Southern Sudanese.’’ Another informant confirmed this impression: The war has disrupted everything. Certain things—economic power—have been disrupted. Here, there are different people from different backgrounds. No more cattle, no more agriculture. Before, if you crossed to a different area, you would be killed (he talked about previous hostilities between groups and villages in the South). Now, here, they have to live togethery Cultural hybridisation is not without its problems, but also with potential merits: We have assimilation of cultural behavioursy Some of the children are adopting the traditions of other tribes. You see children misbehaving. It becomes another problemy Children from different tribes come together— the Kuku, Nuba, Shilluk, Dinka—learn the different traditional dances. We used to practice this on the Parents’ Day. Even marriage practices are changing: ‘‘yit was not easy for people from different tribes to get married before. A Dinka had to marry a Dinka. But now the situation is changing.’’ While internal ethnic conflicts within the various Southern groups are not negligible, informants in and around Khartoum suggest clearly that the statements above are representative of a fairly comprehensive hybridzation process among the Southern ethnic groups which may be called a homogenising Southern discourse. The civil war has thus had a major impact on inter-ethnic relations which possibly would not have taken place in a peaceful South. While it is true that such cultural hybridzation is resisted among certain pockets of these groups, the younger generation especially with little experience from the south have fewer qualms about this trend. Moreover, a Southern identity that cuts across parochial

interests is seen by most Southern political leaders as instrumental and strategically necessary in the interactions with the Islamic regime and the only viable course if Southern interests are not to be undermined. In short, the homogenising Southern discourse overrides Dinka or Lotuka, Madi and Acholi particularities and is directed against its counterpart, i.e. Islamism. This Southern identity is, however, contextually and politically determined and quite fragile, not the least in the South due to strife over hegemony and power. The internal conflicts within the SPLA bears witness to such contestations.2

5. The construction of the other The relationship between the Southerners (with their Southern identity) and the ‘‘native’’ population in Khartoum is one of strife and conflict, but also one of pragmatic, necessary co-existence. The Southern migrants have physically invaded the space of the native population in Khartoum, whereas the Southerners have experienced a violent intrusion on Southern territory. There is a sense of intrusion on both sides of the ethnic divide. The intruder is one that belongs out there, as polluting our lives, a person in the wrong place (Douglas, 1966; Bauman, 1997; Høgmo, 1998). In and around Khartoum discourse production about the Other as an intruder takes place on both sides. It is this meaning of the Other, it is argued, which shapes the discursive relationship in Khartoum and which is dangerously static, creating paranoid groups on both sides where enemy images control the discursive practices (see Bourdieu, 1984). This creation of boundaries between the self and the Other is in Khartoum ‘‘an important aspect of building and reinforcing ethnic identity’’ (Lesch, 1998) and helps ‘‘to 2

It should also be noted that the co-operation between the National Democratic Alliance and SPLA cuts across the North–South, Christian–Muslim divides, but can be seen as a pragmatic, temporary solution in an attempt to topple the NC regime.

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protect, amplify, and distort differences’’ (Simone, 1994, p. 29). Such discourses can be understood in psychological and socio-psychological terms where the focus is on ‘‘attitudes and opinions that groups involved may have about one another’’ (Smith, 1988, p. 199). While these discourses are often skewed and stereotyped, they are nevertheless grounded in historical and contemporary experiences. There is a self-foreigner/intruder dichotomy here which emphasises selfhood at the expense of the foreigner/intruder. In the case of the North we see how non-Arabic identity and Christianity unify the Southerners whereas Arabic, Muslim identity constitutes the dominant northern discourse (see Lesch, 1998). The homogenising Southern discourse is clearly displayed in terms of a ‘‘we’’ and ‘‘them’’ dichotomy which is reiterated by all Southern informants: You just have to submit to the Arabs. We feel that there is a very big gap between the Arabs and the Southerners. Their way of forcing us into their system is another form of imperialism. We need a change. For good or for bady As in South Africa (during apartheid), our rights are based on our ethnic group. Another informant: The Christians are brought up in a Western way. Unification is important in this religion. The Muslims on the other hand are brought up in an Arab way. Diversification and slavery is central in this culture. They despise other people. They only think of money and use methods of bribery and slavery. Their culture is very bad. Their religion is political. They want domination and to dominate others they have to rule. They want other tribes to work for them, and they consider Southerners to be second class. A male teacher confirmed the image of the Other in terms of the abductions taking place in the South (see also Jok, 2001): Dinka girls and children—even those of five, six years, even boys and men, are abducted by the

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Arabs—in Wau, Rumbek, Jirol and many other places. The abductors are the Masaralin, a tribe from Baggara in Western Kurdufan. They make the ladies their wives. They make the men work in their fields. The young boys are trained to look after the goats. From a culturalist perspective, however, such discourses are never inscribed in granite, but negotiable and changeable, underlining the importance of human agency. This culturalist position reflects a post-modernist understanding of ethnicity which underlines cultural hybridity and non-essentialism. As Werbner states. ‘‘In such theories, it makes sense to talk of the transgressive power of symbolic hybrids to subvert the categorical oppositions and hence to create the conditions for cultural reflexivity and change’’ (Werbner, 2000, p. 1). While these theories claim that ‘‘all cultural categories, areyreflexively in doubt, unstable and lacking cognitive faith and conviction’’ (Werbner, 2000, p. 2) it has been noted earlier (Breidlid, 2002) that the totalising discourse of post-modernism does not always fit an African terrain. It is true, as discussed above, that self-contained ethnic categories in the South have opened up as a way of fending off Islamic pressure. Moreover, the hybridisation of cultures between the dominant and non-dominant discourses in the North also takes place (as in the schools, in the work place, in the informal sector, etc.), but as will be shown below, not to an extent where transgressive forces loosen up the fundamental cultural rigidity on both sides of the ethnic divide. As a matter of fact it will be argued that post-modernism’s call for cultural fusion is problematic in a terrain where the struggle for survival is intimately linked to and grounded in fighting cultural hybridity and sustaining one’s own cultural identity. It is in this perspective that Smith’s contention must be seen: ‘‘yrace and ethnicity both depend for their significance in each society on their relations to the prevailing structures of incorporation’’ (Smith, 1988, p. 198). Given the nature of the Islamic state Smith’s emphasis on the structure of incorporation as a defining and determining factor supplements an understanding which does not

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take sufficient cognisance of, as Giroux states, ‘‘the materiality of practices as they are represented in the political and economic structures of society’’ (Giroux, 1983, p. 129). However, as the discussion below tries to highlight, any explanation of the complexity of the situation will have to rest on a multiplicity of factors not easily subsumed under any theoretical model.

6. Educational discourses among the Southerners While the discussion above has attempted to cast light on the production of a common Southern identity in the North and also on how the production of the Other creates rigid, dichotomised ethnic identities, the present section explores the educational terrain for Southerners in the North. The strong feeling of marginalisation and subordination underlines the minority status of the Southerners in the Sudan, and in the North in particular. They are a minority ‘‘occupying a subordinate position in a multi-ethnic society, suffering from the disabilities of prejudice and discrimination, and maintaining a separate group identity’’ (Gibson, 1991, p. 358). This minority status is also reflected in the education system. Education among the minority students from Southern ethnic groups in and around Khartoum offers a fairly complex and heterogeneous picture. This heterogeneity refers to the variety of perceptions about the importance of education. The different perceptions of the importance of education may be due to the absence of a collective orientation to education which could serve as a guide on the issue. On the contrary, different cultural models are employed by different groups as frames of reference. A cultural model is, in Ogbu’s words, ‘‘respective understandings of how their society or any particular domain or institution works and their respective understandings of their places in that working order’’ (Ogbu, 1991, p. 7). These models are not easily identified and classified in relation to the various segments of the migrant population. While ethnic, ‘‘tribal’’ affiliation is important in the sense that nomadic or semi-nomadic groups like the Toposa or Dinka seem generally speaking

less concerned about schooling, variables like gender and educational background cut across this general assumption. Moreover the migrant population in and around Khartoum is clearly over-represented in terms of educational background and gender roles are not to the same extent distributed along traditional lines. The representatives of what may be called the conservative cultural model perceive schooling as threatening to their home culture and indigenous knowledge systems. As one informant said: ‘‘Education is a new system. Once you have practised it, you call somebody (who is not educated) ‘‘uncivilised.’’ You abandon the whole traditional system.’’ Another agreed: ‘‘In Sudan, education is used to kill traditions.’’ A third informant worried about arrogance and corruption in the wake of modern education: You become proud, you steal money from the public, you think you can do whatever you like. You don’t come to your own people; you don’t eat with them. You despise your own culture. Another informant had a more ambiguous view: Modern education is formal and structured and helps people plan better. However, some of the things the children learn, pull them away from their culture. When asked what he meant, he replied. For example pictures and photos in textbooks. They are related to a different life and culture. Modern education imposes things instead of building on their own existence. Things are brought from aboveySome of the bad things are in biology and science. Children are shown all parts of the body. Some things they learn in class, they practise. They learn about it at school and practise itySex education starts too early. The issue of condoms is part of modern education. But as one informant admitted, modern education may expose untenable traditional practices: In traditional education, they learn that if you do this, this will happen; that if you play with the opposite sex, you will be bit by a snake. But

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after they practise what they learn in school, they see that it does not happen, and they lose respect for the elders.’’ The conservative cultural view of education is related to the Western-oriented education experienced in the South before migrating to the North. This opinion is uttered and sustained in an urban environment where one would think that the motivation for modern education would be strong. It clearly speaks of alienation in a very real sense of the word. For those with a nomadic background education is perceived as completely meaningless and counter-productive: Most of the cattle holders in our area are nomadic. The Baggara use children to take the animals to other areas. Taking the children to school without a permanent settlement is a big problem. Certain things have to be provided. And you need to know why they are running away, and to provide what they need. Some of the nomads reject the issue of education itself. It conflicts with their traditional values. They don’t like their children to go to school. And if they come to town, they don’t go back. Those who go to study, they don’t empower them economically. The encounter with Islamic education has reinforced, rather than weakened this antagonism despite the absence of modernist activities like sex education in the Islamic schools. The education discourse is perceived to be completely alien, a view shared by both conservative and more progressive Southerners. While the conservative culturalists may have principled reasons for not sending their children to a modern or an Islamic school, many children do not attend school simply because of abject poverty: There is a big number of dropouts. So many people suffer. Some are alone. Orphans. Some have parents, but they are not able to take care of their young ones. Children leave early because of that, because they are hungry. The school cannot afford to feed them.

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The majority of Southern informants perceive education through what may be called a progressive cultural model, the implication being that modern education is an indispensable tool in modern society. Historically, many Southerners voice a nostalgia for the colonial practices in education: Education in Sudan was very good during the colonial days—during the British time. The system was good: the syllabus was present; the curriculum was made; the teachers were trained; there were boarding schools—the children were sleeping there—they were given food and blankets; discipline was in force in the school. It was a good system. The system kept education rolling in a proper way. The positive value of modern education as experienced in the South was reiterated by other informants. ‘‘The purpose of education is not to abandon traditions, just to upgrade and modify themyModern education upgrades skills to improve life effectivelyy’’ And yet another: Education builds awareness about many things, for example about HIV and AIDS and how to prevent it. Condoms are not brought to make people prostitutes, but to protect (them) from the dangers of disease. The issue of awareness and education was raised by several: The good things are: creating awareness. It is really good in the way that it teaches you to do things in a better way. As people begin to discover the world, things change. Moreover, modern education introduces modern health and the death rate is minimised. Other informants underlined the importance of education in eliminating problematic cultural practices such as, one informant told us, ‘‘female circumcision, and the lack of women’s empowerment.’’ A teacher focused on the importance of education in relation to traditional culture and change: One of the problems in our society is the resistance to change. If someone brings in an

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innovation, the people first have to study it critically. Some also want to look at the others and see how they succeed. They are afraid of changing their traditional practices and habits. Instead of going to the innovator to get the information, they become jealous. But another problem can also be that the innovator doesn’t want to share his information. He wants to be better than the others. Prestige is an important issue here. This is a very big problem. This issue of change was also a concern of another teacher: If you are not educated you will not be able to contribute much. Education will help people to understand the environmentyChanging the community and create more understanding. You talk about changing the community. Why? Most of us are living in accordance with our culture. Educated people have changed their way of culture. Those who are not educated have a narrow type of life. They themselves think that they are the only people in the world. They don’t notice that changes are taking place. They will only love themselves and defend themselves. They only help their own tribe. Others are only perceived as enemiesy These people don’t know the importance of modern health care. The story of Captain Cook, told by an informant, is in this connection illustrative: Captain Cook was the one who brought education to Kajukeji (Southern Sudan). He gathered all the chiefs together and told them about his internships. He said that he wanted to bring their children to school. But the chiefs interpreted his intentions in a different way. What does the white man want with our children, they asked themselves. Maybe he wanted to take their children as slavesyWho is going to take care of the cattle? The girls are maybe going to get spoiledyonly one chief wanted to send his children to school. His name was Boso, and he was very wise. When the other chiefs saw that the children who were sent to school became successful, they became jealous.

But modern education challenges tradition in certain areas that are not easily handled. While we have noted that sex education is a very sensitive issue, corporal punishment is another. The issue of corporal punishment is a difficult issue in the Sudan. Human Rights Laws are not appliedyIf the law were there, corporal punishment would not be allowed. The problem is that if the child is punished at home, but not in school, the teachers will lose respect. Another informant: The standard of living is not such that each family has enough. If there were enough, the child would respect parents more. When there is poverty there is hunger and other problems arise. These problems are coming from the family to the school. In the West the child has everything and also respect. Not in the Sudanythis question will continue here until everybody is fed. It is also a question of family planning. Myself, I have eight children. If I had only four, I would be able to discipline them.

7. Southern migrants’ experiences of the Islamic educational discourse While it was noted in the previous section how the Southern community responds differently to the idea of schooling, this section focuses on how the progressive Southerners with educational aspirations perceive the dominant educational discourse. The dilemma of progressive Southerners is that while modern education is perceived as a must, the Islamic education offered in and around Khartoum is, as has already been noted, antithetical to what they see as modern education. The experiences during the interim period in the South after Addis Ababa (in 1972) reflects an ingrained scepticism towards the Muslim schools: When the people returned from exile in 1972, there were a lot of changes in the education system. The government was here. Islam was introduced in our schools. Forced teaching of IslamyMost of the history was about the

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North and the coming of the Arabs, and about the Middle East. According to another informant, forced Islamisation in Southern schools is still rampant in certain areas: Even the militias are trained to make people slaves. The government takes the children to use their organs—hearts, lungs, eyes, kidneys. In the South, the government has established Kalwa schools, pre-schools that train southern children to become Muslims. Children are taken by force to these schools. The experiences and histories from South Sudan only reinforce the one-dimensional construction of the Other, also compounded by the situation in the public schools in the displaced camps. The very existence of these schools is often seen by the Islamic government as a provocation: Government people tear down churches and schools and move people by force to other places. And donors are discouraged from helping. The schools in operation in the displaced camps teach according to the National Curriculum which conveys a dominant Islamic educational discourse referred to above. As one informant says: The National Curriculum is planned by few people. It is not designed according to the whole area. It is designed for the Muslims. This is just for Muslims, not Christians. The most problematic feature with such a discourse is not that it is unrivalled per se (this is also the case in most Western countries), but its lack of differentiation between secular and religious knowledge. As Talbani states: ‘‘Since it is infallible divine knowledge, it is an instrument in the selection of and validation of pedagogical knowledge’’ (Talbani, 1996, p. 76). In view of science teaching such an understanding is problematic: ‘‘Modern science is guided by no moral values but naked materialism and arrogance’’ (Jameelah, 1983, p. 8) Moreover, knowledge ‘‘divorced from faith is not only partial knowl-

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edge, it can even be described as a kind of new arrogance.’’ (Hussain and Ashraf, 1979, in Talbani, p. 77). It is in such a non-secular, Islamic atmosphere that the parents send their children and their complaints and anxiety must be understood: ‘‘The schools kill our religion and our traditions. Qur’anic quotations permeate all textbooks, even the maths books.’’ As another informant stated: ‘‘All songs are in Arabic. There are no tribal traditions, no vernaculars, no songs in my school.’’ Another informant added: ‘‘This is wrong! We cannot teach our culture until we go back: If it is in the (text)book we can teach it, but it is not!yThey see the South as a block, a stumbling block, hindering Islamisation to the rest of Africa.’’ A dissonant, although ambivalent voice was sometimes heard: It is not all bad. They learn many things— Arabic, different cultures. Not all is bad. But you should learn your culture so that you learn how to behaveyThe respect is not there. They answer in a different language. There are so many different identities. Another informant added: ‘‘It has provided an opportunity for us to study the Arab culture in and out. To know how they are reasoning. We know how to deal with them in the future.’’ While the pervasiveness of the Islamic school discourse is the Southern parents’ biggest worry, the questions of medium of instruction, language learning and language and culture were also high on their agenda: The importance of being taught their home languages was reiterated by several informants: Take the issue of language. Children are forgetting their dialect. They speak Arabic, the language of their environment. And the parents do not know that languageyArabs say that Arabic is the heavenly language. We have to find a way to maintain our own culture— because Arabic is destroying our cultureyThe child must be taught in his own language. Officially, it is not allowed, but we have the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) here. Mother tongue teaching is done at the

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community level. It does not involve this school. They use our classrooms in the evening. The pedagogical problems are perceived as formidable: The students suffer. When they reach grade 8, there is the national examination. It is very difficult for them to pass. They do not speak Arabic well, they do not speak English well, and many do not speak their own language well. Many forget their culture. This is how the government treats us. Our children do not learn where they come from. They do not learn anything about our history, culture and language. While the problem related to the medium of instruction is acute in most parts of Africa (see Brock-Utne, 2001; Heugh, 2000; Breidlid, 2003), its urgency in the North is not only due to linguistic barriers (which are serious enough), but also due to the fact that Arabic is seen as carrying heavy connotations of an Islamic religion and culture. The Southerners’ view of the Islamic educational discourse can be seen as quite one-sided and biased and where any positive steps from the government do not seem to be properly recognised. At least two concessions have been made by the North that seem to be somewhat belittled by the Southerners. The first concession refers to the fact that Christian education is permitted outside ordinary school hours. It means that Christian education has in principle been recognised as an alternative subject to Islamic education with separate examination papers. Another concession is the recognition of a tiny number of schools with English as the medium of instruction, but with the retention of the Islamic curriculum: Still we have to follow the curriculum of the Ministry of Education. Our textbooks are in English and Arabic. But all the textbooks have pictures and texts of Arab people. Everywhere there are quotations from the Qu’ran. And the textbooks in English are few. Sometimes we have to translate textbooks from Arabic into

English, but it is difficult if you do not speak Arabic very well. Sometimes we find somebody who can translate bits and pieces. This is not good. How do you face the situation as a southern teacher? We as teachers have to balance. We try to teach both Christianity and IslamyBut we select what we teach. We leave out some of the religious aspects. But we have to be careful. The government demands a lot from our school, and if you are not flexible they will close the school. yThe government is afraid that we will convert the Muslims into Christians. Do you have any books about the southern history? ‘‘Not really books, but we talk from our knowledge and experience.’’ These types of recognition may possibly reflect the ambiguity and power struggle within the state apparatus between hard-liners and people who want to improve the image of the Sudan with the West. Re-echoing the previous discussion of the new Constitution, the cracks in the educational discourse are not felt, however, as major concessions by the Southerners due to their contested nature, their limitations, and the uncertainty of their sustainability. The bulldozing of both schools and living quarters referred to earlier only adds fuel to the uncertainty, scepticism and anxieties among the Southerners migrants. The problems which the Southerners experience are augmented as they move further up the educational ladder and when they eventually look for work. Even though some NGOs provide university scholarships for some Southern students the number of scholarships is very limited, thus excluding most qualified Southerners for further studies. As one informant stated: There are very few Southerners in the university. It is a matter of financial constraints. Southerners cannot afford the university fees. Some time ago the university offered opportunities to some students. But to get this help you have to become a Muslim.

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Some brilliant Southern academics (often with a degree from abroad) work at one of the universities, but they are few and far between and they have to keep a very low political and religious profile in order not to be dismissed. Other Southerners work for international NGOs, but the job market in this sector can only provide jobs for a very limited number. Several informants claimed that getting a job in the government-controlled job market was almost impossible. As one informant stated: ‘‘If you want a job in Khartoum you have to change your Christian name and your religion. If not, you don’t get a job. I could never do that. I will not give up my religion.’’

8. Fighting for educational space The Southerners can be criticised for constructing an educational discourse of the Other which fits their preconceived, stereotypical image, and may also fail to understand that most countries impose an educational policy which has some, if not all of these universalising tendencies. On the other hand, some of the difficulties they face are not basically different from those of minority student groups in other countries. Gibson refers to cross-country studies which tell the same story: minority students face substantial barriers in school which are often, if not always, aggravated by marginalisation and poverty (Gibson, 1991). Even though individual members of the group may improve their social status through schooling, the experience is that the Southern Sudanese in the North remain, as Gibson states in another context, ‘‘in a subordinate position in terms of its power to shape the dominant value system of the society or to share fully in its rewards’’ (Gibson, 1991, p. 358). But the hopes and aspirations of ordinary immigrant groups to improve their overall wellbeing (see Ogbu, 1991, p. 8) are not experienced by the Southerners. Being involuntary minorities who ‘‘usually resent the loss of their former freedom, they perceive the social, political and economic barriers against them as part of their undeserved oppression’’ (Ogbu, 1991, p. 9). The role of schooling in the north is therefore an ambiguous enterprise: without schooling there is no future,

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but Islamic education may jeopardise their cultural identity and integrity, and does not help them, with some exceptions, to climb the social ladder within the dominant discourse. Education is seen, however, as a means to be better equipped in the ideological struggle against the Islamists and will be indispensable in the reconstruction period in a post-war situation. It is in this ambiguous terrain that the attitudes of the progressive Southerners must be understood. The ideologically closed universe which with a few exceptions is seen as a constitutive feature of the dominant Islamic discourse is thus not easily accepted by the Southerners who have a long tradition of fighting Islamism, albeit in their own territory. In and around Khartoum migrant parents, community groups and church organisations repeatedly contest and fight against the very impositions of the dominant discourse, a strategy based, not primarily on individual merit, but on collective interventions. They refuse to accept that they are completely trapped within the Islamic educational discourse and the dominant discourse at large. As one informant stated: Recently they (the government) said that they wanted to impose Islamic education on us with no concessions to Christians. I told them, if they do, this is why the war broke out in the South. You know that this community doesn’t belong to the Muslim community! We are supposed to have rights. We are talking bitterly to themyWe have the right to practice our Christian faith! I just told them: ‘‘If you want to kill me, it’s OK, but I want to die as a Christian.’’ Another informant added, underlining the judicial aspect of the struggle: We talked among ourselves that if they attempt to close this school and activities, we would report it to the international humanitarian bodies and courts. Suddenly this was mentioned on radio Omdurman. They are afraid of that. If it were not for that fear, this place would have been closed.

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This response is quite appropriate since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and political Rights (which the Sudan has ratified) protect their religious rights. As Lindholm et al state ‘‘While freedom of religion or belief applies to individual human beings, it also includes protection of community activitiesyand intergenerational relationsyReligion or belief communities benefit from the protection granted community activities (Lindholm et al., 2004, p. xl.). Clearly the GoS is worried that their practices and actions in and around Khartoum will be looked upon as a violations of these rights. Due to the activities and protests of these Southern activist groups the door to negotiations, which is basically and in principle closed, has been pushed half-open as seen by the small ‘‘victories’’ referred to above. The frequent contestations of these concessions or victories show, however, that the non-secular, Islamic basis of the education system is so ingrained in the wider Islamic discourse that a more satisfactory solution can only take place inside a comprehensive peace settlement.

9. Conclusion It has become a kind of dogma in cultural research that cultural holism and the homogenity and boundedness of culture are simplistic notions that do not belong in serious cultural research. Holistic models of culture and society are nonviable due to the reality of post-war population movements, trans-national capitalism and the explosion of consumption (see Werbner, 2000, p. 6). Such assumptions of holism, Werbner argues, reify ‘‘culture’’ in substantivist terms (Werbner, 2000, p. 6) and are essentialist in nature. In the educational terrain in Khartoum, such reification is inscribed in the educational project of the Islamists and also in the struggle of the Southerners for educational space. For the Arab Islamists cultural hybridity is, as noted earlier, antithetical to the very foundation of their school philosophy and for the Southerners the construction of the Other is premised on the realisation that such a construction may help to limit the

cultural fertilisation efforts of Islamism which they perceive in the long run will completely undermine their own identity construction. This is not to say that hybridisation does not take place. It has already been noted that the very fact that Southern children are sent to Islamic schools means that hybridisation occurs to some extent, and the Arabic language can be seen as a forceful means in the same direction. Bauman is right when stating that the ordering tendencies of modernity are the key to understanding intolerance towards ‘‘strangers’’ in the modern nation-state (Bauman, 1997). But the very meaning of being a stranger is not, as Werbner (2000, p. 2) states, elusive, at least not in the Sudanese context, where being a stranger is manifest in material practices and political decision-making. The post-modernist call for openness and willingness towards cultural fusion does not take into account the socio-economic and ideological realities that define the dichotomised relationships referred to in this article. The construction of the Other in Southern discourse is, as has been noted, biased, bigoted and homogenises the Islamic educational discourse, but it must not be forgotten that it is constructed in an extremely difficult situation where existential issues are at stake. This construction is a survival strategy in a situation where the almost closed, monological discourse of the Islamists is a monologue where cultural hybridity in a post-modern sense is not on the agenda. A more open, Southern strategy towards the North is seen by the Southerners as dangerously self-negating as it would endanger their own identity, and not give status as an equal partner in the North. The thesis of cultural hybridity in post-modernism presupposes the willingness of both parties to reflect critically on their own discourse as well as to engage in a debate on the potential validity of aspects of the discourse of the Other. In the impoverished and very oppressive climate of the North such a reflexivity is necessary, but hardly viable given the static constructions of the Other. Moreover, while the dogma of hybridity is popular, at least, as Friedman states, ‘‘in the world of high culture commentators’’ (Friedman, 2000, p. 83), the urban, oppressed Southern poor in and round

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Khartoum, are concerned with more mundane, daily matters. In a life focused on survival strategies the situation is rather, as Friedman states in another context, ‘‘an increasing ethnification of such public social arenas. In such a process there is little room for the hybrid identification discussed and pleaded for by the cultural elites’’ (Friedman, 2000, p. 84). While it is important to subvert the categorical oppositions in the educational discourse in the North, this is not done in a discursive terrain emptied of material, political and ideological realities and practices. Since ethnic relations in and around the capital are shaped by the structure of incorporation and excorporation in that society, the construction of the Other is reflective of these realities on the ground. In such a terrain the school arena will remain a hotly contested one.

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