Beyond Creole Nationalism? Language Policies, Education and the Challenge of State Building in Post-conflict Southern Sudan

Abstract

This paper seeks to go beyond a focus on the role of elites in low-capacity states to consider the interaction of language policies and mass responses to these policies in southern Sudan. It reviews processes of elite formation in southern Sudan, the impact of the civil war and the current challenges facing state building there. In common with many post-colonial states, nationalism in Sudan, both north and south, has been elite led and has been characterized by persistent attempts by Khartoum-based governments to impose their conception of the Sudanese state on southern Sudan and resistance to such efforts. Official language policies in southern Sudan have alternated between English and Arabic reflecting this ongoing contestation of identity. This paper considers the impact of the most recent language policy change in favour of English from a local southern Sudanese perspective. It concludes that, while the new language policy has had an impact on people's expectations and, hence, on their professed desire to acquire new language skills, current state capacity in southern Sudan is such that it is unlikely that these policies will have an impact on southern Sudanese identity formation amongst the general population in the short to medium term, although it will continue to reinforce existing processes that contribute to the creation of a southern Sudanese elite identity.

Acknowledgements

With thanks to those in Sudan who were kind enough to share their time, experiences and opinions with me during my field research. The author also wishes to thank Mark Hamilton, Sharon Fain and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. This research was possible in large part because of funding provided by a Hurst Scholarship and a doctoral fellowship from the School of International Service at American University, Washington, DC and would not have been possible without the full cooperation and assistance of GOAL, an Irish NGO working in Sudan since 1985.

Notes

1. The state of Upper Nile is in the northern part of southern Sudan straddling the Nile river. Malakal town is the state capital and is located adjacent to the junction of the White Nile and the Sobat river, before one enters the Sudd (a vast swamp area), if travelling upstream. It is an important gateway town to much of southern Sudan.

2. It was selected as a basis for further investigation largely because the question of language preference was a relatively straightforward and researchable one given the practical constraints involved in engaging in fieldwork in difficult to access areas of southern Sudan and because it was a pressing question for the participants of the focus groups consulted (because of their participation in a adult women's literacy programme). As such, the research also involved a quid pro quo: it gave the women involved in the adult literacy programme the opportunity to openly express their preferences with respect to the programme and, hence, initiate change, something that, in the context of the difficulties of women's lives in southern Sudan, was, in the authors view, a worthwhile endeavour in its own right. Upon completion of the focus group research, initial findings were reported back to the programme managers in Khartoum. As a consequence, varying approaches to providing English language literacy lessons (including initial introduction of Latin alphabets using local languages followed by the introduction of English words and direct introduction of English literacy facilitated in local languages) were piloted in 2006 as a result of this study. An introductory module to the English language is also being designed for existing participants who began literacy classes in Arabic.

3. A language in this regard, is as May (2001) reminded us, often differentiated from a dialect only by the existence of an army and a navy.

4. Indeed Deng (1992, 1995b) himself, particularly in his earlier writing, sometimes echoed such primordialistic tendencies. While he recognized multiple identities and the possibility for re-imagining a hybrid Arab–African identity as a basis for Sudanese national cohesion, his argument tended to primoridialism in his reification of these two divergent identities. His strategy in advocating a hybrid identity frequently relied on highlighting the biological ‘mixing’ of ‘Arabs’ and ‘Africans’ as evidence of the falsity of current myths or collective imaginings among northern Arabs, rather than considering alternative social bases upon which a hybrid identity could be constructed. That said, much of Deng's (1992, 1995b) writing represented attempted interventions into the process of identity formation in Sudan and, as such, one might consider such arguments a form of strategic essentialism/primordialism designed to persuade rather than to describe in a social scientific sense.

5. Note that, during discussions in Malakal, the author was informed that Shilluk should be referred to as Chollo, reflecting their own name for their language. Current literature on the subject usually refers to Shilluk. For the purposes of clarity, therefore when referring to this language, this paper has continued to use the more widely known term Shilluk in addition to Chollo.

6. An interview conducted in Sudan in October 2005 with a man who had been displaced to Khartoum from southern Sudan illustrates some of the possible ambiguities in ethnic self-identification. This person had learned the language of an adjacent ethnic group in addition to his own when young and when he arrived in Khartoum was able to join a group of labourers from that ethnic group by claiming to be from that group: he was assisted in this regard by a childhood friend from this latter group, allowing him to survive his initial post-displacement experience.

7. Calculated by the author based on absolute numbers provided on a table. Use of statistics from this work does not in any way indicate agreement with McLoughlin's (1964) developmental perspective, which, as with many modernization-oriented economists of his generation, viewed language use from an ethnocentric perspective thinly disguised under the veil of economic efficiency.

8. The Chollo language is called Dhok-Chollo, pronounced Dho-Chollo locally: it can also be spelt Dhok-Collo or Dhok-Cöllo. Dhok refers to the mouth (per interview with a Catholic missionary, Malakal, July 2006).

9. A new standardized alphabet (still based on the Latin script, but with some additional letters) was developed and promulgated in the 1990s by the Shilluk Language Council (formerly known as the Oversight Committee), comprised of representatives of the Catholic, Presbyterian and Sudan Interior Mission churches and supported by the Summer Institute for Linguistics, an institute formerly based in southern Sudan for the study of southern languages, but subsequently relocated to Khartoum because of the war, with support from the Episcopal Church of Sudan (per interview with a Chollo translator working for the Summer Institute for Linguistics, Khartoum, July 2006).

10. The centrally located Nuba Mountains are an exception in this regard, though geographical remoteness made much of this area equally peripheral in practical terms.

11. The author worked on a programme providing services to war-affected populations, including internally displaced Southerners in Khartoum from 1997 to 2000.

12. Per interviews and conversations conducted during field research in Malakal, 2005 and 2006.

13. A recent (July 2006) meeting with a Dinka who had served in armed forces of the Sudanese Army in the early 1980s, was also a devout Muslim, having completed the Hajj and in more recent years had driven a tank for the SPLA springs to mind as an example of these kinds of ambiguities.

14. The desire of some Nuer to convert sometimes led to difficulties. A Catholic missionary priest once recounted to the author in the 1997–1998 period how he had to escape through the back door of a church in a displaced settlement in Khartoum after a baptism ceremony for newly converting Christians was forcibly gate-crashed by a number of young Nuer men demanding to be baptized there and then, despite not having completed the required number of preparation classes. This episode illustrates the sometimes aggressive ways in which displaced youths made their demands heard (see below for further comment on this phenomenon).

15. Although, as all areas in the state of Blue Nile (including zones previously under the control of the SPLA) remain in the north as part of the CPA, Uduk religious dispositions are unlikely to affect southern identity formation, though a possibility exists of a minority identity forming relationally in such locations, through processes described in further detail by Brubaker (1996).

16. Per interviews conducted with people displaced from the Malakal area to Khartoum, in Malakal and Khartoum, October 2005 and July 2006.

17. Per interviews conducted in Malakal town, October 2005.

18. Though this is not to discount the role of other actors, including churches, the political organs of the various sides and the experiences of fighters in differing military hierarchies.

19. Though such categorical tags also become badges of entitlement. On more than one occasion during the author's time as a humanitarian aid worker in Khartoum southerners (usually young male southerners) aggressively demanded assistance either because of their status as internally displaced persons or as (presumed fellow) Christians. Such efforts represent attempts at agency in social contexts where agency can be extremely difficult, particularly in seeking to subvert the typically hierarchical and enforced nature of the ‘displaced’ category and turn it to their material advantage through arguing for (or forcibly demanding) a basic entitlement to assistance because of their categorical status.

20. Johnson (2003) placed particular emphasis on the government's counter-insurgency strategy. The author's own research indicates that opportunistic raiding by unaffiliated armed groups and SPLA forced recruitment of students in rural schools were also factors in the collapse of the rural educational system in the early to mid-1980s.

21. Based on research and interviews focusing on the provision of services during conflict conducted as part of the author's dissertation research. This research commenced in late 2004 and has included interviews with current and former aid workers, government officials and local residents from areas throughout Sudan with a particular focus on Upper Nile, Bahr El Ghazal and Abyei.

22. Bixler (2005) cited Mansour Khalid, a former Sudanese foreign minister (and senior member of the SPLA), as his source on the torture of teachers, specifically mentioning the death under torture of the principal of Dolieb Hill Girls School, but did not mention the location. Interviews conducted in Malakal in October 2005 and July 2006 indicated that Kodok was the location where teachers from Dolieb Hill were taken and tortured during the Anya-Nya war.

23. Per interview with a member of a religious congregation present in Malakal through this period, Malakal, July 2006 and a short focus group discussion with schoolteachers at a Catholic church run school, Malakal, October 2005.

24. Per interview with a representative from an Islamic NGO, Malakal, October 2005.

25. This was not the only reason for the movement of unaccompanied minors to Ethiopian refugee camps: many also moved because of attacks on their villages while they were outside minding cattle or other livestock. Such unaccompanied minors went on to earn the additional label of being ‘The Lost Boys’.

26. Per interviews with former refugees returned to Sudan, conducted primarily in south Abyei county, July 2006.

27. The practical distinction between OLS and non-OLS organizations was important, as OLS had to request flight permission from the northern government for flight access to areas of operations in southern Sudan, even those areas under SPLA control. Non-OLS organizations organized their own flights and often worked in areas of the south or other contested areas (transitional zones and the Nuba Mountains) where the government habitually did not give permission for OLS flights.

28. Financial statistics available at www.reliefweb.int in the financial tracking section for Sudan indicate the levels of different donor countries' support for humanitarian operations in the region. The USA is typically the largest donor, followed by the European Union and Western European states acting bilaterally.

29. Based on interviews conducted with senior humanitarian aid workers involved in managing relief operations in SPLA areas of southern Sudan during the 1990s.

30. Based on the authors' field research focused on three important garrison towns in southern Sudan or transition areas (Wau, Malakal and Abyei).

31. Per interviews conducted in Malakal, October 2005 and July 2006.

32. The expatriate programme manager had received differing views from her Sudanese national counterparts as to participants professed language needs, with some arguing that English was being requested, while others argued that the women continued to express a desire for Arabic. These conflicting signals mirrored the differing ethnicities of the staff involved: those from the north tended to argue that the women still requested Arabic, while those from the south stated that their preference was for English. It is possible that both were correctly reporting the views of women as expressed to them during site visits: no systematic survey of the women's views had been conducted until this study took place.

33. The author was involved in the establishment and management of this programme in the 1998–2000 period in Khartoum.

34. However, because of poor Arabic language skills among many participants, in practical terms, many of the literacy groups were being facilitated in the local language (mostly Shilluk/Chollo or Nuer), with letters and words in Arabic being introduced along with Arabic words.

35. Efforts at the inclusion of men in adult literacy circles in Sudan have met with limited success. Men tend to dominate circles where they are mixed (as occurred in the focus group discussion held with the mixed group in Malakal). In many parts of northern Sudan mixed circles are also culturally inappropriate. Male-only circles were piloted in Khartoum but were not successful.

36. SPLA special advisors had been appointed to work alongside incumbent officials. The governor of the province, (who under the terms of the CPA was appointed by the northern government) had been reappointed, but had not yet returned to Malakal to reassume his duties.

37. This is not to reify the views of the women that participated in these discussions. It is worth remembering that all discussants were participants in a literacy programme and, as such, were self-selected. They also did not come from the absolute poorest strata of society: as a member of one of the groups pointed out, the poorest of women do not have the time to attend the circles, even though admission is free, as they continue the struggle to provide for themselves and their families. Nonetheless, as this article highlights, women as a whole are politically marginalized in southern Sudan: in addition, the majority of women participants in these literacy groups were extremely poor. Only one town-based group included both male and female participants. In total only eight men took part in the group. The final numbers participating are approximate because there was some movement of women arriving late to the groups, etc.

38. In practice, many local residents, especially in Malakal town, have some competence in a number of languages. ‘Language of the group’ refers to the language that the group preferred to use in communicating with the author, in some cases via available translators.

39. This also reflects the author's own experience in the use of a basic Chollo greeting, madri, around town. It generally received a positive response from both government officials and local people, more so than the Arabic equivalent salam-a-leykum, though the novelty of having an unfamiliar khawaja (see below) speak even a single Chollo word may have been sufficient to elicit this positive response.

40. Many mentioned the possibility of getting jobs as messengers for the government if they had English.

41. The word khawaja in Sudanese Arabic is used to describe foreigners, typically Western and/or White foreigners. It does not have the same negative associations of similar words, such as the Swahili muzungu, Amharic farengi or Portuguese blanco used in other parts of Africa.

42. On one particularly memorable occasion, Nuer participants in a rural area erupted into ululations after the author greeted them in Nuer with the one word greeting of male (pronounced ma-lay). This same group had originally greeted the author with a rendition of an English song ‘We welcome our teacher today’ learned from their (Nuer) facilitator who had studied English while in a refugee camp, illustrating both their pride in their own language and their desire to learn English. This event also further illustrated the relative power differentials between these women and the author as a White foreign male: the author was accorded the status of a teacher although he was not there to teach. In discussions with these women the author attempted to equalize this differential somewhat by sitting on the ground (as many of the women sat) rather than in special chairs provided for his benefit, in greeting them in their own languages, introducing himself with his own name and a (self-deprecating) Sudanese Arabic nickname he had acquired when he had previously worked in Sudan, where possible communicating directly with them in Arabic and in clearly explaining the purpose of his visit at the beginning of discussions. Nonetheless, given the brevity of the author's stay with each group (typically no longer than 2 hours), these efforts can only have had a marginal impact.

43. Per conversation with a Nuer employee of an international NGO, conducted in Malakal, July 2006.

44. There are some private English language classes available in Malakal town, but according to discussions with local project staff, they are expensive and, as a consequence, were not available to the women that participated in this literacy programme. There have also been some initial efforts to bring in expatriate English language teachers. One volunteer teacher from the UK-based Sudan Volunteer Programme was posted to Upper Nile University in Malakal for 7 months during 2006.

45. Juba Arabic in this context tends to be treated as another local dialect, rather than as a possible basis for a new national language (in contrast to the manner in which Swahili, another Arabic-influenced language, has been promoted in East Africa, particularly in Tanzania). This is at least in part because, as the name suggests, it is spoken primarily in the southern part of southern Sudan primarily in the Equatoria region. Arabic speakers from Malakal and Wau interviewed by the author indicated that their Arabic was not Juba Arabic, being of a ‘higher quality’ (i.e. closer to standard Arabic and/or Arabic spoken in northern Sudan), reflecting the lower perceived status of Juba Arabic as a pidgin Creole. This may change however. An introductory Juba Arabic–English dictionary, using Latin script for Juba Arabic words, has recently seen published (Smith, I & Ama, M. T. (2005) Juba Arabic–English Dictionary/Kamuus ta Arabi Juba wa Inglizi (Uganda: Fountain Publishers): see http://msupress.msu.edu/bookTemplate.php?bookID = 2773). This may represent the public formalization of Juba Arabic as a distinct language, particularly given the use of the Latin rather than Arabic script (a move also made with Swahili, despite earlier use of the Arabic script, particularly in the coastal regions of East Africa). The location of the administrative capital of southern Sudan in Juba may also contribute to the further codification and increased social status/legitimacy of Juba Arabic.