The “Other” Darfur Crisis

By Hana Baba

April 20, 2005 — When people talk about the “Darfur Crisis” they’re probably referring to the vicious conflict in Western Sudan, where hundreds of thousands have died and more than a million displaced. But, people from Darfur have another problem – a social one that’s more widespread, and found smack dab in the center of Sudan. My parents came to the U.S. from Sudan when I was a baby. Later on in life, we went to live there so that we “Americanized” kids could “get in touch with our roots”. I didn’t expect what I found.

Living in Khartoum was a fruitful experience. Being the capital made it a magnet for a wide array of people from all parts of the country. I got to know my family – aunts, uncles, grandmothers, cousins. As I was feeling my way through mannerisms, traditions, what was rude to say, how to be generous to your guests – I came across something I’d heard of before in America, but hadn’t witnessed first-hand – until then. One day I was sitting at a wedding among a group of middle aged women. I was enjoying the singer as she banged on her dallooka drum and sang up a storm, when a word caught my ear – ‘Abid’. In my world, in my family, that was a very, VERY bad word, equivalent to the American “N” word. Except here, they were referring to people from Western Sudan, the people of Darfur. My mind resisted eavesdropping, but my ears wouldn’t heed the call. I attentively listened in, curiously, and heard their conversation about a girl who was getting married. It went something like this:

“Maryam, did you hear that Amira’s daughter is marrying a westerner?”
“Oh, Amna, I did hear! How are they giving their daughter to a ‘Abid’? Are they insane? Are there no more “free men” around?”
I almost choked on my spongecake. I had NEVER heard open racism like this. I had heard OF it, but hadn’t heard it, even in my days as a black child in Texas. It was flabbergasting to me that such ugly hate talk could be heard at such a happy occasion. After that day, I started to observe more closely, and realized much of Khartoum astonishingly felt the same. It was so foreign to me – my parents always taught us that humans are equal, and nobody is better than anybody because of their race or tribe. Obviously, many Sudanese didn’t get the memo. And an intriguing point is that the racism always surfaced when marriage was involved. Nowhere else – not at workplaces, not in schools. You could be the biggest promoter of coexistence and civil rights, but the day a Darfurian comes to ask for your daughter’s hand, the bag-o-racism is punctured and overflows! To some of these Arabized Sudanese, who are lighter skinned, the Darfurian tribes are “not pure enough”, “not Arab”. It’s sheer tribalism. This Darfur-hate is so widespread in Khartoum and North Sudan, you get laughed at if you speak up against it. I can only imagine the agony my grandfather and father must have endured in the 70s, when they boldly gave my aunt away to my dad’s Darfurian college buddy. She cherishes him, so much that she had 11- yes -11 children from him. Maybe part of her was making a statement as well?

That evil wedding conversation made me unconsciously draw a comparison with America. Sure, there was racism in Houston where I’d lived, it was just more – subtle, and hush-hush. As for mixed marriages, even today, they’re a hot topic of discussion in America. Many a times I’ve heard African American ladies complain of how “white girls were taking all the good black men”. Sidney Poitier’s 1967 film “Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner”, in which a white woman brings home her black beau was recently remade in 2005’s “Guess Who”, only with a black girl bringing home a white man. . It was an issue in the 1960s and it’s an issue today – even in America.

So, perhaps it’s just a matter of advancement and time before things look better for Sudanese society. Africans came to America 400 years ago, but it took 355 before they’d gain their basic rights. Maybe it does take that long for some change to happen, and I should hold less rage towards Sudanese society’s tribalism. Perhaps I just close my eyes in hopes that, when I open them again, equality will be the consensus, girls will marry whom they like with no fear of being outcast, and shameless racist talk will be at least frowned upon.

There will be change in Sudan – I just wish the pace of that change would quicken a bit.

Hana Baba is a Sudanese-American radio journalist who reports for KALW Public Radio in San Francisco, California, USA.