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 Re: Soul Prostitution (Re: مزن ابوعبيدة النيل)
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Muzan and other contributors and readers of this post
i believe we are talking about sudan and sudanese life in towns and in villages and in the hinterland. and why people become the way they are. do/did they have freedom of choice? were they masters of their own destinies, so to speak?
in this context, i read a post on sudaneseonline, chronicling the life and political history of one of the leaders of sudan, albeit in opposition. Al Tijani al Tayeb, the famous leader of the sudan communist party. Here is part of his narrative. what he said about being born and brought up in a village in northern sudan in the 1930s:
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At this point, the conversation veers away from personal trials, to focus instead on the unspeakable poverty and degradation of Al-Tijani's people. "The Sudanese are angry and frustrated," he insists. "Some 90-95 per cent of them live below the poverty line."
Unfortunately, those in power in Khartoum prefer to evade this issue, using nationalist frustrations and humiliations to resist the demand for change.
"Sudan has always been a poor country. I myself was born into abject poverty," Al-Tijani adds, nonchalantly.
But despite the fact that he, his family and his entire village lived pretty much on the breadline, he retains a deep emotional attachment to his home village. He is fiercely proud of his roots.
Al-Tijani was born deep in the rural backwaters of northern Sudan, in the village of Al-Shaghalwa, three kilometres from Shendi, itself a sleepy provincial town 170 kilometres north of the Sudanese capital Khartoum.
"I remember the destitution, the lack of amenities," he recalls. "There was no fresh meat: most villagers could not afford to slaughter their animals." Only on major feasts and celebrations, such as weddings and the Eid Al-Adha (Feast of the Sacrifice), did the wealthier villagers indulge in the traditional Islamic ritual.
Al-Tijani's neighbours were Jaialiyin, and considered themselves Arabs, unlike their Nubian neighbours. They even claimed descent from Al-Abbas, the Prophet Mohamed's paternal uncle.
Traditionally, they would shun fish, though it is an important source of animal protein. Al-Tijani's father was perhaps the only man in the village who encouraged his family to eat fish. His mother, Batool, hated cleaning and cooking fish. She did not understand why of all the village's women she was forced to cook the "stinking stuff", as she contemptuously called it.
As children, Al-Tijani and his 11 siblings were forbidden to drink water from the well in the village. The water was brackish, and the father insisted, much to the consternation of the women of the household, on using distilled and purified Nile water instead.
Al-Tijani's mother was a distant relative of his father. She came from Serdiya, a small island in the middle of the river in the vicinity of Shendi. Today, Al-Tijani remembers Serdiya as a rural idyll. "After the flood waters receded, we would go there to spend the winter. It was a season of plenty. Corn was plentiful, the livestock fattened and healthy, and the grass so green," he reminisces.
Talk of Al-Shaghalwa evoke nostalgic images of groves of date palms; but it also brings back painful memories.
Al-Tijani's father, who was born in Omdurman, emigrated from Khartoum to Shendi in the aftermath of the 1924 Revolution and the rise of the so-called White Flag League. His father participated in the 1924 Revolution and his children were well aware of political activism.
His father, Al-Tayeb, "was an enlightened man for his time. But despite that, he still had three wives: one in Omdurman, who died giving birth to a sister; Al-Tijani's mother; and another younger and more beautiful woman."
One of Al-Tijani's most deeply etched memories is of his mother and his step-mother constantly bickering over trivia. His step-mother only bore her husband daughters; as a result, she found herself unceremoniously divorced, and had to leave Shendi.
With his easy sense of self-deprecation and casual wit, Al-Tijani speaks at length and without hesitation about his humble origins. The passion in his voice is palpable. But such story-telling is not enough: he also needs to show how the deprivations of his people can be explained in terms of historical materialism.
Al-Shaghalwa was not simply blissful and idyllic. Poverty, disease and death were painful reminders of the terrible underdevelopment that afflicted Khartoum's immense hinterlands.
"And I remember the deaths." Al-Tijani suddenly seems to jolt out of his reverie. "The deaths of many, many children. I remember the numerous little graves in the village cementry. Hundreds of tiny graves. Rows and rows of them."
"Children then were susceptible to all kinds of disease. Medical care was very limited, if not completely unavailable. There were no clinics or hospitals. Children who ran a fever died within days, sometimes hours. Measles, chicken pox, meningitis and cholera were fatal diseases in those days. They still are," he laments, "but the scale then was horrendous in its magnitude, and the repercussions heart-wrenching."
Winter was the season of elimination: "If children survived their fourth year, then the hopes that they would survive into manhood, or womanhood, were greatly enhanced."
Al-Tijani left Al-Shaghalwa when he was eight to attend school in Khartoum, and the entire family moved with him. But he remembers his native village vividly, and he still has a few friends there. "Those that are still alive," he chuckles.
"Our generation is a unique one," he muses. "We were witness to the worst atrocities and repression of the colonial administration. We witnessed how our country was milked dry by the colonial authorities."
Al-Tijani Al-Tayeb: A revolutionary path
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| العنوان |
الكاتب |
Date |
 Soul Prostitution | مزن ابوعبيدة النيل | 09-06-04, 01:57 PM |
 Re: Soul Prostitution | Muhib | 09-06-04, 04:49 PM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | Muhib | 09-06-04, 05:11 PM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | مزن ابوعبيدة النيل | 09-07-04, 04:31 AM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | مزن ابوعبيدة النيل | 09-07-04, 04:27 AM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | أحمد الشايقي | 09-07-04, 04:40 AM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | مزن ابوعبيدة النيل | 09-07-04, 04:56 AM |
 Re: Soul Prostitution | Dia eldin khalil | 09-07-04, 06:41 AM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | مزن ابوعبيدة النيل | 09-07-04, 07:44 AM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | Adil Isaac | 09-07-04, 10:58 AM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | مزن ابوعبيدة النيل | 09-08-04, 05:38 AM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | Elnasri Amin | 09-07-04, 11:17 AM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | Muhib | 09-07-04, 01:16 PM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | Adil Osman | 09-07-04, 01:04 PM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | أحمد الشايقي | 09-07-04, 01:59 PM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | مزن ابوعبيدة النيل | 09-08-04, 05:41 AM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | مزن ابوعبيدة النيل | 09-08-04, 05:43 AM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | مزن ابوعبيدة النيل | 09-08-04, 05:47 AM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | مراويد | 09-08-04, 08:22 AM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | إيمان أحمد | 09-08-04, 08:24 PM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | مزن ابوعبيدة النيل | 09-10-04, 12:49 PM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | أحمد الشايقي | 09-10-04, 11:39 PM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | Adil Osman | 09-11-04, 08:32 AM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | Adil Osman | 09-11-04, 11:41 AM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | مزن ابوعبيدة النيل | 09-13-04, 11:58 AM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | مزن ابوعبيدة النيل | 09-13-04, 12:05 PM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | مزن ابوعبيدة النيل | 09-14-04, 05:51 AM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | Adil Osman | 09-14-04, 06:27 AM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | إيمان أحمد | 09-14-04, 08:20 PM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | Khalid Eltayeb | 09-15-04, 05:24 AM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | Adil Osman | 09-16-04, 10:33 AM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | Adil Osman | 09-16-04, 12:43 PM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | Adil Osman | 09-17-04, 10:02 AM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | Adil Osman | 09-18-04, 08:51 AM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | إيمان أحمد | 09-18-04, 09:16 AM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | طلال عفيفي | 09-19-04, 09:18 AM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | مزن ابوعبيدة النيل | 09-19-04, 01:15 PM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | طلال عفيفي | 09-20-04, 09:43 AM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | أحمد أمين | 09-20-04, 01:10 PM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | مزن ابوعبيدة النيل | 09-21-04, 12:10 PM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | مزن ابوعبيدة النيل | 09-20-04, 01:36 PM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | Adil Osman | 09-20-04, 03:17 PM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | مزن ابوعبيدة النيل | 09-21-04, 12:15 PM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | Adil Osman | 09-21-04, 02:01 PM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | مزن ابوعبيدة النيل | 09-22-04, 12:59 PM |
| Re: Soul Prostitution | Adil Osman | 09-23-04, 08:37 AM |
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Adil Osman
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