The National Museum of Antiquities in Khartoum stands in stark contrast to the modern era. Not only does it represent more than a record of the North African country’s past, but also a time of luxury among its societies less fettered with the question of ”identity”.
With 35 years of experience as the curator of this national institution, Suleiman Ebrahim moves among the relics depicting the major kingdoms of this fraught country with a loving and familiar ease.
”You know we have pyramids too,” he says, adding with a short chuckle, ”you have to start small and then increase in size.”
This is a reference to the pyramids of Merowe, the seat of the ancient Kosh Kingdom some 100km north of Khartoum, built around the 4th century AD and pre-dating their Egyptian counterparts.
It is the politicisation of ethnic diversity in Sudan, as in other parts of the continent, that has tested the boundaries of citizenship and the protracted North-South civil war that cost the lives of 1,5-million people only acted to harden what were historically fluid identity relations between Muslims, Christians and Animists .
It is in the diverse mix of Khartoum’s adopted population, with its two million internally displaced people from the south, increasing number of refugees from Darfur and other economic migrants, that the question of social justice overshadows ethnicity or religion.
Khartoum, more than any other region in the country, shows the inherent dangers in an increasingly unequal society. Race, religion and tribal affiliation take a back seat to the question of economic accessibility.
In the scorching 52°C heat, the bustle goes on unabated, as Sudanese from all parts of the vast country intersperse with battered taxis, water sellers on donkeys, and the Sudanese equivalent of spaza shops in their clamour for a space in Souk Arabi, the central souk or market.
”Of course you can enjoy the peace … as long as you have money, peace is great,” laughs Hassen Abdrahman, a 27-year-old law graduate-turned-taxi driver. His view reflects the sentiments of thousands of unemployed young people around the city, for whom state-driven ideology has failed to deliver.
In this country, the youth have been significant drivers in shaping the debate on national politics.
From independence from British colonial rule in 1956 to the heady days of communist-inflected nationalism of the Seventies to the contemporary use of political Islam and the Southern movement of resistance, Khartoum’s youth have been at the forefront of political and social debate.
But as the country’s multiple wars continue to negatively impact on the social and economic fabric of Sudanese life, young Sudanese are increasingly leaving politics to the politicians.
Our pit stop for mid-morning tea is, in fact, a popular student ”restaurant” of sorts with tea vendors, a large number from Darfur, offering an array of Sudanese chai flavours. The onset of school holidays also presents an opportunity for extra cash, with one eight-year-old boy marking out a chance to shine shoes for a few dinars, blissfully ignoring the absurdity of cleaning shoes in a city perpetually veiled in sand.
”As students, we used to sit and debate and be passionate about politics all the time,” says Suhail Abeedien, a TV producer working in Saudi Arabia. ”Our parents supported the liberation movements, and then we became interested in the economic aspects offered by the Communist Party, then the initiatives of the National Islamic Front … But now we think for ourselves and about ourselves.”
He responds to questions about the Arab-African dichotomy used to describe the raging conflict in Darfur: ”Arabs? There are no Arabs in Sudan; we are all just people who are victims of politicians’ interests.”
Contrary to the mainstream Western depiction of Sudan as a place of ”militant Islam”, a title often invoked with Sudan’s association with Osama bin Laden, who was briefly resident in the capital city, ordinary Sudanese take the views of figures such as Hassan al Turabi, the architect of political Islam in Sudan, with a dose of humour.
”When Turabi speaks, it is as if pearls were dropping from his lips, but that is all it is … just speaking,” explains taxi-driver Abdrahman.
It is the onset of Sudan’s oil-exporting capacity since the late 1990s, rather than ideology, that will be the real marker for foreign engagement.
The United States, Canada, France, China, Malaysia and numerous other players all have a stake to claim in the largely southern-based oil fields. In addition, China’s seat on the UN Security Council gives it significant leverage in its engagement with the Sudanese government, a relationship that is currently proving to be beneficial to both partners, as China is able to veto any resolutions that might affect the nexus of power in Khartoum.
Since the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the north and south last January, observers note some unexpected changes in the city of Khartoum.
Editors and journalists say a new and critical climate has rejuvenated political debate. New English and Arabic newspapers on the streets jostle for attention, families are out picnicking beyond 10.30pm, a time that used to signal the self-imposed wartime curfew in place for more than a decade.
But the countdown to the 2011 referendum — when the south will vote to decide whether to remain part of Sudan or become independent — is already almost two years old, leaving only four years in which to mend relations between the north and south. There are few signs of national reconciliation initiatives.
The interim period was meant to make ”unity attractive”, as described by the late leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLM), John Garang. But unity requires a shared vision of the future. And unlike their knowledge of ancient history, a consensus around the future is something that is sorely lacking across the general Sudanese political landscape.
The narrow support for the ruling National Congress Party, the fractured nature of the northern opposition parties, the lack of capacity within the SPLM to deliver on the goods as a ruling party in the south and the weak support for the Darfur Peace Agreement underline some of the challenges to create a ”national vision”. With Garang’s death last year, it would seem, came the end of a hope for a substantive change in politics in Sudan.
The current impasse on the transfer of the AU Mission in Darfur to the United Nations has thrown up a host of questions about the immediate future of Sudan. With the shadow of the International Criminal Court prosecution looming large over the heads of senior members of the central government and key rebel leaders, any talk of UN action has been met with hostility.
In the run-up to the national round of elections, expected to be held in 2008, it is unclear as to how new the ”new” Sudan vision might be.
”Well, you know how one writer described this country,” says a professor of political science from the University of Khartoum ‘Sudan is the place where God laughed.”’
Mariam Bibi Jooma is the Horn of Africa Analyst at the Institute for Security Studies