Remembering Nubia’s Past: Space, Generations and Memorial Practices

Abstract:

This article investigates how Nubian actors establish different memorial practices to transmit their culture and heritage in contemporary Egypt. The aim is to shed light on the heterogeneity of the Nubian community, thereby avoiding the dichotomy of the state official narrative versus a homogenized Nubian narrative. By mobilizing the sociology of collective memory and the sociology of social movements, this article aims to advance more reflection on the complexity of the remembering process. In order to explore how the memorial and cultural practices evolved in the last decade, I first present a historical background to explain to what the Nubian collective memory refers. By presenting critical discussions, I suggest using the space of the Nubian past because it enables us to understand better the dynamics and the diversity of the engaged actors. I highlight the generational factor, in the second part of this article, by illustrating how Nubian Youth are renewing their logics of action.

Key Words:

• Collective action
• Memory
• Egypt
• Heritage
• Generation
• Nubia

Acknowledgements

This article is based on my PhD dissertation, the research for which was funded by the Labex les Passés dans le Présent (2015–2018) at the Université Paris Nanterre. I’d like to thank Dina Al-Khawaga, Aya Nassar and Ahmad Abozaid for their support and insightful comments on earlier drafts.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 James Jasper (ed.) (2014) Players and Arenas: The Interactive Dynamics of Protest (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press).

2 Charles Tilly (1984), Les origines du répertoire d'action collective contemporaine en France et en Grande-Bretagne [The Origins of the Practice of Contemporary Collective Action], Vingtième siécle revue d’histoire [20th Century History Review], no. 10, pp. 89–108.

3 Daniel L Schacter and Michael Welker (2016) Memory and Connection: Remembering the Past and Imagining the Future in Individuals, Groups, and Cultures, Memory Studies, 9(3), pp. 241–244.

4 Marie-Claire Lavabre (2020) La mémoire collective entre sociologie de la mémoire et sociologie des souvenirs? [Collective Memory between Sociology of Memory and Sociology of Souvenirs ?], Hal Sciences de l’Homme et de la société, last modified March 5, 2020, 8. Available at https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01337854/document, accessed July 28, 2020.

5 Sune Haugbolle (2019) Memory Studies in the Middle East: Where Are We Coming from and Where Are We Going? Middle East Critique, 28(3) pp. 279–288.

6 Magali Boumaza (ed.) (2018) Faire mémoire. Regard croisé sur les mobilisations mémorielles (France, Allemagne, Ukrainie, Turquie, Egypte) [Memory Making: Crossed-View on Memorial Mobilizations (France, Germany, Ukraine, Turkey, Egypt)] (Paris: L’Harmattan).

7 See, for example, Anne Clément (2005) Sa’d Zaghlûl: “lieu de mémoire” du nationalisme égyptien [Saad Zaghlul : ‘Memory’s Place in Egyptian Nationalism] (Le Caire: CEDEJ– Égypte/Soudan); Aya Nassar (2019) Staging the State: Commemoration, Urban Space and the National Symbolic Order in 1970s Cairo, Middle East Critique, 28(3), pp. 321–339; and Sara Salem (2019) Haunted Histories: Nasserism and The Promises of the Past, Middle East Critique, 28(3), pp. 261–277.

8 Sune Haugbolle (2005) Public and Private Memory of the Lebanese Civil War, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 25(1), pp. 191–203.

9 Sherine Hafez (2019) The Women of the Midan: Untold stories of Egypt’s revolutionaries (Bloomington, ID: Indiana University Press).

10 Andrew Abbott (2009) A propos du concept du Turning Point [Regarding the concept of Turning Point’], in: Michel Grossetti (ed) Bifurcations: les sciences sociales face aux ruptures et à l’événement [Bifurcations : Social Sciences Confront Ruptures and Events], pp. 187–211 (Paris: La Découverte).

11 Alia Mossalam (2012) Hikāyāt Sha‛b: Stories of Peoplehood. Nasserism, Popular Politics and Songs in Egypt 1956–-1973 (PhD dissertation, London School of Economics), p. 204.

12 One might allude to how artistic products celebrated the High Dam (e.g., Abdel Halim Hafez’s songs and Abdel Hadi Al- Gazzar’s famous painting “the High Dam”) in the 1960’s. The special issue published in Al- Aram to commemorate the High Dam illustrates also how the narrative of the Dam is constructed as a part of national identity: “50 years since the High Dam. A History of flesh, blood and literature” [50 ʿāman ʿalā binaʾ al-sad al-ʿālī. Tārykh min laḥm w dam w ʾadab], Al-Ahram, February 2, 2021. Available at https://gate.ahram.org.eg/News/2570618.aspx, accessed February 28, 2021.

13 Nicholas S. Hopkins & Soheir R. Mehanna (eds.) (2010) Nubian Encounters: The Story of the Nubian Ethnological Survey 1961–1964, pp. 3–5 (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press).

14 Ibid, p. 10.

15 Robert A. Fernea & Aleya Rouchdy, Nubian culture and ethnicity, in Hopkins & Mehanna (eds) Nubian encounters, pp. 289–296.

16 Peter Geiser (1989) The Egyptian Nubian: A Study in Social Symbiosis (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press).

17 Frédérique Fogel (1997) Mémoire du Nil. Les Nubiens d'Egypte en migration [Memoir of the Nile: The Nubians of Egypt in Migration] (Paris: Karthala).

18 Roger Brubaker & Frederik Cooper (2000) Beyond Identity, Theory and Society, 29(1), pp. 1–47.

19 Ibid, p. 20.

20 I have analyzed in other articles the reasons why Nubian Youth from the second and third generations were engaged in Nubian collective action in Cairo. Most of the narratives refer to racial situations in their daily lives, such as being considered as non-Egyptian in Cairo because of their dark skin (See further Mayada Magdy (2016) Al-ʾintemāʾ Al-ʾithnī fī Syāq Ḥaḍarī W Tadāʿyātuh ʿala Al-Syar Al-Ḥayātiyah Lelʾafrād: Nūbiyuww Al-Qāhirah [The ethnic belonging in an urban context and its implications on life courses: Nubians in Cairo]. In: ARSP. Available at https://archives.arabreform.net/ar/node/950, accessed November 8, 2019.

21 Menna Agha (2019) “Nubia Still Exists: The Utility of the Nostalgic Space,” Humanities, 8(1), p. 6.

22 Maurice Halbwachs (1952) La mémoire collective [Collective Memory] (Paris: Les Presses universitaires de France).

23 Doreen Massey & John Allen (eds.) (1984) Geography Matters! (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

24 Choukri Hmed (2008) Des mouvements sociaux "sur une tête d'épingle''? Le rôle de l'espace physique dans le processus contestataire à partir de l'exemple des mobilisations dans les foyers de travailleurs migrants [Social Movements ‘on a Pinhead’ ? The Rôle of Physical Space in the Protest Process: The Example of Mobilisations in Migrant Workers’ Residences], Politix, 84(4), pp. 145–165.

25 Lilian Mathieu (2007) L'espace des mouvements sociaux, Politix, 77(1), pp. 131–151.

26 Laure Bereni (2012) Penser la transversalité des mobilisations féministes : l’espace de la cause des femmes [Thinking about the Transversality of Feminist Mobilizations: the Space of the Women's Cause], in: Christine Bard (ed.), Les féministes de la deuxième vague [Second Wave Feminists], pp. 27–41 (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes).

27 Author Interview with former president of the Association of Nubian Heritage in Cairo, June 24, 2016.

28 Elisabeth A. Smith (2009) Place, Class and Race in the Barabra Café: Nubians in Egyptian media, in: Diane Singerman & Paul Amar, eds., Cairo Cosmopolitan: Politics, Culture and Urban Space in the New Globalized Middle East (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press), pp. 399–414.

29 Raymond Breton (1964) Institutional Completeness of Ethnic Communities and the Personal Relations of Immigrants, American Journal of Sociology, 70(2), pp. 193–205.

30 Moustafa Abdelkader (2017)ʾAthār Tahjīr Al-Nūbiyyne ʿala Ṭuqūs Dawrt Al-Ḥayāh: Drāsah Fī ʾihdā Qurā Tahjīr Al-Nūba [The Impact of Displacing Nubians on the Life Cycle Rituals: A Fieldwork Study on a Displaced Nubian village] (Cairo: General Egyptian Book Organization).

31 Peter Geiser, The Egyptian Nubian, pp. 117–240.

32 Adel Moussa (ed.) (2017) Ḥawādīt Zeinab Tūkūd. Min Al-ʾadab Al- Shaʿbī Al-Nūbī [Zeinab Tokod’s Tales Nubian Popular Literature] (Alexandria: Library of Alexandria, Center for Documentation of Cultural and Natural Heritage (CULTNAT), Ministry of Communication and Information Technology).

33 See Aurélie Campana (2008), “La mobilisation des Tatars de Crimée pour leur réhabilitation : entre légalisme et rhétorique victimaire” [Mobilization of Crimean Tartars for their restoration : Between law and victimization rhetoric], in : Raisons politiques, 30(2), pp. 89–105.

34 Mossallam, Hikāyāt Sha‛b – Stories of Peoplehood, p. 174.

35 The works of Maja Janmyr focus on the legal framing of Nubian activism. She analyzes how they articulate their demands through the lens of indigenous rights. See Maja Janmyr (2017) Human rights and Nubian mobilisation in Egypt: Towards recognition of indigeneity, Third World Quarterly, 38(3), pp. 717–733; and Maja Janmyr (2016) Nubians in Contemporary Egypt: Mobilizing Return to Ancestral Lands, Middle East Critique, 25(2), pp. 127–146.

36 Lil Nūbiyyat Qawl ʾakhar: ʿayn Nasawiyya ʿalā Qāfilat Al-ʿawda Al-Nūbiyya (19–22 November) [Nubian women Have Other Words: A Feminist Eye on the Caravan of the Nubian Return (19–22 November)], Nazra for feminist studies, online acces May 3, 2017. Available at https://www.nazra.org/sites/nazra/files/attachments/-%D9%84%D9%84%D9%86%D9%88%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%A7%D8%AA-%D9%82%D9%88%D9%84-%D8%A7%D9%93%D8%AE%D8%B1-1.pdf accessed April 24, 2019.

37 Howard Becker defines moral entrepreneurs as rule creators and/or rule enforcers. Inspired by Becker’s definition, Michael Pollak mobilized the memorial entrepreneurs in his book in order to link memory to identity. Renaud Hourcade also has borrowed the same notion to allude to memorial activism Howard Becker (1963) Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe); Michael Pollak 1993 Une identité blessée. Études de sociologie et d’histoire [A Wounded Identity. Studies in Sociology and History ] (Paris: Editions Métailié, « Leçons De Choses ») ; Renaud Hourcade (2015) Militer pour la mémoire. Rapport au passé et luttes minoritaires dans deux anciens ports négriers [Militating for Memory: Past and Minority Struggles in Two Former Slave Ports], Politix, 110(2), pp. 63–83.

38 Maḥka Al-ʾsmar Al-Luna [Storytelling of the Dark-Skin], Facebook, April 26, 2016. Available at https://www.facebook.com/574353882732966/photos/a.576494029185618/576493945852293/?type=3&theater, accessed November 2, 2019.

39 Author’s field notes, February 26, 2016, Cairo.

40 “Kindāka”, Facebook, April 8, 2016. Available at https://www.facebook.com/events/1223018157760735/, accessed September 4, 2019.

41 Komma’s Official page on Facebook. Available at https://www.facebook.com/pg/kommaeg/about/?ref=page_internal, accessed September 4, 2019.

42 Al-Riḥla, Facebook, April 28, 2017. Available at https://www.facebook.com/events/412344335788919/?active_tab=discussion, accessed September 4, 2019.

43 The film won the Best Cinematography for Foreign Language Short prize at the International Filmmaker Festival of World Cinema, in London. For more information, see Sherif Awad (2016) Filmmaker Explores Nubian Heritage, Shoots in Local Dialect, Egypt Today, June 5. Available at https://www.egypttoday.com/Article/4/3102/Filmmaker-Explores-Nubian-Heritage-Shoots-In-Local-Dialect, accessed June 12, 2019.

44 Haugbolle, “Memory studies in the Middle East”, p. 4.

45 Mossallam, “Hikāyāt Sha‛b – Stories of Peoplehood”, p. 205.

46 Maja Janmyr (2019) Indigeneity vs Development. Nubians Rights Mobilisation in Egypt, in: Giselle Corradi, Koen de Feyter, Ellen Desmet & Katrijn Vanhees (eds) Critical Indigenous Rights Studies, p. 44 (London and New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis group).

47 See for example, Anne Muxel (ed.) (2011) La politique au fil de l'âge (Paris: Presses de Sciences Po).

48 Miriyam Aouragh (2017) L-Makhzan al-’Akbari: Resistance, Remembrance and Remediation in Morocco, Middle East Critique, 26(3), pp. 241–263.

49 Karl Mannheim (1952) The Problem of Generations, in: Paul Kecskemeti (ed) Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 303.

50 Mohamed El-Agaty (2014) Al-Ḥarakāt Al-ʾiḥtijājiyya Fī Misr: Al-Marāḥil W Al-Ṭatawuwwr” [The Protest Movements in Egypt: Phases and Evolution], in: Amr Al-Shobaki (ed) Al-Ḥarakāt Al-ʾiḥtijājiyya Fī Al-Waṭan Al-ʿarabī. Misr, Al-Maghreb, Libnan, Al-Baḥrīn, Al-Jazāyīr, Sūryyia W Al-ʾurdun  [The Protest Movements in the Arab World (Egypt, Morocco, Lebanon, Bahrein, Algeria, Syria and Jordan)], pp. 209–260 (Beirut: Center for Arab Unity Studies).

51 Author Interviews with Nubian ex-activists, Cairo, 2014 and 2016.

52 Norman Saadi Nikro & Sonja Hegasy invite us to enlarge the conceptual framework of Nora to perceive memory not only as a lieu [place], but also as a milieu “or proactive social environments and cultural practices in which communities and subjects emerge and come to be formed as they work to situate the past as a site of address and response taking place in the present.” See Norman Saadi Nikro & Sonja Hegasy (eds) (2017) The Social Life of Memory: Violence, Trauma, and Testimony in Lebanon and Morocco (London: Plagrave Macmillan), pp. 16–17.

53 The founding statement of the NDYU, Official blog of the NDYU. Available at https://y4nubia.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html, accessed September 10, 2019.

54 (2012) Youth for democracy. Meet Yahya and Judith, in Magnus Meyer Harrison (ed.), Youth for Democracy Learning from Nonviolent Struggle across the World (Copenhagen: Lassen offset), pp. 43–44. Available at https://www.humanityinaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/YouthForDemocracyAnthology.pdf, accessed September 10, 2019.

55 Mayada Madbouly (2019), “Al-nāshṭiyya al-nūbiyya fī Maṣr: ʾliyyāt al-taṭauwwr w al-taʾṭīr. Al-madkhal al-jīlī” [Nubian Activism in Egypt : Mecanisms of Evolution and Framing. A Generational Approach], in: Dina Al-Khawaga (ed) Tadakhul al-maʿānī w al-magālāt: al-marṣad al-ʿarabī lelnāshṭiyya al-mugtamaʿiyya. Al-taqrīr al-ʾawal [overlapping of meanings and domains : the Arab observatory of community activism], pp. 38–47 (Beirut: the Asfari Institute for citizenship and Society Civil, American University of Beirut), https://scholarworks.aub.edu.lb/bitstream/handle/10938/21528/22Mar19%20-%20ASAP.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y, accessed September 10, 2019.

56 I explore more the role of the members of the NDYU in my MA thesis in Université de Paris Nanterre.

Mayada Magdy Saad Madbouly (2014) Les Nubiens du Caire au Carrefour de l'identité: une (en)quête de la nubianité et reformulation de l'égyptianité [The Nubians of Cairo at the Crossroads of Identity: A Quest for Nubianity and Reformulation of Egyptianity], MA thesis, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre la Défense.

57 Official page on Facebook available at https://www.facebook.com/nubian.Constitution/, accessed November 11, 2016.

58 Jeroen Van Laer & Peter Van Aelst (2009) Cyber-Protest and Civil Society: the Internet and Action Repertoires in Social Movements, in: Yvons Jewkes & Majid Yar (eds) Handbook on Internet Crime, pp. 230–254 (London: William Publishing).

59 Nubatood is a Nubian word that means the son of Nubia. The members of the NDYU posted on the NDYU official pages articles about Nubian poets, singers and novelists. They also organized cultural seminars in Nubian associations on Nubian public figures who participated in the Egyptian national movement before independence. For more information on the different events of this campaign, sse NDYU's official blog. Available at http://y4nubia.blogspot.fr/2011/03/5-2011-6-5-2011-20.html, accessed October 26, 2017.

60 A reportage on TV On channel (2012). Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCduiGTDqEw, accessed September 11, 2019.

61 Official page on Facebook available online at https://www.facebook.com/pg/NubianGeographic/about/?ref=page_internal, accessed September 13, 2019.

62 Fatma Emam, an ex-member of the NDYU, published an article on Mada Masr where she explains her socialization as a Nubian in Cairo and how she was engaged in the Nubian cause. Then she explores the complexity of the Nubian question based on her participation in the consultative office of Haggag Odoul, the Nubian representative in the constitutional committee. See Fatma Emam (2013) Being Nubian in Egypt and in the Constitution, MadaMasr, December 23. Available at https://madamasr.com/en/2013/12/23/opinion/society/being-nubian-in-egypt-and-in-the-constitution/, accessed September 12, 2019.

63 A non-profit organization based in Aswan, whose members work on the Nubian Rights. Available at http://bsc-eg.org/%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b1%d8%a6%d9%8a%d8%b3%d9%8a%d8%a9/, accessed September 13, 2019.

64 The YouTube channel available online at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJDbFq94bvo_nOPpjtYw_2w/videos, accessed September 13, 2019.

65 The description of the mobile application on the official page on Facebook. Available at https://www.facebook.com/pg/Nubianapp/about/?ref=page_internal, accessed September 13, 2019.

The conference that launched the mobile application in the Library of Alexandria in 2016. Available at https://www.facebook.com/Nubianapp/videos/200652137081579/, accessed September 13, 2019.

66 Assef Bayat (2010) Life as Politics. How Ordinary People Change the Middle East (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press), pp. 115–136.

67 Ibid, p. 134.

68 Nina Eliasoph (1998) Avoiding Politics: How Americans Produce Apathy in Everyday Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

69 The official page on Facebook is online at https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=437774709750337&id=197837647077379, accessed October 26, 2017.

70 Amnesty International (2017) “Egypt: Release 24 Nubian Activists Detained after Protest Calling for Respect of Their Cultural Rights,” September 12. Available at https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/09/egypt-release-24-nubian-activists-detained-after-protest-calling-for-respect-of-their-cultural-rights/, accessed October 20, 2017; and Minority Rights Group International (2017) MRG condemns the detention of Nubians in Aswan, Egypt,” October 5. Available at http://minorityrights.org/advocacy-statements/mrg-condemns-detention-nubians-aswan-egypt/,accessed October 20, 2017.

71 Two presidential decrees, 444 and 355, passed in 2014 and 2016 respectively, undermine the right to return guaranteed by the 2014 Constitution. As a response to these decrees, online protests were organized to mobilize Nubians, but also to avoid the cost of activism. The Nubian Club in Aswan organized a protest in front of the Abu-Simbel temple on the 22^nd of February 2016. The protest was followed by other digital repertoires of collective action (e.g. petition). Furthermore, the same group organized another march to contest decree 355 (Nubian Return Caravan) followed by a sit-in in Aswan.

72 James Ferguson (1994) The Anti-Politics Machine: Development, Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press).

73 Marlene Schäfers (2015) Being Sick of Politics: The Production of dengbêjî as Kurdish Cultural Heritage in Contemporary Turkey, European Journal of Turkish Studies, 20(6), pp. 1–19.

74 Verta Taylor (1989) Social Movement Continuity: The Women’s Movement in Abeyance, American Sociological Review, 54(5), pp. 761–775.