May Musings - 12

Today’s been a day of transit, which has meant many a podcast was listened to, and I almost finished knitting scarf #2!

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I was ready to share a slew of thoughts with y’all about democracy (inspired by this podcast episode reviewing a film called ‘What is Democracy?’) however, I’ve just heard the news of violence kicking off again in Khartoum, Sudan, and I can’t quite concentrate. 

There have been reports of shots fired, people beaten, harassed and martyred. Ina Lilahi wa Ina Ilayhi Rajiun. I haven’t verified these reports personally, and there is still speculation around who is responsible, but the escalation of violence is a reminder of the nation’s instability. The stalling of negotiations, electricity cuts and water shortages and the influence by foreign interests (UAE, Saudi, the like) all contribute to the pressure cooker and make the Sudanese Uprising Project all the more fragile. Khair inshallah. I hope everyone is safe, and I’m going to get onto WhatsApp right now to check just that, inshallah. 

May Musings - 06

Where I did my blogging and studying while living in Sudan, circa 2012.

Where I did my blogging and studying while living in Sudan, circa 2012.

How much is enough? When it comes to the big things in life: war, climate change, gentrification, the rise of fascism… how do you know when what you’ve fulfilled your obligation, looked after ‘your bit’, or done enough?

I’m going to write about something a little close to home today.

For those who may or may not know, Sudan is going through a process of major political upheaval right now. I was on the ground in Sudan, when protests first started kicking off in mid 2012 - that’s why I started this blog actually, to talk about what was happening and try get international attention. My blog ended up being frozen for some time, and folk who were writing online started getting raided and beaten, and so my family asked me to stop. I did - and I went back to Australia, to my professional life and to a diasporic existence that’s a little more complicated than turning up to the protests.

Come December 2018, and I hear about the people taking to the streets in Atbara. Things are kicking off. I am meant to be in the country, and my family asks me to refrain from travelling as the government is collecting anyone with a voice, anyone ‘making trouble’. My family isn’t politically connected per se, they wouldn’t be able to get me out easily of a nasty situation - and so I stay here in London, safe (Alhamdulilah), but wracked with guilt. Is writing an article or two enough? Is posting on social media enough? How much posting on social media is sufficient? Is raising money for the people who are in the sit-in enough? How much money is ‘enough’? If you have a platform (as I do, Alhamdulilah) what is your responsibility, and where does it end? Are you allowed to take a break? Is that cheating, lacking integrity, not good enough?

I don’t know the answers to these questions. I try to do what I can, in fits and starts, but never feel like it is enough. I wonder whether, on the few days where I haven’t checked the news on the uprisings, whether that is ‘self care’, or me choosing my privilege over my people. I wonder if it would be morally easier if I just put myself in the line of fire - metaphorically or physically - at least then, I know I have given everything I had…

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Often, when grappling with challenges like this, I turn to faith. But I have yet to find an answer that soothes the guilt. Maybe in time, inshallah. But until then, yallah. How do you navigate this space? I have no answers yet, only a yearning… a yearning that I agree and appreciate self centers my moral struggle amongst a much more urgent conversation about a country’s political future! Ah - I guess that’s what a personal blog is for, right?

***

…that time I borrowed a baby.

…that time I borrowed a baby.


May Musings - 04

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Ah, it’s upon us! The night before Ramadan, a month that seems to come around quicker every year but almost always finishes too soon…

I’m in equal parts excited and nervous for the holy month ahead of us, inshallah. Excited, because it’s an opportunity to earn blessings on blessings, a moment for a spiritual detox, a month for family and friends and community unlike any other. It brings Muslims around the world together in shared practice and experience, moments where you share dates with strangers at iftar (the moment of breaking fast), nights spent on rugs picking away at food with your fingers until the morning adhan (call to prayer), evenings swaying during taraweeh as you will yourself to stay focused (you have eaten so much for iftar your eyes simply want to rest, just for a minute…). Ah, Ramadan is the sweetest of months.

However, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I was nervous. Fasting in London is an 18.5 hour stretch (dawn till dusk during summer is punishing), and it’s no small thing - especially after a lifetime of the easy Australian timezone. 18.5 hours without food or water means you have to make sure you’re eating enough during the night, it means managing energy during the day, and it definitely means no coffee all month. Admittedly, not everybody does the 18.5 hours - some folks follow the Meccan hours which are a manageable 14.5 hours or so. I think I’ll start on 18.5 hours inshallah and see how I go. Inshallah, Rabana gives us all enough strength to help us through.

Spare a thought also for those in Sudan at the moment; not only the ones in the sit-in, continuing to protest, but in the rest of the country where temperatures are on average 45 degrees +, where the electricity cuts out on the regular and the lines for petrol stretch not just around the block, but pretty much around the city. Surely, as they say in Sudan, fasting in the Sahara desert means a VIP entry into heaven…

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Ramadan Kareem, all. May Allah bless us all this month, inshallah. May He make it easy for us, may we find it rejuvenating and wholesome, may we be with our friends and family safely inshallah. May we tread softly on this earth, may we tread lightly with those we love, may we find grace in all that we have been blessed with, inshallah. If you’re a non-Muslim - feel free to wish your Muslim colleagues ‘Ramadan Mubarak’ or even a Happy Ramadan!

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Just a final sidenote - if your Muslim colleagues and friends aren’t fasting - please don’t question or pry. We are all on our own journey with our own unique circumstances and would all appreciate your discretion. Khair, inshallah.

May Musings - 03

Oh, I really am just scraping in writing this at 10.45pm. Gotta stick to that daily commitment though!

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Big day of themes today, folks. Binged watched Top Boy on my trip back from Malaysia to London, then ended up at a protest in the British Museum against stolen artifacts (I found my brethren, folks who love those anti-colonial jokes!) and wrapped it all up with a #SudanUprising solidarity fundraising event at Rumi’s Cave…

A lot to think about and process. Forgive me, as my thoughts are still scattered around the city…

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A day like today makes me appreciate the diversity that London has to offer, and recognise the privilege I have to walk between various worlds within the city. Top Boy, a show I highly recommend, reminded me that privilege of identity fluidity - born of my parents’ choices and Allah’s blessings - was something not easily accessible by all. My brief and sardonic reunion with the British Museum reminded me of the institutional injustices that continue to rage around us, seemingly impenetrable to intervention by mere mortals. But the Sudanese event at the end of the day was a reminder that all institutions are fallible, and almost all empires fall. It also reminded me, as events like these so often do, that we are never as alone as we think we are. Whether that be one’s confusion as a member of the diaspora, struggling to chant in your mother tongue, whether it’s the isolation of depression and the battle in your own head or whether it is simply wondering what space you’re allowed to take up in a room or city… giving voice to that confusion and isolation has an almost chemically transformative effect. Suddenly, it’s not your burden alone. It is never your burden alone.

It is never your burden alone.

The Independent: The uprising in Sudan is about a lot more than bread prices

The Independent: The uprising in Sudan is about a lot more than bread prices

For many in Sudan, its current situation is virtually unliveable, with cash and fuel shortages galore, astronomical and unpredictable inflation, and basic services that sometimes do more harm than good

Huffington Post: #JusticeForNoura

Huffington Post: #JusticeForNoura

What do we know about Noura Hussein? The 19-year-old Sudanese woman is currently on death row in Omdurman, Sudan, for killing a man in self-defense. She was convicted of murdering her husband, who raped her on their “honeymoon.”

Sassy Sudanese Sister: Holla!

Sometimes professional people in the community say some strange things.  One such Professor in Sudan said on the national channel (Blue Nile) that "all Sudanese women were short and ugly". How charming.

This was the fantastic response...

(Partly in English, partly in Arabic - but the passion needs no language to be understood!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lT7KkcWp5Ro

Back to Sudan: No, I did not get Ebola

Ah, it seems sometimes I avoid writing because I am a little afraid of what will come out when I start...

Oh Sudan, how you tear me in two.

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I just got back from a whirlwind trip to Sudan, the land of my birth.  I was there for a total of 4 full days; three days and two half days. If you consider all the flying, I was almost in the air as long as I was on the ground.  I returned for the weddings of cousins and to see my Grandmother, a lady who I have lived with and who has taught me so much (the School of Life, as she refers to it).

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As the plane came in to land (Alhamdulilah), I thought of the last time I was in Sudan. Coming out of university, going to study Arabic: it was a time of hope, of growth, of the Arab Spring, of something new and exciting. They were memories of rose tinted (or sand blasted) glasses, gleaming with the nostalgia of a time gone by, before #riglyf or the ruin of Syria...

It was not until my return to the hustle and bustle of the extended family home, the dramas surrounding preparations for the weddings or the two hours the hairdresser berated me for the state of my hair (HOW DARE YOU LEAVE IT CURLY?! Don't you know a woman's hair is the crown of her beauty? Don't you want to be beautiful?! How do you think you will find a man? Don't you want to feel attractive?) that the other memories of Sudan began to resurface.

(My favourite comment the hairdresser made: Oh look, I know you think you're an engineer and you're with all these men so you shouldn't take care of yourself, but girl, don't kid yourself. Men want a womanly woman. Just remember that.  When I made noises about having a man not being the most important thing in my life, she fell quiet for a few minutes.  A few blissful minutes of peace, before the barrage began again, with a different tact: Didn't I want to show everyone else in the house I could be beautiful? I could only muster and agreement-sounding moan).

Returning to the other memories of Sudan: although I'd forgotten, it was the only time in my life that my actions were constantly not enough, not right, not adequate - in a big way.  Having not been brought up in Sudan but being of Sudanese origin, I was expected (by this age) to espouse the 'correct' and perfect Sudanese way of being a woman.  This, as hard as I might, was not yet achieved.  Sure, if I worked at it as hard as I did my engineering degree, I'd probably be a hell of a lady by Sudanese standards, but to be perfectly honest - it just didn't rate with the priorities.  That doesn't stop the judgement though...

What were these 'correct' rules that were meant to be espoused? Some simple examples include:

- To make the perfect cup of tea (when to serve, how much sugar, how much to pour, the correct herbs to be added and to do it all with the utmost grace and such),

- To look like the perfect lady (preferably short, thin, not too thin as to look malnourished because that is undesired but not too large as to look like you weren't in control of your portion sizes (and definitely not muscled, lord, that was for men!), with neat manicured nails, smooth, moisturised skin - the whiter the better - with as few markings as possible, straight hair that would be coiffed into rolling curls and once whooshed out of the hijab it had been covered in under 40 degree heat all day, would gleam like the sun and smell like fairies; make up that looked good but not too fake, henna that was done well and not fading, clothing that was attractive but not too tight and shoes that were classy but would withstand the mud... you get the gist)

- To be able to cook, well (No elaboration necessary. Isn't this a prerequisite for every culturally diverse woman?)

- To be interested in womanly things, not politics and cars and football and engineering and the things that were reserved for men...

- To be the a witty conversationalist but also to talk about polite topics and not stray into overly satirical humour (not sure it translates...)

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Alas, I may be being somewhat facetious.

However, the truth of the matter (as far as I can see) is this...

Sudan, north Sudan in particular, is a deeply traditional, communal society.  Societies that are tribal and based on community in the way that the Sudanese are can often be deeply judgemental.  In this world, a woman's reputation is her only weapon, her beauty of uptmost importance and her ability to hold a household and care for a family paramount.

Many of the things I have learned to value here in Australia - the community work, the breaking of the barriers in the industry I work in, the influence in public conversations - yes, that is of passing interest to the families in Sudan, but really, honestly?

It doesn't rate in comparison. 

So I go from being someone who is confident in their ability and place in the world to someone who feels like they don't know the rules at all really, and the rules I do know, I don't adhere to very well at all.

The kicker? This is supposed to be where I am from.  This would be where I was from, if my parents hadn't decide to make that audacious journey to the other side of the globe in 1992.

So, Sudan is a place where I feel I have roots - deep roots - my only roots.

It is a place I feel I must

Yet although I know I must learn to love Sudan, because it is a place that keeps me grounded and connected, it is also a nation that makes me feel judged and inadequate.  It is a place whose values and traditions I know I should espouse, and yet, I find myself disagreeing with.  The issue then becomes that yet if I reject these based on the Australian values embedded within me, well it means I am then becoming 'westernised'.

'Westernised' being synonymous with losing my identity, not being 'true or genuine', or almost taking the side of the oppressors.  It isn't a rational fear, as those aren't all rational reasons or statements, yet, somehow, it is there.

The implication is that somehow, by trying to be different, I am implicitly forsaking my Sudanese identity and redefining myself as a true coconut - black on the outside, white on the inside.  The implication is that taking the identity of the 'white' and the associated individualistic, capitalist nature, is clearly the wrong thing to do.

It can't be.

I am Australian, Muslim, born in Sudan with mixed heritage. I get to pick and chose what I want to take on, right?  Yet, every time I go back, I feel guilty about my choices.

Why? I don't know, but this cannot go on...Surely, something has to make it through this madness.

You see, even by calling it madness, I am wracked by guilt.  Doesn't Sudan have enough haters, my conscious asks me.  Do you really need to be like all the others and hate on it as well? What makes you any better than all of them... why aren't you backing Sudan?

My conscious can be a right burr sometimes.

Oh Sudan.

Grass Roots Sudanese Inspiration (ARABIC)

A good friend of mine recommended this TEDx talk performed in Sudan and I simply love it. It talks about ambition, gumption, examples of Sudanese who have defeated the odds and 'made it'...and is a great grass roots video for young Sudanese to watch and be inspired by. Note that it is in Arabic, and pretty Sudanese Arabic at that!

Enjoy.

 

Are you a budding Sudanese Entrepreneur?

Thanks to my father for the heads up on this initiative!


The British Council in Khartoum, in collaboration with a few local players in Sudan including Sudanese Young Businessmen Association and Sudani Telcom has launched a competition for budding Sudanese entrepreneurs.

Called "Mashrouy", which translates to "My Project" in Arabic, the aim is to select 12 people/teams from the pool of applications for a competition to be aired at Blue Nile Satellite Station.

It is open for Sudanese people - both in Sudan and overseas - aged 18 to 40 - who have a business (commercial) idea that needs funding. In addition to the cash prize (SDG200,000, 150,000 and 100,000 for the top three)  there is also the opportunity to spend three weeks in the UK for coaching.

The Sudan Vision Daily has some information here and Alnilin also has a bit more information.

The 'Mashrouy' website (in Arabic) has the application form - closing date 20 May 2013.

[box type="info"] “The completion we are launching today is seeking ambitious bright young people in Sudan who have creative business proposals that needs support to be developed”, said the British Charge d’ Affaires Mr. David Belgrove in his address in the conference. Adding that the future and growth of the country require investment in youth and we hope that through this project young Sudanese will be able to kick-off the ground their innovative ideas and contribute to the growth and development of the economy of their country. He concluded by saying that all over the world with very few exceptions, all the largest companies in the world have started as a small business”.[/box]


This is an awesome opportunity for young Sudanese and those with ideas and the drive to push them to fruition.

There are numerous barriers to entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship in Sudan, but this may well be one of the avenues around those barriers.  I encourage all young Sudanese reading this to consider putting in an application or forward it to someone who might find it of use!

 

Hypocrisy of the Hierarchy: "Islam" vs "Islamists"

Below is an excerpt from the blog of an activist currently in Sudan in reference to the NCP, the nation’s ruling party. He raises a poignant point; highlighting the Sudanese government's use of religion to justify their actions while simultaneously flying in the face of everything the religion stands for.

Far from a moral and legal compass, Shari’a has been nothing but a political tool used by the NCP to consolidate their hold on power. While some naively believed the rhetoric and rallied around ‘the Islamic State’, the majority has known that the regime’s founding ideology has long been perverted by power and greed. In the past, the NCP made an effort, however minimal, to cover up their religious merchandizing, if only as a courtesy. However, when CS gas is fired into a house of worship on specific orders, it seems evident that we are no longer dealing with a regime that can be bothered with even insincere courtesies.

This has been a cause of personal frustration for some time now.

Another example can be found in Timbuktu (yeh, it’s a place), Mali, where a group called the "Ansar Dine", control part of the country and destroy the nation's heritage and history in the name of "Sharia Law".

This band of terrorists has recently turned their guns and fanaticism against the historical shrines that had made the city of Timbuktu a beacon of learning through so many centuries. They have used pick-axes, shovels, hammers and guns to destroy earthen tombs and shrines of local saints in the desert city of Timbuktu, claiming that they are doing so to defend the purity of their faith against idol worship. They are behind the destruction of at least eight Timbuktu mausoleums and several tombs, centuries-old shrines in what is known as the ‘City of 333 Saints’.

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My frustration is twofold.

Firstly, even though the actions are not aligned with Islamic values and principles, these groups will often claim their actions are in the name of the religion and then rub salt into the wound by denouncing anything or anyone they believe isn’t following Islam.

Secondly, by using Islam as a political tool, these groups taint the name of the religion itself.

Take the example of the the Muslim Brotherhood, or Al-Akhwan al-Muslimeen, the current Egyptian President’s party.  The organisation started as a religious social organisation, with stated aims to preach Islam.  With power usually comes political agendas however, and the Brotherhood is now one of the largest political movements in the Arab world.  The organisation (the political wing) operates under the banner of Islam, however throughout its history, its actions haven’t always been aligned with Islamic values.

Yet, because the Brotherhood as an organisation has an Islamic mandate, Muslim members and calls itself the “Muslim” Brotherhood, it’s actions are seen as representative of 'what is right under Islam'.

This is unfortunate as there is a difference between Islam and self proclaimed ‘Islamists’, or those who use religion as a mean to a political end.  This is not to say that all political Islamists are bad as such, things are much more nuanced than that. There is simply a difference between Islam and Islamists, and this should be recognised.

It is not the religion that should be judged by the people but the people whom should be judged by the religion.  After all, we are only human, and humans are fallible.  Such is the nature of our humanity.

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This isn’t Islam’s problem alone, it has happened with Christians, Jews and numerous other religious groups.  Religion is an extremely effective and persuasive political tool, and unfortunately is often used to justify evil and undeniable atrocities.

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However, when you look at it…

“Do you love your Creator? Then love your fellow beings first.” – The Prophet Mohammed (SAW) [Muslims]

“Love thy neighbor as thyself” – Jesus, quoting the Torah (New Testament) [Christians and Jews]

“Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.” – Buddha [Buddhists]

It would seems to me that mercy and love are what all religions preach and what we should focus on, regardless of denomination.

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In all of this, it should be noted that Muslims have been not given a mandate on how to rule a nation.

There are detailed descriptions for many things in Islam, down to the very details of how to wash before you pray, but there is no description for the best “model of government”.

Yes, there is the concept of ‘Sharia’, however Sharia is not a book of law as Western civilisation would have it, rather it is the ‘path’ or the Islamic ‘way of life’ (read further here).

What there isn’t is a ruling on whether Muslims should be right wing, left wing, realist, socialist, communist (though that wouldn’t really work anyway), democratic, authoritarian, dictatorial…

Politics is one of the areas that Islam hasn’t mandated.  What does that tell you?

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So, what are your thoughts? For me personally, I think religion and politics are different realms and should be kept separate. That is how I will keep it at any rate.

Job Advertisement: Researcher for South Sudan

 

An interesting job that was forwarded to me for the Human Rights Watch…I encourage you to apply!  Find out more:

FULL-TIME JOB VACANCY RESEARCHER ON SUDAN/SOUTH SUDAN Africa Division (Juba or Nairobi preferred) Application Deadline: September 12, 2012

Human Rights Watch (“HRW”) is seeking a Researcher to monitor the human rights situation in Sudan and South Sudan.  This position will report to a Senior Researcher in the Africa Division.