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 Re: د. العفيف: لماذا هذا الإلتواء من الدكتور خالد المبارك (Re: Yasir Elsharif)
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الأخ الدكتور أيمن
لقد كتبت لك ردا فوق، أرجو أن تقرأه..
العزيز قصي، شكرا على العفريتة لرفع الموضوع..
الأخ عمر
إليك ورقة الأخ الباقر باللغة الانجليزية وستليها الورقة باللغة العربية..
الورقة باللغة الإنجليزية يا عمر طويلة جدا وسأكتب في كل بوست جزءا منها..
The Crisis of Identity in Northern Sudan:
A Dilemma of a Black people with a White Culture
A paper presented at the CODSRIA African Humanities Institute
Tenured by the Program of African Studies at the Northwestern University, Evanston
I ask to be no other man than that who I am.
And will know who I am.
Background of the Study
In Sudan, Africa’s largest land, there is a civil war, the longest in Africa, and probably in the whole world. It has continued for thirty-six years, claimed 1.9 million lives, and displaced five million people. Since 1989, when the current government came to power, more people have been killed, by war and war related famine, than in the Bosnian, Rwandan and Somalia wars combined. Attempting to understand the roots of the war, Sudanese historians and political analysts generally adopted two main approaches. The first generation of these focused mainly on the colonial powers, and their “calculated measures to separate the South from the North”, by sowing the seeds of hatred in the South. However, after more than four decades of national rule, the problem is not only there, but has aggravated, and its latent religious tone has now taken a full-fledged form. This matter has motivated new generations of Sudanese to do some rethinking. Thus the second approach came into being and shifted the focus from the enemy “without” to the enemy “within”; it identifies the roots of the war as a conflict between the two main identities in the country, Northern and Southern. Now there is a wide consensus among Sudanese, Northern and Southern alike, that the country is in a state of a crisis of national identity. The war is basically viewed as a war of vision, and a conflict of identities, as Francis Deng, the prominent Southern Sudanese intellectual, eloquently puts it. The North, feeling that it is Arab and Muslim, has always sought to define the whole country in these terms. It did not only resist any attempts by the non-Arab segment of the country to identify Sudan with black Africa, but also tried relentlessly to assimilate the South through Arabization and Islamization policies, and to turn the Southern identity into a distorted image of the Northern self. The South, on the other hand, perceiving this scheme as a kind of cultural cloning, has always resisted it.
However, this study goes a step further and investigates a deeper level of the roots of the war. It focuses on the conflict “within” the Northern identity, which underlies the conflict “between” Southern and Northern identities. It tries to reveal the connection between the cleavage caused by the ruling Northern elite in the country and the fissures of the Northern self, and whether the former is both manifestation and sign of the latter. Thus this study makes another shift of focus from the external duality characterizing the North/South divide to the internal duality characterizing the Northern self-divide.
A Definition of Identity
Identity is defined by The Webster’s Third New Dictionary of the English Language as “the sameness of essential genetic character in different examples or instances. Or Sameness of all that constitutes the objective reality of a thing: self-sameness, oneness; sameness of that which is distinguishable only in some accidental fashion. The sense arising in shared experience, an instance of such sameness. Or unity and persistence of personality: unity or individual comprehensiveness of a life or character. Or the condition of being the same with something described, claimed or asserted, or of possessing a character claimed”.
If we want to establish a person’s identity, we may need to know his or her name, color, ethnic and cultural background and the position one occupies in the community. Thus there are two faces to identity, one primordial and given, and the other constructed and chosen. Identity is both subjective and objective, personal and social, and hence its illusive nature. Individuals have a wide range of possible identities. They can have racial or ethnic identities, national or religious identities, or even hometown identities. The talk about personal identities is firmly connected to the realm of genetic discourse. Although biological characteristics are objective, personal identities mean much more than these; they also include “a subjective sense of a continuous existence and a coherent memory”.
The subjective sense of identity is the sense of sameness and continuity as an individual, a sense of belonging to a deep-rooted set of values which forms one’s mental and moral attitude, and gives individuals their unique characters. It enables the individual to live life more fully and intensely. At such moments, it can be said that an individual has become himself or herself, and is “at home with his or her body”, and in harmony with his or her environment and symbolic order. However, what underlie such a subjective sense are objective attributes, which can be recognized by others.
Identity is also dynamic and responsive to changing conditions. It is bound to shift with changing technologies, cultures and political systems. It is also strategic. People claim certain identity for strategic reasons, such as empowerment. Above and underlying these factors are the historical legacies of our ancestors which “weigh heavily on who we are and who we can become”. Identity is therefore a claim for membership based on all sorts of typologies such as race, ethnicity, gender, class, caste, religion, culture, etc. It is the way by which people define themselves and are defined by others on the basis of the above typologies.
A Definition of Identification
Identification is defined by the Dictionary of Social Sciences as a “tendency to imitate and or the process of imitating the behavior of an object. It may also denotes the process of merging emotionally, or the state of having so merged, with the same object”. S. Freud introduced the term into psychology in 1899. He stated that identification is “the earliest expression of an emotional tie with another person". An individual identifies with another person as an ‘ego ideal’ someone he or she would like to be, rather than someone he or she would like to have. This is why it is relevant to group behavior. He explained the need and capacity of the individual to affiliate, and the strength of the emotional ties involved, as essential attributes of human beings. He also mentions the ‘infantile origin’ of the process of identification, and postulates that this particular infantile origin accounts for its operation at the subconscious level, for its strength as a motivational factor, and for its irrational and, sometimes, regressive manifestation. To him identification is not simple imitation, but rather assimilation on the basis of similar aetological pretension.
N. Sanford takes issues with Freud and states that, on the contrary, identification is a conscious process, while imitation is unconscious. J.P. Seward defines identification as “a general disposition to imitate the behavior of a model.” Freud speaks of three levels of identification. His thesis is that, first it takes the form of emotional tie with an object. Then it becomes a substitute for a libidinal tie, as if it takes the form of introjection of the object into the ego. Finally it gives rise to new perception of a common quality shared with some other person, or group. Scheler differentiates between two types of identification, idiopathic and heteropathic. In the first type, identification comes about “through the total eclipse and absorption of another self by one’s own”, whereas in the second type, “the identified is overwhelmed and hypnotically bound by the model”.
Identity Formation
The classical idea was that social identities are primordially given and inherited like the biological traits. This view started to give way to the idea that identities are constructed by choice, and are always subject to reconstruction. However, people’s choices of identities are limited or constrained by the given and primordial factors such as their features, families, communities, histories, cultures, etc. Identity formation, according to Erikson, is a process by which
[T]he individual judges himself in the light of what he perceives to be the way in which others judge him in comparison to themselves and to a typology significant to them; while he judges their way of judging him in the light of how he perceives himself in comparison to them and to types that become relevant to him.
Social Psychologists hold that an individual’s identification with a group, for example, a social class, or a racial or ethnic group, is probably the most pervasive of all the psychological processes that are directly relevant to social behavior. Identification with a dominant group, for instance, takes place when one “internalizes the role system of the group and considers oneself a member of it”. This happens through the process of cultural assimilation. As David Laitin puts it:
[C]ultural assimilation is like religious conversion, and as the literature of religion conversion makes clear, what one generation considers simple pragmatism the next considers natural. Thus the children who are brought up in a religious community will, egged up by religious authorities castigates their parents for what they see as their hypocrisy.
This view corresponds to De Vos’ perception of constructed identities as “deviant”. To him, they demonstrate “excessive instrumental expediency” and a sign of “inner maladjustment”, which occurs in certain social conditions that have a huge impact on self-perception of own identity. Despite their constructed nature, “identity categories have the power to subsume and even to colonize individuals”.
In the formation of social identities, there is always an in-group, which represents the desired social identity, and a peripheral group, which have to adjust in order to identify with the model. In such cases the former represents the core, and occupies the center stage of that social identity whereas the latter represents the outer circle and occupies the margin. The former is privileged, and the latter seeks to be so. The former has the power to legitimize or de-legitimize the latter. To describe a similar concept, Chalres Taylor uses the term "recognition / misrecognition". He postulates that people’s identity is: "partly shaped by the recognition or its absence, often by misrecognition of others".
For instance, whereas the white middle to upper class represents the center of the American identity, the blacks, Japanese, etc., Americans represent the peripheries of that identity. The center monopolizes the power to recognize or misrecognize these groups. The tension between the center and the peripheries may lay dormant or works at a low key in normal and peaceful times. At such times the umbrella of identity seems to embrace all the social groups that share the nation. But in times of severe conflicts the center uses and often abuses the power of recognition. It can withdraw the umbrella from any of the peripheral social groups whenever it sees it necessary to do so. This actually had happened during World War 11, when the Japanese Americans were detained in concentration camps, for their loyalty to America was questioned by the center of the American identity. The selectivity of the center in using the power of recognition and misrecognition can be demonstrated by the fact that German Americans were not detained in the same scale, despite the fact that Germany was the major force of the European Axis. Thus the center decided to misrecognize the Japanese Americans during the war, and to restore recognition to them after the war. The same thing can be said about Britain, where the English identity represents the center of the British identity. It is noticed that the term English is frequently used by the media community in Britain when it means British, the matter which irritates nationalists in Scotland and Wales. It is also observed by the black British community that the mainstream British media some times refer to Afro-Caribbean athletes as "British" when they won medals for Britain, and as "Caribbean" when they lost. These examples illustrate the tensions between the center and the peripheries in each identity as well as the dynamics and processes of recognition and misrecognition that operate between the center and the peripheries.
Change of Identity
Relying on a model developed by Thomas Schelling, Laitin interprets identity shifts in terms of “cascades” and “tips”. Cascades occur when people’s behavior and actions are motivated by or based on their anticipation of what other people will do. When so many people in the community think that others will think on the same lines and behave accordingly, suddenly the community “tips” from its stable order before the cascade to a new stable order. To demonstrate how communities tip and cascade, Laitin gives the following example: “Consider the case of one or two African Americans who buy homes in a stable “white” neighborhood. Suddenly the white families, fearing that they will be the last whites in the neighborhood, all seek to sell out at the same time. But only African Americans who are willing to buy. Very quickly the neighborhood “tips” from a stable white to a stable African American”.
Identity shifts in the same manner, i.e. it can also cascade. In his empirical study of the Russian community in Astonia, after the collapse of the USSR, and the shrinkage of its borders, David Laitin gives us a clear example of how identity shifts. He described the efforts Russian individuals, who found themselves foreigners in the communities they once dominated, were exerting in order to accommodate to the new realities. Russians in Astonia struggled to obtain the Astonian nationality. They started to learn the Estonian language, which they did not feel the need to learn before the collapse of the union, as the Estonian were compelled to speak Russian. Laitin concludes that the quest of these people to keep their families intact, and to avoid deportation, gave then an incentive for an identity shift. This in turn lays the foundation for the construction of an Estonian identity for their grandchildren, and that, as a community, they are moving towards an identity tip.
Communities normally live in equilibrium. In such situations communities feel that the world is completely stable. Identities do not come under question, and there will be no incentive for change. All people share a tacit understanding of who they are. Cultural and political elite of such a group step in to give meaning to this equilibrium by providing it with beliefs, constraints, principles, myth, and a symbolic order. At this stage the community can be described as being itself, i.e. it lives in harmony with its environment, and sees the world through their own eyes. However, turbulent events can shake the equilibrium, bring instability to the community, result in an identity crisis, and motivate some people to explore new identities. At this stage cultural and political elite normally split between those who try to defend the status quo, and those who will seek to induce a cascade towards a new equilibrium.
Three Dimensions of Identity
None of the identity theories summarized above can alone explain the complexities of the Northern Sudanese identity, and a synthesis of them is therefore essential for that purpose. Thus on the basis of the foregoing one can identify three elements that interact to define any social identity. The first element is a group’s perception of itself. The second is the others’ perception of the group. The third is recognition or lack of recognition of the group by the center of identity. If these three elements interact in a harmonious way, i.e. if people’s definition of themselves matches with other people’s definition of them, and that the center of that identity grants them recognition, then this particular community is said to be living in equilibrium. Here is where the cultural and political elite steps in to give meaning to this equilibrium by providing it with a set of beliefs, constraints, principle, myth, and symbolic order. The symbolic order seeks to harmonize the whole universe around the community’s identity, or in other words, to make the universe looks as though emanating from the community’s collective self, or as if it is an extension of their identity. At this stage the community can be described as being itself, and as seeing the world through their own eyes. An example of how the symbolic order works is the way by which western cultures have reconstructed the image of Jesus Christ to make him look like an Anglo Saxonian. This happened regardless of the fact that he was a Jew, and by no means that he had blonde hair and green eyes. But nevertheless, this reconstruction is essential for harmonizing the white people's identity, for people make better sense of the universe when they worship a God that looks like them, not one that is alien to them.
On the other hand, if the three elements interact contradictorily, i.e. if people’s perception of themselves does not match with the way other people define them, or, more seriously, if the legitimizing powers did not recognize the community’s definition of itself, then this particular community is said to live in disharmony. In such a case, the symbolic order does not emanate from the community's collective self, but is usually borrowed from the center of the identity that the community is aspiring for, and wants to "be". These conditions set the scene for the paradoxes of identity to become visible, for instability to creep into the community, and for the crisis of identity to loom in the horizon.
Crisis of Identity
A crisis of identity can occur at both the personal and the social levels. At the personal level, a crisis ensues when infantile identifications are brought to conform to urgent new self-definition and irreversible role choices. Also, personal identity is a lifetime quest, as Erikson postulates, and failure to attain it represents a crisis, which can have a damaging effect on individuals. At the social level, a crisis may ensue when people, while
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Yasir Elsharif
فيس بوك
تويتر
انستقرام
يوتيوب
بنتيريست