Damned Dams

This was an essay for a course I applied to in December.

Damned Dams

27 December, 2011

“It is better for the Sudanese people to experience the rule of the religious mania group, it will be a fruitful experience as this group will expose the falsehood of religious slogans, it will control Sudan politically and economically even if by means of arms. And it will put Sudan through bitterness and strife, and eventually strife will hit among the groups themselves and they will be uprooted from Sudan”

- Mahmoud Mohammed Taha in a speech in 1977, he is a Sudanese Muslim reformer and mystic, considered by some as a Sudanese Gandhi, he was executed by Nimiri’s regime when Mahmoud peacefully protested against Shari’aa Laws.

It has been clear that Sudan will not see a bright future unless the government of the National Congress Party (Formerly known as the National Islamic Front) is stripped of power and replaced by pluralistic democratic civil society to guarantee the Sudanese people their basic rights and sustainable peace and development. the brutality of the NCP/NIF inflicted upon the Sudanese people after their 1989 military coup nearly eradicated such vision from the minds of Sudanese people, in addition to its investment in ignorance, NCP/NIF regime used Islamic sloganeering to portray itself as the protector of Islam and views those who attempt to oppose it as infidels. But after their 20 years old holy war with the South ended with a peace agreement, it became clear that all of the martyrdom propaganda they heavily used in the 1990’s was nothing but a big lie, and with the exposure of their deeply rooted corruption, people are starting to realize that all they’re left with is fear, and more people are breaking it day after day. With the power of the internet and new media, information is no longer suffocated by authorities. In 2007, the people of Kajbar town revolted against the building of a new dam that was going to repeat the tragedy of President Abboud and President Abdulnasir’s deal to build Al-Sad Al-Aali Dam which drowned not only the lands but also the ancient history of the Nubians of northern Sudan and forced them to seek refuge in other parts of the country, authorities wasn’t happy with the people’s attempts to stop the new dam construction and responded violently killing 4 young protesters with live bullets.

In 2009, the government of NCP/NIF started constructing another dam in the north, named Meroe, and was used by the president Omer Al-Bashir as a “we don’t need you” message to the “Americans, Israelis, and Zionists” after the ICC issued arrest warrant against him. The people of Al-Manasir were promised compensations which they’ve been waiting for ever since. On November 17^th, they declared a protest and started a sit-in in Ad-Damer city in northern Sudan that is still going until the hour of typing this article. It sure gathered momentum, as the number of demonstrators kept increasing, videos and pictures were uploaded and views by millions outside the “Justice Square” as the Manasir themselves named the location of the sit-in. Activists in Khartoum started sending support messages to the demonstrators in Ad-Damer by conducting solidarity stands in front of the Dams Administration building and declaring that their “stand with the Manasir is a a stand for change”.

On Thursday, December 20^th a group of Manasir Youth arrived to Khartoum determined to bring the cause closer to Osama Abdulla, the president’s cousin and the Director of the Administration of Dams. They chanted around down town’s public bus station and were met with violence from the authorities and many youth were arrested. The next day the Manair Youth issued a statement on Facebook calling supporters to gather on Thursday 12 p.m in the University of Khartoum and march with them to the near presidential palace where they will deliver a message to the president, the police and security forces were waiting outside campus ready and steady not aware of the Manasir Youth tactic of splitting into two groups, one started a demonstration in the Public Bust Station once more, and the other group mobilizing the students inside the UofK campus. The police forces moved to suppress the first group which gave a chance to the second group to leave the campus and head to their destination, when the authorities found out they were fooled, the revenge was furious. Tear gas was bombed openly by riot police regardless of passing cars and buses, then the police invaded the campus and violently evacuated it without differentiation between students, except for the NCP’s student sector which is known to have direct contact with the National Intelligence and Security Services. Many students were injured and looted, some of them did not even know about the Manasir cause. Later that night the security forces attacked both the boys’ and girls’ dormitories beating and looting rooms taking mobile phones and laptops.

On Sunday December 25^th, the students of UofK called for strike in protest of the police violence and invasion of the campus, and drafted a list of demands to present it to the university’s administration. An atmosphere of rebellion started spreading amongst the students, who demanded the resignation of the chancellor, an official apology from the police, the return of all stolen possessions, the treatment of all injured students and that the soldiers responsible be brought to justice, an important demand was added the next day of the strike, and that is to take the authority upon the very poor dormitories from the Students Support Fund and include it into the University’s administration, a very important demand because the Students Support Fund is controlled by the “Islamic Movement”, the student sect of the NCP/NIF, which spends more funds on its members and snitches than it does on the dorms. The students started organizing themselves through facebook groups and the Manasir Youth declared their support to the strike through speeches conducted in different campuses.

The political activism in Sudanese Universities is consisted of small parties and student sects of big parties, discussions are held daily in the form of open forums which are mostly attended by the members of the speaking party and a few members of its rivals; efforts are lost in mistrust, personal grudges and competitive behavior that often reach the point of violence, even though they all almost agree on the urgent need for change except –of course for the Islamic Movement which is pro NCP/NIF. But a great deal of students are not interested in these activities and they actually tend to avoid any contact with their fellow students who are involved in them, those seemingly apathetic students are known as flouters, and the maximum they’d do is to vote in the Students Union Elections, recently a new body emerged during UofK’s Union elections in October 2011, it was dubbed “Student Unity” and its slogan was “I am non-politically affiliated student and I vote for Student Unity”, other universities caught the trend and the flouter students showed great enthusiasm towards it. The recent strike situation in UofK brought all of these bodies and parties closer together, something that is almost unfathomable. I had a discussion with the son of a big time NCP/NIF leader, the son is a student in UofK and he has posted a status on facebook declaring that they should no longer stay silent on police violations and that “the youth are the change, the youth are the freedom, the youth are the future”, which I found very strange coming from someone who last year was urging people to vote for his father’s party in the Sudanese shameful elections of 2010. He spoke honestly and told me he only voted for the NCP/NIF in 2010 elections because all the “opposition parties” are nothing but chair seekers and the proof is the latest deal between the government and two of the major opposition parties which granted them two high rank positions in the state, and he said if he can go back in time he would abstain from voting because he doesn’t really believe in the NCP/NIF, he was honest to the extent he made a comparison between his situation and prophet Abraham’s situation whose father was “an infidel”. My point here is that, we should leave aside our political differences and political party relations and work on our human relations, everyone who wants to see a better Sudan where we all get equal chances of expressing our views peacefully can recognize the next one who wants the same thing I believe. I see this strike as an opportunity to create the necessary human relations that are based merely on the love of freedom and not political gains, this unity and determination to change can be sustained not by winning this battle, but by understanding the power of standing up as one, and I think this can be conveyed to the students by means of media and communication. UofK is not the only university that suffers from the regime’s brutality, during these days Kasala University is occupied by NISS agents and 16 students have been detained for a week, in Red Sea University students are being expelled for political reasons, and in universities all over the country the NCP/NIF is breaking someone’s legs or life. Student Unity bodies should all coordinate with each other and support each another, UofK students proved they are well knowledgeable when it comes to media production and they’ve been blessing their strike with videos and posters, this can be taught to the other universities in the far sides of the country where a camera phone is so hard to find, they can be provided with cameras and maybe laptops with basic training on capturing and uploading and social networking. Satire is great for breaking the tension and the fear; i suggest the students start mass producing jokes and cartoons about the police, about the irresponsible coward Mr. Hayati the chancellor of the university, about the unjust corrupted Osama Abdulla manager of dams department, and at the head of the decaying state Omer Al-Bashir. And we should not forget the real cause behind the UofK strike; it is not the Manasir’s long demand for justice, but the aspiration of the Sudanese people as a whole for social justice, freedom and equality. The October and April revolutions of 1985 and 1964 were sparked by Khartoum University students, and history tends to repeat itself, but this time we will prevent it, unlike the previous Sudanese revolutions, we will not allow this one to be stolen by the businessmen and soldiers again.

It is too early to determine whether the students’ faith in the possibility of change increased or decreased, the coming days will show and tell. But the obvious sense of responsibility amongst the students and the support they give for the poor people who are demonstrating 4 hours drive away to the north is remarkable, the use of social networking and communication tools has improved a lot since January the 30^th when the youth marched down Alqasr Street inspired by Egypt’s Jan25 and Tunisia’s victory, and I can tell that January 30^th 2012 will be a turning point.

The improving of the media created by the students is reliving, during the attack of the police on UofK’s campus, Khalil Ibrahim, rebel group leader was announced killed by the Sudanese Army, many local newspapers on the next day said the demonstration of Manasir in Khartoum is an act of revenge to Khalil’s death. Pro-government newspapers of course, but the students were ready to defend their cause and they pushed at least one newspaper into correcting its information, agencies like AFP, and Bloomberg conducted interviews with the students and published the true story on their websites, I believe the most effective way to support the cause through media is if we become truly independent in delivering the message, we are the ones who should be interviewing each other and taking videos and pictures of violations and victories, and provide the outside media with it, and not the other way around. We need to embrace the culture of video, even when nothing interesting is happening during a protest or a sit-in, we should keep a camera or two rolling, such footage will come handy and that is for sure, and it will also be a good training when all the dams of fear separating us from our future fall.

This Is Really Annoying My Feelings!

The Sudanese journalist Mrs. Lubna Ahmed Hussien invites us all to come to her trial. as she might recieve the verdict of 40 lashes as a punishment for the crime of wearing an outfit that is "annoying to the public taste"!!!

A copy of the invitation signed by Mrs. Lubna herself and which she passed to her work colleagues

Lubna Ahmed Hussien is a sudanese journalist who's been writing in local newspapers for years now, and has a famous column titled "Kalam Rujal" (meaning "Speech of Men"), in mid October of 2008, she was arrested along with 15 journalists. (for further information about the incident, see page 16 of THE SUDANESE HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY.

back to the topic at hand, the law of which the court's verdict will be based on is part of the Sudan Criminal Procedure Act of year 1991, and titled with the number (152). Lubna's crime was described as "annoying to the public feelings". wait, take a look at her the outfit she was wearing and tell me if your "feelings" were "annoyed".

Mrs. Lubna wearing the dress She was arrested for

This is a very respectful outfit to wear in a place like Khartoum, if they accused her of "annoying the public feelings" with this (which is only the notorious Public Order Police way of saying "you're a whore") so the Moral Police is also accusing my mother, my sisters, and my friends of being disrespectful whores who should be arrested anyday and lashed.

you wanna know what really annoys the feelings?

It's the systematic violence brought to the rooms of girls' dormitory of Khartoum University by real whores, masked men with meta bars, attacking over 30 unarmed women sending dozens to hospitals for medical care, and eventually the government (who cares about the public feelings) shut down the dormitory without giving a damn about the feelings of these girls who came from their rural villages to study and have nowhere else to go. oh, the whores who attacked the dormitory are members of the National Congress Party (the ruling part), so we know who paid for these metal bars. Children Rape annoys the feelings, The situation of the abandoned children of Mygoma Orphanage annoys the feelings, the unfair imprisonment of Nahla Bashir annoys the feelings. But no, they decide to spend time and money persecuting a respectfull hard working beatiful woman and leave the malicious lazy ugly MEN who bring us nothing but misery.

Omer Al-Dosh, a great sudanese poet, described Khartoum in one of his poems, as "the city that lies down and sell its thighs to passerbys, look down at her children and push them to the river Nile, and goes back to lie down". I wonder what would he say if he witness these times.

Mrs. Lubna's last article was about The Kenana Sugar Company, of which the NCP hold a great share of stocks in, the company launched a new project to produce Ethanol which is a side product of Sugar manufacturing, and the president OMer Al-Bashir himself will open the project her article then discusses the fact that we can't use Ethanol for automobile fuel here because we still don't have the Technology, but It can be used to manufacture Spirits/Alcohol. she compares the company (and its stockholders) with the poor women who manufacture Aragi (Sudanese local alcoholic drink) and mocks the "Salvation Revolution" so-called "Civil Project" seperation of Alcohol manufacturing from the canned, non-alcoholic drinks manufacturing, and describe it of being a joke in the face of the "Civil Project's" enemy which is "seperating religion from the state". and tells the story of the Shaheed Organization (Martyr's Organization), which is a product of the Salvation Revolution (Established July, 1992), She remembers that, this organization actually started manufacturing Alcohol long before Kenana. right after the Organization stopped making Food Oil and started importing it from Malaysia and continued making Ethanol, which later reached the cups of sudanese citizens who found a hard time getting real Aragi because of the famous Sharia Laws that chased down local manufacturers, the ethanol manufactured by Shaheed Organization became locally known as ESPIRIT (obviously derrived from Spirit) and it caused poisoning and sudden blindness to its users. She later elaborates in a comically in the subject and finishes her article by the question "Is Kenana's Ethanol for the car, or for the driver?".

Kenana Sugar Company

We are living ugly times in Sudan, we might started manufacturing airplanes, but technology is nothing if we don't start working on our mental and moral health. I remember from my last visit to Kasala, I was having an outside lunch with a group of freinds from Khartoum and other Kasala locals, not far away from us there were a group of a famous private medical college, most of them born and raised out of Sudan, so their dress code might be a little different from Kasala's local citizen "taste". I was shocked when some of the people I'm with described the girls of being "nothing but whores" for dressing like that, and asking questions like "Where're their parents?".

In August of the year 1997, students of Ahfad University for Women were arrested and lashed in public by the Morality Police (The Public Order Police).

And about two months ago, in my university (which is been controlled by NCP for over 7 years now, they haven't lost an election in 7 years, I stopped voting), they banned girls who wore T-Shirts from entering the campus!! and as a result, a security guard slapped a student on her face for insisting to go inside and catch her lecture. We -the students- split into two groups, those who agreed on slapping her, and those who were against the dress-code rule and the security guard violent action. I was shocked at some of the first group's opinions on this matter, the word Taliban kept echoeing in my head everytime some fucked up dude mentions the words Fitna, Awra, Munkar, etc.

this is a mere result of the bullshit fed to the sudanese citizen by the decayed government of Ingaz that contradicts not only itself, but also the doctrine they say their based on, which is Islam. I'm afraid soon we will have a gathering like this somewhere in Khartoum. I hope Lubna doesn't get lashed, and that she puplished her invitation for nothing, but if THEY lashed her, then it'll be OUR shame if we don't do something about it.


Let's end this with a party, held at Kober Prison in Khartoum, thrown by the POLICE. and view the real whores, i'm not talking about the singer, she's just doing her job. I'm talking about the policeman who's taking a video with his phone, i'm talking about the KOZ (local nickname for NCP members) who signed the papers for bringing this singer and then lecturing us about how we should dress.

Tribalism Vs. Statism

Last night I went to a police station to file a report against some "Al Nizam Al3am" recruites who arrested me for "buying alcohol" (A Nizam Ala'am=Puplic Order, which is a police department responsible for "fighting moral crimes", like alcohol, drugs, sex, etc, and they are SOB's I tell you), well, me and a friend did buy a bottle of alcohol, but my friend who was holding it jumbed off the Raksha (click to see what a Raksha is) and he ran like he never ran before lol, I was "roughed" around and threatened by a piece of bango/marijuana if I don't make my friend come back with the bottle, in the end they let me go.. anyways, that's not the issue. the issue is I wanted to avenge for wasting my time so bad I decided to go to the Police Station myself and find these suckers, I memorized the car's plate numbers and took another Raksha.

at the station I was asked for my name, age, address, and "my tribe". the policeman who was asking me these questions was a western sudanese. I told him I can't answer this question cuz it's not relevant to my case. but he insisted it because it's "procedures". I couldn't understand how asking me about my tribe is procedure!
but as I tried to describe the dudes who arrested me i couldn't help but to reffer to one of them as "wad 3arab" (=son of an arab). i felt bad for using this stupid description so I added the pharase "you know, as THEY say, he was a wad 3arab/arab".
and I thought about "THEY" for a minute, THEY is obviously the ones who find benefit in such discrimination, the benefit is mostly political of course, but most of the times it is mere Pride. THEY find comfort in being proud of who THEY are, or in fact, what THEIR tribe is. the same western policeman told me "this will never change", and "sudan will remain racist forever". i don't think this is racism, this is more like an attempt to fulfil one's pride in one's self. i don't think this can be "changed" or removed, but it can be directed in a better way, instead of classifying sudanese people on the basis of their tribe, why not do so on the basis of their city, state, or home town, if sudanese people learned to be proud in who they really are, Sudanese, and replaced the need for tribalism as a method for pride fulfilment, we would have a much better Sudan.

I want the next presidenid to try and make everyone proud of where he was born, make one proud of the land not the people/tribes who once dwelled this land. every sudanese state/region has its own unique culture, use this as way to fulfil people's pride with. why should all states have to teach the same subjects in schools, let every state teach its own history for example, so the children grow with pride in their land no matter what the tribes they came from are. but when you teach everyone about "great" muslim and "arab" men, our peoblem will never be solved.

i have to go now, oh, don't mind the topic's title, it's meaningless lol
peace
and yeah, our weekend was not completely ruined after all, we went out again and bought another bottle from a place right next to the Police Station :D

The Illetracy Myth

so yeah, yall know how we been taught that the prophet Mohammed is an "Ummy" (Illiterate) prophet.. meaning he can't write nor read. and we have been taught to view this as a meracle, and a proof for the Quran being "not written by him".
I always wondered how can a noble man like Mohammed who descended from a noble house, and married a noble woman who trusted him for her wealth and he travelled to different places for trade, how come a man like that didn't read or write. well, one can never prove if Mohammed did read and write, but one can sure demolish the FALSE claim that he was Illiterate.
if we read the verses in the quran that mentions that word "UMMY", there's a different meaning that's not even close to literacy .. it's actually the "nasab"/"Name" of "Umma" or Nations.. therefore "Ummy" is more like "National".. read the verse and use your mind .. I'll quote them in english since this is an english forums, but with the verse number so you can cheak in arabic.. those are just two verses, there's more ..

3: 20 “…and tell those who have received the scriptures and the Ummien have you submitted?…”

2:78-79 "Among them are 'ummuys' who do not know the scripture, except through hearsay, then assume that they know it.
Therefore, woe to those who distort the scripture with their own hands, then say, "This is what God has revealed," seeking a cheap material gain. Woe to them for such distortion, and woe to them for their illicit gains."

reading the verses, you sense that the subject isn't the ability of Mohammed to read or write, it's the fact that he is not from the house of David, not from the tribes of Israel .. he is an Ummy, the nasab of Umma, meaning he is sent to all nations,
the first verse clearly states the there is: 1) people who who have received the scriptures, and 2) the Ummien, which is obviously the people who have not recieved a scripture (who are not from Ahl Al kitab).
in the second verse Allah warns "Ummys" not to distort the scriptures with their own hands, so the word Ummy can't mean Illitrate ..
the word Ummy is clearly the nasab for Umma, since Mohammed's Quran was the only scripture sent to a messenger who is not from the tribes of Israel,
a "Gentile" messenger.
the word Gentile means "belonging to or characteristic of non-Jewish peoples" and in hebrew it is "Goym". in Jewsh culture (and in the Torah), people of other cultures are called "Gentiles"/"Goym", in arabic, they are "Ummyien".

this is open for discussion yo, before anything, go read Surat Al-Omran, Aya: 75