Branding Humanity: Competing Narratives of Rights, Violence, and Global Citizenship 9781503607279

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Branding Humanity

Stanford Studies in Human Rights

Branding Humanity Competing Narratives of Rights, Violence, and Global Citizenship Amal Hassan Fadlalla

Stanford University Press Stanford, California

Stanford University Press Stanford, California © 2019 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press. Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Name: Fadlalla, Amal Hassan, author. Title: Branding humanity : competing narratives of rights, violence, and global citizenship / Amal Hassan Fadlalla. Description: Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, 2018. | Series: Stanford studies in human rights | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018009499 (print) | LCCN 2018011177 (ebook) | ISBN 9781503606159(cloth) | ISBN 9781503607262(paper) | ISBN 9781503607279(ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Sudan—History—Darfur Conflict, 2003—Press coverage—United States. | Sudan—History—Civil War, 1983-2005—Press coverage—United States. | Sudan—History—Darfur Conflict, 2003—Foreign public opinion, American. | Sudan—History—Civil War, 1983-2005—Foreign public opinion, American. | Ethnic conflict—Sudan—Public opinion. | Human rights—Sudan—Public opinion. | Sudanese Americans—Ethnic identity. | Sudanese Americans—Politics and government. | Identity politics—Sudan. Classification: LCC DT157.673 (ebook) | LCC DT157.673 F33 2018 (print) | DDC 962.404/3— dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018009499 Typeset by Kevin Barrett Kane in 10/14 Minion Cover photo: Karel Prinsloo / Arete / Unicef Cover design: John Barnett | Four Eyes

I dedicate this ethnography of hope and promising futures to all those who search for the meaning of humanity beyond the confines of identity politics

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A J A S MINE B R A N C H

Good morning, homeland; split into two. O, you, bathed in sunlight, hung out over the two Niles. Tell me, where are your stars? Why scattered, your absorbing sands? Tell me, where are your palm trees? Why not shake your marches? Enliven your forbearance, and the resilience of your hands . . . A silhouette folding itself in the invisible is the countenance of the moon. The moon is caring; cultivating me all the time; with a porcelain cup, broken, mysterious ash, it remains. Who would hug me? O, you, the uprising moon come to me, with homelands. The moon is restless, it is being immured . . . O, you, the greenest jungle. We will cut the braids of the night, and should you encounter the rain, see, when is she pelting down; tell her, we will be waiting; a day, or for years to come. Fear not, and come earlier. Prudently, hug me; and cry into my chest. Cry, profusely . . . Pour down Pour down We have longed for you, waiting at the Palace street, for you; and at the confluence of the two Niles. Carrying in me, a third of my homeland, And you, carrying Jasmine. Poem by author Written July 10, 2011 Translated from Arabic by Fazil Moradi

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Contents

Foreword by Mark Goodale xi Acknowledgments xv

Introduction: Violence Narratives and the Cultural Politics of Identity

1

1 Performing Humanity: Suffering and the Making of Global Citizens

27

2 Humanitarian Publics: Celebrities, Solidarities, and Students

65

3 Diaspora as Counter-Response: Citizenship Rights and the Suffering of Ghurba

107

4 Contested Borders of Inhumanity: Refuge and the Production and Circulation of Violence Narratives

147

5 Routing Humanitarian Visibilities: Rights and Dissent on the Eve of Sudan’s Partition

185

Toward an Inclusive Humanist Future: Borders, Bodies, and Funerals

221

Notes

233

Bibliography

251

Index

267

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Foreword

is a compelling ethnographic and longitudinal examination of the ways in which different histories of violence, efforts at reconciliation, and postcolonial reckoning in the Sudan became interwoven with transnational currents of human rights activism and humanitarianism, feminist mobilization, and the emergence of new configurations of flexible citizenship against the backdrop of neoliberal globalization. At the same time, however, Fadlalla’s study is also a profoundly nuanced exercise in critical reflexivity, in which her own subject position as a diasporic Sudanese scholar deepens and thickens her interpretations on every page, through every ethnographic interview, and at the end of every consideration of the dilemmas that arise with the kind of participatory action research that she was often called upon to undertake. And as in her own poem, with which she begins the book, there is also a pervasive sense of longing in Fadlalla’s study: a longing for a conceptual path along which the competing narratives that form the basis of her work can be rearticulated; a longing for the excruciatingly difficult kind of synthesis that embraces both national unity and the messiness of actually existing pluralism; and finally, a longing for the emergence of new forms of political and social alliance that can resist the dangerous dichotomy that she reveals with such analytical and empirical precision, that which sees the cultural or the cosmopolitan as the only possible categories for collective belonging. In tracing the contours of conflict in and about the Sudan, Fadlalla deploys a diverse methodological repertoire that includes both traditional strategies of engagement and highly innovative moves that result in what she calls “multifaceted” research. With a complicated and self-aware insider/outsider perspective, she casts a wide empirical net as a way to encompass novel spaces of encounter AMAL HA S S AN FA D L ALL A’ S B R AND ING HUMANIT Y

xii   Foreword

and reflection even as she herself is an ever-present actor in the history that her research problematizes and reinterprets. As she shows us, the struggles in the Sudan both before and after secession were—beyond their quotidian tragedies— constructed and reconstructed in terms of competing ideologies of suffering, cultural authenticity, and moral righteousness. Her ethnographic parsing of these domains of ideological contestation does not lead easily to the kinds of normative judgments that have so often been attached to, and mobilized by, the various sides within the succession of interlinked ethnic, religious, and political conflicts in the Sudan. Beyond the fact that its historical scope and ethnographic richness make Branding Humanity an unparalleled resource for understanding the course of contemporary Sudan, it also holds a range of key implications for human rights studies more generally. There are two that seem to me to be of greatest importance, and their consequences for the field are significant indeed. First, this study suggests that what might be thought of as the “transnational fix” is like a mirage that keeps moving farther away the closer one approaches. In this sense, Fadlalla’s research does for human rights studies what Tania Li’s work did for our understanding of the politics of cultural identity. If it is true, as Li argued, that there is, in the end, no “communal fix” to the problems of indigenous marginalization and disempowerment, then Branding Humanity stands for something like the opposite proposition: there is no transnational fix for national histories of violence and division, no final “humanitarian public” whose beneficent engagement will ultimately lead to what the Norwegian scholar Johan Galtung described as “positive peace.” And second, Fadlalla’s study serves as a powerful argument for how the politics of recognition, which became so hegemonic throughout the first decades of the post–Cold War period, can accelerate a politics of difference into spiraling practices of embodied category of violence—ethnic, gendered, religious, class, political. Indeed, on the basis of Fadlalla’s intervention, one can read the fracture of separation that gave rise to South Sudan—including the attendant conflicts within the new nation-state—as a consequence of the transnational politics of identity taken to its logical and tragic conclusion. In this way, Branding Humanity gives new meaning and theoretical impetus to what David Kennedy described as the “dark sides of virtue.” Finally, by rejecting the siren song of what she describes as “transnational sovereignty,” Fadlalla leaves us with a much more measured, open, and contingent approach to understanding conflict and structures of violence—whether in the

Foreword   xiii

Sudan or within the ideologies and practices that “perform humanity” for an international market. It is an approach oriented toward much smaller gestures and less-reified moments of interconnection, an approach that is sensitive to the possibilities of what she calls “historically grounded solidarities.” Mark Goodale Series Editor Stanford Studies in Human Rights

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Acknowledgments

for the past decade has become an exhilarating intellectual and personal journey, mixed with relentless feelings of hope and despair. At times it felt as if I were carrying my ideas about the Sudan project around the globe in several travel bags, searching for places of intellectual care and refuge to work on them, share them, and finally bring them to fruition. I conceived, wrote, or revised bits of this manuscript in the Sudans, the United States, Germany, Switzerland, France, and the United Arab Emirates. Although I had anticipated finishing the task sooner, the turbulent changes and political transformations in the Sudans dictated otherwise. I am indebted to many institutions, colleagues, friends, and family members for their valuable support over the years. Their belief in me and in this endeavor made this book possible. I launched this project in 2007 with generous grants from Rackham Graduate School, the Office of the Vice Provost for Research, the Institute for Research on Women and Gender, and the African Studies Center at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Their financial assistance enabled me to carry out the intensive fieldwork needed for the study. In March 2012, I received two additional awards from the University of Michigan: the Associate Professor Fund from the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA), and the Human Rights Award from the Program in Comparative and International Studies. These awards supported the follow-up and completion of the fieldwork and the beginning of the data analysis. The financial support I received from the University of Michigan and the intellectual conversations with my colleagues in the Department of Women’s Studies, the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, and the Department of Anthropology have been crucial to the development of this book and my overall career. I especially thank Abigail Stewart, Elizabeth Cole, Valerie Traub, Sandra Gunning, Rosario Ceballo, Leela Fernandes, Elisha Renne, Tiya Miles, WO R K IN G O N T H I S P R O J E C T

xvi   Acknowledgments

Angela Dillard, Frieda Ekotto, Howard Stein, Derek Peterson, Deborah KellerCohen, Andrew Shryock, Naomi André, Raymond Silverman, Anne Pitcher, Martin Murray, Kelly Askew, Adam Ashforth, and each and every one of my other colleagues who offered support through the years. I also extend special thanks to the department staff members, who provide continuous support to help us pursue our scholarly work: Wayne High, Elizabeth James, Faye Portis, Donna Ainsworth, and Patricia Mackmiller. In 2013 I was named a Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, in Washington, DC, with support to begin writing the manuscript during a nine-month residency. This fellowship was significant for many reasons. The center and its architecture of intellectual care helped me and other scholars share our work, engage with policy makers, and present our work at various forums. I am forever indebted to the directors and to my colleagues at the center for their generous engagement. Special thanks to Robert Litwak, Steve McDonald, Haleh Esfandiari, Michael Van Dusen, Monde Muyangwa, and Alan Goulty. Thanks also to members of the staff, especially Kimberly Conner, Lindsay Collins, Aniel Krishna, Maria-Stella Gatzoulis, and librarian Janet Spikes. Special thanks to my research assistant, Katherine Fiely, for her help with data collection and organization during my residency. At the center, I benefited from discussing my work with the scholars of the 2013–14 cohort and the small writing group we formed. I am especially grateful for my exchanges with Hope Harrison, Donny Meertens, Anne-Marie Brady, Mae Nagi, Maria Cristina Garcia, Sayuri Shimizu, and Alison Brysk. This book could not have been finalized without two additional significant awards: a seven-month Mercator fellowship from the Department of Anthropology and Philosophy at the University of Halle-Wittenberg in Germany and a one-semester LSA Humanities Award from the University of Michigan. At the University of Halle I was hosted by the vibrant anthropology group “LOST” (Law, Organization, Science, and Technology), chaired by Professor Richard Rottenburg. I learned a great deal while in residency with the group of scholars at LOST, especially from their weekly seminars, their debates of urgent African issues, and their creativity in fostering dynamic and productive group work. I am indebted to Professor Rottenburg for organizing the warm welcome and generous hospitality I received at Halle and for facilitating my connection with the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology. I thank all my colleagues at LOST and the Max Planck Institute for making my stay at Halle so memorable, and give a special thank-you to the administrative team and staff at the two units. Cornelia Heimann and Ronn Müller particularly deserve acknowledgment for so gracefully

Acknowledgments    xvii

handling the laborious administrative details of my stay in Germany. My ultimate gratitude goes to many students and colleagues who found the time to show me around, stop by during my writing breaks at Café Rosenburg or Haus und Hof, or join me during my routine walks along the Saale River as we exchanged ideas and shared our work. Thank you, Mariam Mahjoub Sharif, Enrico Ille, Laura Matt, Zahir Abdel Karim, Andrea Behrends, Timm Sureau, David Kananizadeh, Maria Stilidi, Kati Illmann, Boris Wille, Stefanie Bognitz, Nadine Adam, Sung-joon Park, Siri Lamoureaux, Benjamin Beck, Bertram Turner, and Fazil Moradi. I am particularly indebted to my colleague Fazil Moradi for translating my poem “A Jasmine Branch” from Arabic into English. The poem, the epigraph of this book, was widely circulated in different Sudanese media outlets after the division of the Sudan. Moradi, with the assistance of the novelist Goran Baba Ali, conveys the words of this poem in a similar rhythmic style that expresses the depth of what I felt at that historical moment. Some of the material in this book appeared in articles that were published elsewhere. I thank Signs, Urban Anthropology, Humanity, and the School for Advanced Research Press for allowing the reproduction of these articles. This book could not have been possible without the long-term support, engagement, and care of many colleagues, friends, and family members. I want to give my special gratitude to Hope Harrison, Miriam Ticktin, Patrick Dodd, Micaela di Leonardo, Caroline Bledsoe, Sandra Gunning, Souleymane Bachir Diagne, May Seikaly, Evelyn Alsultani, Sondra Hale, Omoladi Adunbi, Nesha Haniff, Akbar Virmani, Nasrin Qader, Lynette Jackson, Dario Gaggio, Thomas Abowd, Taghred Elsanhouri, Nadine Naber and Atef Said, Sunita Bose and Damani Partridge, Nadia Osman and Anwar Elhaj, and Claudia and Klaus Wilhelm. Thank you as well to my family members in the Sudan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, in particular to my sisters, Neimat and Ihssan, and to my nieces and nephews, who make my life better from afar. I am grateful to the many individuals who assisted with the collection of data for this study or helped in other organizational and editorial capacities. Here I especially thank Christopher Tounsel and Sarah Juster. I also thank Kim Greenwell and Kristin McGuire for their meticulous and careful reading and editing of the manuscript. My ultimate gratitude goes to the reviewers of the manuscript and to the excellent editorial and production teams at Stanford University Press for making this a better book. The final round of appreciation goes to my Sudanese and Sudanist interlocutors in the United States, the Sudan, and other diaspora locales. Their collaboration made this book possible. I will forever be indebted to the many wonderful

xviii   Acknowledgments

people who gave their time to respond to my questions and to those who invited me in and opened their homes and hearts to share their life experiences. The names of many of these individuals appear in the pages that follow; I’d like to note in particular Mahasin Ahmad, Ilham Abdel-Razig, Adlan Abdel-Aziz, Abdel-Fatah Said Arman, and Husham and Dalia Haj Omar.

Student wearing a T-shirt inspired by George Clooney’s documentary Sand and Sorrow. STAND conference, Washington, DC, 2009. Photo by author. FI G U R E 1.

Darfur protest in front of the White House, Washington, DC, 2009. Photo by author. FI G U R E 2 .

Branding Humanity

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Introduction

Violence Narratives and the Cultural Politics of Identity

Are you Bedouin? . . . “NO” From Negro-land? . . . “NO” I belong to you, a wanderer coming back To sing with one tongue and pray with another —Muhammad Abed-Alhai.1

IN MAY 2009, THREE YEARS AFTER the massive Save Darfur rally on the Washington

Mall, I stood on Pennsylvania Avenue, right in front of the White House, to attend a demonstration with forty Sudanese activists and their Save Darfur allies. The activists were trying to regain visibility for the cause of the Darfurian people amid increasing American attention toward Sudan’s North-South conflict and efforts to fulfill the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the two sides (figure 1).2 One Darfurian activist I spoke with during the protest asserted that the Southern conflict and the approach of the January 2011 referendum on South Sudan’s independence were leading to compassion fatigue toward Darfur. As I was waiting for the Darfur activists, who were at a nearby park rehearsing for the demonstration, I noticed a group of twelve Tamil activists holding posters of dismembered children and burned villages and schools and chanting, “Obama, Obama, you are Tamil’s only hope,” and “Send the media, send the NGOs, yes you can, yes you can.” I was taking photos of the Tamil protesters when the Save Darfur activists arrived. Unlike the Tamil activists, the Save Darfur protesters had their media coverage ready: The Voice of America and Aljazeera English Television were there to cover the event, as were photographers (figure 2). And, of course,

2

Introduction

I was there as well, as an anthropologist. I knew most of the Sudanese who were participating in the demonstration, and I had interviewed some of them as key figures in the Sudanese diaspora in the Washington, DC, area. The group included people who were originally from Darfur as well as people who identified themselves as Sudanese seculars or as political victims of the current regime. The Save Darfur activists created a circle and placed themselves in front of the Tamil demonstrators. Their louder chants for justice in Darfur drew the attention of many passersby, especially that of touring high school students, who may have known more about Darfur than they knew about any other region in the world. I noticed that the Tamil activists stopped chanting and focused their attention on the Darfur group and their media team. My anthropological curiosity and interest in issues of transnational alliances, inclusion, and citizenship motivated me to shift my attention as well, from the Darfur group to the overshadowed Tamil protesters. I walked over to them and asked one if he had heard about the Darfur conflict, to which he responded that he hadn’t. Some of the Darfur activists I had interviewed noticed my movement toward the Tamil protest, and one of the Save Darfur group quickly approached the Tamil activists and invited them to join the Darfur circle. The two groups combined and began chanting against genocide in both places: “Obama, Obama, stop genocide in Darfur and Sri Lanka.” A member of the Darfur group who introduced himself to me as Zimbabwean chanted for peace, human rights, and justice for all humanity, calling for solidarity across the globe, while a Tamil activist interjected, “Media, media, bring the truth.” The media team noticed the merger and gave the Tamil activists a chance to speak about their cause. A Tamil woman who thought I was a journalist thanked me for drawing attention to their protest. She said she had been in the United States for twenty-five years, and although she is American, she is still tied to her motherland through a community of Sri Lankans in the United States. She commented on the lack of media attention given to the atrocities committed against Tamil civilians by the Sri Lankan government during its crackdown on the Tamil Tigers in May 2009. Another activist noted the large community of Tamils in the Washington area, explaining that they had organized the protest in order to draw more news coverage and adding that they needed “to make a noise in order to draw media attention and to be heard by policy makers.” After the demonstration, some Darfurian and Tamil activists exchanged contact information, hoping to share experiences and to build solidarities. I begin this introduction with the story of the Darfurian and Tamil alliance to highlight the uneven landscape of recognition and how that plays into the com-



Introduction

3

petition for transnational attention and visibility of activists’ causes of national exclusion. While the Darfur movement in the United States garnered ample media attention, other conflicts in Africa and elsewhere—as the Tamil example shows—had to compete for public notice. The relative success of the Darfur campaign can be attributed to a well-framed narrative of the Sudanese conflicts around gender-ethnic violence and genocide, inspired by the languages of human rights and humanitarianism and promoted at the height of America’s war on terror.3 The American-based Save Darfur campaign itself endorsed this narrative and helped to circulate it by mobilizing faith-based organizations, incorporating some Sudanese activists, and engaging the media and policy makers in order to increase the conflict’s visibility. At its inception in 2004, the campaign was focused primarily on the crisis in Darfur, and it soon came under criticism for its approach to media advocacy and its simplistic gendered and ethnic categorization of violence.4 The polar categories of Muslim/Arabs versus Christian/black Africans dominated the political campaigns for Southern Sudan in the United States, and the Save Darfur campaign relied on similar categories of gender and ethnic violence committed by Muslim Arabs against Muslim black Africans. Not all Darfurians in Washington were content with the Save Darfur coalition and its strategies. Some told me that many Darfurians did not join Save Darfur because they felt that they were recruited as informants and not agents capable of speaking for themselves and the plight of their people. They also complained that the campaign simplified complex political debates about diversity, inclusion, and citizenship rights in the Sudan. The alliances and solidarities that many Sudanese social actors and activists create with other Americans, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and policy makers in Washington, DC—including their responses to the Save Darfur efforts—provide insight into how members of the Sudanese community in the Washington metropolitan area engage in Sudanese cultural politics from afar. Many of them utilize these connections and social networks to respond to the dynamically shifting ethnic divisions and conflicts in their homeland, and the subsequent political constructions of their cultural identities, as exiled Sudanese nationals, Muslims, non-Muslims, and as American citizens and noncitizens. In the years following September 11, 2001, immigrant communities in the United States have experienced the impact of political tensions and racial panics in various ways.5 The experience of the Sudanese community, however, has been uniquely complex because the life histories of Sudanese immigrants are shaped by ethnic divisions and the realities of war and conflict at home and by the representation of these realities in political campaigns, Western mainstream

4

Introduction

media, and other such forums. Northern Sudanese, who are mostly Muslim and Arabic-speaking, bore more of the brunt of the “war on terror” and its aftermath of labeling and exclusion than did Southern Sudanese refugees and immigrants, who are mostly Christian and hail from different ethnic backgrounds. Similarly, the escalation of the Darfur conflict in 2003 and the political campaigns that defined the conflict as one of genocide and ethnic cleansing have distanced Darfurians from a Northern-Muslim Sudanese identity in exile. Although many Sudanese exiles in the United States migrated to escape the violence of war, ethnic conflicts, and structural inequities, ethnic divisions continue to be mobilized and reproduced in new forms in American official discourses and mainstream media reportage about Sudan and its violence. The Western insistence on a narrative that emphasizes ethnic division engenders new articulations of identities and new claims of national and transnational belonging, alliances, and affiliations. In 2007, I began to explore the meanings of these emerging claims and affiliations through my engagement with Sudanese social actors and activists in the Washington metropolitan area. I followed these social networks back to the Sudan and elsewhere by documenting their conversations and debates through on-site interviews and observations and also through various cyberpublics and media connections. In response to political tension, fear, and unrest in the Sudan, the United States, and the Middle East, many of my interviewees in the United States and in the Sudan shied away from identifying themselves as political activists or as members of one particular political party or ethnic group. Khalid, one of my interviewees, like many “Northern Sudanese” who left Sudan in the 1990s because they feared political prosecution, refused to identify himself as Northern Sudanese or as a political activist.6 In numerous conversations, he commented that identifying as a Northern Sudanese in the United States often associated him with Islam and Arabism and with the negative attention that those categories attracted in the aftermath of 9/11. He told of a time when an American coworker asked him where he came from, and when he responded that he was originally from the Sudan, she asked what part of the Sudan. He responded that he was from Northern Sudan, and she then asked him what he thought about the Muslim-Arab treatment of black Christians in the south and in Darfur. “I said, ‘Darfurians are Muslims, you know?’ But because of the media a lot of people thought Southerners and Darfurians are all Christians,” he explained. The heightened representation of the Sudanese conflicts in mainstream American media and other political forums, especially during the North-South civil war and the Darfur conflict, has added to such tensions and alienating perceptions. Therefore, depending on the social context,



Introduction

5

Khalid preferred to identify as “secularist,” “Nubian,” “Sudanese,” or “Sudanese American” interchangeably, referring to broader political, ethnic, national, and transnational affiliations that encompass his belonging to multiple places, at different times and in different situations. He also used the term “social activism” to refer to the politics of everyday struggle in the Sudan and the United States. Activism for him includes his involvement with the community, his daily hourlong drive to work, his worries about the future of his two kids in America, his concerns about his aging parents in the Sudan, and the debates around culture and politics that he has with friends and family in his small apartment, in his friends’ homes, and in other public and cyberpublic spaces. This book—which grew out of stories such as Khalid’s—examines the transnational transformation of the Sudanese nation-state before its division into the Sudan and South Sudan on July 9, 2011. I trace this transformation through interviews and interactions I conducted with Sudanese social actors and activists and their allies in the United States, the Sudan, and online. The complex and compelling life histories and experiences of these various interlocutors make possible a nuanced interpretation of how national and transnational narratives about violence, rights, and humanity circulate, and how they shape and reterritorialize ethnic identities, disrupt meanings of national belonging, and rearticulate notions of solidarity and global affiliations. I highlight how the clashing narratives of transnational affiliation and belonging of Islamists on the one hand and their human rights and humanitarian rivals on the other work through assimilation and/or exclusion of other Sudanese secular visions. Transnational human rights and humanitarian groups have relied on a master narrative of gender violence and ethnic suffering to characterize the struggle of ethnic minorities in South Sudan, Darfur, and later in the Nuba Mountains. I argue that this narration, while well intended, has obscured the struggle of other activists fighting against the monolithic vision of the Islamist regime. Secular activists and other social actors in the Sudan and abroad have contested and rearticulated these narratives differently to highlight their own marginal positions as political opponents in the Sudan and as exiled migrants seeking safe transnational abodes. They find themselves in murky positions: Either they have to conform to the Islamist vision, appropriating available spaces of human rights and humanitarian protests to make their voices heard, or they have to create their own alternative alliances and spaces of expression through other social domains and cyberpublic media. In this book, I describe the conflicting humanitarian and diaspora publics where these clashing narratives, debates, and contestations are expressed and performed.

6

Introduction

My analysis engages transnational theories that invoke the flexibility of citizenship, identities, and global flows of people, ideas, and capital.7 It further suggests a framework that incorporates competing models of transnationalities to reflect a hardening of social boundaries and a politics of exclusion and dispossession in the post–Cold War era. Since the late 1980s, the fall of communism, and the end of the Cold War, new confrontations among Western and Muslim countries (especially those in Africa and the Middle East) have exacerbated ethnic conflicts over identity and citizenship and produced new discourses about gender, ethnic violence, and suffering. The ascendance of political Islam in opposition to Western intervention in Africa and the Middle East and the aftermath of the horrific attacks of September 11, 2001, coupled with the prominence of new media technologies, have contributed to hardened social boundaries, heightened moral panic, strategically deployed identity politics, and new alliances and solidarities. The soaring rates of political violence and increasing levels of poverty and social insecurities have also led to new patterns of migration as victims of war and political prosecution flee their homelands. Sudan, as a mobile nation, offers an exemplary site for examining these historical shifts and tensions, in particular because of the competition among Islamists, secularists, and humanitarian actors and activists about the meaning of rights, humanity, and national and transnational affiliations. In the context of the Sudan, and since the Islamists’ ascendance to power in the late 1980s, sharia moral codes have presented a new model for national identity, linked to a pan-Islamist transnational vision. At the same time, many transnational actors, including Sudanese opposition politicians and activists, have relied on the circulation of narratives of ethnic and gender violence in their alliances and in their contestation of the Islamist state and its inability to protect and incorporate its minority citizens. These transnational alliances have enabled Sudanese political opposition actors and activists to insert themselves into an imagined transnational community governed by human rights and humanitarian legal and moral codes. Such contestations, however, deploy deep-rooted polarization of ethnic identities and present a narrow definition of political violence characterized by the languages of gender, ethnic, and religious suffering. That interpretation of violence and ethnic suffering allows for the visibility and recognition of Sudanese conflicts based on the refashioning and rearticulation of new gendered and racial identities. And these new identities, in turn, position some refugees and immigrants, especially those from South Sudan and Darfur, as visible national and global citizens, while overshadowing the experiences of many secular activists in exile, including Muslim Northern Sudanese secular actors and activists.



Introduction

7

My engagements, conversations, and interviews with dispersed Sudanese actors—whether Northern, Southern, or Darfurian Sudanese—have alerted me to the challenges of doing ethnography at moments of heightened political tension and debate. Although many anthropologists have urged a more flexible understanding of time and space in contexts of transnational mobility, my ethnographic efforts to map such flexibility onto fragmented landscapes have often been disrupted by the simultaneous instability and fixity of events that shaped the process of interviews and other field engagements.8 Transnational Sudanese and their allies occupy divided spaces and time zones in different diasporic locations. Many of them have reimagined and reinvented these transnational places in various ways, thereby renegotiating the meanings of rights, humanity, and national and transnational solidarity and belonging. My access to these disrupted spaces and social networks was not always possible and was often constrained by my own social position as an elite Northern Sudanese American woman. In such situations, working with field assistants and following debates within my “trusted networks” on social media and other cyberdigital publics provided a way to bypass some of the restrictions associated with mobility, identity, and access to particular sites. The multisited/multifaceted ethnography that I offer here presents a timely exercise of how to map both the abundance and the paucity of interactions and the narrations of suffering, rights, and humanity during heightened moments of political tension, violence, and mobility.9 It seeks to record and register the voices and perspectives of social actors and activists whose aspirations are shaped by their divided multiple identities and their conflicting imagination of national and transnational citizenships. The competing narratives of these actors and activists, their visible and invisible voices, their divisions and collaborations, reflect their fragmented places and differential positions in an uneven and ever-changing sociopolitical landscape that defies the simple categorizations of here versus there, us versus them. Drawing on Benedict Anderson’s arguments regarding the role of print media in shaping national imagination, I contend that the circulation of narratives of ethno-gendered violence and suffering in the media (including mainstream print and digital), as well as other sociopolitical venues, manifests exceptional historical moments when both national and transnational visions about rights, humanity, and citizenship collide. To this end, I illustrate how narratives of violence and suffering in Sudan’s ethnic conflicts have informed the national and transnational imaginings of many actors and activists, and have been, in turn, deployed, debated, and nullified in the process of reterritorializing Sudan and its ethnic identities.10

8

Introduction

Many anthropologists have situated ethnic violence and confrontation within the contexts of mobility, social communication, and the diminishing sovereignty of nation-states in the global South. Such scholars as Fredrik Barth, for example, argued in the 1960s that ethnic boundaries and identification are markers of cultural difference that change according to social interaction and processes of inclusion and exclusion.11 Increasing processes of neoliberal globalization and the escalation of war and ethnic conflicts in the 1990s shifted academic attention to the study of political violence and its manifestations in cultural discourses and practices of ethnic and national belonging. Reflecting on Liisa Malkki’s insightful work among the Hutu refugees in Burundi, Arjun Appadurai showed how processes of globalization and increased media representation reproduced ethnic violence in the form of labels and terminologies that serve “new frameworks of identity, entitlement, and spatial sovereignty.”12 Appadurai’s focus pointed to state techniques that aim to control people’s bodies and movements and exacerbate situations of ethnic violence and uncertainty across social and national borders. Building on these ideas in this multifaceted ethnography, I examine the contested meanings of narratives of ethno-gendered violence in the context of competing intellectual projects of national and transnational citizenship and belonging. I contend that such competition produces a culture of vulnerability and moral panic over the meanings of rights, humanity, and ethno-national and transnational affiliations. These clashing national and transnational sentiments— played out across ethno-gendered national borders, bodies, and places—generate new interpretations of violence and engender new forms of identity politics and transnational solidarity. For many Sudanese transnational actors and activists, the definition and imagination of the Sudanese nation-state since the 1990s, especially when it was on the brink of separation, relied on the circulation of labels, terminologies, and narratives of ethno-gendered violence that trumped the Islamists’ grand narrative of national sovereignty and transnational affiliation. The rearticulation of political violence into a simple understanding of suffering inflicted on ethnic minorities by the inhumane acts of the Islamist state, however, ignores the political tension and clashes between the West and the East over meanings of sovereignty, rights, humanity, and socioeconomic alliances after the fall of communism. Such effacement also undermines secularists’ imaginaries, translocal histories of struggle, global neoliberal economic policies, and experiences of mobility and relocation. These interrelated political and socioeconomic realities shape the fluidities and fixities inherent in the imagination of national and transnational belonging and the alternative interpretation and representation of violence, suffering, and humanity offered by many interlocutors.



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9

Clashing Visions: A Short History of Conflict, Violence, and Dispersal For many of the secular Sudanese social actors and activists that I interviewed during my fieldwork in the Sudan and the United States, the ongoing realities of war and ethnic conflict in the country are inseparable from colonial and postcolonial debates over the future of the Sudan and its identity as a nation defined and divided by the two poles of Arabism and Africanism. These political negotiations and divisions, together with broader historical and neoliberal economic processes, shape the exclusionary practices of the Sudanese Islamist state and Western transnational actors, especially human rights and humanitarian advocates, and their imaginings of national and transnational alliances and affiliations. The clash of these two hegemonic models of Pan-Islamism and panhumanitarianism, and the narratives of violence, rights, and humanity that they produce, hardened ethnic, gender, and class divisions and exacerbated feelings of panic, exclusion, and social vulnerability, especially as South Sudan moved toward secession in July 2011. For many in the Sudanese community—including secularists, other Muslims, dreamers of national unity, and those invoking indigenous cultures of humanitarianism—the two clashing visions fail to address the demands of ethnic diversity and inclusion levied by minority citizens nationally and transnationally. Like many African nations, the Sudanese nation-state is a product of violent colonial and postcolonial contestations and ethnic disagreements over the meanings of nationality, citizenship, and belonging. In the case of the Sudan—a country known as the “heart of Africa” and a “corridor to Africa and the Arab world”—the roots of these challenges can be found in colonial and postcolonial ethnic, religious, political, and economic divisions that have plagued the nation since it gained its independence from Anglo-Egyptian rule in 1956. The surge of academic literature on the North-South civil war since the 1980s reflects the intellectual engagement with the question of Sudan’s national identity and the scholarly attempts to understand the root causes of these conflicts. Many scholars of the Sudan have attributed the contestation of nationality and subsequent conflicts and wars to the rigid political constructions of Sudanese identities along the two oppositional axes of Arabism and Africanism. These scholars have cited precolonial legacies of the slave trade and the policies of Anglo-Egyptian rule and its efforts to foreground Arabism and Islamism in the north while Africanizing and Westernizing the south through missionary education and dissemination of the English language.13 While the introduction of Islam and Arabism since the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries transformed Northern Sudanese cultures and

10

Introduction

religions, successive colonial and postcolonial regimes defined Southern identities and religions in relation to Christianity, blackness, and Africanism. After the country became independent, for instance, pioneer Northern Sudanese political parties, such as the Umma and the Unionist, invested in the project of Islamism and Arabism through their alliances with different ethnic Northern groups.14 Such alliances undermined the aspirations and efforts of Southern Sudanese elites to foreground unity with the North. According to the dominant narrative in existing literature, the two-sided categorization of the Sudanese nation-state along the Arab-African axis fueled the war between the North and the South. In the case of the North-South civil war, the heightened political debate about Islam and Arabism versus Christianity and Africanism, Francis Deng asserts, “became a lethal weapon in the power struggle” between the two regions.15 Early colonial and postcolonial policies, together with the rise of political Islam in the Middle East and North Africa, including in the Sudan in the 1980s, fueled political tensions in the country and exacerbated war, violence, displacement, and racial panic. As Southern Sudanese migrated to urban centers in the North to seek refuge and economic opportunities, they fashioned their allegiance to Christianity and the South in novel ways. In Nuer Dilemmas, Sharon Hutchinson maintains that migrants who sought refuge in the North upheld their Nuer-ness through increasing conversion to Christianity rather than to Islam. As the threat from the North began to loom over the South, a new identity emerged that welded notions of Africanism with stronger affiliation to Christian and Western cultural values.16 The mobilization of these separate identities by state actors, missionaries, opposition politicians, and translocal human rights and humanitarian actors and activists dominated political debate about Sudan’s identity for the most part of the country’s postcolonial history and after its division into two nation-states in 2011. Indeed, this predominant focus on polar identities of the North-South has undermined the question of ethnic diversity and its deployment for the construction of an inclusive citizenship project in the country. Even within the context of the diverse South, ever since the pioneering ethnographies of E. E. Evans-Pritchard, the opposition between the Nuer and the Dinka, the two predominant ethnic groups, has gained more attention in scholarly debate about Southern cultures and politics. Jok and Hutchinson argue that the continuous tension and conflict between the Dinka and Nuer leaders—John Garang and Riek Machar, respectively—is a salient manifestation of this polarization of ethnic identities within the South.17 The increasing militarization of both identities, which culminated in the Dinka-Nuer ethnic massacres in the 1990s, continued



Introduction

11

to shed its gloomy light on Southerners’ national aspirations after the country became independent in 2011. The abrupt annihilation of Southern national aspirations led some scholars to argue against the dual categorization of ethnic identities in Southern Sudan. Amir Idris, for example, found himself reflecting on his own personal experience as the son of a Southern Muslim father and a Darfurian mother, both of whom lived most of their lives in central Sudan. Having grown up in Northern Sudan and later adopted a transnational perspective through his education and residence in North America, Idris appeals for a more nuanced understanding of ethnic diversity and inclusive citizenship in the new Southern nation.18 The emphasis on North-South polar identities has also excluded the voices of many Northern Sudanese secular elites and social actors who imagined Sudanese-ness as an Afro-Arab blend. The political and cultural currents of socialism, Pan-Africanism, and Pan-Arabism, which strived to achieve regional unity against Western intervention during the Cold War, have inspired various Sudanese secular actors and political activists. In the Sudan, such visions are evident in the work of the alghaba walsahra (forest and desert) collaboration of poets and writers and in left-wing cultural representations and imaginings of the Sudan as a melting pot of diverse identities. These secular aspirations are, of course, difficult to untangle from the country’s diverse political and cultural tapestry, which is characterized by rivalries among military, sectarian, religious, and political groups. Yet collaborations among secular, left, and right political organizations—including trade unions and students’ and women’s organizations—materialized in and celebrated the October Revolution of 1964, which toppled the first military rule in the country after independence.19 Although the multiparty rule that followed allowed for the representation of Southern Sudanese political parties (the Sudan African National Union [SANU] and the Southern Front), the debate over Sudan’s first civil war, Southern autonomy, and economic crisis continued to dominate the agenda of various political factions in the country after the revolution.20 The transformation of world politics at the end of the Cold War, especially the rise of the neoconservative right in the West and in the Muslim world, had its impact on Sudanese politics as situations of war and violence worsened, hardening the opposition to the North-South dual identity. Secular aspirations of a multiethnic national project imagined by many Sudanese activists and nonsectarian political parties have failed the test of practice in the face of rising Islamic solidarities in the Middle East after the fall of communism.21 Sapped by International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank policies of economic

12

Introduction

restructuring at the end of the 1980s, the military regime of Jaafar Nimeiri sank deeper into economic atrophy, adding to the destitution of farmers, pastoralists, and the urban poor. Nimeiri, who came to power backed by the Sudanese left, formed a strong alliance with the rising Muslim Brotherhood in the Sudan and declared sharia as a last political strategy to secure his reign. In response, a massive revolution in April 1985 contested the tyranny of the decaying regime and testified to the deep-rooted political traditions of student and trade union activism inspired by the legacies of colonial and Cold War political struggles. But the Islamizing national project proposed by the deposed president came to haunt the spirit of the revolution, which lasted for a few years during the shortlived democratic period. Backed by the emboldened Muslim Brotherhood in the Sudan, President Omar Hassan Albashir took power through another military coup d’état in 1989. The new military regime dubbed itself an anti-communist and anti-Western secularist “salvation revolution,” whose main social project was to revive Islamic civilization by molding Sudanese national identities and tying them to a panIslamist movement.22 This national Islamizing vision was manifested in the regime’s early political propaganda, songs, and militia chants that blamed the West for moral decay and vowed to restore moral dignity and stability by building cultural and economic alliances with Muslim and Arab countries. At that time, I was an undergraduate at the University of Khartoum, and I recall the violent clashes between student activists from the secular right and left and those from the Muslim Brotherhood. “Khartoum is not Mecca” and “Khartoum is not Moscow” were the opposing chants predominantly voiced by these political factions during public discussions and street protests. The University of Khartoum, the epicenter of the two Sudanese revolutions, was a meeting place where secular activists and other opposing groups organized against the government’s Islamizing discourses and practices. Intellectuals, students, trade unions, poets, writers, and artists expressed their visions by protesting the regime’s exclusive policies, IMF and World Bank restructuring programs, and Western support of military dictators. Many opposition factions viewed these combined regional and global forces as a threat to secular aspirations of national sovereignty, which they envisioned as transcending narrow definitions of religiosity, ethnicity, and partisan politics. Such confrontations increased in the 1990s during the Gulf War, especially when the government supported Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait. Hassan Al-Turabi, the renowned Islamist ideologue who assumed leadership of the pan-Islamic movement during the heyday of the regime, supported the government alliance with Saddam but later attracted internal and worldwide criticism for his political



Introduction

13

position.23 These political stances put the Islamist regime in direct confrontation not only with its internal critics, opposition members, and Southern fighters, but also with the United States and allied Western nations. The unwavering position of the Sudanese regime on sharia as a unifying national project of rescue and salvation posed a threat to Southern aspirations of nationalism and to Western countries’ influence in Africa and the Middle East.24 The political confrontations between the regime and its internal and external opposition led to the intensification of the second civil war, which produced new specters of violence that many Sudanese watched on national television every Friday. Programs such as Sahat Alfida (Fields of Sacrifices) documented the war of martyrdom that the Sudanese Army and its allied youth militia fought against the Southern guerrilla war machine and its allied fighters from the Blue Nile and the Nuba Mountains. Soon a Western war against the Sudanese regime ensued, as the country rose to the top of the list of states harboring “terrorists” such as Ramirez Sanchez and Osama bin Laden. The war against the regime began with the US missile strike on the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum in 1998, in retaliation for the attack on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. It later continued in the form of economic sanctions levied against the regime, especially after 9/11. To alleviate the weight of Western economic sanctions on the economy, the Sudanese government pursued a proxy-neoliberal economic policy through its alliances with China, India, and other Arab and Muslim countries. The new liberalization policies, known as khaskhasa, opened the country for foreign investment, removed public assistance—especially for food and medical subsidies—and directed more funding toward government defense, the military, and security. The impact of these privatization programs is evident in the emergence of new businesses that cater to the upper class in urban centers and in the intensification of poverty, war, and conflict in Sudan’s peripheries. The internal and external wars waged against the regime undoubtedly targeted the government’s monolithic sharia vision, but they also represented disputes over the country’s identity and its place in the geopolitical global order. These contestations have subjected secular activists and outspoken critics of the regime, from both the left and the right, to harsh scrutiny, torture, and detention, leading many of them to seek refuge in neighboring and Western countries. Sudanese migration to the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and North America can be attributed to socioeconomic and political factors that predate the escalation of war and conflict in the Sudan. However, the intensification of the North-South civil war in the 1980s and 1990s, and the eruption of the Darfur conflict in 2003 generated new waves of refugees and displaced persons. The United Nations

14

Introduction

High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which oversees 10.4 million world refugees, ranked Sudan among the top five countries sending refugees in the world in 2012. Sudanese refugees are hosted in camps in neighboring countries such as Egypt (23,046 refugees),25 Chad (377,480 refugees),26 Uganda (373,626 South Sudan refugees), Sudan (247,317 South Sudan refugees), and Kenya (90,000 South Sudan Refugees).27 Sudanese have also sought refuge and asylum in Israel, Australia, and the United States. Statistical data on the actual numbers and social conditions of these refugees are skewed, but myriad stories appear in the media about the hardships they endure during their journeys. I ground my analyses of migrants’ and refugees’ experiences in my fieldwork interactions in the United States, although I supplement my interviews with narratives and personal experiences gathered from media outlets in various locations. In my treatment of the clashing visions of pan-Islamism and pan-humanitarianism, and the visibilities and invisibilities they produce, I describe how this kind of unbound national and transnational politics materializes in humanitarian and diaspora publics in the form of debates, performances, and contestations. I use the terms “transnationalism” and “diaspora” interchangeably to analyze the inextricable processes that shape the production and circulation of knowledge and the remaking of identities and places.28 These trans-diaspora processes and conditions also inform activists’ solidarities and consciousness and engender counter-responses to both liberal and conservative national and transnational imaginaries. Unlike the rigid polarization of identities that shaped the debate about Sudan’s violent conflicts and its ethnic landscapes, this book gives space to the counterresponses of Sudanese transnational actors and activists who have engaged with or contested the dominant narratives of Pan-Islamism and pan-humanitarianism. These counter-responses speak to the social anxieties and panic produced by the circulation of narratives of ethno-gendered violence during heightened moments of tension and turmoil. They highlight how such narratives can serve as techniques of recognition that simultaneously facilitate and complicate the representation and remaking of social identities in multiple places. In particular, the book shows how the circulation, reproduction, reconstruction, and reinterpretation of these narratives are at the center of a tense debate about national and transnational imaginings that pits Islamists, secularists, and human rights and humanitarian activists against one another. The counter-narratives and responses of various Sudanese social actors and activists manifest such tension and reveal an often unmarked personal and collective understanding of rights, humanity, and suffering.



Introduction

15

The End of Identity Politics: National Fragmentation and Transnational Alliances Inspired by a postwar rhetoric of internationalism and global citizenship, state and transnational actors, including members of human rights and humanitarian organizations, and other civil society groups, have debated the impact of political violence on national and transnational sovereignties, security, and other governance norms.29 Universal frameworks of human rights and humanitarianism provide legal and moral grounds for many organizations, whose members act as “world citizens,” to advance an understanding of a transnational community free from violence, suffering, and harm. Political theorists in particular have used the terms “global citizenship” and “cosmopolitan citizens” interchangeably to draw attention to the role of the United Nations in implementing such universal frameworks of rights, state responsibilities, and global governance.30 In this context, the global citizen stands as a member of an international community larger than the state, a community encompassing all humanity. Global citizens may share a common identity, loyalty, and commitment for social justice and may even exhibit compassion for one another.31 Many human rights and humanitarian organizations intervening in African conflict zones since the 1990s have fostered alliances with local communities and organizations based on this type of cosmopolitan sentiment and identity politics that trump old and cherished values of the sovereign nation-state. In most interpretations, “identity politics” refers to collective organizing around singular issues—such as women’s rights, sexual rights, religious rights, and ethnic rights—an approach that often essentializes these identities and presents them as core arguments for accessing civil and economic liberties. As Micaela di Leonardo notes, debate about this kind of identity politics dominated the American political and intellectual scenes in the 1990s amid heightened fear of national fragmentation and concerns about multiculturalism and diversity. In response, independent organizations grew exponentially to defend particular identities in an increasingly neoliberal climate.32 The rise of this form of private collectivity competed with socialist-inspired grand politics of social movements that began to lose ground in the post–Cold War era. With increasing neoliberal globalization, identity-based political models began to thrive in the global South, where they dominated civil society landscape in the form of nongovernmental organizations serving the interests of women and various ethnic, religious, and social groups.33 A number of NGOs and civil society organizations provided new frameworks for thinking about subjectivity and collective identities and employed new techniques of knowledge circulation that framed questions of liberty and global citizenship in terms of civil-

16

Introduction

ity, humanity, development, and human rights.34 Although humanitarianism and human rights are historically guided by different principles, the 1990s witnessed the emergence of a new humanitarianism, whose actors also mobilize the discourses of suffering, rescue, and compassion to advocate for both short- and long-term development projects as basic rights for victimized citizens in conflict zones.35 These twentieth-century global transformations are evident in the context of the Sudan, where they have overshadowed the kind of identity politics that shaped activists’ affiliations with party politics, trade unions, student unions, and women’s unions in the Cold War era. The worsening economic situation in the Sudan since the 1980s, resulting from neoliberal restructuring programs, the escalation of the North-South civil war, and the subsequent impacts of economic sanctions, poverty, and famines, has robbed people of decent living standards and shaken their faith in the state. Budget cuts to vital economic sectors created governance voids that NGOs and other civil society organizations were quick to fill. Many NGOs, such as Oxfam, Save the Children, and Operation Lifeline Sudan, have helped provide humanitarian assistance to vulnerable populations, especially in Eastern Sudan, Darfur, and South Sudan.36 The years that followed the peace agreement between the North and the South, especially with the escalation of the Darfur conflict, witnessed an expansion of NGO missions in the country. International NGOs work on projects related to civil education, gender empowerment, health and development, law and security, and governance and accountability.37 They also support the work of many emerging local NGOs. Recent reports show that there were about 160 international NGOs and 142 national NGOs in South Sudan in 2015.38 Another report on transnational NGOs in the Sudan found that 91 humanitarian NGOs employ a work force of 4,307, of which 3,920 are Sudanese. Of the $416 million budget for these 91 organizations, $333 million went to various projects. Of this expenditure, 26 percent goes to education, 24 percent to health, 16 percent to relief, 9 percent to water sanitation, 8 percent to agriculture, and 8 percent to security.39 The visible presence of human rights and humanitarian organizations in the country has provided armed resistance movements and local civil society organizations with alternative political strategies. The language of ethnic and gender violence, for instance, has become instrumental in the campaigns of international NGOs working within and outside the Sudan. Opposition politicians and elites from ethnic minorities in the Sudan and in the diaspora have developed alliances with Western NGOs and appropriated human rights and humanitarian discourses in various ways to establish their own NGOs, build



Introduction

17

schools and health units in their villages back home, and argue for inclusion in both national and transnational political processes and citizenship projects. During the North-South civil war, for instance, American human rights groups, such as Christian Solidarity International (CSI) and the American Anti-Slavery Group (AASG), framed the conflict with narratives of ethno-gendered violence and modern slavery, and linked the plight of Southerners to the suffering of Christians, blacks, and Jewish minorities in the United States (see chapter 1).40 Their work and humanitarian rhetoric shaped the way the war was represented in Western mainstream media and in the production of knowledge about violence and conflict in the region.41 However, the polar identities taken for granted between North and South that enabled early faith-based and humanitarian alliances for the Sudan were soon disrupted by the escalation of the Darfur conflict in 2003, and then the Bush administration’s mediating role in the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended the North-South war in 2005. The rising political elite from Darfur, some of whom had previous ties with the Islamists, carried arms against the central government in Khartoum and demanded equal distribution of resources, inclusion in government administration, and attention from the international community.42 Similar demands were made by the Beja elites of Eastern Sudan, who joined the opposition in Eritrea and Ethiopia. For the Beja ethnicities, whose members fare less well in the game of national inclusion and social mobility, the nation-state ceased to align with their ancestral understanding of territorial sovereignty, sustained through myths and memories of a glorious past. Although tensions and feuds do arise among Beja sub-lineages over the ownership of water, pasture, and land, I was often reminded that kinship ties are thicker than the issues that divide these groups.43 Despite the objections that various Sudanese opposition parties, elites, and activists voiced against the government’s socioeconomic and political orientation, Darfur began to dominate Western mainstream media and to attract unprecedented international attention. And thanks to the lobbying of Darfurian elites in the diaspora, Darfur fostered new alliances with human rights and humanitarian activists in the United States. Unlike the earlier polarization and identity politics that facilitated the communication of the North-South conflict, the Muslim identities of Darfurians necessitated a new polar articulation and another powerful narrative. Faith-based and human rights and humanitarian groups once again mobilized narratives of ethno-gendered violence along previous models of polarization, this time constructing a moral rivalry between bad-Muslim-Arabs and good-Muslim-black Africans.44

18

Introduction

During the Darfur conflict Sudan became a site for debating the legitimacy of the Islamist rule and its transnational alliances and for promoting the activities of international NGOs through the legal and moral frameworks of the right and responsibility to intervene and protect.45 These tensions and confrontations became more salient in the aftermath of the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant issued in 2006 against President Omar Albashir for committing crimes against humanity in Darfur. Consequently, the government of the Sudan contested the presence of many Western NGOs in the country and restricted the work of thirteen Western humanitarian NGOs in Darfur, accusing them of spying, reporting false information about genocide, and using their networks, planes, and vehicles to aid rebel groups. A Sudanese activist I interviewed in Washington in 2008 told me about her experience with a humanitarian group in Darfur and the tug-of-war between NGOs working there and the Sudanese government. Sometimes the Sudanese Humanitarian Aid Commission (HAC), established in 2006, would investigate and detain NGO employees who were reportedly working beyond their authorized areas. Such surveillance of NGO activities continued, and in 2013 the government of Khartoum banned the work of sixteen NGOs, including the Red Cross, and ordered NGOs working in the country to abide by HAC regulations.46 Although the Sudanese government expelled many major Western humanitarian NGOs, it encouraged the work of humanitarian groups from Qatar and Saudi Arabia based on the rhetoric of pan-Islamism, characterizing Western humanitarianism as a form of neocolonialism that seeks to undermine the sovereignty of the state and its transnational alliances.47 The confrontation between the Sudanese government and representatives of the international community over South Sudan and Darfur has produced visible fields of power and knowledge within which the future of the Sudanese nation and its political identity is debated. Within these fields, various transnational affiliations, such as those among faith-based groups in the 1990s, and later among celebrities, policy makers, and journalists (including George Clooney, Mia Farrow, Don Cheadle, Oprah Winfrey, Angelina Jolie, John Prendergast, and Nicholas Kristof), have played prominent roles and influenced public opinion, media representation, and other transnational alliances. Celebrity actors in particular have had an important role as global citizens, raising awareness about the Sudanese conflicts, especially in Darfur, before the division of the Sudan in 2011, and when the conflict in the Blue Nile and the Nuba Mountains ensued after the secession of South Sudan.



Introduction

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The transnational alliances of many elites, opposition members, activists, and celebrity actors, and their efforts to shed light on realities of conflict in the Sudan, have also resulted in a flood of literature and media productions based on sensational representations of violence but only fragmented knowledge about Sudan’s conflicts. Narratives of suffering dominate popular Western media and fuel the production of coauthored books by Western-based journalists and Sudanese refugees who are portrayed as victims and survivors. Whether the stories are those of minors, such as the Lost Boys of Sudan in the United States; those of survivors of “sexual assault,” such as Halima Bashir in Britain; or those of other racialized subjects in the Sudan, Egypt, and Israel, their transnational circulation speaks volumes about the appropriation of violence and suffering by human rights and humanitarian groups, as well as Sudanese actors themselves. Throughout this book, I show how the engagement of Sudanese social actors and activists with these tropes of violence, suffering, and salvation is, of course, partly a deliberate strategy to make their ethnic grievances heard, but also an attempt to insert themselves into the imagined projects of national and transnational communities. Indeed, these highly circulated and visible narratives of gender violence and ethnic suffering have enabled the mobility of many social actors, once labeled only passively as “victims and survivors,” to travel to Western countries, where they become “role model citizens” in new stratified settings. My examples show that many civic and humanitarian organizations in the United States, for instance, engage the trope of ethno-gendered violence, suffering, and compassion to initiate these “victims and survivors” into the status of celebrity role models. I suggest that such processes of initiation and incorporation recruit promising global citizens for a project of building national and transnational linkages, with both positive and problematic potentials. Here, I argue that the insertion of identity politics is part and parcel of the making of transnational alliances and global citizens. I examine how diverse social actors and global citizens mobilize narratives of ethno-gendered violence and the rhetoric of triumph over suffering to claim national and transnational citizenship and to contest the incapacity and perceived inhumanity of the Sudanese Islamist state. I situate these debates and confrontations in the conflicting humanitarian and diaspora publics within which gender, ethnic, and racial identities are deconstructed and remade and wherein particular knowledge about suffering, rights, and humanity is being produced, contested, and reproduced.

20

Introduction

Affective Violence: Suffering and the Circulation of Ethno-Gendered Narratives In the neoliberal context of economic restructuring, when the Sudanese nationstate outsourced its responsibilities to private agencies in order to evade Western policies and sanctions and to invest in its own security and military might during Sudan’s civil wars, a parallel liberal interpretation of ethnic and gender violence circulated in many human rights and humanitarian circles within and outside the country. Gender-based violence in particular took center stage in the dominant representation and production of knowledge about Sudanese ethnic conflicts, highlighting the easy transnational travel of human rights language and practices. The focus on gender violence reflects the gains of women elites who worked within the rubric of the United Nations and succeeded in their efforts to have violence against women recognized as a human rights violation. When the issue officially joined the list of human rights violations in 1993, many NGOs working in the global South began to focus on women’s human rights.48 Amrita Basu, in her examination of the alliances, conferences, and deliberations that led to the recognition of violence against women as a human rights violation, notes that feminist elites from the global North and South have always emphasized different issues. While feminists from the global North focus on gender inequality from the perspective of civil liberties and universal human rights, feminists from the global South deploy human rights language to highlight translocal issues related to gender and economic inequalities.49 Despite such internal distinctions, a liberal human rights agenda has nonetheless informed increasingly widespread campaigns to eliminate violence against women. These campaigns continue to inform transnational feminist practices and United Nations initiatives focusing on women’s empowerment, peace, and security, especially in the global South.50 In her work on the transnational transformation of human rights languages and practices, Sally Engle Merry shows how the debate on violence against women shifted from the 1980s to the 1990s to gain credence under the rubric of gender-based violence—an approach emphasizing bodily injury, psychological suffering, and sexual harm.51 This change led to the treatment of gender-based violence as a medical condition, enabling victims of sexual violence to become exceptional subjects of humanitarian protection and aid practices.52 Many feminists have argued that the emphasis on gender-based violence has singled out women from the global South as victims of “backward” cultures and religious authorities, while simultaneously relegating the histories of local women’s movements and social resistance to the backseat.53



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My analysis of the production and circulation of narratives of ethno-gendered violence shows that gender-based violence, especially sexual violence, like the tropes of genocide and ethnic cleansing, became highly implicated in the cultural politics of identity and informed transnational alliances and the making of global subjects. These gendered narratives became a salient language for fighting state incapacity and human rights abuses, legitimating humanitarian intervention in Sudanese conflict zones. While knowledge about violence against women in North Sudan in the late 1980s and 1990s focused on cultural practices such as female circumcision and, later, on religious practices such as veiling and indecent dress (see the case of Lubna Al-Hussein, discussed in chapter 5), a counter-narrative of violence against minority citizens surfaced in the context of the conflicts in South Sudan and Darfur. At the height of these Sudanese conflicts, the circulation of narratives about Sudan’s ethnic minorities highlighted the tropes of modern slavery, infantilization, ethnic cleansing, and sexual violence. The figure of suffering minority citizens, especially women and children, dominated Western mainstream media and generated heated debate on Sudanese social media and in other public spheres. Throughout media accounts, images of women and children from South Sudan, Darfur, and the Nuba Mountains, often surrounded by Western actors and celebrities, represented innocence tainted by the inhumane practices of the Sudanese Islamist state. These same images were sometimes reproduced to showcase translocal celebrities, political leaders, and role models (such as superstar Alek Wek) with emaciated children and refugees from South Sudan. The meaning of vulnerability associated with the feminization and infantilization in these images is certainly not new. Such images have worked as effective techniques to draw international attention to the realities of wars and conflicts and to raise funds for humanitarian rescue missions since the Biafran War in the 1960s and the Sahel famines of the 1980s. In the context of the Sudan, however, and especially before the secession of South Sudan, these feminized and infantilized narratives acquired a social life and a cultural politics of their own. Scholars such as Makau Mutua, for instance, examine the meanings of human rights narrative styles in the context of colonial and postcolonial representations of Africans as victims and survivors and of Western human rights actors as saviors and liberators in situations of emergency and conflict.54 Beyond the simple savior/survivor rhetoric that these narratives often project, the counter-narratives of Sudanese social actors and activists offer a nuanced perspective on how the circulation of violence narratives serve as constant reminders of a “bare humanity” under assault by the exclusionary prac-

22

Introduction

tices of the Islamist state.55 In my analysis, I show how a variety of transnational social actors and activists circulate stories about infantilization, rape, and other forms of sexual violence as disciplinary tactics and modes of protest to transform public opinion and shame the acts of the Islamist state, and sometimes the acts of opposition leaders, in order to reimagine and reenvision different kinds of national and transnational moral communities. Circulating violence narratives has also become part of the resistance and the contestation politics of many secularists and anti-government activists seeking to subvert the regime’s civilizing mission and its iconic representation of the veiled woman as an epitome of sexual containment and a reflection of a triumphant sharia moral order. They contest the state claims of social order and moral superiority by unveiling the sexual misconduct committed by the regime’s security apparatus in conflict zones and by ordinary citizens who are deemed to be a product of a decaying moral order. My discussion of ethnic suffering and sexual violence against women and minors emphasizes the surge of such stories at critical moments in Sudan’s history, especially on the brink of South Sudan’s secession, and reflects the sense of anxiety and social panic generated by the political debate and tension over the country’s future. In many instances, the circulation of narratives of gender-based violence, similar to the polarization of ethnic identities and the mobilization of ethnic suffering, serves as a “lethal weapon” through which social actors and activists debate the meanings of rights, recognition, and inclusion in national and transnational communities and moral citizenship projects. I coin the term “affective violence” here to show how political violence is often decontextualized by the emotional appeal of such narration. Inspired by Raymond Williams’s notion of a “structure of feeling,”56 affective violence particularly responds to the humanitarian focus on compassion as a force that can be mobilized to envision solutions for political problems, within specific domains of sociopolitical care, which often elide economic and other “injuries of dispossession.” In my account, the emphasis on humanitarian care and solidarity with victims of suffering, however, intersects with other interpretations of humanity, care, and compassion. The term “affective violence” also helps to describe the broader reactions to and engagement with the state of vulnerability and moral panic produced when the dominant visions of pan-Islamism and pan-humanitarianism collide. Throughout this book, I show how affective violence has transformed many transnational sites, especially human rights and humanitarian spaces, into platforms of protest where celebrities, Sudanese opposition members, and other



Introduction

23

Sudanese social actors and activists engage with and contest the dominant narratives and practices of pan-Islamism and pan-humanitarianism through old and new languages and transnational alliances. In many cases, old and new transnational solidarities have also transformed political and social sites into places for recruiting, mobilizing, and educating a new generation of Sudanese (and American) social actors and activists about the politics of rights, humanity, and nation-building. Paradoxically, the transformative ability of these transnational spaces, discourses, and practices also works through exception, dispossession, and ethno-gendered exclusion. Although many actors and activists with whom I spoke during my fieldwork in the Sudan, the United States, and online endorsed human rights as a viable strategy for claiming inclusion in a secular nation-state, many also noted their disadvantaged position as subaltern actors and activists, whose voices are rarely heard on the international stage.57 The interventions made by Western celebrities and other role models on their behalf have helped to articulate their vision of a secular, democratic nation-state through a blend of humanitarian language and attention to Sudanese legacies of resistance and protest. But others point to the exclusionary practices of pan-Islamism and pan-humanitarianism and suggest an inclusive idea of nationalism within which to include all ethnicities in comprehensive national and transnational citizenship projects, whether in the Sudan, the United States, or elsewhere. This latter category of social actors, leaders, and activists projects ideas through diaspora alliances and community work to present counter-responses to these hegemonic visions. Its members also rely on peaceful protests, art and music, and the creation of cyberpublic forums to express their national and transnational aspirations. Affective violence, therefore, serves as a guiding concept that seeks to trace and unravel the transnational production and circulation of narratives of ethnogendered violence and to capture their influence on and perceived meanings in conflicting humanitarian and diaspora publics. Sudanese transnational social actors, activists, and their allies interpret, enact, and perform these circulating narratives, as simultaneous techniques of recognition and exclusion, in ways that reflect their own multilayered social experiences of gender, ethnicity, race, class, and religion. The voices of many social actors emphasize these experiences and reveal broader anxieties about where to live and die; how to build families, communities, and nations; and how to fight for justice and a rightful citizenship status both nationally and transnationally. This book charts the tension and friction and the rise and fall of the master narratives and counter-narratives circulated by social and political actors

24

Introduction

negotiating social exclusion, recognition, and exile at critical moments in the history of the Sudanese nation-state before secession. The competing narratives reveal that the easy-to-consume discourses of ethnic suffering and gender violence overlook significant histories and global factors. They specifically ignore national and transnational political histories and processes, especially the tense post–Cold War confrontations between the Islamists and major representatives of the international community over the meanings of sovereignty, rights, and citizenship. Sensational representations of ethnic suffering and sexual violence also overlook the fluid meanings of cultural affiliation and belonging that are expressed through the struggle and resistance strategies of translocal Sudanese. My analysis situates these narratives and counter-narratives, and the imaginings and contestations of transnational solidarity and belonging, at the intersection of multiple sociopolitical sites and conflicting temporary publics, including rallies and protests, seminars and conferences, beauty pageant contests, school events and community festivals, press media and memoirs, and home gatherings and other public and cyberpublic forums. A prominent example of a digital site is SudaneseOnline, a major cyberpublic forum that facilitates the circulation of and commentaries on many narratives of rights, violence, and national and transnational belonging. Reference to this site informs my overall evaluation of interviews and other cyberpublic accounts and debates.58 My analysis of personal interviews, narratives, and other on-the-ground observations is thus interwoven with press media and other cyberpublic debates that I have documented since 2006 during my travel between the Sudan and the United States. In my consideration of both personal interviews and collective accounts, I treat the interrelated media and social spheres as sites of appropriation, contestation, performance, sociopolitical transformation, and national and transnational alliances. In its entirety, this book offers a new perspective from which to examine how the clash of national and transnational imaginings shapes and constrains the aspirations and struggles of social actors and activists. It also reveals how such a clash galvanizes existing gender, class, and ethnic divisions and produces new interpretations of violence, tensions, and anxieties. Despite persisting structures of violence and the hardening of social boundaries, however, this ethnographic encounter highlights the ways in which transnational Sudanese social actors and activists mobilize competing structures of feeling to make a place for themselves, their children, and their extended families and communities in a variety of global locations. …



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In chapter 1, I begin by showing how the transnational alliances created during the conflicts between Northern and Southern Sudan were performed in different sites and transnational forums to imagine a Southern national identity tied to religious suffering, compassion, and a neoliberal understanding of ethno-gendered humanity. The chapter examines ethnographic sites and other examples that demonstrate what I refer to as the performance of humanity and the formation of a humanitarian public, two mutually reinforcing processes through which new activists, celebrities, role models, and their audiences are socialized into the fields of human rights and humanitarianism. I argue that these processes and mobilizations provided the fertile ground and marked the “right time” for the separation of the country into two nations. In chapter 2, I elaborate on the idea of a humanitarian public by tracing the ways in which human rights and humanitarian cultural politics have proliferated in the era of celebrity activism and the representation of suffering and transnational alliances for the Sudan. I consider the case of the Darfur conflict as a “second wave” in the development of such alliances, one that both diverges from and intersects with the “first wave” of activism. Unlike the early 1990s alliances, when activism for Southern Sudanese centered around faith-based mobilization, this phase gave more prominence to celebrities as narrators, actors, and performers of suffering on the international political stage. I examine celebrity activism as another site of transnational alliances and protests, an extension of a humanitarian public, and a creative way of performing humanity, affective violence, and the right to development. Chapter 3 presents an alternative humanist narrative grounded in the idea of “diaspora publics” and the reassertion of national and transnational citizenship rights in exile. It problematizes the construction of a rigid “Northern Sudanese” identity by considering the voices of seculars, Muslims, and non-Muslims who dream of national unity, diversity, and inclusion, and whose national and transnational aspirations are constrained by the hegemonic narratives of pan-Islamism and pan-humanitarianism. In chapters 4 and 5, I turn to the narratives of ethno-gendered violence in the Sudan that have inspired the responses and counter-responses of various translocal actors and social activists. I introduce the concepts of “audiopolitics” (chapter 4) and “routing visibilities” (chapter 5) as subsidiary renditions of affective violence through which to analyze and understand the process of narrative production and circulation. These terms also help illuminate the transnational work of violence narratives in relation to feminist embodiment and maneuvering politics. In chapter 4, I use “audiopolitics” to suggest that these narratives are

26

Introduction

an effective medium through which the transnational humanitarian audience is mobilized to listen, respond, and act. Chapter 5 engages the term “routing visibilities”—a feminist retracing of the hyper-representation of subaltern human rights and humanitarian actors and role models, including Muslim women. This retracing reveals and critiques the various ways in which violence narratives are mobilized, performed, and harnessed to legitimate moral claims of national and transnational affiliations. I situate these stories within feminist opposition politics, which are often overshadowed by the rescue-and-salvation discourses of Pan-Islamism and pan-humanitarianism. I suggest that these stories must be understood within the tense historical contexts that enable their production and shape the present competition with regard to the meanings of rights, humanity, and transnational solidarities. Routing these visibilities helps to discern the effects of violence—and of stories of violence—on the cultural and political representation of different social actors, the making of global subjects, and the construction of national and transnational identities.

Chapter One

Performing Humanity Suffering and the Making of Global Citizens

They say we were saved by coming here to the United States but we also saved each other, and although our difference may divide us our common humanity unites us. —From the film The Good Lie1

a young Southern Sudanese “Lost Boy,” child-soldier-turned-activist, and hip-hop artist, performed at the University of Michigan as part of the Hip Hop Congress Midwest Summit. According to the Summit announcement, the goal of the event was to counter popular perceptions of the hip-hop music genre as associated with guns, drugs, and sexual immorality and to promote it instead as a vehicle for socioeconomic and political change. Jal lent his identity as a global citizen and performer to the event, which was offered as part of the celebration of Black History Month. Jal was recruited by the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) as a child soldier in the war between the North and the South. He reported that at age eight he witnessed his aunt being raped in front of him and that his mother died as a result of the war. As a child soldier, he was taught to view a gun as his parent and to believe that nothing else mattered. But Jal was among the lucky few who were found and rescued from what he described as a “hellish life” by the well-known aid worker Emma McCune. McCune became a highprofile international aid worker in the Sudan after her romantic marriage to O N FE B R UA RY 5 , 2 01 0 , E MMANU E L J A L ,

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Riek Machar, the influential Nuer SPLA commander, with whom she lived in the South during the height of the second civil war.2 McCune discovered Jal among many child soldiers, chose to adopt him, and later smuggled him to Kenya, where he began his education. After McCune’s mysterious death in a car crash in Nairobi in 1993 while she was pregnant, her friends continued to look after Jal and support his education. Like other Lost Boys, Jal learned to narrate his ordeal, describing his escape from war-torn South Sudan to Ethiopia as a violent experience that drove him to inhumane, cannibalistic thoughts. He recalled, for example, once being so hungry that he attempted to eat the flesh of a dead child soldier. It was suffering through this violence that transformed him from a child soldier to a hip-hop artist and a humanitarian activist who now seeks to end child suffering around the globe. I talked to Jal at the Michigan Union before he went onstage and commended him on his artistic style, to which he humbly responded that he is doing what he can to make a difference in the world. After his performance, the audience responded with cheers. His first song, a tribute to Emma McCune, acknowledged her role as a mother and aid worker who did “angel work” in a world where official politicians “are sitting on their asses, popping champagne, and scrunching the masses.” For Jal, McCune’s humane acts stemmed from a pure, altruistic, and apolitical sentiment motivated by her desire to save the lives of struggling children like him. In the song dedicated to her, Jal employs familiar humanitarian images to narrate the African plight: refugees and poor children roam helplessly with big bellies and faces full of pesky flies, waiting to be rescued. If Emma never cared and rescued him, the song goes, he would have ended up to be another “corpse on the African plain.” Jal’s breakthrough as a performer occurred in 2005, an important year that marked the end of Sudan’s longest civil war between the North and the South. A few months after the signing of the peace agreement, he released two albums: Gua, which means “strength” in Arabic and “peace” in Nuer, and Cease Fire, which he performed with Muslim Sudanese singer Abdel Gadir Salim. Both albums were well received, launching Jal’s career as a hip-hop artist. He gained even more recognition later when he was endorsed by such American celebrities and musicians as George Clooney, Angelina Jolie, and Alicia Keys. Jal’s narrative of violence and suffering—a narrative featured prominently in brochures advertising his performances and foregrounded during his concerts and interviews—is shared by many Lost Boys and Girls of Sudan.3 In this chapter I use Jal’s story to elaborate what I refer to here as the performance of humanity and the formation of a humanitarian public—two mutually reinforc-



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ing processes through which new activists, celebrities, role models, and their audiences are socialized into the fields of human rights and humanitarianism. These processes make it possible for emerging activists and role models to be inserted into an imagined transnational community governed by human rights and humanitarian legal and moral codes. The preconceived neutrality and apolitical function of humanitarian agencies, with their guiding principles of rescue, compassion, and care, seem to transcend the presumed incapacity of the Sudanese Islamist nation-state and its rescue and civilizing mission. I locate these narrated performances—the publics they create and the sociopolitical care that they endorse—in the competition among transnational social actors and activists about the identity of the Sudan and its future. Such competition intensified in the 1990s when many American NGOs began to use the language of ethnic, racial, gender, and religious suffering as a liberation strategy to forge solidarities with Southern Sudanese and counter the panIslamic rhetoric of rescue, liberty, and salvation. These transnational solidarities and humanitarian affinities emphasize the role of faith-based groups in redefining Sudan’s ethnic identities and debating the place of the country in the emerging moral orders of pan-Islamism and pan-humanitarianism. The first visible wave of international alliances, in the 1990s, engaged in an ideological war against the Islamist regime in Khartoum by mobilizing colonial and postcolonial classifications of Muslim/Arab/North against Christian/African/South. These campaigns sought to highlight the inability of the Islamist regime to protect its Southern minority citizens. The reproduction of these categories, narratives, and labels has affected representations of the North-South civil war in Western mainstream media and the production of knowledge about the conflict. It has also generated subsequent waves of activism and solidarity with South Sudan and Darfur and influenced American public opinion and policy toward the region both before and after the secession of South Sudan. In addition, the expansion of transnational mobilizations has shaped the practices of a new generation of Southern Sudanese activists (and their allies), who rearticulate the humanitarian discourses and practices in novel ways to imagine Southern nationhood as a by-product of a just transnational humanitarian order. Their new articulations counteract the idea of humanitarian spaces as politically neutral sites whose sole purpose is to enable aid workers in efforts to save the lives of victims during conflicts and crises.4 Echoing Didier Fassin’s idea that “another politics of life is possible” in these humanitarian spaces, I argue that affective violence and its various manifestations in narrated performances, engagements, and contestations, taking place in newly invented

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humanitarian publics, both enable social actors and activists and constrain their visions and aspirations.5 I follow the performance of humanity and the formation of humanitarian publics through conferences, workshops, and art performances, which political actors and humanitarian activists use as platforms to forge solidarities and to communicate ideas about rights, humanity, and reconstruction.6

Faithful Citizens: Identity Politics and Post–Cold War Transnational Alliances During the escalation of the second civil war between the North and the South in the 1990s, American human rights organizations such as Christian Solidarity International (CSI) and the American Anti-Slavery Group (AASG) highlighted the issue of modern slavery in Southern Sudan and linked the plight of Southern Sudanese with the suffering of Christian, black, and Jewish minorities in the United States. That association served to legitimate CSI’s mission of freeing slaves through the payment of ransoms. The historical context of interethnic conflicts within the South and between Southern Sudanese and their nomadic Arab neighbors had resulted in the kidnapping of women, children, and animal wealth.7 The new specters of violence during the North-South civil war and the alliances the Sudanese government formed with Arab militias and other Southern ethnic groups exacerbated ethnic tensions and resulted in a war economy based on the bondage of women and children as “un-free workers,” and on enslaved captives whose freedom was subject to political negotiations and monetary exchanges. International attention on modern slavery in the Sudan generated heated debate about the context and magnitude of the practice and its exploitation by Southern parties and international organizations.8 In most instances, the CSI human rights campaign was more concerned with tying “modern slavery” to a transnational history of slavery, violence, and religious suffering in the West than with the actual root causes and horrendous consequences of ethnic violence and militarism in the Sudan at that time. As a result, one outcome of the campaign was a legitimization of an assumed oppositional friction and antagonism between Christianity and Islam as sources of national and transnational identification. To emphasize this antagonism, the CSI campaign invoked the history of slavery in the United States and used the term “underground railroad” to refer to its mission and to the Arab-Dinka peace agreements that negotiated the return of captives.9 Among the prominent supporters of the CSI mission



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was Dr. Charles Jacobs, president of the American Anti-Slavery Group. In March 2001 Jacobs flew illegally into Southern Sudan to witness the release of “approximately three thousand slaves”—after which he declared, “My seders will never be the same.”10 In an editorial for the Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle describing his experience, Jacobs wrote that he told the slaves that his people had encountered enslavement in Egypt but that God had redeemed them. In his view, the Southern Sudanese experience was similar to that of both the ancient Hebrew slaves and the Jews who endured oppression in Nazi Germany. This shared experience of suffering, violence, and liberation, Jacobs concluded, was the key to the ultimate redemption of the Southern Sudanese.11 For him, freeing slaves in Southern Sudan was also an act of remembrance that he appropriated to reflect on Jewish history: “What we do as Jews, and it makes us a strong nation, is remember our time in slavery . . . We actually try to get [the former Southern Sudanese captives] to do a seder every year, so that they [will] review what happened to them, because that makes us strong.”12 In describing the moral purpose of the CSI mission, its website cited the failure of the United Nations, the Khartoum regime, and the rest of the international community to acknowledge and combat modern slavery in the South. It pointed to a Judeo-Christian tradition that sanctions the redemption of slaves and cited the twelfth-century Jewish scholar Maimonides, who described freeing slaves as a “religious obligation.”13 This association of suffering with the achievement of freedom projected the establishment of the Southern Sudanese nation as the ultimate form of liberation from Northern, Muslim oppression and cast Israel as a national model.14 The invocation of Israel here emphasizes the history of a Southern Sudanese alliance with Israel and the support that Israel offered to the Southern Army (Anyanya I) in the 1960s as a strategy to gain allies and offset heightened tension from neighboring Arab states.15 Israel was also among the first nations to recognize South Sudan as a new nation. In July 2011 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised President Kiir that Israel would assist South Sudan with infrastructure, communications, and agriculture.16 Today, hundreds of South Sudanese refugees live in Israel, albeit many without legal refugee status (see chapter 4). The biblical narrative of enslavement, suffering, and liberation presented by CSI was important in establishing these early oppositional transnational alliances with Southern Sudanese politicians, activists, and religious agencies. And it was connections such as these that, according to Southern Archbishop Daniel Deng of the Episcopal Church of the Sudan, were necessary for the eventual achievement of Southern nationhood.17

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The CSI mobilization of both Jewish and African American histories in the United States enabled the construction of familiar and easy-to-consume dichotomies that appealed to the American public: white versus black in the US context mapped onto Arab versus black in the Sudanese context. This narrative also employed the language of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century abolitionist movement to contest “modern slavery” in Southern Sudan on both religious and humanitarian grounds. Just as abolitionists collected slave testimonials in order to humanize and dramatize the experience of slavery in the United States, CSI utilized ethno-gendered stories and testimonials that linked the history of slavery in the Sudan to its American liberation mission. For instance, the CSI website compared the story of Mother Josephine Bakhita, a Sudanese ex-slave, to the heroic story of African American ex-slave, abolitionist, writer, and activist Frederick Douglass. Born in Darfur, Western Sudan, in 1869 (during the Turco-Egyptian rule), Mother Bakhita was kidnapped as a child, then sold and resold as a slave in Khartoum. According to the website, Mother Bakhita’s salvation came when she was finally sold to the Italian consul in Khartoum, Callisto Legnani, who took her to work for his family in Italy after the end of his post in Khartoum. Another website, Catholic Online, confirms the CSI story and adds that Mother Bakhita’s treatment in Italy marked her true transformation and the end of her enslavement and dehumanization: For the first time since the day she was kidnapped, she realized with pleasant surprise that no one used the lash when giving her orders; instead, she was treated with love and cordiality. In the consul’s residence Bakhita experienced peace, warmth and moments of joy . . . On their arrival in Genoa, Mr. Legnani left Bakhita with his friend’s wife. [Bakhita then] followed the new family, which settled in Zianigo, near Mirano Veneto. When their daughter Mimmina was born, Bakhita became her babysitter and friend. The acquisition and management of a large hotel in Suakin [Sudan] on the Red Sea forced Mrs. Michieli [Michieli is Mr. Legnani’s friend] to move to Suakin to help her husband . . . Mimmina and Bhakita were entrusted to the Canossian Sisters of the Institute of Catechumens in Venice . . . It was there that that [sic] Bakhita came to know about God.18

Bakhita’s conversion from Islam to Christianity resolved the inherent tension embedded in the presumed inhumanity of the oppositional religion. Her conversion brought her closer to a newfound essence of humanity based on ideas of love, peace, and friendship, despite her continued status as a servant.19 To honor this transformation, Pope John Paul II beatified Mother Bakhita



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on May 17, 1992, at the height of the political tension between the North and the South in the Sudan, and nine months before his first visit there, in February 1993. During that visit, the pope met with President Omar Albashir and with priests and nuns in the cathedral in Khartoum, where he announced his discontent with the Islamist regime’s violation of human rights and mistreatment of Christian minorities. He reminded President Albashir of his universal obligation to bring harmony and freedom to religious minorities in the country. Against this backdrop of religious sentiment and moral duty, Pope John Paul canonized Mother Bakhita as a saint and a “universal sister” in 2000.20 Although Bakhita was originally a Muslim from Darfur, she became a revered figure and an icon of liberation for Southerners in Juba and Khartoum. In 2008, after the commencement of the peace deal between the Northern and Southern warring parties, Reuters reported that in Juba, Saint Bakhita’s face “appears on hats, key rings, badges and brightly printed cloth worn by Southern women.”21 In Khartoum, Southern Sudanese in internally displaced camps (IDCs) regarded her as a revered figure who “rose from obscurity” to become an emblem of hope for a divided nation.22 The power of Saint Bakhita’s narrative, and the connection that the CSI made between her story and that of Frederick Douglass, also attracted the attention of the African American Catholic community in the United States. The National Black Catholic Congress (NBCC) website lists her biographical information and notes that on August 30, 1997, one of her relics was sealed in the altar table of Our Mother of Africa Chapel in Washington, DC.23 When I visited the chapel in May 2015, I noted the memorial site’s design, featuring sculptures and imprints that tell the story of the African American experience from slavery to liberation.24 Although no images or biographical information about Mother Bakhita is featured on the walls or in the decor of the chapel, the reference to her sealed relic on the website attests to the central place she occupies within the African American Catholic community.25 Saint Bakhita’s experience of slavery, conversion, and liberation through Christian faith and compassion therefore serves as a powerful example of how affective violence is narrated to celebrate ideas of humanity, rescue, and salvation. This narration also highlights the feminized vulnerability of the Southern Sudanese and links their struggle to that of Jewish and Christian blacks in the United States. Judeo-Christian alliances and narratives of collective violence, shared suffering, and compassion have been contested by other African American groups in the United States. Speaking at a 1994 press conference in Khartoum, Louis Farrakhan made controversial remarks to the effect that Western movements

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against the existence of slavery in South Sudan were mere tactics to undermine pan-Islamic solidarity and its perceived threat to Western global hegemony. He cited as evidence a 1985 Amnesty International report that indicted Sudan for several abuses, including political imprisonment, torture, and floggings, but did not mention slavery. To illustrate the lack of attention given to issues of slavery and racism in the United States, Farrakhan went on to cite a 1996 Washington Post report stating that slavery had existed in the United States as recently as 1954.26 Given the taken-for-granted political constructions of Sudanese identities along a Muslim/Arab/North and a Christian/African/South axis, the alliance of the Nation of Islam (NOI) with the Sudanese regime seemed to be based on religious rather than racial affinity. Farrakhan’s tactical position can be attributed to the history of Islam and slavery in the United States and the pan-Africanist ties that the NOI has with the Sudan. The establishment of the NOI has a deep history in the efforts of Muslim slaves to preserve their legacy and overcome the erasure of Islam from their social lives in twentieth-century America. In response, figures such as Wallace Fard Muhammad reinstated Islam’s influence through his establishment of the NOI in the 1930s.27 Islam first and slavery second is what Farrakhan tried to communicate in his response to the question of slavery in the Sudan, despite his meeting with Southern Sudanese SPLA politicians like Bona Mulwal and Steven Wondu, who informed him of the conditions of bondage that Southern Sudanese were facing in the context of the war.28 The NOI’s pan-Islamist politics and alliance with the Sudanese regime also points to another peculiar history of a pan-Africanist, transnational kinship affinity with the Sudan. One of the most prominent proponents of pan-Africanism in the early twentieth century was Duse Mohamed Ali, the son of a Sudanese mother and an Egyptian father. An influential figure among diaspora elites in the West, Ali was educated in Britain, later lived in the United States, and died in Nigeria in 1945. His intellectual relationship with Marcus Garvey highlighted pressing issues related to black nationalism, anticolonialism, and the connection of diaspora elites with their ancestral lands.29 Ali served on the organizing committee of the First Universal Races Congress, held in London in June 1911, and was the publisher of the African Times and Orient Review. In 1926, Ali founded the Universal Islamic Society in Detroit, which would go on to “influence, if not inspire, Noble Drew Ali’s Moorish Science Temple of America and Fard Muhammad’s Temple of Islam, both seen as precursors of the modern-day Nation of Islam.”30



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These transnational affinities of the NOI with Muslim Sudan can also be traced back to the African American struggle for citizenship and civil rights during the Cold War. In the 1950s Malcolm X declared Sudanese Muslims to be both religious comrades and members of the black community—an extension of the African American experience. Serving as Elijah Muhammad’s ambassador, Malcolm X toured Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Ghana, and Sudan in July 1959.31 During his stay in Khartoum, he published a letter in the New York Amsterdam News titled “Africa Eyes Us.”32 In it, he described how Sudanese and other Africans were paying close attention to the racial unrest in New York: Racial trouble in New York occupied prominent space on the front pages here and in other parts of Africa yesterday[.] Everyone . . . seems aware of America’s color problems. Africans appear more concerned with the plight of their brothers in America than in their own conditions here in Africa . . . Africans consider America’s treatment of Black Americans a good yardstick by which they can measure the sincerity of America’s offers of assistance here.33

The NOI vision of nationhood as rooted in Islamic solidarity mobilized the history of Islam, slavery, and racism in the United States in order to foster religious affinities with those who opposed Western influence in Africa and the Muslim world. This search for solidarity beyond the American nation-state was a move by many African American radicals on both the political left and right to extend ideas of loyalty and citizenship to the rising nation-states in Africa in the 1950s and 1960s. In his book American Africans in Ghana, Kevin Gaines shows how American African expatriates celebrated the promise of African independence, black modernity, and diasporic consciousness.34 African American elites who contested racial inequalities and the crackdown on dissent in America resisted the Cold War assumptions that their solidarity with Africans equaled a lack of patriotism. Seeking solidarity with blacks and Muslims elsewhere was also an attempt to connect the violence of the past with the struggle of the present. The NOI transnational Muslim solidarity with “Muslim/Arab” Sudan and with its regime, therefore, presented a similar, yet oppositional, narrative to the Judeo-Christian narrative that fostered alliances with “Christian/Black” Sudan at the end of the Cold War. This is not to say that the NOI is not cognizant of the transatlantic, Arab, and internal African slave trades in the continent, but to highlight that both the past and the current advocacy of the NOI for a pan-Islamist, pan-Africanist unity has tended to focus on American racism and imperialism as a strategy to define its political identity and alliances.35

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While Islam is seen as a force of salvation and rescue for the Sudanese Islamist regime and its transnational allies, for the CSI and other Christian faith-based groups, the Sudanese Islamist state represents the culprit by promoting slavery and waging war on its racial minorities. In contrast to the CSI vision, many African American Muslims view such mobilizations as attempts to divide the Sudanese nation-state. For instance, during the week of the referendum vote for South Sudan’s self-determination in January 2011, Sunni Khalid wrote in the Root that many African American Muslims, led by Minister Louis Farrakhan, “espouse a religious solidarity with the Sudanese government” against Western forces that conspire to undermine Islam.36 Moreover, Hodari Abdul-Ali, a prominent African American Muslim and the executive director of the Give Peace a Chance Coalition, an organization based in Washington, DC, called Southern Sudan independence a “disaster” for Africa, the African diaspora, and the Sudan. After sending African American delegates to the Sudan on a fact-finding mission, Hodari cited the Southern government’s propensity for corruption, nepotism, and poor governance as reasons to believe that independence could do more harm than good.37 These faith-based alliances and their rescue and salvation narratives mobilize violence into a powerful rhetorical strategy to build religious affinities in order to define the practices of nationality and citizenship, whether in the Sudan, South Sudan, or the United States. Such state practices are viewed as inherently alienating, corrupt, and despotic regarding the treatment of minority citizens. In these neoconservative visions, the North/South, Arab/African, Muslim/Judeo-Christian dyads served as moral frames for legitimating transnational solidarities based on identity politics and shared histories of violence and suffering. Such alliances have informed the politics of activism for the Sudan both locally and globally and have shaped new waves of mobilization and transnational solidarities, particularly since the 1990s, that appropriate similar gender, racial, and ethnic oppositions.

Lost in the Nation, Found in Trans-nations: Victims, Survivors, and Role Models On the stage of the Michigan Union, Jal introduced himself as both a human rights activist and a humanitarian activist who had turned his suffering into positive energy in the fight for peace and social justice around the globe. At the end of his song for Emma McCune, he commended all of those who attempt to make a difference in the world. Jal’s experience of suffering within the nation and his transcendence of state and paramilitary violence align him



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with a transnational humanitarian order—an order he represents as distanced from the corruption of official state politics. He performs his suffering to an expanding humanitarian public at schools and colleges, through the media, and in other public spheres. Jal’s transformation has earned him the status of role model for other suffering children and youths in Africa and beyond. In 2012, he was named a “young global leader” for the World Economic Forum and became a spokesperson on urgent issues at high-level global conferences and platforms such as the G20 Summit, the UN Security Council, One Young World, and the TED Global Conference, where he spoke against poverty, the conscription of children, and other humanitarian injustices. He also supports and works alongside Amnesty International as one of the organization’s main representatives, and he is involved with various other charities and organizations such as Make Poverty History, the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, and the Control Arms Campaign. As an award-winning musician and a humanitarian activist, Jal documented and directed a film about his own story of affliction, and appeared in the Hollywood film The Good Lie, about the struggle of the Lost Boys of Sudan, which continues to highlight his visibility and transformation into a celebrity and a role model. These global achievements enable him to perform humanity in different kinds of venues, not only at schools and colleges, but also at high-profile performances such as the Live 8 concert in Cornwall and Nelson Mandela’s ninetieth birthday concert in Hyde Park, Britain.38 His public recruitment and journey from victim to survivor to subaltern role model are part of a second wave of transnational solidarities that highlight the role and involvement of celebrities in the politics of charity and human rights. Leading Western celebrities, performers, and role models such as George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Angelina Jolie are increasingly incorporated into the human rights and humanitarian fields, and their involvement in the Sudanese conflicts became highly visible, especially before the country’s separation in 2011 (see chapter 2).39 Jal’s visibility, identity, and activism are not only tied to his transnational citizenship and to broader global concerns, but are also essential for healing the violence and suffering of his own national origin. His global transformation is rearticulated in neoliberal terms and becomes socioeconomic and political capital that can, through humanitarian compassion, heal the suffering of the past and envision a Southern Sudanese future based on transnational human rights and humanitarian principles. Jal channels his performance of humanity, his suffering, visibility, and fame toward his own humanitarian nonprofit

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organization, Gua Africa, the objective of which is to build schools in South Sudan to commemorate the legacy of Emma McCune and educate children to become good citizens of the nation and the world. For instance, the Gua website indicates that the proposed “Emma Academy” in the village of Leer will help to build a peaceful community and also teach children to become productive citizens through income-generating activities. As Gua’s inspirational message puts it, educating a child is equivalent to building a nation.40 Jal’s narrative and my fieldwork with many diaspora and transnational Sudanese social actors and activists before 2011 motivated me to revisit the representation of the Lost Boys of Sudan in the Western media and other public forums. Having observed many events related to the Lost Boys and engaged with some of the youths in various activities, I formulated the concept that the construction of the Lost Boys’ (and Girls’) identities in the United States is part and parcel of a larger project to socialize them as global and national citizens within an expanding transnational humanitarian public. Unlike the early alliances, which relied on oppositional narratives of slavery, suffering, and salvation, the Lost Boys’ experiences are mobilized to create tangible categories that validate preexisting narratives of rescue and suffering and represent these minors as infantilized transnational subjects deserving of humanitarian compassion, aid, and citizenship. The visibility of these new recruits serves several purposes. First, it privileges the narrative of transnational humanitarianism and affirms the incapacity of the sovereign nation-state to recognize its minority citizens. Second, it creates a history for the initiates that ties them to Western neoliberal ideas of human rights and humanitarianism. Finally, it educates a new generation of talented global citizens to fill the void of the incapacitated nation-state by creating alliances with Western NGOs and building their own humanitarian organizations in their home countries and elsewhere. Here, efforts of development are no longer tied to ideas of sustainable development alone; they are also connected to how emotions, compassion, and their effects can be mobilized to reconstruct what the violence of wars and conflicts has destroyed on both the sentimental and the physical levels (see chapter 2). The construction of the Lost Boys of Sudan as a singular identity began when many Southern Sudanese youths were caught in Africa’s longest civil war and forced into military conscription. Some, however, managed to flee to refugee camps in neighboring countries like Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda. In 2000 the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the US Department of State approved the resettlement of four thousand un-



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accompanied minors in the United States. After the arrival of the Lost Boys, questions were raised about the absence of girls from this category. Reponses ranged from cultural restrictions, which prevented girls from traveling to the United States, to the focus of the SPLA on the conscription of male minors. Later on, a few Lost Girls migrated to the United States as orphans who had lost their relatives in the conflict and were thus incorporated into the category of minor children who deserved care and protection.41 The Lost Boys, however, continue to dominate the debate about the effects of violence on child soldiers. They have become the focus of numerous interviews, reports, and books, all of which are written in the “translated suffering” genre, which follows the standard format of a singular narrative supported by testimonials of suffering.42 Narratives of this sort have become an integral component of the performance of Lost Boys’ and Girls’ identities and the humanitarian ideals they represent. Early media treatments of the Lost Boys’ flight from the refugee camps and their arrival in America reproduced sensational and stereotypical images of the “dark continent,” exaggerated to grab people’s attention and appeal to their emotions.43 The extent of violence and suffering experienced by these boys drove them to eat insects and grass, drink their own urine, and fight with jungle carnivores in order to survive. Their life histories were lumped together into one single category and narrative form, which, according to Leslie Butt, is necessary to create “conditions of accountability, which can push the poor and suffering into the capital-driven folds of international NGOs, development interventions, and state initiatives.”44 Describing how the Lost Boys were caught between warring parties in their home country and efforts of humanitarian agencies to aid them, their narratives of violence and suffering entered the “causeumerism”45 market economy in the form of popular memoirs, documentaries, movies, and coedited books that garner political attention and attest to Sudan’s horror under the Islamist regime. The representation of the Lost Boys in mainstream media implies images of liberal humanism that frame Africa and its people as inherently violent and warlike, a Peter Pan’s “Neverland” of “exotic wonders”46 that hosts tigers, beasts, and savages who threaten the security of the land with their disruptive guns and cannibalistic practices. Indeed, the Peter Pan story is perhaps the best example to invoke here to describe the reproduction of such images and representations. Just as Peter Pan can traverse the time-space continuum through his enabling magic power of flight, he can also engage “others” in alliances that ultimately crown him the “Great White Father,” especially for the

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unfortunate Lost Boys who, sadly, fell off “their perambulators when the nurse [was] looking the other way.”47 Such representations suggest a subordinate image of the Sudan (symbolizing Africa) as a mother who fails to care for her own children. Sudan’s lost children can be rescued and adopted by other caring transnational agencies whose humanitarianism and compassion exceed and transcend those of their national caretakers. Yet a closer look at the Lost Boys’ representation of their own stories in alternative media and in my own interactions with some of them shows that their flight to America was anything but magical, given the harsh economic realities and the strict screening requirements that they experienced as refugees.48 Jongkuch, a Lost Boy interviewed for his school journal, the Spartan Daily, in 2007, described the rigorous process that Sudanese youths had to endure in order to qualify for resettlement.49 Over the course of eight interviews, he was screened for his “educational skills, personality traits, and goals for the future.”50 In the end, he was one of the four thousand youths who became “the chosen ones.” The neoliberal global economic disparities and political processes through which this decision was reached were often obscured in mainstream media representations of suffering and flight. Left to prove himself through the neoliberal ethos of meritocracy and hard work, Jongkuch, a college student, commented on how he worked forty hours a week and slept only four hours a night in order to complete his education. In the absence of state systems providing long-term assistance for refugees, humanitarian agencies, churches, and adopted families present alternative sites for them to access economic resources. Using his constructed identity as a Lost Boy of Sudan, Jonkuch managed to capitalize on the power of humanitarianism to help his family and village back home in South Sudan. He raised four thousand dollars to buy a mill for the impoverished residents and is hoping to raise eight thousand dollars for medical supplies. Jongkuch raised these funds in various humanitarian publics, including schools and churches, where he lectured about his experiences of suffering and his attempts to overcome them through perseverance and hard work. His ability to attract such significant support illustrates how refugees’ agency and responses are shaped by the politics and performance of humanitarianism in public spaces. Other narratives of the Lost Boys have exoticized Dinka youths and represented them as tall, dark-skinned African sufferers whose experiences have pedagogical value. The story of Benjamin Ajak (age twenty-six) circulated on SudaneseOnline, with an image of him embracing a white eighth grader.51 Ajak, who received “a reception worthy of a rock star at Rincon Middle School,” spoke



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to American students about his journey from Sudan to Kenya. Chosen as one of the Lost Boys of Sudan, he came to America after eight years as a refugee in Kenya, during which he escaped lions, crocodiles, rebel guerrillas, and the government military. But his flight from Sudan haunts him, as his airplane trip, “the first [he] had ever taken, took him over New York City the morning of September 11, 2001. Looking out the window, he saw the World Trade Center towers burning. Diverted to Canada, he eventually arrived at his new home in San Diego two weeks later.”52 In these accounts, the Lost Boys are rendered visible as witnesses of their own suffering and as subaltern celebrity ambassadors and global citizens entrusted with raising awareness about the violent conditions in their home countries and about Africa’s troubled place in the world. As a role model celebrated for enduring suffering and hardship on an “inherently” violent continent, Ajak told hundreds of eighth graders to value their educational privileges, explaining that he had learned the alphabet by jotting letters down in the dirt. “Don’t repeat my mistakes,” he continued. “Don’t do what I do . . . I have a black-collar job. It’s black because of my sweat.”53 His narration of suffering grounds his identity and place as both a subaltern global citizen and a prospective Sudanese American in a culture of charity, compassion, and hard work. He has been “a bagger at a grocery store, a bathroom cleaner at . . . [a] casino, and an 18-wheel truck driver, which took him to 48 states.”54 According to a mentor for the International Rescue Committee, Ajak also volunteered to speak at a juvenile detention facility in Oakland. “He loved it . . . I think he’s found a new career,” she said.55 As a general witness to Africa’s chaotic violence, Ajak is often called on to respond to students’ questions about Africa’s representation in Western media and films. When one student asked him whether Africa’s depiction in the movie Blood Diamond is real, Ajak responded, “Yes. War is the same all over the world, but our war was more about religion.”56 These representations celebrate the entrance of the Lost Boys into the Western-defined realms of humanity and international care as commentators on their own suffering and the violence they endured.57 My experiences of watching Lost Boys documentaries in US movie theaters and on TV screens have been fraught with mixed feelings, including the urgency of raising awareness about suffering and the risk of gazing at Africa’s sufferers from afar. As is the case in Peter Pan, those who are “lost” are often imagined to be deviant from the norm or to be part of the primitive. Similarly, documentaries about the Lost Boys tend to highlight awkward encounters between Western humanity, represented as the epitome of modernity, and its antecedent.

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Captured images of the Lost Boys’ departures and resettlements are not free from a hegemonic understanding of Africa as a “bush-land,” whose traditional ways are contrasted with Western modern humanitarian practices. Fixation on the Lost Boys’ facial expressions as they board planes, or on their footsteps as they climb escalators for the first time, reveals how these lost subaltern actors are made visible in modern humanitarian terms.58 To be found, the Lost Boys have to be brought to civility and to the center of social care and compassion. They are taught how to shower and use deodorant, how to rethink Christianity in modern terms, and how to marvel at the wealth of supermarkets in a depoliticized fashion that naturalizes poverty and celebrates a neoliberal ethos of hard work and neoconservative intimacies of charity, faith, and compassion.59 In the context of neoliberal humanism, Africa’s suffering people can be “given a new lease on life”60 only through humanitarian rescue—a process often mediated by feminized and infantilized images of womanhood, motherhood, and childhood that undermine Africans’ complex political histories and struggles. To be fair, we must acknowledge that such mediated images also offer the audience a glimpse of how these visible subaltern actors can comment on the racial and class aspects of refugees’ daily struggles. When celebrating their transnational religious alliances with the many faith-based agencies that facilitated their resettlement, Sudanese youths often comment on how they embraced the neoliberal ethos of hard work with little state assistance in order to fend for themselves and for their families back home. They also describe how they endured racial discrimination and negotiated endless bills and penalties imposed by state bureaucracies. A Southern Sudanese activist I interviewed on the US East Coast commented on her own work with the Lost Boys of Sudan, critiquing the ways in which the media highlighted their suffering without emphasis on their daily struggle and the impact of war trauma and violence on their mental health and general well-being. Rather, the Lost Boys’ entitlement to “modernity” is celebrated through the mediation of their visibility as a chosen group of Sudanese, African sufferers, a model minority that attests to the role of Western humanitarianism and to the neoconservative ethos of faith and compassion that counters the oppression of Islamism and its own narrative of rescue and salvation. There is no doubt, however, that humanitarians and survivors are caught in entangled networks of power and that they struggle within a humanitarian economy characterized by meager resources available to privately funded institutions, all of which constrain their attempts to battle the harsh realities of war, violence, and poverty. During a public commemoration lecture at the



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University of Michigan, Sister Luise Radlmeier was celebrated for her humanitarian efforts in assisting the Lost Boys and Girls of Sudan in Kenya.61 Sister Luise, a native of Bavaria, had spent much of the past fifty years of her life in Africa doing missionary work. Sent by the Dominican Sisters, she taught at Kenyatta University and began to develop a personal mission of assisting children from war-torn countries, among them three hundred Lost Boys and Girls of Sudan. Her humanitarian work included establishing dorms, schools, and clinics to aid the expanding numbers of refugees who sought out her help after they were discharged by UNHCR. “The picture of these emaciated lads in tattered clothes was really pathetic—a good number of them had tropical sores,” she said. “I rented six rooms—one to be a kitchen and five to be bedrooms. We only could afford two-inch mattresses on the floor.” Medical care was unavailable, and she described how she boiled chamomile tea to cure the children’s tropical sores. She also expounded on her monetary struggle, begging for money from the German welfare society, the Hindu society, the Catholic secretariat, the Jesuit refugee service, and her own relatives. Sister Luise, who identified herself as “someone from the bush of Africa,” was close to tears when she greeted some of the Lost Boys and Girls (now men and women) who had journeyed from across America to attend her ceremony. She commented on her joy at witnessing their transformation from the “scruffy little rascals” who first came to her to very “nice, established gentlemen who have traveled long distances in sleek cars, which they drive by themselves.” She continued, “I am proud of them, which shows that the efforts we are putting into helping refugees are not in vain—they bear fruits.” Sister Luise’s humanitarian work won her the attention of the leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), the late John Garang, who met with her, commended her service, and bestowed upon her the responsibility of “preparing the manpower that is needed to build the country once peace has come to Sudan.”62 Sister Luise’s ceremony is an example of a humanitarian public event that illustrates the porousness of humanitarian ideologies and their openness to religious and neoliberal logics. It also shows how discourses of humanitarian compassion and care shape activists’ alliances and constrain their agencies. Faith-based activists and the Lost Boys and Girls of Sudan tactfully use discursive practices of humanitarianism to present suffering through “the appeal of experience.”63 Micklina Peter, one of the Lost Girls, flew all the way from Colorado to attend Sister Luise’s commemoration.64 Onstage she described her experience to the audience and attested to the courage and struggle that Sister Luise un-

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dertook to help the youths manage the hardship and discrimination they faced daily as refugees in Kenya. Still, coming to America was not easy for Micklina, who went through the lengthy interview and selection process in order to qualify. She told the audience about the resourcefulness of American institutions and the poverty back home. She said that she once responded to a journalist’s comment that she must be one of “the lucky ones” by saying, “How can I be the lucky one, if I am the only one here? Can you clap with one hand?”65 She then described the separation from her family and the suffering of those who are left behind. Appealing to the audience to participate in humanitarian efforts, she talked about how she learned to be a humanitarian from Sister Luise’s experiences and how she is determined to help others. Being in the United States, Micklina continued, was “an eye opener,” especially thinking about the girls at home who lack the resources to do what they want to do and who “are always forced to do something they don’t want to do.”66 Indeed, such individual efforts to alter the realities of poverty and suffering should be celebrated. At the same time, the limitations of these efforts should be situated within broader neoliberal disparities that render humanitarian work the only viable solution for mitigating the effects of war, violence, and poverty. These efforts also point to the ascendance of post–Cold War transnational political alliances and their mobilization of identity politics, which continue to view the world through narrow, polarized categories. Such humanitarian alliances, despite their entanglement in global politics, do create alternative spaces that provide aid, care, and compassion, but they also relieve accountable governments and institutions of the duty to implement sustainable development and execute economic justice on equal grounds. In the case of the Lost Boys and Girls of Sudan, these humanitarian spaces have also become settings for socializing a newly recruited generation of global citizens to fill the role of absent governments in the fields of economy, conflict resolution, and the management of diverse identities.67

Building a Long-Distance Nation: The Lost Boys and Girls Conference in San Diego In the year 2009, many Sudanese transnational social actors across the United States were involved in responses to the Darfur crisis and the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the North and the South. For those at home and abroad, the national election, which was planned for April 2010, represented the last term in the CPA’s five-year transitional period. This election would be a catalyst in determining the future of the na-



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tion and the result of the referendum.68 Sudanese and their allies were busy in the United States and at home working toward possibilities of both unity and secession. Activists’ debates about the fate of the nation were communicated through various Sudanese media outlets and materialized in other public settings as well, among them lectures, seminars, and conferences. In many of the meetings and the conferences I attended, issues of equal citizenship and rights were at the center of the debates and conversations. As I was navigating the divided Sudanese ethnic landscape in Washington, DC, during my fieldwork in 2009, a Southern Sudanese activist I met at a public event informed me of an important public meeting featuring a group of Lost Boys who were participating in the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) anniversary in the Washington area. The group was planning a conference in San Diego after the SPLM event, and I was invited. Deng Chol, a former Lost Boy himself, is the cofounder of the National Network, a nonprofit, nongovernmental humanitarian organization focusing on the experiences of the Lost Boys of Sudan. Deng told me that the conference would take place at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego, June 19–21, and that it would be an important gathering for the Lost Boys and Girls, as the youth group hadn’t met since its reunion, documented in the film The Lost Boys of Sudan. The conference would also shed light on a significant moment of diaspora organizing before the end of the CPA term. Like other meetings I attended on the US East Coast, this one brought together Lost Boys and Girls of Sudan, their “American friends,” Southern Sudanese elders, and SPLM delegates. This gathering was unique in that it focused on the Lost Boys and Girls as a group whose shared suffering and struggle have now been mobilized to build their homeland. Many of them, however, viewed the conference as an opportunity to reunite with one another and try to make sense of their hybrid place in the United States and the Sudan. Upon arrival, they shared hugs and greetings, expressing their joy and excitement at reconnecting with old friends. One of the Lost Boys said that he had not seen several of his friends since they were at the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. He explained that work and school prevented him from traveling to visit them. The conference was a great opportunity to meet and to learn more about ways of enhancing one’s education. Many of the youths explained that education was the best way to navigate the American system and promote the development of South Sudan. As Ngor, a Lost Boy who came from Phoenix, Arizona, put it later: “It was a very informative, well-organized, and engaging conference. So many committed people talked

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about a promising future for South Sudan. I am tired of hearing negative things. This conference was different because it gave us hope.” As the Lost Boys became the focus of national attention in the United States, their stories continued to feed public interest in Africa’s political conflicts and the consequent disruption of children’s innocence and familial relationships. As narrators of their own suffering and as subjects of media reports and book productions, the Lost Boys were transformed from invisible victimized children to visible survivors, role models, and transnational citizens. Their broken kinship relationships at home were supplanted by new transnational familial bonds of care through adoption, schooling, contact with other diaspora Sudanese members, and the humanitarian networks and publics within which they perform. Such visibility was not without its toll, however. Deng, for example, politely explained to me that it “comes with fatigue.” He commented on how many people asked him to write about his experiences so as to write their own books and reports. He noted that his “celebrity” status made him a public subject at a young age. “What if I want to write my own book, and my own story, at some point in my life?” he retorted as he apologized about not being prompt in returning my calls for an interview. He said that at least the conference in San Diego would give the Lost Boys a chance to meet and the organizers time to go beyond discussions of how to help the Sudan and move into advising them about career development in the United States. The Lost Boys and Girls of Sudan National Network, the nonprofit organization that organized the conference, was established in May 2008 by a South Sudanese and American board of directors. The stated mission of the network is “to promote the well-being of the Lost Boys and Lost Girls in the United States and to foster their dream of rebuilding Southern Sudan.”69 As specified in its mission statement, the network is not a political organization, but it does provide a platform for the Lost Boys and Girls to engage in dialogue and to exchange information pertinent to their development as a singular group of youths whose suffering is harnessed for the reconstruction of Southern Sudan. Having suffered the loss of their familial networks at home, the Lost Boys and Girls are viewed as lucky to have gained new families and friends in their host country who now help them to navigate their new life trajectories and initiate them into new roles of leadership and humanitarian activism. The Lost Boys and Girls are therefore positioned as both sufferers and agents of peace and development. As the president of the board of directors, Julie Mabus, wrote in her welcoming remarks to conference attendees:



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Each of us, regardless of our heritage, has a special story of how we got to this particular place . . . and through these stories and our united passion for this cause, we will become inextricably linked together as we move forward in a common goal . . . so now, come in with a spirit of love, a commitment for hard work and an agenda to dream and share those dreams with your new family . . . As Dr John [Garang] said, “We will have peace through development. If we work together, and if we refuse to quit, we have the ability to be a real and lasting part of true peace in Sudan.”70

This sentiment of creating a new domain of care and building a transnational family that seeks to foster solidarity and soothe the suffering and trauma of war and conflict found various forms of expression during the conference. The meeting opened with a “Peace Drum Circle” ceremony during which the Lost Boys were meant to connect with one another, with their American friends, and with their cultural legacies (figure 3). According to the conference brochure, this session was led by Christine Stevens, an American musician who directed the first drum circle training with Kurds and Arabs during the war in Iraq. Before the music began, Christine, who is also a music therapist, explained that drums and music are tools for bringing people together. She said that music is the only language spoken by everyone in the world, and then she described how she had used drums to reconcile differences between Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq. Dak, a member of the Lost Boys Center in Phoenix, said that drumming is a “call from God,” and its transformative effect can change lives and bring the Lost Boys and Girls together. Then fifteen of the boys began to play large drums onstage. The performance also engaged the audience, whose members began to dance around the auditorium. The next day, there was more drumming involving the Lost Boys and Girls and the audience. Christine led the circle and asked participants to stand in the middle and share dances or stories. One of the Lost Girls stood up and sang a beautiful song about Southern Sudan, asking, “Who is going to save [the country]?” A Lost Boy followed and sang a choir song in Dinka. The session ended with a Southern Sudanese dance performed by another Lost Boy; his performance energized the crowd and he then invited other Lost Boys and Girls to dance and drum with him. The National Network, which organized the San Diego conference, is supported by influential American activists, artists, philanthropists, and political leaders whose engagement with Southern Sudan gave them the necessary background to invest in this segment of the Southern Sudanese diaspora and mobilized them to give back to the war-torn country. The transnational familial connection and its public events are made possible through interfaith alliances

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and humanitarian networks. The conference handbook listed many groups and institutions such as Humanity United, Outlaw Productions, and Point Loma Nazarene University as supporters of the network and conference. According to a conference handout, participants included approximately two hundred Lost Boys, twenty-five Lost Girls, thirty senior Southern Sudanese (referred to in these settings as elders), and about thirty “American friends.” In the opening remarks of the conference, Debbie Newmyer, the widow of filmmaker Robert Newmyer, founder of Outlaw Productions, began by reciting the Shehecheyanu, a Jewish prayer for beginnings. Robert Newmyer founded Outlaw Productions in 1987. When he died suddenly in 2005 at the age of forty-nine, his wife Debbie took over the company, which has produced more than twenty-five films, including the Hollywood action films Training Day and Breach. Both of the Newmyers were involved in the Lost Boys resettlement efforts, and they both helped to organize the first Lost Boys reunion conference, in Arizona in 2004. During the San Diego conference, we learned that the company was working on a film based on the story of Valentino Deng, one of the Lost Boys who was featured in the award-winning book What Is the What, written by Dave Eggers. Debbie and other members of Outlaw Productions also serve on the board of directors for the National Network. After Debbie’s opening prayer, Elizabeth Kuch, one of the Southern Sudanese conference organizers, asked the audience to observe a moment of silence to remember those who had passed during the war. She thanked the American friends for their presence and reminded the Lost Boys and Girls that they are the backbone of the Sudan and that it was a time for them to contemplate why they were “called upon” to undertake the long journey to America. She went on to say that the conference would teach them how to become leaders of the Sudan. After acknowledging the role of elders, fathers, and mothers, she concluded by asking the Lost Boys and Girls, “So what do you want to do for Sudan?” It was clear that religion played an important part in facilitating the transnational alliances that were evident at the conference. Many participants said that they were following the path that God had planned for them. The Lost Boys and Girls talked about how God had chosen them and brought them to America for a reason and said that they had a responsibility to fulfill their mission by returning to South Sudan to help in the development and reconstruction efforts. Some of the development projects undertaken by leading American humanitarian activists, such as Gloria White-Hammond and Dave Bowman, foster transnational relations between “American friends” and their



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Southern Sudanese counterparts based on such religious affinities. These development projects were featured at the Opportunities for Development in the Sudan workshop during the conference and presented as success stories for the youths to adopt as models for rebuilding and reconstructing South Sudan. Bowman, a retired dental technician who had raised five children with his wife and later adopted five of the Lost Boys, was one of those who described his project to the group. In 2003 he founded an organization called Partners in Compassionate Care in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to support the building of a medical clinic in South Sudan and give back to his adopted children’s community. The clinic, which includes operating rooms, became a successful training center for American medical students who travel to Sudan to assist with basic operations. To date, the clinic has performed more than five hundred successful surgeries. It is supported through grant funds and volunteers from the United States such as the Muellers, a missionary family. Bowman wants to build a chapel and a teaching hospital next to the original clinic, but is concerned about the lack of support he received from the Lost Boys. He consulted with Dr. Ajak in Sudan, who attended the board of directors meetings via satellite, to determine how the hospital could best work. It was decided that the hospital would charge a small fee for operations in order to sustain its functions and help break the cycle of dependency in the village. After the workshop, one of the Southern Sudanese youths commented that he did not understand what Bowman meant by saying that the Lost Boys are not helping and that they must unify if they are going to get anything done. According to this youth, the Lost Boys “are doing whatever they can to raise funds.” Bowman’s comments and the youth’s reaction demonstrate the pressure that the Lost Boys face within the context of a humanitarian public that expects their constant participation and that utilizes their visibility to raise funds for reconstruction efforts. The workshop on development opportunities at the conference offered discussions about microfinance, an economic strategy promoted by financial institutions such as the World Bank, as an alternative to building development projects in the South. Presenters viewed fund-raising as vital to humanitarian efforts to reconstruct the South and bring peace to the region. As Beny, who led the workshop, said, “Human ideas create money, and education and skills will energize the Southern Sudanese communities.” He then introduced Craig Sternagel, an American who had biked across America in 2008 to raise funds for the cause of the Lost Boys. Sternagel told the audience that his bike ride was inspired by one of the Lost Boys he encountered in the United States; the

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money that he raised enabled him to establish a partnership with Sudanese teachers in the South and purchase bicycles for them. His investment in education corresponds with the priorities highlighted by many of the South Sudanese he met. He also presented an overview of some of his current projects, such as solar-powered flashlights and lightbulbs, with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. These devices can be used in schools, but he also stressed the need for books, pencils, paper, and desks. One of Sternagel’s goals is to have villagers create a wish list, thus ensuring that they receive things they actually want and need, rather than what Americans think they should have. The conference provided a public site where the Lost Boys and Girls were presented as the face of change for the Southern nation-to-be. Success depends upon harnessing their visibility in order to foster interfaith and other humanitarian alliances to ameliorate the effects of violence and to imagine a Southern nation from afar. This was clear from the conference’s emphasis on having the youths themselves and their “American friends” lead the event. The elders participated, and a few of them spoke, but they did not play a prominent role in the discussions. Some of these elders were SPLM delegates or senior diaspora Southern Sudanese who are also invested in introducing this new group of youths to an imagined idea of a new Southern nation. Some Lost Boys at the conference explained that the elders are shown great respect, but that their role is to supervise rather than play a fundamental part in the conference directions and proceedings. The Americans, by contrast, were involved in almost every presentation or discussion. There was always a sense that the “American friends,” like the elders, were looked up to and admired. Several Lost Boys made a point throughout the conference of standing in order to thank the Americans for helping the Sudanese. These bonds of family and friendship are often highlighted as significant for fostering a sense of solidarity that transcends the idea of nationhood, but at the same time they are mobilized to perpetuate a distinction between the Americans and the Sudanese, the elders and the youths, the lost and the found in their efforts to build an imagined nation from afar. As one Lost Boy remarked, they are always reminded by their elders and American friends to think about South Sudan because it needs reconstruction; hardly any discussion time is devoted to what the Lost Boys and Girls should do for America. The Lost Boys and Girls, therefore, occupy a liminal place as American citizens or citizens-to-be, whose suffering and freshly constructed identities are directed toward building their homeland, not their host country. The sentimental ties of friendship, care, and compassion implied throughout the conference



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proceedings foreground the idea of building a transnational family, based on a predominant narrative of Western humanitarianism. Members of this global family are united through interfaith solidarities, diaspora consciousness, and shared struggles and beliefs.71 Yet the idea of transnationalism in this context implies that the American national project is a finished enterprise, whose elite members have to be recruited to build nascent national projects elsewhere. In this sense, the transnational humanitarian narrative of solidarity also works through hegemonic perceptions and exclusions that render refugees liminal citizens in their host countries and incomplete citizens of their home nations. Their incomplete status in their original homeland has to be redressed through their insertion into an imagined transnational community, whose religious and humanitarian alliances have the power to heal, soothe, rebuild, and make them whole citizens again (see chapter 2). Both national and transnational citizenships here are presented as processes that involve redemption, initiation, transcendence, and incorporation. These humanitarian publics offer the “lost” youths the opportunity to meet, socialize, and imagine their place within newly forged domains of social care. They also provide spaces for commentary and critique. Two Lost Boys interviewed at the conference were not hesitant to express some of their critiques of the conference organization. They explained that the conference was not inclusive, since most of the Southern Sudanese attendees were from the major Dinka regions, especially from the Upper Nile and Bahr el-Ghazal. The ethnic diversity of the South was represented neither at the conference nor in the development efforts that the presenters discussed. Many of the Lost Boys and Girls, however, viewed the conference as an opportunity to meet and to think about home, away from home. As some participants put it, because American life is hectic, these meetings offer a familial atmosphere in which to learn how to “make a difference.” Through workshops, seminars, and conferences, they come to see how their experiences of suffering can be transformed into social and economic capital for rebuilding their homelands. In this scheme, each individual is understood as having the power to raise money and give back to his or her own community. Koor, for instance, has dreams of setting up a medical facility in the South. Although he appreciated the idea of the hospital that Dave Bowman built, he said he would have taken a different approach. Rather than focusing all his funds on building one state-of-the-art facility, he would have built several smaller facilities to make health care available to more people and help prevent curable yet deadly conditions such as malnutrition, cholera, and dysentery.

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Similar to the spirit of performance evidenced by Jal in his interaction with humanitarian publics, the San Diego conference ended with a performance by another Lost Boy artist, Mijok Lang, known as Hot Dogg. Although less visible than Jal, Hot Dogg is well known in the Southern Sudanese youth community. I first met him on May 24, 2009, at a youth conference organized by United Sudanese Youths and held at American University in Washington, DC. Before his performance at the conference, he explained the origin of his name to the audience.72 A hot dog was the first food he was introduced to when he arrived in Canada. “I thought wherever you go you can have hot dog. I went to Burger King once and asked if I can have a hot dog and the girl who worked there said to me, ‘Excuse me—we don’t sell hot dogs here’ . . . For someone like me who is coming from the jungle, hot dog tasted very good,” he said, as the crowd laughed and cheered. At the San Diego conference, Hot Dogg began his performance by telling his own suffering story. He recounted walking from Sudan to Ethiopia, and then to Kakuma camp in Kenya as a boy. Many of his friends at Kakuma were sent to America, and after a few months he was one of the few left. He wrote down his frustration in a letter to God, begging to leave the camp. A few days later, he and some others were gathered around the only television in Kakuma, watching a sermon given by a preacher from America. At the end of the sermon, the preacher said that he had a message for Samuel (his name then). He said he was referring to a Samuel wearing specific clothing, and he described the same clothing that Hot Dogg was wearing at the conference performance. God told the preacher to tell Samuel that He had received his message and would send him away from the camp within three weeks. Sure enough, within three weeks Samuel was granted permission to immigrate to Canada. Hot Dogg reminded the youths about their duty toward South Sudan and that they were in America for a great reason. When he first went onstage Saturday evening, the Lost Boys seemed skeptical. The visibility and fame that some of the Lost Boys have received in the media have created some tension and skepticisms among those whose visibility is relatively overshadowed. But as soon as Hot Dogg began talking, the crowd became jubilant. Hot Dogg told them to ignore his fame and reminded them that he was just another Lost Boy and that he was very excited to be among his people again. He dressed the same way the Lost Boys dressed in the Kukuma refugee camp, sporting baggy, colorful clothes and shoes handmade from tires, known as tamut takhali (it



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lasts after you die). “These are sandals made of car tires,” he told them, “and though sturdy, are hard to wear in the hot summer of the Sudan, but we wore them because they were the only shoes we could afford.” By wearing these shoes he wanted to remind his young friends and the world that suffering exists and persists, but it can also be transformed into a positive force. This is the reason why his songs are songs of hope and unity, he said. Hot Dogg and several of the Lost Boys then began to sing songs from the camps, and many began to cry. Hot Dogg said that John Garang had been the hope for the Sudan but that his death, a few months after the peace agreement was signed, cast a pall over their national dreams. He went on to say that Garang used to tell the Lost Boys to go to school because they would be the next generation to build Sudan, but he died before he could see their success. He then sang one of his songs, titled “Lost Boy,” as many of the Lost Boys crowded around him and began to place money in his shirt and pockets. After his performance, Hot Dogg told the audience that all of the Lost Boys were brought to America for a reason; hence the money he raises is given to war-affected children. He also appealed to the Lost Boys to focus beyond Southern Sudan and address the atrocities in Darfur. At the time I was doing my fieldwork, Sudanese politicians presented both unity and secession as possibilities that Sudanese might expect after the Comprehensive Peace Agreement ended. But the conferences and meetings that I attended with Southern Sudanese projected a strong sense that a Southern nation was on the horizon. The potential for this outcome resulted in a political climate of tension, uncertainty, and anxiety within which a predominant master narrative of humanitarianism was fostered by many NGOs and their Sudanese allies in the diaspora to challenge the legitimacy of the Islamist regime in Khartoum and pressure it to pave the way for a smooth implementation of the final CPA terms. At the conference in San Diego, for example, the vision of an independent Southern Sudanese nation seemed possible. One way to imagine such nation-building is through these performances of humanity and the mobilization of violence into affective techniques that help construct new and singular ethno-gendered identities. In the case of the Lost Boys and Girls of the Sudan, such singular identities have become a lens through which affective violence is mustered to educate a new generation of global citizens about soothing the pain of war and violence and rebuilding their own wartorn nation.

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Beauty and the Nation: A Liberal Path from Suffering, to Stardom, to Salvation Imagining a Southern Sudanese nation entailed both religious and secular narratives that disassociated it from the antithetical construction of a Muslim/Arab/North. The representation of Southern suffering and the violence of war that early narratives of slavery, salvation, and redemption reproduced emphasize an important post–Cold War shift. These narratives demonized the practices of the Islamist regime and humanized the solidarities based on faith, human rights, and humanitarian care. The construction of new ethnogendered identities for the Sudan’s Lost Boys and Girls represented another phase in the attempt to highlight the Southern problem, this time through what we might call a “celebritization” of suffering that projected discourses of rescue and salvation in a gendered, infantilized fashion in order to imagine a future for the troubled region. However, lost youths was not the only category through which a Southern nation was imagined and realized. African beauty itself became a category that mobilized liberal meanings of gender, race, and ethnicity and was incorporated in the affective transformation of violence, the narrated performance of humanity, and the celebration of transnational affinities and alliances. Alek Wek remains by far the most popular of the many youths I encountered during my fieldwork. The South Sudanese/Dinka supermodel, who made headlines in trendy Western magazines and other media outlets, became an idol for many female youths in America and South Sudan. Her fame celebrates a particular kind of exotic African beauty that was later replicated in the invention of a Miss South Sudan beauty pageant in the United States. A new category of role model and global citizen was constructed, mobilizing beauty as a site for the performance of humanity and as a route to stardom, class mobility, salvation, and ultimately national reconstruction. The history of the beauty pageant and its relation to the diasporic population and to humanitarian missions are embedded in American consumer economy, the commodification of gender, and the politics of ethnicity, class, and race relations.73 In the American context, the modeling and beauty pageant industries have their fair share of ethnic and racial tensions. Somali supermodel Iman relates how the beginning of her career was challenging because beauty experts did not know what to do with her skin tone, which prompted her to establish her own line of beauty products, Iman Cosmetics, for women of color.74 Iman’s incorporation into the beauty industry and her fame as an “exotic” transnational supermodel opened the door for a younger generation



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of black models such as Tyra Banks, Kimora Lee Simmons, and Sudanese Dinka Alek Wek. Ebony magazine’s historic fiftieth-anniversary issue, from 1995, features Alek, Iman, Tyra, and Kimora, each embodying a different kind of struggle and a different tone of blackness. The Ebony interviews detail struggle and success within the competitive and less-than-diverse beauty and fashion industries. Each interview includes a note titled “Giving Back” and describing the celebrity’s contributions to humanitarian causes. “Beauty and image,” Iman maintains, are the “currency” with which a model can claim her place in the industry and create a vision of how to use that currency to promote young models. Reality shows such as those of Iman and Tyra Banks illustrate new changes in the industry—the ability of unknown stars and designers to gain visibility through televised competition by winning hefty prizes that enable them to launch their own labels and become recognized and featured in magazines.75 Alek Wek appeared during the 1990s, at the height of the second civil war and the mounting tension between the west and the east over the identity and future of the Sudan. She represented a different kind of blackness, one that embodies the violence and suffering of war and displacement. Alek’s tall figure, her dark, velvety skin tone, and her short, curly hair added a new dimension to the exoticization of beauty in the Western popular imaginary. She rose to stardom after a famous photo shoot for the US magazine Elle in 1997, in which she posed against natural elements such as water, wood, and sky in order to advertise a new line of leather swimsuits. Alek was the first black model ever to appear on the cover of Elle, and soon she was being featured in other popular magazines in the United States as well, among them Vogue, Essence, Vanity Fair, and Ebony. She represents a distinctive kind of slick, black body that ranks her as one of the top models in high-fashion circles and on runways all over the world. She appears in advertisements for such top designer companies as Ralph Lauren, Dior, Valentino, Clinique, and Victoria’s Secret, and her résumé details the numerous shows in which she has participated, noting her ethnicity as a Sudanese/Dinka tribal woman and her nationality as British. Her body measurements—US size 4 dress, height five foot eleven—align with the demands of a Western consumer market, apparel economy, and clientele.76 In her popular memoir, From Sudanese Refugee to International Supermodel, Alek relates the story of her transformation from a suffering Sudanese/Dinka girl to an international supermodel. As a witness to war atrocities committed by both the Sudanese and the SPLA armies in the 1980s and 1990s, she fled her destroyed village in the South and traveled to Khartoum, where she stayed with

The Peace Drum Circle ceremony at the Lost Boys and Girls Conference in San Diego. Photo by Kamana Khadha. FI G U R E 3 .

Alek Wek distributing soap to refugee children in South Sudan in 2012, as part of her role as UNHCR Humanitarian Ambassador. Photo by UNHCR. FI G U R E 4 .



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her aunt in a two-story building. Life in Kartoum provided a stark contrast to her struggle as a young girl who tended cows, picked up their manure, and sometimes used cow dung as mosquito repellent and toothpaste. In a village surrounded by puddles and swamps and infested with diseases, which kills people in thousands, cow urine is the best medicine to protect the people from lice, flies, and mosquitoes, she wrote. She juxtaposed these graphic memories with the images of the beautiful villas she saw in the magazines brought by aid workers who came from Europe to help the villagers. She reported being curious about these disparities, but was unable to locate their origin. Were the neat tables, the sunflowers, and the soft golden light that adorned villas illusions or did “people really live like that?”77 In her interpretation, the horror of war was alleviated by the goodwill of Christian missionaries and the workers at NGOs who came from “all over the world” to help improve the lives of village residents.78 But as a supermodel with “maid service, room service, laundry service, and turn-down service,”79 Alek can see two different worlds: a ghostly land of soldiers, militias, and rebels who were leading a fierce and extended power struggle that left behind trails of destruction and dead bodies, and a new “land of the riches,” characterized by freedom and plenty, which could embrace her and soothe her suffering.80 Amid this plenty, Alek suffered from another affliction, psoriasis, which she attributed to a number of factors, among them the climate, the stresses of life, and the effects of puberty. In Britain, she was physically transformed from looking like “a monster” to looking like a “superhuman,” as she describes her healing process. She writes: “It’s so strange that I grew up to make my living off of my looks, after so many years of looking like a monster . . . I am lucky we didn’t have many mirrors.”81 Unfortunately, some of Alek’s African attributes came to haunt her in her search for liberty and refuge. She recounts how her African black skin set her apart from other students, who would often misjudge and treat her as a primitive country girl or “the unsophisticated African, whose skin was darker than night.”82 At the height of her fame, however, it was her exotic looks that branded her image as unique, separating her from others. At a London street fair in 1995, a modeling agent spotted her and recommended that she consider the modeling industry. Alek’s understanding of fame, she writes in her book, was that it was something to be made, and she was proud to have been able to “make it.” Before she could get a contract for a runway show, she cleaned bathrooms and posed for Burger King advertisements. For an African woman, the beginnings were rocky. Even when she obtained a role in Tina Turner’s GoldenEye music

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video, she was asked to pose “in a leopard-print bikini, leather boots, with wild tribal makeup, in a dark room.” She writes, “I am an elusive, dark, exotic creature who appears for about ten seconds,” because “they wanted someone exotic who lived in the jungle.”83 Above all, she continually had to struggle with advertisers’ fear that her image was too risky to sell to their consumers. Alek’s gendered and racialized image of beauty, rebranded in the West, has now become a humanitarian currency through which to reveal and elevate the suffering of others, especially that of her troubled nation. Because of her worldwide visibility, Alek became a spokesperson for faith-based charities and global relief agencies such as World Vision International, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the Refugee Advisory Council, and Bono’s (Red) campaign to fight AIDS in Africa (figure 4). In an interview with the Independent in 1999, Alek explained that her devotion to humanitarianism stems from her own experience and her desire to alleviate human suffering on the global level. Sudan is just one of many troubled nations that she highlights through her humanitarian work. “I had seen suffering before, but I’d never seen so many children who were near death from malnutrition. It was overwhelming. That’s when I realized what a toll the war had taken on my country.”84 On one of her trips to Southern Sudan with Doctors Without Borders, in 2004, Alek became a humanitarian, determined to give back part of the success she had gained in the West to her war-torn country. In her memoir, Alek poses with emaciated Southern Sudanese children in her arms, replicating already popular images used by charities and humanitarian organizations in their advertisements to raise funds for Africa. The gendered mobilization, racialization, and exoticization of beauty evident in Alek’s narrative, similar to the narratives of violence presented by many human rights groups and recruited role models, trace a trajectory of salvation that begins with suffering and ends with celebrity and a mission to give back. Alek’s beauty and suffering function as a kind of transnational currency that admitted her to the beauty industry and enabled her to achieve class mobility. This currency has also transformed her into a humanitarian activist and a global citizen with a particular role to play in healing the suffering of others (figure 4). These modes of incorporation and healing are channeled and narrated through the cultures of consumerism and through the religious and capitalist ethos of perseverance, hard work, and transcendence.85 Alek’s story celebrates humanitarian practices of rescue, salvation, and saving lives, and presents different routes through which fame and visibility can be employed to craft new meanings of identity, nationhood, and global citizenship.



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Most significantly, her visibility and stardom have opened the door for a fresh articulation of how beauty can be harnessed to create new gender norms tied to neoliberal ethos, humanitarianism, and nation-building for Southern Sudan. Modeled after the Miss America and Miss Universe beauty contests, the Miss South Sudan beauty pageant represents another humanitarian public in which the identities of young Southern Sudanese women are remade and incorporated into a popular Western performance that emphasizes beauty and sexuality as essential qualities for gender inclusion and participation in the project of nation-building and global citizenship. When I began my fieldwork in the United States, the South Sudan beauty pageant was a popular topic among Sudanese youths. While some celebrated the event, many were critical of it. Few considered it a forum for discussing issues related to gender and cultural politics in the country. Although I was not able to attend any of the pageant contests, I followed them online and watched some of the contestants perform in other events. The pageant was founded in 2006, one year after the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the North and the South, with the goal of introducing South Sudan and its diversity to the world through its women. The Government of South Sudan (GOSS) Mission to the United States and the foundation established by the Lost Boy Valentino Deng were two of the three main sponsors of the event, which took place in several cities in the United States. According to the pageant website, the event’s objective is to “create role models who through the beauty pageant will serve as ambassadors who will define a new South Sudan, enrich the beauty of the Southern Sudanese women and enhance a new strength, energy and spirit for the advancement of Southern Sudanese women.”86 As a nonprofit group, the pageant also serves as a humanitarian organization. It relies heavily on donations and fund-raising, the proceeds of which are directed to the development of the South, particularly to “help provide life-saving medical aid to the people of Southern Sudan.”87 The beauty pageant recruits young Southern Sudanese Americans or Americans-to-be to represent a new vision of Southern Sudanese culture, Southern diversity, and nationhood. Unlike the Lost Boys, whose narrated performance of suffering plays a large part in their mobilization to build the nation, the beauty pageants utilize ethnic differences to construct a diverse form of beauty for imagining national and transnational belonging. During the pageant events, the contestants pose in front of the audience in chic, sexy garments while speaking about their ambitions and their vision for a new South Sudan. They are presented as Southern Sudanese idols whose role is to empower others

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and/or alleviate suffering. The vision of the beauty pageant is political in that it imparts a fresh, feminine, young look to the imagined Southern Sudanese nation. Top politicians and influential Southern Sudanese figures have sponsored and often attended the event as special guests. The Sudanese activists I spoke with or formally interviewed in the Washington, DC, area debated the politicization of these new identities and their efficacy in presenting real solutions for South Sudan. These new affective practices and performances are also debated on an array of youth platforms, such as the United Sudanese Youth conference that I attended in Washington, DC, on May 24, 2009. During this event, Southern Sudanese youths, SPLM leaders (elders), beauty queens (Miss South Sudan), and their American friends gathered at American University for a full day of meetings. A few Northern Sudanese attended in solidarity with their Southern counterparts to discuss issues related to unity, citizenship, nationhood, and belonging. The gathering was organized around public speeches, art performances that included comedy and songs, and casual conversations over lunch. Two women—the former and the present Miss South Sudan—sat in the first row wearing tight, sexy dresses, high-heeled shoes, and sashes and tiaras. Nathalie Zambakari, Miss South Sudan 2008–09, was pleasant when I approached her for a short conversation. She quickly entered my telephone number and e-mail address in her iPhone, promising to respond to my request for a lengthy interview, but she never did so. Beauty, she noted in our brief exchange, is not just physical beauty; it also incorporates talents, intelligence, and one’s ability to use education to help empower other women. When onstage, Nathalie addressed the youth conference about her role as a beauty queen. Although she was skeptical about the South Sudan pageant at first, she said, she now embraces it as a necessary mission: “The judges gave me the opportunity to voice my opinion. They gave me a crown, a sash, and a scholarship.” She was able to use this opportunity to raise awareness about the atrocities in the South and in Darfur at a public event in San Diego that five thousand people attended. The chance to speak out against injustices made her “feel proud to be Sudanese and African. If you have a sash and a crown people pay attention to you. I don’t know why.” Nathalie said she tries to use her visibility to communicate a vision about Sudan and Africa that is different from the one presented in the mainstream media. She now embodies the image of an empowered African woman who can work hard to become a beauty queen and a minority model student. When she was in school in Arizona, she said, children would ask her if she was truly



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African and if she lived in the jungle. Her answer was always that they would have to go to Africa to understand it. As part of her humanitarian activities, Nathalie collects books and clothing and sends them back to her home area in South Sudan. As a role model, she also wants to illustrate for young girls that beauty is about not just looks, but also brains. She says, “I am creating a role model for young girls because if I mess up, other girls will mess up, too.” Nathalie, whose fair coloring and straight hair embody a different look, said that her father is European, from Belgium, and her mother is Southern Sudanese. Although she lived with the Azande ethnic group in the South, her grandparents hail from two other Southern ethnic groups. When Nathalie’s parents divorced after twenty-three years of marriage, she and her mother escaped the war in the South and lived in refugee camps in Africa until they moved to America in 2001. Nathalie is now in college and is establishing her own nonprofit organization, which she calls Beauty and Brain, to help girls get a better education. Some of the youths at the United Sudanese Youth conference took issue with the role models’ representations. After Nathalie’s speech, a Southern Sudanese boy commented on how girls are buying into Western feminine ideals and taking them for granted. A female attendee also critiqued the idea of the South Sudan pageant because in her view it promotes women’s sexual objectification by accepting beauty as an essential criterion if women are to play an effective role in the community, the nation, and the world. One of the organizers of the conference responded to these critiques by asking, “What should they [the pageants] do if this is what society wants?” Many attendees agreed that new norms needed to be balanced with Sudanese practices, and that the positive values of cultural norms in the Sudan and the United States needed to be incorporated. Just as violence has been mobilized as a medium through which suffering can be performed in humanitarian and diaspora publics, beauty operates as another means through which to socialize Southern Sudanese female youth for the role of leadership and the performance of their humanity as well as their differences on the global stage. Beauty pageants in the United States, as well as in Africa and other parts of the globe, reflect national anxieties with regard to diversity, ethnicity, and race, which are all performed by young women onstage and in various social and political publics.88 Although Miss South Sudan is performed in the United States, its sister pageant, Miss Malaika South Sudan, also initiated after the signing of the CPA in 2005, is performed in South Sudan. Since the beginning of the latter

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pageant, many beauty queens have acted as cultural ambassadors for South Sudan in contests such as those in South Africa, China, and Vietnam. Some of these women are educated in the United States or Kenya and then return to work as government employees in the South. As beauty queens, they are also part of the public conversation regarding humanitarian aid and some of them, like Miss Malaika Atong Ajak, have even built their own humanitarian organizations. During the preparation for the referendum of South Sudan, Atong represented South Sudan in the Miss Earth contest in Vietnam. On her way to the contest, Atong was officially received by representatives of the Government of South Sudan and members of the Southern Sudanese diaspora in Cairo as a cultural ambassador representing Sudan at a decisive moment in its history. Benjamin Maryal, the GOSS representative in Cairo, said in a news report that as Miss Malaika, Atong is an important figure, just like any other government representatives of South Sudan.89 The beauty pageant, like modeling, became a site for producing new gendered national and transnational subjects and humanitarian performances. Politicians and humanitarians alike inscribe meanings of borders, nationality, and citizenship on the bodies of young women, based on feminized ideas of beauty, fun, and play. These feminized and sexualized qualities are harnessed and put to task to serve a broader global agenda that advances humanist ideals of charity, seeks to alleviate suffering, and aims to reconstruct nations. Beauty queens are positioned as icons of a Western-based modernity that fosters solidarity and affinity with Southern Sudan and grants inclusion in national and transnational citizenship projects through a particular history of neoliberal feminism and humanitarian practices. This representation of gender through the mobilization of sexualized beauty remains in tension with the Islamist representation of the veiled woman as an epitome of modesty, containment, and salvation (see chapter 5).

Identity Politics and the Production of Difference The examples presented in this chapter reflect a wide range of debate about the mobilization of violence and identity politics in the production of ethnogendered narratives, the making of subjects and transnational alliances, and the reimagining of nation-building. Actors and organizations in solidarity with Southern Sudan imagined the nation as a project tied to Christianity and neoliberal humanitarian ideals that counter the ambitions of a pan-Islamist alliance. Early transnational solidarities with Southern Sudanese focused on a particular kind of ethno-gendered violence narrative that rendered the North-



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South conflicts visible in the international arena. The mobilization of narratives of modern slavery and religious suffering in these early alliances highlighted the tense West-East political debate over the identity of the Sudan and its place in the two emerging global political orders of pan-humanitarianism and Pan-Islamism. Later alliances among faith-based, human rights, and humanitarian groups, however, mobilized the narratives of ethno-gendered violence in novel ways to produce new infantilized and gendered subjects as narrators and performers of Southern suffering. These performances have been affectively harnessed not only to raise awareness about violence and war atrocities but also to alleviate suffering and reconstruct an imagined nation. Such mobilizations and the narratives they produce manifest in temporal humanitarian publics, which then make possible the transformation of Sudanese youths from victims and sufferers to survivors and role models. New subaltern celebrities and role models then perform humanity through their own stories of suffering and endorse human rights and humanitarianism as solutions to end violence and rebuild communities. Socialized within a neoliberal humanitarian public, the Lost Boys and Girls of Sudan, as well as Sudanese beauty pageant contestants, serve as goodwill ambassadors whose embodied experiences stand in for particular visions of inclusion in national and transnational citizenship projects. The hierarchical ordering of youths’ experiences on the basis of infantilized suffering and sexualized beauty, however, undermines the experiences of other Sudanese youths who also struggle to become participatory citizens of their host nations and of the world. At the end of the youth conference in Washington, DC, for instance, I spoke to a few attendees about their experiences. Some of them were born and raised in the United States, others moved with their parents from the Sudan to Egypt and then to the United States, and still others moved with their parents from Sudan to Kenya and then to different parts of the United States. Many of them did not relate to the experiences of the Lost Boys or those of the beauty queens, although they were aware of the circumstances, including class, that shaped their transnational experiences. Despite the fact that their stories receive little attention in the mainstream media or on the stages of humanitarian publics, many of these young people are active in the diaspora community, and they too aspire to make a difference. Muhammad, a Northern Sudanese youth whose family moved from Khartoum to the Arab Gulf, came to the United States to study. He participated in the conference to support two of his Southern Sudanese friends, to announce the release of his first novel,

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and to hold a book signing at the event. He and his friend Deng offered me a ride home, and on the way, they told me about their aspirations and dreams. Deng was applying to study criminal justice, and Muhammad had started working on a degree in molecular biology. They were both enthusiastic about the conference and the youth activities directed toward furthering development in the Sudan. Neither of them spoke of returning to the country, however; rather, they explained that their understandings of the Sudan were shaped by their experiences of living abroad. Even though they wish they could have lived in the Sudan, they think of themselves as American citizens first. Their American-ness is shaped, in turn, by the ways in which they are often told, at home and in public, that they should engage with Sudan and with their cultural legacies. The celebrity status of Sudanese role models, they understand, is very political and often masks the efforts of other youth groups and secular activists. Other youths and activists expressed similar observations during the many shifting alignments that characterized transnational solidarities for the Sudan before—and especially on the brink of—its separation.

Chapter Two

Humanitarian Publics Celebrities, Solidarities, and Students

It’s my right to sing the world . . . Stretch out your hands all humans . . . liberty, peace, liberty. —Muhammad Al-Hassan Salim Hummaid1

seventy “women leaders” to spend International Women’s Day, March 8, on Capitol Hill to celebrate the organization’s activist theme of “Sisters on the Planet.” A diverse group of influential women including politicians, faith-based activists, and celebrities responded to the invitation to promote President Obama’s global Feed the Future initiative, which assists women farmers in establishing land ownership and control over food resources. The summit highlighted the achievements of two women in particular: Kristin Davis, one of Oxfam’s global ambassadors and an actress known for her role as Charlotte York Goldenblatt in the television series Sex and the City, and Anna Oloshuro Okaro, a Maasai woman from Tanzania, who battled social restrictions and fought for women’s rights to own land and livestock. During the summit, cameras turned to Davis as she explained her work with women farmers in Tanzania and her efforts to support their cause. She burst into tears as she talked about how her experience gave her life a different meaning and made her a better person. By utilizing her celebrity image, Davis helped increase the likelihood that the world and policy makers would pay attention to an important issue. However, Anna Oloshuro Okaro was given far less media attention, even though Oxfam sought to honor the achievements of both women. Anna’s presentation I N 2 0 12 , OX FA M A M E R I C A I N V I T E D

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emphasized the significant lobbying efforts of Oxfam and its global ambassadors to eradicate poverty and empower women farmers. Oxfam’s summit was not the only event that publicized advocacy efforts in March 2012. That month also saw the viral spread of Jason Russell’s Kony 2012 video campaign—an initially famous, later infamous, episode of celebrity activism related to efforts to capture the Ugandan rebel Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, on behalf of Invisible Children.2 A few days later, as part of International Women’s Day, Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton celebrated the activism and human rights advocacy of ten women who had had significant impact, primarily in the Third World. Among the more notable women who won the United States Department of State International Women of Courage Award were Samar Badawi of Saudi Arabia, Maryam Durani of Afghanistan, Hana Elhebshi of Libya, and Darfurian Hawa Muhammad Salih from the Sudan (figure 5).3 Tawakkul Karman, a Yemeni activist and Nobel Prize winner, was a guest of honor at the event. During that same month, the media also publicized George Clooney’s arrest in front of the Sudanese Embassy in Washington, DC. He was protesting the humanitarian crises in Sudan’s new war fronts of the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile, where violence erupted after South Sudan’s division on July 9, 2011. These seemingly unrelated events demonstrate the performance of a prevalent cultural politics of human rights and humanitarian activism in an expanding humanitarian public. Similar to the efforts of Southern Sudanese subaltern actors and role models, in recent decades celebrities, performers, and human rights activists have increasingly been using their fame and reputation to shed light on the realities of war, violence, and political turmoil, principally in non-Western countries. This chapter focuses on Darfur to show how affective violence manifests in the performance of celebrity activists, the representation of suffering, and the education of a new generation of students and role models in yet another phase of transnational alliances that both intersected and diverged from the Southern Sudanese model. The mobilization for and narration of Southern Sudanese suffering since the 1990s clashed with the government’s master narrative of rescue and salvation. The popularized narrative of the Darfur conflict before and after the country’s division also drew heavily on themes of rescue and salvation that criticized the capacity of the Islamist state to incorporate minority citizens. Unlike the 1990s, when alliances highlighted the role of faith-based activism, the turn of the century witnessed the rising prominence of celebrities as narrators, actors, and performers of suffering on the international political stage. Celebrity mobilization created new transna-



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tional alliances based on a vision of inclusiveness and humanity-as-one-family connected by sentiments of love, compassion, and care. The problem with this transnational vision, however, lies in its embeddedness in the same divisive colonial and postcolonial gender, ethnic, and class categories that it attempts to challenge. It emphasizes violence and suffering as dominant tropes through which to understand transnational alliances and exchanges. When celebrity actors, friends, and allies translate violence and suffering into affective solutions to aid victims and survivors, their efforts often overshadow significant political histories, as well as the role of other translocal actors and political players. Celebrities’ advocacy for the Sudan is not a new phenomenon; it is part of a much longer genealogy of celebrity activism to end poverty and suffering in Africa and elsewhere. Since George Harrison and Ravi Shankar’s concert to aid Bangladesh in 1971, various organizations, including the UN, have harnessed the fame and visibility of celebrities as both symbolic and political capital to raise money for rescue and development missions to Africa.4 In a 2008 New York Times Magazine article titled “The Celebrity Solution,” James Traub refers to this phenomenon as the “celebrity-philanthropy complex.” Traub notes the development of a vast and growing philanthropic industry with recruiters, managers, and a hierarchy of stardom. Celebrities who focus on certain global causes—like Emily Procter, who advocates for animal rights—occupy the lower tiers, while actors like Angelina Jolie and George Clooney rank at the top of the stardom pyramid because they focus on refugees, particularly on Darfurian refugees.5 Today, celebrity activists take on prominent roles as human rights activists, development experts, adoptive parents, and mediators in global North and South relations. As their messages of global solidarity draw attention to political atrocities, they also highlight the heightened tension between the politics of national and transnational sovereignty and governance. The increasing presence of celebrity activists on the global political stage tells a corresponding story about the shrinking space of governmental responsibility and the recruitment of talented citizens to fill the moral void created by the politics of war, conflict, and stringent economic policies. Global crises arising from war, conflict, or even the climate are no longer political issues that governments and states tackle alone. Rather, they become moral issues, related to the domain of compassion and social care, that certain global citizens—especially the rich and famous—are recruited to address. Celebrity activism for the Sudan represents this flourishing rights and humanitarian culture through which institutions recruit celebrities, performers, and other activists to engage in a politics of compassionate care that seeks to eradicate violence and human suffering around the globe.

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This category of politics positions individual actors and activists as moral leaders whose role is to enhance global solidarities by speaking on behalf of the suffering, within newly created, temporary humanitarian publics. In this broader vision, as members of the global family and as “citizens of humanity,”6 celebrity activists play a significant role in bridging the chasm between accountable institutions and their suffering citizens. Through the humanitarian lens of keeping politicians, policy makers, and the global community informed about global atrocities, celebrities are also able to enhance their own fame and visibility by redistributing their wealth and experience. They are socialized into a transnational humanitarian family to become the conscience, and the “eyes and ears,” of invisible governments and other institutions on the global political stage (see chapter 4).

New Affinities at the National Mall: The Holocaust, Rwanda, and Darfur As Southern Sudanese negotiations for peace were making headway before the decisive year of 2005, the confrontation between the Darfurian rebels and the government of Khartoum intensified in 2003, leading to the death and displacement of large numbers of the population in the region. By late 2006, one year after the signing of the peace deal with the Southern army, the United Nations declared Darfur one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the twenty-first century. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof emerged as a prominent journalist who raised the visibility of the conflict through his constant calculation of casualties— a practice that led to a heated debate about the politics of naming, counting, and labeling.7 The debate focused primarily on whether the Darfur conflict constituted deliberate genocidal and ethnic cleansing by the Sudan Islamist regime and its proxy Janjaweed militia.8 Although the Bush administration and various humanitarian groups designated the conflict a genocide—an intentional act by the government of Khartoum to wipe out a whole ethnic group—the UN deemed the atrocities war crimes and crimes against humanity, a category that implicated all warring parties. Thereafter, the Darfur conflict moved quickly to the center stage of media coverage and international events amid increasing tension and fear in the aftermath of 9/11, and threats of sanctions and invasions against the Islamist regime. It entered the realm of American presidential debates, television shows, video games, print media articles and reports, website debates and discussions, and religious activists’ rallies in more than fifteen US cities. Between 2005 and 2009, I counted the production of nineteen documentary films; the publication of thirty-five items (including memoirs, scholarly articles, and policy writings);



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and the establishment of thirty-one nonprofit organizations, campaigns, and advocacy groups—all focused on Darfur. Actors like George Clooney, Mia Farrow, Don Cheadle, and Angelina Jolie, and talk-show hosts like Oprah Winfrey, emerged as important agents mediating the crisis and its coverage to the American public. As an ad for an episode of ER that dealt with Darfur put it, such dramatizations brought the tragedy of the conflict directly into viewers’ living rooms. Taglines advertising Darfur-themed episodes of other television shows—from “There is a Holocaust going on right now” to “Painful to watch” and “They need help”—worked powerfully to draw public attention and solicit donations and signatures for further public and state action. This type of “glamorous visibility” transformed the meaning of war violence into an opportunity for compassionate care, rendered the tragedy a poignant foreign affair, and legitimated the intervention of humanitarian NGOs and western governments in the name of transnational solidarities and global citizenship. Janjaweed militia members were represented as invading villages, raping women, and burning villagers’ copies of the Quran. “Bad Arab-Muslims” emerged as clearly recognizable villains associated with media discourses on Islam and America’s war on terror. The aforementioned ER episode represented Darfurian women in particular as “violated bodies,” subjected to the masculine violence of “Arab aggressors,” whose political tactic of rape sought to wipe out Darfurian racial identity and breed Arab babies (see chapter 4). These tropes constructed new dichotomous identities that distanced Darfurians from a Muslim-Northern Sudanese identity and relegated them instead to the status of suffering minority citizens, deserving of international protection and inclusion under a transnational humanitarian order. Clooney played a central role in raising awareness about the conflict and keeping it alive in the mainstream American media. He first visited Sudan with his father, Nick, in 2006, after which they both appeared publicly to speak as witnesses to the horrific situation in Darfur. Deploying moral discourses of human rights and humanitarianism, Clooney cautioned against the international mistakes made in Rwanda, vowing that genocide should never happen again.9 His advocacy for Darfur engaged other celebrities and activists and put the conflict at the center of transnational debate. He produced and narrated the documentary Sand and Sorrow, detailing the atrocities he had witnessed in the region (figure 1). On April 30, 2006, Clooney addressed a rally I attended on the National Mall in Washington, organized by Save Darfur and other NGOs and faith-based groups.10 At the rally, he spoke again about what he had seen, and later, in the TV special “A Journey to Darfur,” he repeated his comments. In his advocacy for Darfur, Clooney used his prominence to bring attention to

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the plight of Darfurians and to alert the international community that the government of Khartoum was violating the UN resolutions to end conflicts in the Sudan. Through his role as an advocate for the Darfurian cause, Clooney often commended the work of humanitarian groups in conflict areas and encouraged governments and pressure groups to facilitate and support that work. During the rally at the National Mall in 2006, American celebrities, American students, faith-based groups, and a few Southern Sudanese protested in an effort to sway American policy toward Sudan. Activists framed their protest around “genocide” and “mass killing” in the Darfur region to present a case against the Islamist regime and to push for military intervention throughout the region. An American “Save Darfur” pamphlet distributed by activists at the Darfur rally displayed photos of young Darfurian girls on the front cover and stated: “Nearly three years since the violence began, the massacres continue, women are still routinely raped as a means of ethnic cleansings, and children still go hungry.” The pamphlet also explained the role of the Save Darfur group in organizing the rally and advocating for Darfur. The Save Darfur organization is a coalition of more than a hundred faithbased, humanitarian, and human rights organizations aiming to help end “the mass killing and ethnic cleansing carried out by the Muslim-led Arab Sudanese government against the ethnically black farmers living in the western region of Darfur.”11 The Save Darfur Coalition, initiated by the American Jewish community and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, organized the rally at the Mall, which served as a political space for alliances among Jewish organizations, Christian evangelists, a few other religious groups, political leaders, and celebrities. As I walked through the crowd of an estimated ten to fifteen thousand participants, my ears were filled with angry vows and chants—“Never again,” “Not on our watch, Mr. Bush,” and “Stop violence in Darfur”—all against the backdrop of a big screen showing clips of the Darfur region and life in refugee camps there. While I spoke to some people and overheard others, I mapped the ethnic and sociopolitical composition of the rally: a few Sudanese here and there among the majority of white participants. A little girl, her mother, and their greyhound puppy pushed through the crowd, and I stopped them to take a photo of the “Save Darfur” sticker on the puppy’s back. A little boy asked his father, “How do I say ‘Never again’ in Hebrew, Dad?” I spotted a few black students and read their banners: “Denial Is Not Another River in Africa,” and “Stop the Violence in Darfur.” A white youth stood in the crowd with a banner that showed images of emaciated African children and read, “If I Lived in Darfur.” Just behind me



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another young Caucasian student proudly chanted the words written on her banner: “Out of Iraq into Darfur.” At the beginning of the rally, a demonstration of about a hundred Southern Sudanese entered the Mall carrying “Save Darfur” banners, chanting antiAlbashir slogans, and calling for a new Sudan. On the same day as the Darfur rally, the radio program Washington Journal aired an interview with Southern Sudanese exile Simon Deng, presented on the show as a human rights activist and as living proof of slavery under Islamic sharia rule. As a “freed slave,” Simon Deng has been a spokesperson for victims of “modern slavery,” or, as he represents himself, he “stands as a voice for those who have no voice” under Northern Islamic rule.12 In the interview, Deng stated that “Darfurians were killed because they did not take the Arab culture, though they are Muslims.” He explained that by raping women, “the Janjaweed are forcing women to reproduce Arab babies.”13 The demonstration of Southern Sudanese at the Mall and Deng’s interview corresponded with Southern Sudanese politicians’ and human rights activists’ responses to the Darfur conflict after the end of the war in the South. These diaspora alliances from abroad were deemed necessary to maintain the pressure on the Sudanese regime to fulfill the terms of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) and respond to the demands of the growing Darfurian lobby in the United States. The rally, held on the day that was the deadline for the government and the Darfurian warring parties to sign a peace agreement, was an explicit cry for intervention in Darfur. Though the Sudanese government opposed intervention, the Government of South Sudan (GOSS) welcomed military intervention on the grounds that the CPA allowed the deployment of ten thousand UN troops in the South. Since the commencement of the North-South peace deal, Southern Sudanese leaders had been actively conducting independent negotiations with the Bush administration and speaking at seminars and conferences organized by Sudanese communities in the DC area and in other states. These communications among opposition groups were a source of heightened anxiety for Sudanese intellectuals at home and in exile about orchestrated attempts to fragment the nation. Notably, Darfurians who had been active in community organizations in the DC area and beyond were not well represented among the speakers or participants at the rally at the Mall. Their absence compelled some of the Sudanese with whom I spoke after the event to view it as not just a push for intervention but also a political strategy that staged “Southern Sudanese” as a model “blackChristian minority,” whose plight could stand as testimony to the suffering of

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other Sudanese. An article in the Washington Post considered other possible reasons for the underrepresentation of Darfurians at the rally: Keeping the peace within the diverse Save Darfur Coalition has not been easy. Tensions have arisen, in particular, between evangelical Christians and immigrants from Darfur, whose population is almost entirely Muslim and deeply suspicious of missionary activity. Organizers rushed this week to invite two Darfurians to address the rally after Sudanese immigrants objected that the original list of speakers included eight Western Christians, seven Jews, four politicians and assorted celebrities, but no Muslims and no one from Darfur.14

The Washington Post also reported that some Darfurian activists had complained about the involvement of Sudan Sunrise, a missionary evangelical group, in the organization of the rally. On its website, Sudan Sunrise defines itself as a “faithbased” organization initiated by Americans and Christian Southern Sudanese in 2004 to bring “the Sudan mercy story” to the attention of the world, while also facilitating “the reconciliation and Christian mission in Sudan.” A call for donation concludes: Supporting Sudan Sunrise represents a golden opportunity for Americans of all faiths to “walk their talk,” and to help a movement in Africa that could inspire a new way of overcoming animosities among nations and groups of people around the globe.

The Washington Post reported that Sudan Sunrise eliminated a reference from its website appealing for money to help convert Darfurians in Chad, the justification being to bring “the kingdom of God to an area of Sudan where the light of Jesus rarely shines.” Instead, Sudan Sunrise, like many other faith-based organizations, resorted to a discourse of mercy, rescue, and compassion as the underlying logic of its humanitarian intervention to appeal to its nonmembers and to de-emphasize its proselytizing mission. Sudan Sunrise reported that in response to Southerners’ claims that the government of Khartoum recruited some Darfurian factions to fight against them, one Darfurian refugee allegedly said, “Forgive us for killing you . . . we thought you were infidels, but we see that you are our brothers.” Many speakers at the rally used this discourse of transnational solidarity inspired by religious identities and human rights and humanitarian languages. Several stressed that atrocities such as the Holocaust, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur were genocidal crimes that negated the essence of humanity and should be prevented. This rhetoric resonated with the 1980s transnational sentiment that



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extended the notions of kinship and the nuclear family to embrace humanity through a religious moral sensibility of solidarity and care based on shared experiences of violence and suffering. Examples of such discourse at the rally included the following: We stand here today as members of the human family . . . We are the people of Darfur . . . If Darfur lives our humanity lives . . . If Darfur dies our humanity dies, this choice is moral and not political . . . so stand up America and show your compassion . . . We believe that the children of Darfur are our children, the women of Darfur are our mothers, sisters, and wives . . .

These sentiments of transnational solidarity served to justify military and humanitarian intervention, and also worked as a transnational call to protect the Sudan from becoming another potential incubator of terrorism, threatening global security and the modern values of democracy, humanity, and freedom. As an American army captain and African Union advisor declared at the rally, “Today everyone is Sudanese, I am Sudanese, ana Sudani”; he went on to describe how Darfurians had applauded him when they thought “Bush and his army had landed” in Darfur. A few days after the rally and in response to a letter released by Osama bin Laden describing international intervention in Sudan as the attempted colonization of yet another part of Dar al Islam (Islamic territory), President George W. Bush issued a statement declaring that “America will stand up” to help Darfurians alleviate their misery. He advised groups wishing to join the “help drive” to consult the USAID website.15 For the American president, intervention was necessary to deter bin Laden from “encouraging fellow Muslims to kill fellow Muslims” and from hindering the work of humanitarian and international peace groups. After he dispatched Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to negotiate a UN intervention, Bush congratulated the Sudanese president, Omar Albashir, for signing the peace agreement with a Darfurian faction and encouraged him to ease visa and other restrictions imposed on aid workers. Bush also committed $225 million in food aid to Darfur, to be shipped via Port Sudan, passing through a region whose people, the Muslim Beja of Eastern Sudan, were dying of famine and disease. To warn bin Laden and the Janjaweed, President Bush told the story of a Darfurian woman named Zahra. According to this narrative, the Janjaweed horsemen burned Zahra’s village, murdered her husband, and relayed the message that there was no mercy for her and no God but them. In response,

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Bush emphasized that a just God would prevail. Such contemporary discourses of suffering and familial compassion reveal the porosity of humanitarian ideology and illuminate the binaries between competing religious ideologies: a “just” religious order will defeat an “intolerant” one, not only in Darfur but in other Islamic territories as well. As much as the tropes of human rights, humanitarianism, and compassionate care were harnessed to ameliorate the effects of violence and suffering and to avoid the underlying politics, these politics were nevertheless hard to ignore. While some Sudanese activists were skeptical of the purportedly neutral religious compassion that infused the rally speeches, others expressed a broader appreciation of the event as a sociopolitical space, and a humanitarian public, that granted them visibility as marginal citizens in America. For many, the rally represented an opportunity to voice their anger against the politics of the Sudanese government and its suppression of opponents in different parts of the country, including the North. Examination of Sudanese websites the following day made it evident that many Sudanese participants had rearticulated the tensions embedded in rallying for Darfur to serve their own political and social interests. Many were keen to bring the Darfur conflict to the forefront as they linked human rights and humanitarian rhetoric and its neoconservative sentiments to histories of colonialism and intervention. The tensions embedded in these varying visions of the rally reveal the innate contradictions of human rights and humanitarian discourses that, despite their appeal to many, prevent us from attending to the histories of colonialism and postcolonial interventions. Many Sudanese, even those in exile, read intervention as “invasion,” though others have also hoped for conflict resolution through negotiations and international pressures on the warring parties. As a humanitarian public, however, the Darfur rally and the campaign for Darfur, similar to previous transnational solidarities, extended the stage for the mobilization of a new generation of student activists, elites, and role models to take on the task of addressing suffering through their public presentations, performances, and media visibility.

Generation STAND: Students, Friends, and Allies The Darfur campaigns in the United States, like the mobilization for Southern Sudan, created a parallel field of power and knowledge administered by celebrities, journalists, and student activists who employed the languages of human rights and humanitarianism to address the “genocidal policies” of the Islamist regime in the Sudan. Within this field, George Clooney collaborated with vari-



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ous international figures, such as renowned Africa expert John Prendergast and his anti-genocide organization, Enough, to inspire a new generation of activists. Prominent journalists and actors, together with STAND (Students Taking Action Now: Darfur) activists, were all-important players in shaping popular opinion about Darfur and, later, Sudan’s other conflicts. A generation of young American students joined forces around the Darfur conflict as global citizens and liberal actors in transnational public affairs focused on suffering, ethnic cleansing, and genocide to raise awareness and alert American policy makers about such cases around the globe. This development was evident at the Darfur rally on the National Mall, where student activists demonstrated their commitment as active global citizens on the political stage. As a Sudanese American professor in the United States, I received many invitations to talk about Darfur to students and church groups as the conflict became a staple in American media and world news. The public visibility of the conflict motivated me to design a course about Darfur, focusing on the history of the region and situating it within the context of power, ethnicity, development, and competition for resources. My first encounter with STAND activists was through an invitation to deliver a presentation at a church, and the second was through a high school student, Sarah Juster, who approached me about her interest in my course. Juster, an avid reader and motivated student, told me about STAND and her desire to gain a perspective different from the one presented in the mainstream media. Her focus on Africa was inspired by an African Civilization class she took in her freshman year, at the end of which she also learned about the conflict in Darfur. As she began to research the Darfur conflict, she came across STAND on the Internet and decided to join the group. By the end of her freshman year she had organized a STAND chapter for high school students in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Students who are interested in world issues and in becoming engaged citizens in political affairs find it difficult now to escape the predominant liberal model of activism presented by the glamorous leadership of celebrities and other high-profile allies. In the first two years after the escalation of the Darfur conflict, STAND’s focus on Darfur followed the dominant, easy-to-consume media script of a conflict between Arabs and blacks. The engagement of scholars, the involvement of more Sudanese elites writing about and responding to media coverage of the conflict, and the changing political realities on the ground have shifted STAND’s singular focus on Darfur to a global emphasis on genocide, especially in three countries: Sudan, Congo, and Burma. The organization changed its name in 2009 from STAND: Students Taking Action Now: Darfur to STAND: A Student Anti-

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Genocide Coalition. Based in the United States, STAND recruits high school and college students, but also seeks to extend its work to Canada, Europe, and Africa. There are an estimated eight hundred chapters (with approximately twelve to twenty students per chapter) in the United States and two hundred students internationally. STAND activists adopt a range of human rights and humanitarian strategies to engage American students and influence US policy concerning the prevention of global genocidal crises. The students I contacted for this research spoke of three models for teaching activism and engagement at the level of each chapter: education, advocacy, and fund-raising. Education involves learning about the conflict and then advocating to alleviate the suffering of people on the ground. In order to raise funds, the organization employs annual campaigns. STAND, for instance, convened events such as DarfurFast, for which chapter members asked students at their schools to donate their lunch money to the organization. In the fall of 2009, STAND launched an enormous campaign called Pledge2Protect, influenced by the 2005 UN mandate, “the responsibility to protect,” and organized around three major events: a video-advocacy campaign, a national conference, and a national canvassing campaign. The video advocacy campaign was a joint effort of STAND and WITNESS, another human rights NGO. STAND chapters across the country created personalized videos for senators and representatives asking them to support legislation to prevent genocide. Then, in November, STAND hosted a national conference in Washington, DC, at which chapter members presented the videos to representatives and senators on “National Lobby Day.” The last part of the campaign was a weeklong doorto-door canvass across the country during which members of local chapters asked residents of their communities to sign a “Pledge2Protect” The goal was to collect 100,000 pledges and present them to members of Congress as evidence of wide-ranging support for a genocide-prevention bill. I attended the Pledge2Protect conference in Washington, DC, which clearly demonstrated how the Darfur movement has inspired a strong student movement in the United States.16 More than a thousand American students, representing a variety of states, attended the multi-day conference. The tables at the reception desk were filled with brochures describing the conference’s various programs, anti-Omar Albashir tags, and T-shirts in support of genocide prevention. The event showcased superstars and activists, among them Joey Cheek (Olympic speed skater), Jerry Fowler (president of the Save Darfur Coalition), John Prendergast (cofounder of the Enough Project), Carl Wilkens (an aid worker



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during the Rwandan genocide), and Johnny Strange (a US high school student who famously climbed all seven summits), among other guest speakers. Although most of the conference panels focused on Darfur, speakers also addressed the conflicts in Congo and Burma. The subjects of the conference panels ranged from the role of faith in activism to rape in Darfur, the Sudan election and referendum, fund-raising, media and Internet activism, and marketing the activist cause. Southern Sudanese policy makers from the Government of South Sudan mission in Washington, DC, with three Darfurian activists, were invited to reflect on Sudan-related issues. The majority of the speakers and attendees, however, were American students. At one plenary session where students sat by chapters around tables to listen to the speakers, I joined eight female students from Florida, who welcomed me to their table. They were very excited when I told them I was originally from the Sudan. “You are from the Sudan, wow, which part of the Sudan?” one asked. From the beginning of my residence in the United States to the day I became an American citizen, I learned how to respond to this question jokingly by saying, “I am from the ‘bad guys’ side.” They all laughed, and one of them interjected, “I know . . . until recently we used to think that when you meet someone from the Sudan, you should have crutches ready to give them.” A black student who sat on my right side introduced herself by saying, “I am from Surinam and my parents came to America in the eighties after the coup d’état there.” She learned about Darfur from the media and through STAND and felt she had to make a difference in the world. Another said, “Activism runs in the family and I wanted to join STAND to end genocide because it is a horrible thing.” They were all enthusiastic about joining the movement, but they agreed that the majority of participants were Caucasians and that other ethnicities had to be included (figure 6). The importance of students’ learning about world affairs and getting involved in these liberal forms of activism was a theme emphasized by many of the speakers at the conference, some of whom reflected on their own experiences of how to make a difference in the world. Joey Cheek, for instance, talked about how being an Olympic athlete did not give him “the psychological satisfaction of making a difference.” After donating his Olympic prize to the Darfurian cause, he created an athletic humanitarian organization, TEAM DARFUR, in order to mobilize athletes to become humanitarian activists. He maintained, “I am no longer a skater, I am like a humanitarian,” a title that enabled him to get involved with the UN. John Prendergast—described by one of the students at my table as “our superstar”—spoke about the conflicts in the Sudan and Congo and the role of “African failing states” or “predatory states” in creating such humanitarian crises.

Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton with Hawa Muhammad Salih of Darfur, Sudan. Photo by US Department of State. FI G U R E 5 .

STAND students listen to speakers at the final plenary panel, Pledge2Protect Conference, Washington, DC, 2009. Photo by author. FI G U R E 6 .



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The last speaker at the conference announced that President Omar Albashir was traveling to Turkey to attend an Islamic summit. But the European Union, which Turkey hoped to join, objected to the plan despite the fact that Turkey had initially welcomed the idea of the president’s visit.17 The speaker announced that he had “just learned that Bashir will not be attending the summit,” and he thanked some of the STAND activists who had contacted the Turkish Embassy. Attendees of the conference applauded and cheered. On the last morning of the conference, students marched to Capitol Hill to attract media coverage and to prepare for their afternoon lobbying meeting with senators. They gathered outside the conference hotel and divided into three groups, with members of each group holding signs marked: “Help,” “Prevent,” “Genocide.” The groups then marched to the Senate chanting, “Hey! Ho! This genocide has got to go” and “Stop Stop, Genocide.” At the Senate buildings, members of each group traveled underground through the Russell, Dirksen, and Hart buildings silently. A few photographers on an upper level captured the action, and PBS videotaped the event and interviewed some of the students. The lobbying meetings provided an important learning opportunity for students to meet with their senators’ foreign policy assistants to discuss specific pieces of legislation, such as keeping Sudan in their policy agenda, cosponsoring a bill that condemned the actions of the Lord’s Resistance Army, and passing the Congo Conflict Mineral Act, which associated the sale of minerals with the violence in the country. STAND partners with a variety of NGOs, such as the Genocide Intervention Network (or GI-NET), and during my fieldwork, the two organizations were working to pass legislation containing language from their 2009 task force report, which included thirty-four recommendations to enhance the capacity of the US government to prevent genocide worldwide. The STAND conference enabled me to talk with students and participate in the sessions they organized in order to understand their alliance strategies and their motivations for joining STAND and campaigning for Darfur. During one session, I asked whether the American students at the conference were aware of the large Sudanese diaspora community in the Washington metropolitan area and whether they had tried to engage Sudanese American students in the schools in the area. My objective in asking this question was to convey the discontents of various Sudanese, including youth groups, who were active within their communities but felt excluded by the human rights and humanitarian campaigns for the Sudan. The responses that I received to my questions were negative, though one student noted that STAND organizers did invite Sudanese people who were involved in politics and human rights activism to speak. Indeed, there were participants from the

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Southern Sudan Government Mission in the United States who spoke about the election and the referendums, and a panel of four other Sudanese representing Darfur, the Nuba Mountains, and Eastern Sudan. Later during the event, I noted how the panel of Sudanese all adopted human rights and humanitarian language that focused on identity politics, suffering, genocide, and compassion in order to appeal to the audience. One human rights activist from Eastern Sudan referred to the rulers of the Sudanese government as “Arabs,” ignoring the fact that most Beja speak of themselves as Arabs to denote hybrid identities and religious pride.18 He was there to present the grievances of the Muslim Beja people of Eastern Sudan, an ethnic minority whose plight is not well covered by mainstream American media. The panel also included a speaker from northern Nubia, an area that is well represented by diaspora activists in the Washington area. As part of my fieldwork I attended many rallies organized by Nubian activists to protest government development projects in their region that involved the construction of major dams, displacement of the population, and dispossession of their land. At the conference panel discussion, the Nubian activist referred to building dams in old Nubia as “cultural genocide” orchestrated by the “ruling Arabs” who wanted to erase “[Nubians’] African–Cushitic identity.” Of course, the issues surrounding the concept of ethnic belonging in the Sudan are never that simple, and various factions have repeatedly debated the complex questions of “ethnic purity,” managing the inherent intricacies through long histories of living together, intermarriage, and even participation in national debates about building a diverse Sudanese nation-state (see chapter 3). At the end of the panel, however, it was clear that the grievances of the Darfurian, Beja, and Nubians were given less priority than the Southern question at the conference. For Southerners at the panel, the conclusion was clear: Southern Sudanese favored secession (figure 6). I also talked to some STAND participants about their motivation for campaigning for South Sudan and Darfur. Few of them had actually visited Southern Sudan, but some expressed strong views about Save Darfur and media representation of the Darfur conflict. Sabina, the education coordinator of STAND, spoke to me about her involvement in both Darfur and Southern Sudan activism, saying that she was named after Bina, a relative who had perished in the Holocaust. When she was twelve, she was inspired by the story of a Lost Boy who spoke at her synagogue about the suffering of his people in Southern Sudan. Sabina said she could not stand the idea of “there being other Binas in the world,” and she connected the story of “her people” to that of the Lost Boy. She realized that one



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way to engage in the world and to alleviate the effects of violence and human suffering was to become an activist. She was already involved with Sudan-related activism when the crisis in Darfur escalated, and she hoped to design her future career choices around issues of conflict and development in Africa. Sabina was initially drawn to Amnesty International, but she was frustrated by its methods of collecting signatures and writing letters to leaders of countries. She was also upset that Amnesty International would not let her use the term “genocide” when referring to Darfur, but the subsequent controversy around whether to call what was happening in Darfur “genocide” or “war crimes against humanity” altered her understanding of the conflict. That controversy, along with the critiques of Save Darfur, made it clear to her that she needed to read more about the Sudan. Eventually she discovered STAND, which she felt was more pragmatic, strategic, and innovative. As STAND’s educational coordinator, she wanted to ensure that the organization did not diminish or obscure the conflict’s complexities. Divisive framing, she told me, would only fuel violence, not help resolve it. At the same time, she commented, “it is important to recognize . . . that such simplistic messages are used to grab people’s attention in the post 9/11 America.” While many STAND students maintained that they learned about Darfur from superstars/activists, Sabina’s comment revealed that some STAND leaders were aware of and responding to the criticisms of scholars and journalists who took issue with the focus on celebrities and the easy-to-consume representations of the Darfur conflict in the mainstream media. Although the conference was meant to focus on genocide in general, Sudan, especially the question of Darfur and South Sudan, dominated the discussions. The STAND meeting, like the Lost Boys conference in San Diego and other events, constituted a humanitarian public for a generation of young American students. In these events, students debated the effects of violence and suffering on the population and attempted to master the languages of human rights and humanitarianism through which to appeal to policy makers, the media, and other NGOs engaged with similar issues. Conflicts such as those in Darfur and South Sudan in particular, and Congo and Burma in general, served as case studies to help students understand the international laws governing human rights, especially those regarding genocide and ethnic cleansing, and to anticipate the capacity (or incapacity) of those laws to protect and save lives in conflict zones. But the formation of these humanitarian publics also produces new articulations of collectivity, togetherness, and activism. As one congressional representative declared at the STAND conference, “This is the generation that will end genocide on the planet.” As global citizens, this gen-

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eration has been educated by leading celebrities, policy makers, and other subaltern activists and performers to respond to suffering and atrocities within an expanding humanitarian public through rigorous formalities and specific techniques of engagement, such as writing letters, collecting signatures, making videos, marketing causes, and lobbying senators. This teacher-disciple model has allowed for the production of a particular knowledge about conflicts that privileges certain issues and imagined solutions.

The DPDO: Humanitarianism and the Right to Development On Seventeenth Street in Washington, DC, lies the office of the Darfur Peace and Development Organization (DPDO), a small NGO initiative that arose in response to the Darfur conflict and gained momentum and visibility during the escalation of the war. I first heard about the DPDO from a STAND student activist in Michigan, who told me that a speaker from the NGO was going to address a STAND fund-raising gathering. I later interviewed the speaker, Susan Burgess, the DPDO’s program director, at the DPDO office in order to learn more about the organization and its work. The head of the DPDO is Suliman Giddo, a Darfurian and, it turned out, one of my undergraduate colleagues at the University of Khartoum. Both Burgess and Giddo welcomed the opportunity to meet. Giddo, Burgess, and the organization’s program manager, Katherine Naugle, shared the small office. On the wall above Susan’s desk was a board with posted notes about the office’s projects in Darfur, including water supply, schools, textbooks, teaching supplies, and women’s training centers. Immediately facing the entrance was a big poster, bearing the DPDO logo and the slogan “Promoting peace, justice, and sustainable development.” Behind Giddo’s office was a large map of Darfur with the names of eight schools marked as “schools of peace” and supported by the organization to further the education of Darfurian students in conflict zones. The office was decorated with posters showing children from the schools. I read the tags on stacks of baskets handmade by women from the refugee camps in Darfur, ready to be marketed in the United States—a longstanding income-generating model adopted by many NGOs in poor regions. One of the tags stated: This Darfur basket of strength has been created by the skilled hands of a displaced woman in North Darfur, Sudan. She is a member of a livelihood cooperative enabled by a unique partnership between Darfur Peace and Development and the Amber Chand collection . . . purchase baskets at www.amerchand.com. [Signed]: handmade in Darfur, Sudan, by Hawa Suliman Abdualla [basket crafter]).



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When I entered the office, Susan was briefing Giddo about her recent trip to Darfur. She was frustrated that the teachers supported by the organization had given her a “hard time” because they wanted raises, but the organization did not have the money. Giddo later explained that according to USAID rules regarding funds that such organizations received, salary increases were the responsibility of the Khartoum government and not the NGO. Susan found it hard to explain to the teachers that the DPDO had to apply for funding and donations to run its programs. She then handed Giddo a framed photograph that showed her with members of his family in Darfur. She told me that her involvement in humanitarian work had begun when she joined the Red Cross in the 1990s. She later worked as a freelance editor for a number of television stations, but “got tired of it” and decided she wanted to make a difference. She heard the reports about Darfur in media venues, she explained, and “to me what happened in the Sudan has been one of the most grievous human rights catastrophes that I can imagine—except maybe Rwanda—it has been a genocide in slow motion . . . I could not feel the way I felt without doing anything [and] to me that was not an option.” She then began to learn more about the conflict from congressional briefings and other seminars she attended. At one of the meetings, held at the Holocaust Museum, she met a Sudanese from Darfur by the name of Omar Qamar. Susan and Omar exchanged contact information, and both committed to continue discussing how to organize and get involved. Omar later partnered with Suliman Giddo and also joined the Enough Project to work with John Prendergast. In their effort to organize, Giddo was concerned about the language barrier and how to articulate what they wanted to do in writing to meet the requirements of funding agencies. Thus they asked Susan to help with proposal writing. “We started working on proposals,” Susan said, “and we got funded right away and that was the beginning of the organization.” The first initiative undertaken was support for three schools in Darfur. Later the DPDO was able to extend its support to fourteen schools in the region; these were already established schools, which, as a result of the war, had been underfunded and under-resourced. The DPDO benefited from the visibility that Darfur gained in the media and from the mobilization of celebrities, American students, and the Save Darfur campaign. Nonetheless, Giddo told me, he thought Darfur needed more in the form of sustainable development. That emphasis evokes memories of international efforts by Western NGOs and International financial Institutions (IFIs) in the 1960s and 1970s to adapt old models of reconstructing Europe to African countries. These models framed the reconstruction of African economies in terms of building long-

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Sudanese activists rally in Washington, DC, July 2007, against the Sudanese government’s development plans for building dams in old Nubia, Northern Sudan. Photo by author. FI G U R E 7.

Women preparing baskets for sale in Darfur refugee camp. Source: DPDO Photo Collection, Washington, DC, 2009. Published by permission of Suliman Giddo and Susan Burgess. FI G U R E 8 .



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lasting infrastructure projects such as roads, highways, and railroads to establish a foundational base for development. In the 1980s and the 1990s new developmental paradigms, following neoconservative/neoliberal models of intensive privatization and liberalization of market economies, were injected as solutions for reviving the stagnant African markets.19 Still other developmental approaches followed at the turn of the twenty-first century, including efforts to harness the potential of NGOs and other humanitarian organizations to fight poverty and to build small-scale development projects in conflict zones. In his critique of the Save Darfur campaign, Giddo reflected on how to devise solutions for effecting long-lasting changes in areas plagued by war, violence, and poverty, at a time when humanitarianism is being viewed as a resourceful alternative. Advocacy alone is not a solution, he maintained, and consequently he opted for a right-to-development-through-humanitarianism approach that prioritizes education as the most effective path to human development. As a Darfurian elite, Giddo viewed the Save Darfur Coalition as being oriented toward an American audience and American politics rather than toward an actual resolution of Darfurian suffering. His organization’s focus on education stemmed from his own experience of living in a remote village in Kutum, a town in northeast Darfur. His grandfather, who was a pastoralist, established the village. The idea of education was not very appealing to Giddo’s family at first because it meant losing the labor of a family member. When his father suggested that he go to school, all Giddo desired from his education was “to see a car.” Acceptance to schools in Kutum worked through the lottery system, and he was accepted, along with his brother and uncle. From there, Giddo was admitted to Alfashir High School, in one of the major cities in Darfur, and then to the University of Khartoum, where he studied economics and accounting. In his first year at the university, he was recruited by Hassan Al-Turabi’s National Islamic Front (NIF) (now Popular National Congress Party), but through the years he became dissatisfied with Sudanese politics and more motivated by “human rights and humanitarian activism.” Giddo’s reflections confirmed my argument that Sudanese politics are strongly characterized by ethnic tensions, which make it difficult to think about nationality beyond the construction of ethnic identities in the country. Giddo recalled feeling disappointed; as he reported, “During the height of mobilization to solve the Southern problem, for instance, I could not get involved because I am a Darfurian. I did not know how to get involved because our Southern brothers thought of it as a Southern problem, ‘mushiklat aljanoub,’ when it is supposed to be a problem of the whole nation.” This “monopoly of crises” in the Sudan makes it hard to think of political solutions on a national level, he maintained. The same is true for the Darfur problem. As he put it, “We monopolized the problem and

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excluded northerners, saying that they are against us, which I don’t agree with. The Darfur issue is the issue of all Sudan.” He continued: When I thought of the DPDO, I first thought about the whole country. I even wanted to call the organization “Sudan Peace and Development” (it’s still in my notes) . . . When the conflict erupted and gained more visibility, I found the focus on Darfur more relevant and that I can offer something here. The DPDO mission of peace . . . offers education to invest in human capital through understanding human rights, especially the right to development. The DPDO supports 10,600 students—imagine what kind of change these students would make. I was once asked, “Where would you be if you did not go to school,” and I replied, “Either in a refugee camp or a child soldier, which means two options: being killed or killing somebody else.” This is why the organization foregrounds education as a means to peaceful negotiation and as a way to create useful global citizens.

The suffering of refugees and displaced persons in Darfur also has a gendered dimension that the DPDO made a point of acknowledging, especially as the media highlighted sexual violence in the refugee camps as a major issue. The women’s centers that the program funded follow the right-based humanitarian model of saving lives, generating short-term development activities, and educating women about sexual violence. Although women are encouraged to talk about sexual assaults or harassment that they faced, Susan said, the program was designed to provide a safe space for women to process and talk about war atrocities without being subjected to interviews or questioning. The most important focus of the program is to help women make a living through crafting baskets to be marketed abroad. During my interviews with both Giddo and Susan, the two agreed that the difficulties related to marketing the baskets and sustaining women’s and children’s health exist within a broader context of poverty and insecurity that the organization alone could not resolve (figure 8). Humanitarian work has its own shortcomings when it comes to saving lives and directly helping refugees and other victims of violence. Susan commented that poverty is a salient factor in Darfur. She noted that the UNAMID forces and other NGOs were taking over the region, causing the price of lodging in the area to rise.20 NGO employees, such as those of UNAMID, earned salaries that were higher than those of local staff. One of the barriers that the DPDO faced was the large number of NGOs working in the region and the visibility enjoyed by some, such as Doctors Without Borders and Save the Children. The lack of collaboration among these NGOs made their work less effective. Susan



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told me that it was difficult for her to establish a clinic to help rape victims and that reaching out to other organizations was not beneficial: NGOs don’t want to collaborate because they are protecting their turfs, it is their grant money. The way they put it is that “we don’t want to duplicate effort” and I am thinking we have 25,000 people in this camp and one clinic, do you think we can possibly duplicate efforts . . . what are you people talking about . . . the need is so great that we cannot step on each other’s toes. I think this talk about duplicating effort has a lot to do with funding and accountability for how many heads we can count and serve. But there are not enough facilities . . . in any camp. One clinic won’t do it, not even two.

At a time of wide-ranging critique of the Save Darfur campaign the DPDO gained visibility through its staff connections and seminar presentations at various events about the conflict and the suffering of people in refugee camps. Subsequently, in 2009 the organization won a generous grant of $500,000 from Ante Up for Africa. A celebrity organization, Ante Up for Africa was founded in 2006 by Don Cheadle (the actor from Hotel Rwanda), Annie Duke (a professional poker player/celebrity), and Norman Epstein (managing director of Hansen’s, a natural soft drink and juice company). Epstein raised the money through celebrity poker tournaments to meet the organization’s dedication “to raising money and awareness for Africans in need.”21 Hansen’s also partnered with the DPDO to build a high school and to support the women’s center in Darfur. The DPDO is an example of how personal, ethnic, national, and transnational aspirations intersect, diverge, and are disrupted by a variety of factors that shape the choices, ideas, and beliefs of social actors and activists. Giddo, for instance, talked about how his struggle to come to the United States was not easy and was constrained by many circumstances. Like many Sudanese who left the country in the 1980s and 1990s, Giddo migrated to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) after completing his university education in Khartoum. In the UAE, as a manager of a company, he was paid less than his assistant, who had an American passport. This made him think that he should perhaps continue his education in America and eventually get an American passport himself. When he came to the United States, he applied for a job at the Hyatt Regency hotel. Despite the fact that he had advanced degrees from African and Indian universities, it was a four-month certificate he had earned while studying in the UK that got him the job. In 1998, he began a master’s program in accounting and information at Strayer University in Virginia and then pursued a doctoral program in finance at Indiana University to continue the course of study he had begun at the University of Khartoum.

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The Darfur conflict, however, shifted his interests and changed the way he finally positioned himself nationally and internationally. I thought that so many people have degrees in finance, but how many have ones in conflict resolution. I thought I would be useful to myself, to Sudan, and the whole world. I thought that there are so many things that I am already doing that will help resolve the Darfur conflict or any other conflicts in the world.

To buttress his new interest, Giddo also earned a master’s degree in humanitarian assistance from Fordham University and pursued a doctorate in conflict resolution at George Mason University. These new directions gave him more visibility in the community of Darfurian elites in the diaspora and in Washington, DC, policy-making circles, where he was involved in a number of negotiations with Darfurian opposition parties in exile and back in the Sudan. I met Giddo again in Khartoum in 2010, during an advisory mission that he participated in with President Obama’s special envoy to the Sudan, Scott Gration, to reinitiate the Doha negotiation process with the Darfur rebels and to resolve the remaining CPA terms. Giddo told me that he had visited the schools in Alfashir and was happy about the grant the organization had received from Ante Up for Africa. After the country’s division, Giddo worked in an advisory position in South Sudan. When war broke out in the new nation in 2013, he moved back to the United States and later found a job in the UAE, but this time he had an American passport. In 2013, the DPDO shut its doors as a functioning organization due to lack of funds and the retirement of its two directors. A shared culture of human rights and humanitarianism presents social actors and activists with varying models of practice through which they claim new identities, build new alliances, and establish new careers in order to continue to make a difference as committed global citizens. The culture of giving and compassionate care enables these global citizens to imagine a transnational civic engagement that aims at ridding the world of violence, need, and fear. Other American allies and Sudanese social actors who responded to the Darfur humanitarian call echoed sentiments similar to those expressed by the DPDO directors. Blanche Foster, an African American who at the time was the executive director of the Darfur Rehabilitation Project (DRP), was excited to tell me that she is proud to work in an organization that promotes peace, human rights, and rehabilitation in Darfur with many Darfurian elites in the diaspora. At the DRP’s small office in New Jersey, she told me that she was raised to believe that she is a “citizen of the world” and that she always believed in her humanity. She



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related how the 9/11 terror attacks strengthened her sense of this humanity and her understanding of violence and suffering: I had been working near the World Trade Center, and the day that it happened at 8:35 a.m., I was in the building. The first plane hit at 8:42 and at that point I was sitting at my desk, so I was the witness to quite a few things that happened and sort of lived through it. . . . About six months later or so, I wasn’t working and I decided to retire. After all, there are young people out there looking for jobs, and my youngest child was thirty-eight years old. . . . I knew about Darfur from one of the fellows who goes to my church . . . who is also a professor! A Darfuri student who was taking classes with him . . . told him about the plight of his people . . . And [it was my friend] who took them to see Donald Paine [Virginia senator], who encouraged them to have their own nonprofit organization. So [my friend] came to me one day after church and said, “I know some people who need you.” And meanwhile he went to them and he said, “You know, I know a woman that you need.” So he brought us to lunch . . . and it just moved on from there.

Blanche accepted the role of executive director because of her background in business, but she explained that she already had a long history of engagement with human rights organizations and humanitarian NGOs. Aside from her interest in business, she had also been president of the board of the Interfaith Hospitality Network of Essex County. She worked with the homeless for many years, and also worked with other nonprofit organizations. Through her “church and . . . civic responsibility,” she always “had something to do.” Blanche believed in the ideals of “collective cooperation,” which, she pointed out, is one of the main principles of Kwanzaa. This vision includes building a community, encouraging solidarities, and learning how to act within one large family bound by a common humanity. What is important is not which country you are from but how you can come together and “learn empathy for each other,” Blanche maintained. “I often tell people that even though this is occurring nine thousand miles away from where we are, it is still family and we need to respond to it as if we are responding to family.” Therefore, she argued, what happened in Darfur is not unlike what happened during Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana. “We need to be sensitive to our common humanity in order to bring about peace and reconciliation amongst us all.” The mission to end suffering together with appeals to a family ethos and to principles of rights, equality, and justice has thus become a driving force motivating many social actors and activists to respond to humanitarian crises. But, as Giddo and Susan noted, attempts to alleviate suffering take place in contested terrains characterized by national and transnational competition over

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governance. Naila Hassan, a Northern Sudanese who worked with another NGO in Darfur, confirmed that the institutionalization of this system of rights-based humanitarian care represents a transnational tier of governance that clashes with the assumed sovereignty of nation-states and produces tensions that constrain the work of aid employees. At the height of the Darfur conflict, USAID granted the Cooperative Housing Foundation (CHF) four million dollars to improve the living conditions of displaced Darfurians in refugee camps. When Naila went to Darfur for the first time, people were using “plastic tents as shelters,” which motivated CHF to focus on building ventilated wooden verandahs, known locally as rawakib. Like the DPDO, CHF encouraged women to do handicrafts as a way of generating income. Naila acknowledged that “the services [they] provide are not sustainable development,” but, she reasoned, “[these services] provide protection for civilians, who have the right to at least temporary sources of living.” She also noted that the NGOs and their members constituted a “superior community,” with high salaries, well-equipped cars, and high-tech communication systems to facilitate their missions. Their work was, however, highly scrutinized by the government of the Sudan, which had its own security to grant permissions and monitor the movement of NGO workers. In response to the ICC indictment of President Omar Albashir in 2006, the government of the Sudan expelled the CHF, despite the attempts of Western governments to negotiate a deal for the organization’s return. This tug-of-war cost Naila and another 450 foreign and local aid employees their jobs. The transnational governance model provided by the humanitarian NGOs in conflict zones fosters a view that promotes humanitarianism as a right to access resources and as a norm to address the incapacity of the nation-state despite its heavy security presence. Suffering is juxtaposed with humanitarian norms of compassion, salvation, and order, requiring intervention from “neutral” players who are trained to manage the effects of violence through rigorous practices and techniques that entail discipline, correction, assistance, and compassionate care. The solidarities achieved with Southern Sudanese subaltern actors and celebrities and later with Darfur transnational activists, elites, allies, and global citizens continued to produce situational knowledge about Sudanese conflicts based on the languages and cultures of human rights and humanitarianism that present temporary solutions to combat the effects of violence. This particular suffering-centered knowledge is institutionalized, reproduced, and performed in an expanding humanitarian public sphere crafted through the participation and cultivation of new identities and alliances and the visibility of new agents and role models. As emerging celebrities, elites, global citizens, and development



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experts, these new subjects are initiated into the transnational family, and their sentimental ability to give is tied to a neoliberal market economy of stardom, career building, and non-profitability, which is paradoxically highly competitive and inherently very profitable. It is this sense of corporate non-profitability that inspired Giddo to mobilize his ethnic, national, and transnational identity and to establish his organization in order to ameliorate the coercive effects of violence and to assist during the state of war and conflict in Darfur. In his view, “When I came from United Arab Emirates I was attracted by this ‘sense of humanitarianism’ in America . . . People are givers, they have the heart to give for the needy, and because of our neediness in Darfur I wanted to build a bridge that can help us take from here and give those who need help there.” This sentiment of giving is endowed with the potential to establish order, alleviate suffering, and unify the world as one peaceful family. But the idealism inherent in this sentiment of familial global citizenship is often shattered by the realities of competition for the meager resources available for such projects and the business mentality inspired by the dominant neoliberal worldview.22 This mentality is also riddled with grand assumptions that undermine the politics of national belonging and the other political and cultural processes and negotiations that produce the realities of war and conflict.

Eclipsing Darfur: Humanitarian Activism, Celebrities, and the “New South” The luminous visibility that humanitarian activism bestowed on the Darfur conflict was soon overshadowed by unfolding events in the Sudan as the country began to prepare for the election and referendum for Southern Sudan in 2010. When the African Union, the Arab League, and other players intervened, the debate on Darfur shifted to support the negotiation of the conflict within the UN’s Afro-Arab regional rubric. Qatar stepped in as an important player on the political scene, offering Doha as a platform for negotiations among the various Darfurian factions.23 Despite the contestation of many rebel groups, the Doha negotiations gave Qatar a leading role in helping to resolve the conflict. During this tense moment in Sudan’s history, I followed some of my Sudanese interlocutors through interviews and other media connections as they traveled across Washington, DC, the Sudan, Europe, and Doha to facilitate discussions, lending their expertise and reconciling warring factions. Many Darfurian activists in the United States expressed their frustration with the media and with policy makers for ignoring the Darfur issue by focusing on South Sudan at the end of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Darfurians in the United States, with the

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backing of the Save Darfur campaign, continued to demonstrate in front of the White House to keep Darfur visible on the international agenda. According to Giddo, the DPDO was concerned with assisting refugees, but it also served as a source of information for those working on the conflict at both the aid and the policy-making levels. He told me that he played a vital role during the Darfur negotiations, traveling “nineteen times since the beginning of the conflict to help bring leaders to the negotiations table . . . I went to the State Department more than six times in high-level meetings and stated my opinion freely.” Like many Darfurians, however, Giddo was frustrated that the policy makers’ prioritization of the Southern question at the end of the CPA term stalled the negotiations and the resolution of the Darfur conflict. In one instance, Giddo said, “An important American official once told a group of us that what matters now is the CPA and that we have to be patient.” During my interview with Giddo, his phone continued to ring, and he explained that he was in the midst of organizing a meeting of Darfurian factions to convene in the United States before they convene in Doha for another round of negotiation. He later told me that the venue for that meeting had been changed to Italy because American policy makers did not “understand our local politics; you cannot get [the warring parties] to negotiate in Doha without sorting out their problems in a prior meeting.” Giddo’s comments point to the multiple dynamics and political changes that took place shortly before the secession of South Sudan. Toward the end of the CPA, the international humanitarian community played a significant role in pressuring the Sudanese government to reach a consensus with regard to remaining issues, such as distributing resources, mapping borders, and halting offensives in Darfur and the oil-rich Abyei area. This pressure began with the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant issued against President Albashir in 2006 and culminated in a tug-of-war between the regime and the international community over the operation of Western NGOs in the country. While the government considered Arab and other Eastern collaboration and humanitarian assistance as part of its effort to strengthen its transnational alliances, it shunned Western NGOs as hegemonic, anti-Islamic, and pro-neocolonial. After the imposition of Western sanctions on the Islamist regime in the 1990s, the Sudanese government shifted its business deals to the Eastern bloc, especially to China and the Muslim countries, such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Malaysia. Acting as proxy capitalists, these countries defined economic development in terms of neoliberal policies that served the interests of local-global investors dealing in oil, telecommunications, construction, and fast-food businesses. The



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increasing role of both Arab investment and humanitarianism in the Sudan reflects the tension and debate over both the regime’s Islamic orientation and Sudan’s identity and its global location as a country bordering the two extremes of Arabism and Africanism. As the date of the referendum vote neared, tensions between Southern and Northern Sudanese parties heightened, and in 2010 clashes over the volatile region of Abyei erupted, hardening a discourse about a Muslim/ Arab/North and a Christian/Black/South. The Doha negotiations seemed to counter the CPA in grafting a Muslim-Arab face onto the Darfurian problem. The uncertainty about the country’s future and fear that the government of the Sudan might annul the CPA and resort to “jihad war” against the “Christian South” made headline news in both local and global political arenas. These overshadowed political processes and negotiations and the tensions they produced rejuvenated the solidarity among leading celebrities, activists, and subaltern allies. Clooney, for instance, reappeared in the media, one month before the referendum, to warn the American public and American politicians of a potential genocide that could deter the referendum vote in the South.24 In his televised video, aired on Dateline in October 2010, he appeared in South Sudan with John Prendergast—cofounder of the Enough Project—and TV host Ann Curry to declare that South Sudan was a “ticking bomb,” “the next genocide,” and “the next Darfur.”25 Clooney later told Curry on the TODAY show that he was not a diplomat, but an actor and an activist who was speaking loudly to leverage robust diplomacy in order to prevent genocide.26 Ann Curry explained that as the fighting ceased in Darfur, the genocidal regime in Khartoum turned its attention to the volatile South as it prepared for the referendum vote. Curry then curiously engaged Clooney: “You are not supposed to be doing this. You could be sipping wine in Italy. Instead, you dealt with an electric storm in a small plane, with sleeping in tents in African huts with mice running over you, with live frogs in toilets, and even an old women spitting on [you].” Laughing at the last remark, Clooney told Curry that the senior woman was actually blessing him, but he had never been blessed in this way before. He then commended the American people on their generosity and compassion for continuing to donate billions of dollars to help Africans overcome tragedies of war and conflict. He subtly invoked the widespread sense of guilt over failures to intervene in previous instances of genocide in Congo, Rwanda, and Darfur. According to Clooney, his visit to the Sudan before the referendum was an attempt at mediation between the Democratic and Republican parties in order to prevent military intervention, without costing America “a single dime” or “American lives.” Later, he met with President Obama and other politicians from both parties to brief them

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about the South Sudan situation. Just as Darfur seemed to bring both parties together, Clooney hoped his advocacy for Southern Sudan would do the same. Clooney’s reappearance in the media during this time of heightened political tensions was an attempt to redirect the power of his imagery and performance to solidify the temporary humanitarian alliances created among students and other allies. He appeared with Prendergast in many public venues before the referendum vote, to warn against genocide in Southern Sudan. At a Stanford conference, organized by STAND, both Clooney and Prendergast urged students to get involved in order to prevent genocide and keep American policy makers informed about the situation in the Sudan.27 He later forged alliances with other actors on the global stage, eventually launching his Satellite Sentinel Project (SSP), which literally uses “satellite imagery, data pattern analysis, and ground sourcing” to “generate rapid response on human rights and human security concerns” in the oil-rich border area of Abyei.28 The collaborative project is funded by Enough, Google, the United Nations, the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, DigitalGlobe, and Not on Our Watch (the human rights organization Clooney launched with other actors such as Don Cheadle, David Pressman, and Brad Pitt). As one reporter for Time noted in regard to the Satellite Sentinel Project, “You don’t have to be a spook to have an eye in the sky anymore.”29 Clooney, however, referred to his project as “a long lens” that complements the work of the UN Security Council and provides evidence of atrocities before they occur in order to prevent members of the Security Council, like China, from vetoing intervention for lack of proof.30 Clooney’s short-lived advocacy for the Southern Sudanese and his intervention to alleviate suffering in case of possible genocide overlooked the tense debate about the future of the Sudanese nation-state on the brink of its division. The debate, officially articulated in the CPA’s five-year term, resulted in grueling negotiations over citizenship rights, inclusion, and recognition of minorities in the country. The reluctance of the Islamist government to negotiate a secular, multiethnic constitution to rule the country culminated in the Southerners’ massive vote to secede from the North. The CPA resolution’s privileging of the Southern question also ignored the aspirations of SPLA fighters and activists from the Blue Nile, Nuba Mountains, Northern Sudan, and other parts of the country where people were fighting with the Southern army for an inclusive “new Sudan.” When Southern Sudanese fighters celebrated the establishment of their new nation on July 9, 2011, they left behind their comrades from the Blue Nile, Nuba Mountains, and other northern areas to rid themselves of the emboldened Is-



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lamist regime in Khartoum. These northern leaders created the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM)-North alliance and suggested inclusion as a new political party in the North in order to continue the fight for a new, democratic Sudan. The negotiations between the government of Khartoum and the SPLM-North broke down in Addis Ababa in June 2011 after the government of Khartoum demanded the disarmament of the SPLM-North as a major condition for its inclusion. In September of that same year, insurgencies erupted between the SPLM-N and the government forces in the Blue Nile region. The two sides blamed each other for igniting the fight. The three SPLM-North leaders—Malik Agar, Abdel Aziz Al Hilu, and Yasir Arman—retreated to what they defined as “the New South” to continue the armed fight against the government of Khartoum. Shortly after the establishment of this new southern front, the Darfurian factions, which opposed negotiations with the Islamist government in Doha, joined the SPLM-North, creating a new coalition known as the “revolutionary front.” It was this negotiation failure among Sudanese political factions that paradoxically reanimated a new humanitarian alliance and visibility, but one that neglected the complexities of the debate about the future of the nation and the grievances of those in the opposition. The ensuing conflicts and violence in the Blue Nile and Nuba Mountains, after South Sudan’s secession, were the catalysts for Clooney’s renewed human rights and humanitarian advocacy and his arrest by police in front of the Sudanese Embassy in Washington in 2012. This glamorous visibility shifted attention from the Darfur conflict and highlighted the new war front in the newly created South of the Sudan.

“We Want Peace, Piece by Piece”: Solidarities and the Mobilization of Ethnic Suffering Just as the South Sudan model foregrounded the mobilization of violence, gender, and ethnicity to build a human rights and humanitarian cause to demand justice, development, and independence for the South, Darfur too seemed to fit this narrative of ethno-gendered suffering that deserved international aid and attention. These rights-based humanitarian models enabled alliances based on an imagined idea of a transnational community built on compassionate care and ties of friendship and familial globality that was juxtaposed with images of a fragmented Muslim/Arab and a Christian/African nation. Ethnic fissures, uncontained by the nation, are stitched together in various humanitarian publics to create the illusion of a coherent transnational community that transcends the incapacity and inhumanity of the Sudanese nation-state. This fragmented approach, described sarcastically by one Sudanese NGO officer as, “We want

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peace, piece by piece,” manifested in the activism for South Sudan, Darfur, and more recently the Nuba Mountains and the Blue Nile regions. The war on this new front, and the consequent starvation and bombardment of civilians, made headline news with George Clooney’s arrest and the many videos and op-ed pieces that Nicholas Kristof wrote for the New York Times in June 2012. Early that year, Clooney produced a video with John Prendergast detailing their trip to the Nuba Mountains.31 Just under five minutes long and accessible on YouTube, the video, titled George Clooney Witnesses War Crimes in Sudan’s Nuba Mountains, frames human rights violations in the new war zone in terms of racial and ethnic divisions similar to those that characterized the South Sudan and Darfur advocacy campaigns.32 The video begins with this dramatic narration: “July 9, 2011, South Sudan breaks away from Sudan leaving the Nuba people with a government that doesn’t want them. No cameras are allowed in the Nuba Mountains. But we’ve seen what happens when there are no witnesses.” While he narrates, Clooney is shown talking to rebel soldiers and comforting wounded women and children as he asks them about their horrific experiences. The camera zooms in on a young boy who lost both his hands, and on a bloodsmeared bullet extracted from another boy’s leg. Both images present physical evidence of the loss of innocence and the violation of human dignity central to human rights discourse. The clip also shows mothers carrying infants and young children and running toward caves in the mountains to seek protection from bombs and air strikes; those images are preceded by a caption that reads, “For the first time since the Stone Age . . . people are living in caves.” One mother carrying her infant testifies, “We left our homes because we were too scared of the attacks by airplanes and rockets.” Through a translator, Clooney asks the woman who is attacking them; she responds, “Omar Albashir is attacking us.” In an encounter with another soldier, Clooney says, “So this isn’t a war of retaliation. This is simply trying to clear people out ethnically.” “Yes, yes,” the soldier responds. “Because of the color of their skin?” Clooney asks. The soldier replies in English, “Yes, they want to destroy the black skin. They want to destroy the blacks and put the Arabs in.” Prendergast appears next, saying, “This is really a civilian protection crisis. We talk all the time about the responsibility to protect human life; right here is ground zero for that responsibility.”33 The film ends with two images—first, a Nuba female child; second, George Clooney standing, looking down at the body of a dead solider left on the ground. The caption accompanying the latter image reads: “How many more bodies until the Nuba Mountains become the next Darfur?” Watching this clip, the audience is encouraged to take action by texting the numbers provided on the screen.



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Clooney’s video was released at a critical global moment when media and political attention was diverted to the Arab Spring in the Middle East. While the Middle East protests dominated international media reportage, Sudan’s conflicts and unresolved political issues after South Sudan’s secession were at the center of local and transnational human rights and humanitarian activists’ agendas. The short clip produced by Clooney and viewed by more than three million people on YouTube was the first step in galvanizing American and Sudanese diaspora activists to protest the war atrocities in the “New South” and to make a case against the Khartoum regime. This new advocacy campaign relied on Clooney’s high visibility as an actor-turned-human-rights-activist and as a compassionate global citizen endowed with the power to transcend borders, listen to others, and heal their suffering. As performers of global citizenship and representatives of an imagined transnational community, celebrity activists are able to soothe the pain of violence and suffering through their actual presence in conflict zones as they hug survivors and report their testimonies. Such healing power, which anthropologists have also attributed to saints, spirits, and holy persons, translates the experiences of violence and the voices of the sufferers into gendered and infantilized testimonies and physical evidence.34 In the human rights and humanitarian contexts, this evidence is embodied through the affective visibility of celebrities whose aim is to overcome the compassion fatigue experienced by American audiences and policy makers about the Sudan. Likewise, Nicholas Kristof ’s videos and op-eds made an urgent plea to Obama’s administration to intervene in order to avert famine and starvation in the war zone, especially after the government of the Sudan banned aid workers and journalists from the area. The visibility of the conflict in the media reached its climax when Clooney protested and was arrested in front of the Sudanese Embassy in Washington. His arrest mobilized other human rights groups and gave Sudanese activists in the Sudan and in the diaspora a limited space to participate in and even critique the event. On March 12, 2012, activists from the Enough Project and other human rights organizations, including invited Sudanese activists in collaboration with several NGOs and other civil society organizations on the East Coast, gathered at Sheridan Circle in Washington to protest the Sudanese regime.35 African American TV host Joe Madison addressed the rally of about two hundred people, speaking about his extensive Sudan activism and his efforts to end slavery and racism against Southern Sudanese citizens.36 He reassured protesters that their fight against the regime’s Islamizing and racializing policies from abroad was an act of representing the Sudanese people: “I know some people are here because celebrities are

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here. God bless them. Celebrities have credit cards and you too . . . , but the real celebrities are the Sudanese people.” He then asked the protesters to line up single file and march toward the Sudanese Embassy, warning them, “You will be arrested, but the Sudanese people depend on you. Each of you represents a Sudanese. You represent Donald Payne [deceased] who could not be here with us today.”37 The protest, similar to the renowned Darfur rally at the National Mall, featured actors, talk show hosts, comedians, and politicians, including George Clooney and his father, Nick; civil rights leaders Martin Luther King III and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) president Ben Jealous; actor and comedian Dick Gregory; and Tom Andrews, president of United to End Genocide (formerly the Save Darfur Coalition). Also in attendance were Representative Al Green from Texas, Massachusetts representatives James McGovern and John Oliver, and Representative Jim Moran of Virginia. Surrounding the small space where actors and activists addressed the rally, journalists and protesters recorded the event on their cell phones and broadcast cameras. The speakers commented on the war atrocities committed in the Nuba Mountains amid protesters’ chants of “Albashir to the ICC” and “Justice, justice for Sudan.” One speaker shouted, “They can arrest us, but they cannot arrest our spirit, nor our commitment to end this atrocity.” Clooney entered the circle to give his testimony to the media despite the police warning that protesters should not cross the line to the embassy’s sovereign ground. “We are here to ask two demands immediately,” said Clooney. “The government of Khartoum [must] allow humanitarian aid to refugees on the ground and the Khartoum regime should stop raping its own women and bombarding its own innocent people and children.”38 While speaking, Clooney and his fellow activists seemed to ignore the police’s three verbal warnings to back up from the designated boundary. The act symbolized the threat posed by transnational activists’ demands for justice to the sovereignty of the Sudanese state and its Islamic vision, and highlighted the right of transnational activists (particularly celebrity ones) to interrogate the state’s incapacity to protect its own minority citizens. Clooney’s arrest constituted the climax of the protest, igniting cheers, chants, and even Sudanese-style ululation among the protesters. Clooney’s presence and his act of witnessing during the protest seemed to have a Lazarus effect: Through his ability to cross borders and transform experiences of violence into effective forces for change—because of his capacity to witness, to feel, and to care—he embodied the suffering of others. By standing before the dead soldier in the Nuba Mountains and then protesting before the Sudanese Embassy, Clooney symboli-



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cally brought the soldier’s dead body to life and presented the Sudanese people’s suffering, albeit in fragments, to the humanitarian community through new technologies of power. This suffering body no longer belonged to the national community imagined through a transnational sharia vision; instead, it came to belong to a higher humanitarian order represented by such monuments as the United Nations and the White House, and also including sites of humanitarian protests abroad. However well meaning, Clooney’s embodiment of violence and his narration of suffering from within the framework of rights and humanitarianism glossed over the struggle of Sudanese activists themselves and their efforts to promote inclusive national and transnational citizenship projects. This is not to say that Sudanese activists who endorsed human rights or celebrity humanitarianism are not strategic in the way they utilize these discourses and sites of protests. Many activists and opposition politicians have used the language of rights and humanitarianism to present their own vision of an inclusive, democratic nation-state through a blend of human rights and humanitarian discourses, giving particular attention to the Sudanese history of secular activism. For instance, on April 27, 2012, a few weeks after Clooney’s protest in front of the Sudanese Embassy in Washington, Sudanese from Darfur and the Nuba Mountains staged a protest rally in New York in front of the United Nations. The rally organizers mobilized their allies from several human rights and faith-based groups in the United States. At the UN building, protesters chanted, “Justice, justice for Sudan,” and “Sudan Bashir to ICC.” Again, protesters listened to addresses by celebrities, faith-based leaders, and human rights activists on human rights violations in Darfur and the Nuba Mountains. Human rights activist Hawa Muhammad Salih, the Darfurian who had won the US International Women of Courage Award in March 2012, addressed the rally, calling for an end to the humanitarian crises in Darfur and the Nuba Mountains. For many activists and newly initiated role models like Hawa, human rights served as a language of justice to claim inclusion in a multicultural Sudanese nation-state (see chapter 4). At the same rally, Yasir Arman, deputy secretary general of the SPLM-North and the revolutionary front’s foreign affairs representative, who was on an official visit to the United States, also addressed the protesters. His message tactfully used humanitarian language to claim northern Nubia as the cradle of humanity and civilization. For him, the Nubian heritage, a rich part of Sudanese history, should be utilized to rethink the project of diversity and multiculturalism in an inclusive secular Sudan. The land of Nubia, he stated, witnessed the blend of many cultural ideas and was a place where many religious and ethnic groups

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lived together. But the “genocidal policies” of the current regime dehumanized various ethnic groups in favor of a sharia state. He explained to the protesters that their acts were significant because they made the international community see and hear about the human rights and humanitarian violations committed in the Nuba Mountains and elsewhere in the Sudan. He ended his remarks by saying, “Tomorrow is for Sudan. Humanity is one, and should remain one.”39 In this way, Arman appropriated the languages of rights and humanitarianism to articulate his own vision of national unity and to build both national and transnational alliances. His presence at the rally also reflected the extent to which Sudanese opposition politics have come to traverse the boundaries of the nation-state, as political leaders connect with Sudanese opposition members and allies abroad. While Clooney’s arrest galvanized opponents of the regime in the diaspora, it generated other translocal responses from activists within the Sudan. Sudan Change Now, a youth organization formed in April 2010, wrote an open letter to Clooney on March 18, 2012. The letter, titled “Not in Our Name,” was published in the most widely read Sudanese Internet journal, Sudanile, and explicitly riffed on the name of Clooney’s human rights organization, Not on Our Watch. Connecting its activism to a long legacy of Sudanese secular politics, the youth group condemned piecemeal solutions to Sudan’s conflicts and called for mobilization across gender, ethnic, professional, and trade union lines to change the regime. The letter invoked past organizing efforts and struggle in the country, especially how students, unions, and political parties revolted to end two dictatorships, in October 1964 and April 1985. The group’s Facebook and Twitter accounts document the war crisis, the arrest and torture of activists, the struggle of working-class citizens, poverty, and the malfunctioning health sectors in the country resulting from the regime’s neoliberal policies. Hitham (a pseudonym), a group member whom I had met in Khartoum in 2011, said to me, “We staged two revolutions that shook the seats of two dictators in Sudan. I am not only hurt because of the biased international standards, but also because the media now portrays the Arab Spring as having nothing to do with Sudan. We invented the idea of African revolutions in 1964.” For Hitham and his young friends calling for change, “[National] unity was never an option in transnational celebrity activism for Sudan.” Such celebrity activism “sees with one eye . . . Yesterday was the South, today is Darfur, tomorrow maybe . . . for the remaining parts of the Sudan,” he continued. The open letter acknowledged Clooney’s effort to shed light on Sudan’s political turmoil, but critiqued his rights-based humanitarian approach as ignoring the complexity of the Sudanese conflicts and the struggle of different Sudanese



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activists and political parties. The group urged Clooney to remember that the current regime did not represent the visions of all Sudanese, not just in Darfur or the Nuba Mountains, but in the whole country: We urge that you choose the right language for your campaign to represent what is happening in the Sudan. The conflict in the Sudan is not an ethnic conflict between Arabs and non-Arabs. We invite you to sit with Sudanese of all ethnicities, from all regions, inside and outside the Sudan, who are struggling to find solutions to the bestial conflicts in our country and that our voice as people of this country should be heard and respected. [Our] “Not in our Name” message asserts that our struggle is one. We loudly say NO to war, NO to oppression, NO to marginalization and Human rights violations, NO to tribalism and racism, NO to poverty and other atrocities. The struggle continues and we shall win.40

As Clooney’s media appearance and his advocacy for the people of the Blue Nile and Nuba Mountains have waned, Sudanese activists continue to contest the silence of the international community and the United States’ relaxation of political relations with the Sudanese regime. Missing from the predominant rights-based humanitarian narrative is recognition of the various ways in which, in the Sudan and abroad, other Sudanese political parties, including the Umma Party, the Communist Party, and newly established youth groups, continue to call for a peaceful resistance movement to change the regime or to pressure it to include opposition parties. They have mobilized through Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, and other Sudanese cyberpublic media. During my trip to the Sudan in June and July of 2012, youth demonstrations staged through social media and in different neighborhoods in Khartoum fueled public unrest and the detention of opposition members from various parties.41 These protests continued, and on September 23, 2013, a massive uprising against the regime erupted in Khartoum and other parts of the country after the government imposed strict economic liberalization measures to increase the prices of food and fuel. More than two hundred male and female youths died as a result of the regime’s security crackdown on protesters. During these demonstrations, the World Bank commended Sudan on its strict economic policies in order to avert a possible economic crisis provoked by its loss of oil revenue, after the separation of the South.42 The World Bank predicted that Sudan’s debt to foreign institutions, including Western donors, amounted to $44.1 billion in 2013; therefore, stricter policies to cut government public spending were regarded as the right remedy. Reports that Sudanese officials are preparing to negotiate debt relief with the World Bank based on the

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regime’s concessions to facilitate the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and to collaborate in the war against terror angered many activists in the Sudan and in the diaspora. Such political concessions seem to trump activists’ aspirations for justice and inclusion under both national and transnational norms. Protesters in the Sudan, in Washington, DC, and in San Francisco have contested the silence of the international community over the killing of Sudanese youth activists by the regime’s security in Khartoum and the continued human rights violations in other parts of the country after the secession of the South.43 Such protests demonstrate that activists’ aspirations are entangled in broader political negotiations and processes. Rights-based humanitarian activism was not meant to—nor did it—highlight the intricate political history of the Sudanese conflicts and their underlying negotiations and processes. Its underlying objective was to protest the silence of the international community, especially the United States, and invite intervention by using the familiar language of genocide, gender violence, and ethnic cleansing. Taking the historical context of the conflicts seriously would have produced a different understanding of the humanitarian crises in the regions of the Sudan. According to many activists I interviewed, these humanitarian crises are generated by the failure of negotiation among Sudan’s political elites and the conditions of war, poverty, and violence, exacerbated by national and transnational confrontations and imposed neoliberal policies.

The Visible Hand of Invisibility As celebrities, performers, and subaltern role models become humanitarian and human rights activists, they advocate for ethnic minorities because of conditions of suffering during wars and conflicts, but their advocacy overlooks the political, historical, and economic processes that produced these conditions. Many scholars have argued that human rights and humanitarian languages and practices are entangled in the same capitalist and neoliberal processes that produce situations of suffering and relations of inequality.44 Similarly, the exclusionary policies and the citizenship regulations that Sudanese activists in the Sudan and in the diaspora continue to contest are inseparable from neoliberal policies and transnational confrontations among elites over the nature of governance in the Sudan, Africa, and the West. The clash between the Islamists, with their vision of a transnational social order grounded in religious sentiment and morality, and the international community, represented by institutions such as the United Nations, the World Bank, the ICC, and other human rights and humanitarian organizations, is evidence of such confrontation. The neoliberal policies imposed by the World Bank and the IMF on the Sudan since the 1980s are clear examples



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of how situations of poverty, famine, ethnic conflicts, and migration have been amplified in the country. Western sanctions on the Islamist regime since the 1990s, however, turned the government of the Sudan to “proxy-neoliberalism” through trade with Arab, Muslim, and Asian countries. As the Sudanese state outsourced its economic and social responsibilities to other agents, parties, and foreign investors, it invested more in its military to secure its borders and its sovereignty. The disappearance of the somewhat benevolent state and the appearance of the punitive state, as Roger Lancaster notes, manifests in its shrinking socioeconomic responsibilities toward its citizens, such as investing in health, education, and housing or creating democratic platforms for debating issues of poverty, sexism, ethnicity, and racism.45 There is ample evidence that the increasing liberalization of market economies has strangled local economies in Africa and globally as citizens of nation-states await the trickle-down effect of the market’s “invisible hand” and its promise for all to live equally ever after. The rhetoric of “failing African states” propagated by many human rights activists and experts, such as Prendergast at the STAND conference, should take into account these connected global processes. On the global level, the last two decades have seen nothing but the systematic impoverishment of poor communities, exacerbated by increased war politics, violence, and invasions. The accelerated militarization of states, especially in Africa, has brought out the worst in opponents as they have waged war, halted negotiations, and created “ghost houses” for detention and torture of activists and opposition members.46 The neoliberal state manifests, ghost-like, in the trail of destruction it leaves behind: bitter memories, famished children, broken homes, burned villages, tortured bodies, and stranded refugees—all compiled and presented to us by human rights actors, celebrities, humanitarian advocates, and subaltern role models through the commodified, high-tech visibilities of late capitalism. At this particular moment of neoliberal globalization, such representations work through the commodification of bodies, the rapid spread of suffering-and-violence stories, the fragmentation of historical knowledge, and the visualization of global actors and celebrities. But as the Islamist neoliberal state threatens the idea of global security and human rights, the “visible hands” of benevolent transnational actors and global citizens are summoned onto the sovereign national landscape to protect its borders and heal its suffering against the terror of its own ruling national and transnational elites. My analysis of rights-based humanitarian activism and the transnational alliances that it generates, therefore, does not assume that leading celebrities and subaltern role models are not aware of such shortcomings. It rather emphasizes

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the entanglement of these efforts by social actors and activists in broader socioeconomic and political processes that invest in the body and rely on a particular economy of empathy and compassion so that rich and famous actors come to represent the suffering of others. It is not surprising, therefore, to hear actors like George Clooney or Ben Affleck describe their activism in the media in monetary terms.47 In various interviews, Clooney refers to his image as a “currency” or “credit card,” which he uses to shed light on humanitarian atrocities—a theme that Joe Madison also reiterated in his address to protesters at Sheridan Circle in Washington. The accumulation of fame and visibility through both social and market processes shapes celebrities’ currency-like image and renders their affective power borderless.48 They can be summoned to sites of pain, violence, and suffering to establish satellites and violate sovereign rules, to demonstrate in front of the White House, to brief congressional committees, and to meet with presidents to talk about suffering in remote areas of the globe. The underlying assumption is that without the application of this embodied power and affective performance, these significant political and humanitarian issues would remain invisible to the imagined international community. The techniques and performances of leading actors turn human rights and humanitarian language into “audio-political” strategies to make the world hear and listen, but they also miss the murky colonial and postcolonial realities that continue to mask histories and the realities of the struggles (see chapter 4). For one thing, the assumption of “one-human-family” that underlies the notion of making global citizens and celebrity role models is fraught with peril. As celebrity actors perform and embody the suffering of others, they also enact a transnational gender, ethnic, and racial hierarchy that overshadows the prevalence of citizenship regulations, diaspora struggles, class disparities, and sociopolitical hegemonies. On the one hand, this kind of activism demonstrates how activists’ aspirations are confined by national and transnational moral codes and by the inability of political actors to see and hear evenly on local and global levels. On the other hand, human rights and humanitarian publics provide limited sites for subaltern actors and activists to express their opposing political visions and reflect on their own histories of struggle and their desire to care for their communities and to give back to their home countries and ethnic places. Yet, as much as we need solidarity, compassion, and social care in times of uncertainty and escalating violence and intolerance, the representation and marketing of suffering in the name of humanity and compassionate development naturalizes poverty, glorifies neoliberal solutions, and celebrates transnational alliances and global citizenship in a divisive, albeit romantic guise. Such responses



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also elide the liberating potential of activism on the part of the dispossessed. Celebrity endorsements, and the production of suffering in the form of commodities such as Darfur handmade baskets, STAND conference T-shirts and anti-Albashir tags, and other paraphernalia presented in various humanitarian publics that exhort us to donate funds or participate in “long walks” to end suffering or “make poverty history,” become part of our habitus, a cultural norm that we have to accept, embody, and practice silently.49 This approach depoliticizes war and violence and represents their effects as the responsibility of hardworking citizens who have succeeded and are now obliged to lend a generous hand to unfortunate fellow citizens to lift them out of miserable conditions. The “naturalization of injustice”50 renders efforts to end disparities a matter of choice, which only the privileged, the conscientiously compassionate, and the religiously faithful can afford. The branding and celebritization of conflicts and the institution of humanitarianism as a way out of poverty, suffering, and underdevelopment also reproduce a postcolonial narrative of modernity and progress. Within this narrative the privileged West is deemed to possess agency and compassion, while the “Third World” remains in a state of subordination and helplessness, wrecked by its inept rulers and inherently “predatory states.”51 Modern ideologies of human rights and humanitarianism and their varying technologies of governance, then, fail to escape the entrapment of identity politics, neoconservatism, and the hierarchical positioning of global subjects. They paradoxically harden ethnic divisions, reproduce class disparities, and hide the fierce competition among various political actors about the meanings of rights and national and transnational affiliations.

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Chapter Three

Diaspora as Counter-Response Citizenship Rights and the Suffering of Ghurba

A nation of people who know how to build . . . No war, let’s build bridges and clinics . . . Aisha keep telling us, Mary keep reminding us . . . a cello trumps a gun . . . —Mahjoub Sharif 1

‘aid aladha (Sacrifice Festival) in December 2006, and I was visiting Khalid in Annandale, Virginia, to explore the idea of doing fieldwork with Sudanese in the Washington metropolitan area. When I arrived at Khalid’s apartment, his wife explained that he had just left to be with a friend whose father had died in Dubai. The father had migrated from Sudan to the United Arab Emirates ten years before and had been supporting his son, who was studying in the United States. Khalid’s friend was shocked when he received the news of his father’s sudden death, as he had been preparing to travel to Khartoum to visit his family and celebrate his marriage to a Sudanese American woman he had met at school. Sadly, the family would now gather for his father’s funeral. When Khalid returned home, his phone rang constantly—he was helping this friend get a ticket to Khartoum, responding to other friends who needed help with immigration forms, and talking with still others who wondered about his ’aid plans. Sudanese friends also dropped by throughout the evening to wish Khalid and his family a merry ‘aid and to chat over tea and coffee. The death of Khalid’s friend’s father was the center of conversation as guests talked about IT WA S THE DAY B E FO R E

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the suffering of ghurba (foreignness, exile) and the pain of enduring the loss of loved ones away from home.2 As the evening waned, a Ugandan neighbor knocked on the door and introduced herself, saying she had recently moved in and was eager to “get to know some African folks.” After she left, the conversation shifted to a recent event that had captured the attention of the Sudanese community in the United States: a Sudanese woman had splashed phosphoric acid on the face of another Sudanese woman during a wedding party in New York, accusing the latter of breaking up her longtime marriage. Khalid said he knew the families of the two women and had heard about the feud. “Was this a proper behavior?” asked Nadia, Khalid’s wife. “Sudanese women are not known to react in such violent ways in public,” she added. Their friend Salah responded by observing how ubiquitous violence was: “Violence is everywhere nowadays. It is on TV, in the movies, in world politics. You just can’t escape it. Tomorrow is ‘aid aladha and people are talking about Saddam’s execution,” which was scheduled to take place the next day. Our conversation about violence, exile, and the holiday went on until midnight. In the morning we were joining others from the Muslim Sudanese community in a high school football stadium that had been rented for the ‘aid prayer, but before we left the apartment, Khalid told us that Saddam Hussein had been executed. Most of the Sudanese we visited for ‘aid felicitations that day expressed their frustration that the celebration was overshadowed by news of such political violence. Indeed, the execution was the focus of conversation in many homes, as friends and their families followed the news on their satellite networks. At Miriam’s home, where we went for ‘aid lunch, we watched Al Jazeera news as we waited for her to arrive with her dhahiyya (ram offering), which she was bringing from a Lebanese store in town. Miriam’s youngest daughter quickly flipped the channels as she said nervously, “What in the world? This will just breed more violence. I don’t think I can eat today. Let’s talk about something else.” She added sarcastically, “Happy ‘aid, everyone.” Atif, a young Sudanese artist, worried aloud that the timing of the execution would provoke feelings of hate among Muslim factions. Nasir, a journalist, made sardonic connections between violence, suffering, and celebration. He inferred that the head of Saddam (ras saddam) signified the head of a ram (ras alkharoof) and the coming celebration of New Year’s Eve (ras [head] alsana [year]). The head was a signifier of political tyranny, but also a symbol of reason, respect, and obedience. The execution was meant to send a message to ordinary Muslims about the end of Saddam’s tyranny, but for the people at lunch the message was also dehumanizing, equating them to obedient



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sheep on a day meant to celebrate and show respect to the teachings of their faith. This was the only way to interpret such violent messages, they felt, given a political atmosphere in which intolerance toward Muslims seemed more pronounced than ever before. The mood was reflective as Miriam finally arrived with her two sons, carrying the dhahiyya in several plastic bags.3 In the months and years following the 9/11 tragedies—a period of heightened transnational human rights and humanitarian activism for the Sudan and increased debate about Sudan’s role in harboring terror—members of the Muslim Sudanese community throughout the United States felt the brunt of the reactionary responses to Islam and the xenophobic tensions that targeted Muslim and Arab communities. During my frequent visits to Washington, DC, to connect with old friends or speak at social events, many of the community leaders and activists I met described the fear, isolation, and tension that they had experienced in the aftermath of these violent political events. Although many of the social actors and activists I refer to here can be located within the broader category of “Northern Sudanese,” many refused to label themselves as one ethnic identity or another. They clung to a broader notion of Sudanese-ness as an escape from the predicament of ethnic identity politics and a way to envision a broader transnational affiliation. They pointed to intermarriages with other ethnic groups, living in a variety of Sudanese regions, and adhering to different secular, political, and professional visions, thus complicating rigid understandings of a “Northern Sudanese” identity that is often presented in mainstream American media and in predominant discourses of human rights and humanitarianism about the Sudan. I open this chapter with scenes from Khalid’s and Miriam’s homes in Virginia in order to create space for a humanist narrative that considers the reinterpretation of violence, the negotiations of citizenship rights, and the building of different diaspora publics for alliances, togetherness, and social care. These publics, alliances, and social networks, while often overshadowed, were crucial in offsetting the impact of the exclusion after 9/11 and the competing discourses and practices of pan-Islamism and pan-humanitarianism that accompanied the escalation of the Sudanese conflicts and the country’s subsequent division. As many scholars have noted, in situations of political turmoil and cultural disruptions, diaspora communities often become places of solace and refuge where community members can debate and redefine their new social positions.4 After considering these counter-narratives and various ways of community organizing, I contend that the human rights and humanitarian models of global citizenship—focused on ethnic labeling, gender violence, suffering, genocide, and intervention and endorsed by celebrities and their religious and secular

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allies—do not take into account the wide range of national and transnational understandings of solidarity and belonging. Human rights and humanitarian discourses that foreground the transnational family as a sociopolitical trope and practice that aims to ameliorate the effects of violence and interrogate the actions of political leaders stand in contrast to the counter-narratives and diasporic experiences that I present here. Diaspora publics and the counter-narratives they generate celebrate national sentiments and familial connections in order to forge transnational solidarities that question postcolonial legacies of violence, exile, and exclusion. From PanAfricanism to the civil rights movement in the United States to the local and international efforts to end apartheid in South Africa, the history of activism is replete with different modes of organizing and heroic accounts of solidarities that celebrate nationalism and independence while denouncing global hegemonies and oppressions.5 In the contemporary case of the Sudan and the Sudanese American community, this clearly manifests in how transnational secular, Muslim, and nonMuslim social actors and activists have created and utilized their own diaspora publics to contest exclusionary visions of cultural and political citizenship. Building on notions of diaspora as “a process and a condition,”6 I use “diaspora” as “counter-response” here, to examine the work of such alternative sites and to show how they serve as a means to respond to both hegemonic narratives of panhumanitarianism and Pan-Islamism and the multiple ways they fragmented the Sudanese questions of citizenship, diversity, and ethnic conflicts. Although these diaspora publics and the counter-responses they articulate are not necessarily progressive or unbound by identity politics, they shed light on alternative ways of organizing, building communities and publics, and forging new meanings of solidarities and multiple citizenships. In many ways these counter-narratives, too, reflect ethnic, gender, and political tensions and divides in the Sudan, especially before the country’s partition. Yet they present an imagination of national and transnational belonging based on hybrid identities and reinterpretations of violence, compassion, and care that negotiate, and often contest, hegemonic narratives and conservative politics of exclusion.

Muslim Sudanese and the Predicament of Cultural Affinities In November 2007, the story of Issra Yousif, a thirteen-year-old Sudanese student who lived with her family in California, circulated on major Sudanese websites and in other social media.7 When one of Issra’s teachers at Seaside High School told her she was not allowed to wear her headscarf in class, Issra responded that



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the scarf was not a hat but an Islamic head covering that reflected her religious convictions. A YouTube video of a local news report (on KION 46) showed Issra’s father commenting on the incident, calling it a case of religious and cultural intolerance. The father and daughter brought the case to court and won, after which the board of education apologized and revised the policy on headwear to make an exception for verified religious and medical reasons. The policy also specified that teachers and faculty had to receive annual training on tolerance of different religious and cultural practices. In the early stages of my fieldwork in 2007, families and friends often mentioned Issra’s incident when talking about their own encounters with misrepresentation and their feelings of exclusion. Osama, a student at Virginia Tech, told me how his name had created a sense of uneasiness for him at school. He wrote an essay about the experience, “A Student Named Osama,” which became instrumental in informing his peers about his parents’ struggle with exile and his own struggle as a Sudanese American citizen. Ghada, a young Sudanese student who was also at Virginia Tech, said that her headscarf was a focus of intense discussion among her friends and classmates. She recalled: The students were curious about my veil. They asked me all the time, “What is it for?” and I would say, “It is a symbol like you have the cross.” There was a lot of tension then and I was not sure they were keen to learn. So, one day I decided to make it a learning experience. I talked about religious values, that I wear the headscarf because I am a Muslim to show respect to God . . . next time I was surprised that they had a farewell party for me and the gift was a scarf.

The understanding of the veil as a marker of the oppression of Muslim women by male guardians and leaders has been propagated in mainstream media by political and humanitarian discourses that emphasize the fear of an Islamic incursion on Western liberal values and homelands. Ghada was accepted into Virginia Tech shortly after 9/11, which coincided with the development of alienating perceptions stemming from the rising tide of political fear and racial tension in the United States. She has horrific memories of these times as a period of violent conflict in South Sudan and of the eruption of the Darfur conflict and the wars in the Middle East. But her experience at Virginia Tech after 9/11 was unlike any other experience, she recalled. “I had not experienced anything like this, not in the Sudan nor during my first years in Illinois.” Ghada believes that the tragedy of the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007 was an outcome of the racial tension unleashed after 9/11 and its effects on minority students on campus.

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For Ghada, raised by highly educated parents in the Sudan, 9/11 left a powerful memory of violence, but it also taught her the significance of becoming active as a student and community member. This was important, she said, because her community engagement gave her a deeper understanding of the political and social impact of violence at the local and global levels. She reflected on how the “suffering of exile” and the racial politics of 9/11 reinforced her multiple social positions: “The racial politics of 9/11 made me reflect on my own position as a Muslim, Sudanese, American, and also as someone with roots in Darfur,” she explained. Ghada’s multiple positions served as lenses through which she recognized other atrocities and modes of violence, such as the ongoing wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, South Sudan, Darfur, and elsewhere. She saw Sudan as a country with the potential to include everyone, but also as a country divided by party politics and the mobilization of violence, gender, and ethnicities by human rights activists and politicians at home and abroad. When asked where she comes from, Ghada said, she always identifies as Sudanese, even in America: In my unconscious state [laughs] I will just say I am Sudanese, but of course I am also American with Darfurian roots that I am proud of. My family, whose members originated in Darfur, is all over the Sudan. When the Darfur conflict dominated the media, I had to think about my roots. I also asked why Congo was overshadowed during that time although there were atrocities committed there . . . I was forced to think locally but the civil rights movement taught me to stand with injustices wherever they are.

Stories such as those of Issra, Osama, and Ghada illustrate the predicament resulting from the political and cultural construction of the “Muslim/Arab Northern Sudanese” category. Muslim “Northern Sudanese” identities have always been located somewhere in between Africa and the Middle East. Islam and Arabic draw Muslim Sudanese closer to the Muslim Arab world, and yet their skin tones mark them as racially different and more African than Arab in the Middle East and in the West. Within the Sudan, however, the constructed category of “Northern Sudanese” has attached the identity of many Muslims to a single hegemonic label that ignores ethnic and racial distinctions and the fluidity invoked by intermarriages and other regional interactions. The very term “Arab” is historically associated with Muslim Arabic-speaking Northern Sudanese elites who have ruled the country since it gained independence in 1956. The ruling elites, however, also comprise a range of ethnic groups who have been represented in government offices on the basis of their political allegiances. Moreover, many Sudanese nomads identify as Arabs in order to denote a pastoral lifestyle and a



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group identity anchored in Islam and notions of land and descent. And indeed, many urban Sudanese use the term “Arab” pejoratively to describe a nomadic lifestyle in contrast to constructions of modernity and progress. In short, whether one is considered Arab or non-Arab in the Sudan is determined by complex ethnic and racial categories that take into account regionality, skin tone, and other bodily attributes. An Arab Sudanese is never white, never black—two categories associated with European and Arab colonialisms and with the long history of slavery in the Sudan. Instead, Sudanese subscribe to a more nuanced set of color categories with both positive and negative connotations. A dark-skinned Arab Sudanese might identify as brown (asmar), green (akhadar), or blue (azraq), but a Southern or Western Sudanese is racialized as black (aswad), dark blue (azraq shadid), or having a slave ancestry. Ethnic and racial categorizations, however, often rely on regional identification such as shamali (Northerner), janobi (Southerner), or gharabi (Westerner). Such categories of Arab and non-Arab have historically shifted according to claims of power and status, to political and social alliances, and to intermarriages and neighborly relations. In the aftermath of 9/11 in the United States and with the escalation of conflicts in the Sudan, the fluidity of these associations hardened in political discourses about Sudan’s identity that competed with the Islamist rescue narrative and presented contrasting notions of familial solidarities, compassion, and social care (see chapter 1). Ironically, the same tragedies that struck the American homeland and manifested in violent realities of war and conflict in Muslim and Arab homelands resulted in new economic opportunities for struggling “Northern Sudanese” families in the United States and facilitated their citizenship processes. This was a time of growing economic crisis created by the 2001 housing bubble, and it had become impossible for many Sudanese, especially those who enjoyed a relatively middle-class lifestyle during the 1990s, to maintain their jobs and their economic status. Subcontracting companies working in Iraq and other Muslim countries were looking to hire Muslim and Arab immigrants as cultural experts to facilitate their deliveries to the army and their translation of the intricate contexts of war and invasion. For many, in particular those whose families and economic responsibilities had grown over time, these were indispensable job opportunities. Working for the United States in this capacity was intensely debated within Sudanese exile communities in discussions that highlighted questions of identity and the affiliation of Northern Sudanese to the Muslim Arab world. In 2007, for example, a heated exchange erupted on Sudanese social media about the recruitment of Sudanese exiles as translators and cultural advisors to the US

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Army, and whether Muslim Sudanese were participating in an unjust war against fellow Muslims. The antiwar movement in the United States and many Middle Eastern countries shaped the responses of activist groups that viewed diplomacy as a better alternative than military invasion. But for those secular exiles who were struggling to keep their families afloat, such overseas opportunities meant the ability to pay home mortgages and secure a decent future for themselves and their children as lawful citizens of the United States. Mona, a Sudanese woman who worked as a recruiter for a US subcontractor, was well aware of the critiques launched by some Sudanese against such high-risk jobs in the Muslim Arab region, but she noted that for many immigrants and refugees these jobs offered good salaries and cash bonuses up to $15,000. The positions also came with the prospect of expediting procedures for residency and citizenship.8 Mona’s exile experience taught her that “for refugees and immigrants, it is hard to find the job of one’s dream in times of stability. Therefore grabbing the opportunities created during war and conflict is not the worst thing that could happen to them.” As she described her situation: I gave birth to my daughter during the invasion of Kuwait, and that was a horrible time when we decided to move to Saudi Arabia. We lived there five years, and then we decided to move to the United States. When I came here it was hard to find a good job. One day, I took my kid to a day care run by a Lebanese woman in my neighborhood and she told me they had an opening and I took the job. This job did not satisfy my aspiration as a qualified accountant. I then found a job as a teller in a small bank branch in Virginia until a burglar broke into the bank one Christmas and that was it for me. I can’t describe the horror that besieges me to this day . . . I thought of Kuwait and our evacuation. I later called a Sudanese acquaintance [and told him] that I needed a job and he called me back to direct me to the subcontracting company.

Other exiles recounted stories similar to Mona’s. Sami, a civil engineer, lost his job in Washington, DC, when the housing bubble burst, leaving him with no alternative but to accept a job with the US Army in Iraq in order to keep the family’s home and to pay the school expenses for his three children. Ahmed, who left Sudan in the 1980s and sought asylum in the United States, told me about his struggle to make a life as an immigrant. His law degree from an Egyptian university was not widely recognized, and he had a dream to study media and communication in America. However, the overwhelming responsibilities of supporting a family, helping everyone settle into a new country, and making the right



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connections took more time than he had expected. To make ends meet, he had to settle for work in a restaurant and then as a cabdriver. When the subcontracting companies that served the US Army advertised various positions related to cultural advising and education in Arizona, Ahmed was among the many who applied and were accepted. He described the job as a temporary contract lasting eight to nine months and then subject to renewal. During that time, the recruits worked primarily as cultural translators, role players, and educational advisors for army units that were to be posted to Iraq and other countries in the Arab region. Although Iraqis were preferred for such positions, applicants of other nationalities, such as Sudanese, Somalis, and Egyptians, were also accepted because of their cultural affinities to the region and knowledge of it. When Ahmed started the job in 2004, there were 350 role players and cultural educators, 80 of whom were Sudanese. The job enabled him to work three-week stints in Louisiana with one-week intervals as a cabdriver in Washington, DC, which together paid enough to cover his major expenses. These subcontracting companies, together with Arab businesses in the United States, have provided alternative sources of employment for many Sudanese who were unable to access the American job market and achieve full citizenship status before and after 9/11. In 2008, I met Abdel Qadir Dawood, a renowned Sudanese media expert, at a community event in Arlington, Virginia. He told me about a book he had recently published in Arabic, detailing his experience in Iraq and his work with the US Army as a media expert. Titled ‘Anawin ghair mantiqia (Illogical Headlines), the book has a cynical tone and describes the ironies of his position as a Muslim Sudanese American citizen who once pursued a dream of using the media to foster peace, unity, and inclusion in the Sudan. When I interviewed Dawood in May 2009, he spoke in detail about his exile experience and how it shaped his reconsideration of the transnational world he had once imagined as boundless and governed by a universal understanding of human rights. He received his education in Cairo, worked there for a few years, and then moved to the Sudan in 1967. As part of the vanguard of media innovation in the Sudan, he viewed the arts and media as conduits for presenting ideas of inclusive citizenship rights, unity, and multiculturalism to a larger Sudanese public. Raised as both Nubian and Sudanese in Egypt and the Sudan during the 1960s and 1970s, he was influenced by both Pan-Arabism and Pan-Africanism, ideas that he embraced through his study of cinema and television in Cairo. In the Sudan he established the Sudanese Cinema Club with other leading intellectuals in the country. The club’s first attempt to pro-

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duce a Sudanese film, ‘Aurs alzain (Wedding of Zain), based on the novel by renowned Sudanese novelist Tayeb Salih, faced multiple difficulties, including two devaluations of the Sudanese currency in the late 1970s, that hampered production of the project. Financial constraints forced Dawood to leave Sudan for Kuwait to secure more funding for the film, and there he joined a small group of Arab intellectuals interested in cinema. The new collaboration successfully produced that film, as well as three other short films—Jamaal (Camel), Mahata (Station), and Habil (Robe), all of which won prizes at international film festivals in France, Berlin, and Damascus. In 1987, Dawood migrated to the United States in search of more training and broader contexts for his creative ideas. But to fulfill his dreams, he told me, he started from scratch: “I started by accepting any job you can think of. I hauled boxes, I drove a cab, I waited in fast-food restaurants, until I finally found an opportunity that fit my media expertise in 1991, and it was not in Hollywood.” Saudi Arabia Television (SAT, a Saudi production company with offices in Washington, DC) and the Middle East Broadcasting Company (MBC, broadcasting for the Gulf and the Arab world from the United States) hired Dawood, and he produced sixteen programs on issues related to politics and the arts. He also collaborated with Fairfax Public Television to produce a series of public programs that introduced visiting Sudanese political leaders to the American public at the height of the North-South conflict in the Sudan and the prospects of peace in the late 1990s. In response to 9/11 and the rising antagonism against Muslims and Arabs in the United States, Dawood organized a Muslim American and Arab American art group that produced a music album in solidarity with the victims and families affected by the tragedy. During our conversation in May 2009, he gave me a copy of the CD and explained the project: My idea was to denounce the demonization of Muslims and Arabs that alienated and marked them as non-Americans. We wanted to say that Muslim and Arab Americans in the United States feel the pain of the victims just as other Americans do. We are American citizens regardless of such tragedy and the demonizing rhetoric we hear. Our objective was also very humanitarian and we wanted to give voice to the victims of the attacks. One song, for instance, referenced the names of people who died during the attack. I wrote two songs, and another Sudanese American wrote a song. We collaborated with an Egyptian artist and other Muslim Americans as well. We distributed the album free of charge to several media venues and we got good response from Arab International media and the BBC.



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One of the songs imagined life in the twin towers before the tragedy: people wandering around peacefully, a photo lab processing pictures of memorable moments, a music studio producing love songs for teenagers, and workers doing their jobs, trying to make ends meet. One excerpt from the song reads: At the 97th floor There is a security man behind the door A father, of four cute children—Kadiga, Monique, Rachelle and Karen . . . They speak English with difficulty They live in a room in Brooklyn with three more roommates Just normal human beings like you and I They are not involved in politics . . . They were all alive in the high towers of Manhattan ... I exist you exist we exist together we coexist . . . There’s a whole new world disorder when you come across that border.9

The song commemorated the lives of those who died during the attacks and concluded by condemning political violence, fear, intolerance, and biased international rhetoric and solutions. When SAT and MBC terminated their businesses in Washington, DC, in 2003, Dawood was left wondering what to do next at such a late point in his career. A friend encouraged him to apply for a US Army job in the Gulf region, and he did, although he was aware of the skepticism of many Sudanese about working in Arab conflict zones during a period of such high tension. He apologetically commented on the demonization of such work: People misunderstood the nature of these jobs: people worked in different sectors, such as food and uniform supplies for the army. There were also construction jobs and building telecommunication networks during the conflict. The assumption was that we were hired to fuel the war. But to the contrary, people are hired in these jobs to facilitate the cultural miscommunications that arise during the conflict. They are supposed to mitigate the effect of conflicts . . . my friends were also worried that this was a risky kind of work for me at such an age and I told them I had lived enough and I didn’t mind. If I don’t have a job, if I can’t support my family, if I don’t feel like I am part of this nation [the United States], what is the meaning of life? And I went ahead and I applied . . . I was first posted to Qatar and then to Iraq as a media expert.

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The experiences of Mona, Sami, Ahmed, and Dawood speak to how Muslim “Northern Sudanese” had to navigate questions of identity and experiences of exile that were made more complicated by the tragedies of war, deployment of identity politics, and foreign intervention in the Sudan and the Middle East. In my interviews and interactions with Sudanese secular elites, I heard repeatedly about how their dreams of unity, diversity, and inclusive citizenship rights have been constrained by the dominant pan-Islamist and pan-humanitarian rhetoric of solidarities and ethnic fragmentation. Many of these exiles imagined an inclusive Sudan before and after they left the country, and assumed that they would be able to contribute to the nation from abroad while pursuing their dream of living a more prosperous life. However, the circumstances of underdevelopment in the Sudan and the successive despotic regimes undermined their ability to support their families and communities at home and forced them to leave the country. Once living in the diaspora, they encountered another form of alienation and citizenship exclusion, made more acute by political discourses and the humanitarian rhetoric of “bad-Arab Muslims” after 9/11. While many support ideas of human rights and humanitarianism, they feel that these ideas are directed toward transforming the behavior of “Third World” ruling actors and not toward their own struggles as exiles. The situation at home, the secondary citizenship in exile, and new forms of exclusion result in a different articulation of affective violence—a bitter sentiment of alienation (mararat alghurba). And yet it is this alienation that has spurred many exiles to seek out new relationships, solidarities, and social affinities with Sudanese and other groups in the United States and to build viable diaspora publics of care and togetherness. Many of them explained to me how investing in community helped them to manage feelings of national and transnational alienation and their suffering of exile.

Acting on Cultural Politics: Building Transnational Communities from the Nation Up Community organizing and the construction of viable networks based on cultural and national affinities have long been important features of diaspora and migrant communities in host countries.10 Because migrant communities face the challenge of redefining the meanings of home and public in exile, they invent new spaces and places of communication and togetherness in order to assert themselves against existing and emerging trends of violence and cultural and political exclusion. This strategy is evident in the way Sudanese exiles renegotiated the idea of diaspora publics as a counter-response to the hegemonic forms



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of representation they encountered in the United States and before the division of the Sudan. The most salient form of community organization among Sudanese communities in various global locations is known as jalia, an organization that enables community members to engage in their cultural practices and imagine a national community away from home. Long before I formally embarked on my fieldwork for this book, my Sudanese friends constantly referred to the presence of a vibrant Sudanese jalia in the Washington metropolitan area. And indeed, during my visits to the nation’s capital, I was often invited by friends and acquaintances to picnics, seminars, workshops, and concerts organized by jalia members. In 2003, I accompanied a friend to the general assembly meeting of the Sudanese jalia in Alexandria, Virginia. The objective of the meeting was to discuss the executive committee’s year-end report and elect a new executive director to represent the community in social matters. Nomination and election to jalia positions were open to all Sudanese members who had paid their five-dollar registration fee. Large numbers of women and men from the Sudanese community had turned out for the meeting, and they discussed a range of issues related to building a viable community that, according to one female member, would “work for all Sudanese here, there, and in other places.” The resulting discussion shed light on their concerns, in particular how to link the jalia work with emerging political issues, such as mobilizing Sudanese to aid people in need in the Sudan and the United States. Another issue was how to inform and connect the Sudanese jalia with the experiences of other African communities in exile. There was discussion during the meeting, for example, about a jalia workshop that had hosted Ethiopian and Eritrean community representatives who shared their experiences and their longer history of community organizing in the area. The outgoing committee included the suggestions from that workshop in their year-end report as an important achievement that would affect the future direction of the jalia. Central to the recommendations of the workshop was securing nonprofit status for the jalia—a trend that reflected an increasingly frequent response to NGO and humanitarian culture—in order to ensure its function as an “action-oriented” organization. The report also recommended that the name jalia be changed to one that would reflect its Sudanese and American affiliation. The tireless work of the newly elected officers in implementing these recommendations substantially altered the direction of the jalia with regard to political change in the United States and in the Sudan. The jalia was transformed into the Sudanese American Community Development Organization (SACDO), a nonprofit that engages with intellectual and community affairs in Virginia and

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maintains a dynamic website. SACDO’s page on social services, for example, informs Sudanese newcomers about community activities and the services available for them in the United States, especially in the areas of health, education, migration, and government aid. In 2004, for example, that page noted that the Sudanese community was concentrated in Fairfax, Alexandria, and Arlington, with some presence in Prince William County, the state of Maryland, and Washington, DC. The page also explained the process of applying to affordable housing programs such as subsidized public housing like the Housing Choice Voucher Program (formerly known as Section 8).11 The information aimed to facilitate the integration of newcomers and encourage them to assert their rights and participate in American social and political experiences. Ismat Qabani, a former jalia representative, wrote on SACDO’s website in 2004 that statistical information produced through the FBI in 2002, in the aftermath of September 11, counted 17,000 Sudanese in the Washington area. He lamented that despite this large number, the Sudanese community had not collectively mobilized to influence the American political process through involvement in presidential or state elections. Voting, he pointed out, would “give our jalia a strong weight and involve Sudanese immigrants in the American democratic process. This is especially important because Sudanese are cautiously following the ongoing peace negotiations between the north and the south and hoping that a united Sudan, within which we can all enjoy equal citizenship rights, would be the outcome.”12 The organization’s website also offered spaces to connect Sudanese in the United States with other members of the Sudanese diaspora through its social, political, and cultural columns. But most significantly, it provided information about political processes, social benefits, and services to help immigrants ground themselves in both nations, as rightful Sudanese and as American citizens. During the course of my fieldwork I interacted with SACDO members at social and cultural events and interviewed members of the outgoing and incoming executive committees. In June 2007, for instance, I interviewed Dr. Ahmed Osman, the former president of the jalia and a longtime resident of Virginia. Like many community leaders I met in the area, Dr. Osman had a long history of moving within the United States before finally settling in Virginia in the 1980s. He was among the few Sudanese who arrived via a scholarship exchange program in the 1970s and then remained in the United States to further his education. Osman studied library science in Indiana in 1975 and moved first to California and then to Texas to work as an academic advisor for the Saudi mission there. He told me that his identity as a Muslim Sudanese and his wide network facilitated



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his career. When the mission moved to Washington, he made Virginia his new home, and he subsequently witnessed the growth of Sudanese community there over the years. He described the shift in numbers from the 1980s, when he rarely saw other Sudanese in the area, to a moment when the number of Sudanese had increased to about “17,000 or more,” reflecting more asylum and refugee cases and lottery visas granted to Sudanese since the 1990s, when the Sudan experienced political unrest and conflict. Dr. Osman’s estimate was also based on his own observations at social and cultural events, such as seminars, workshops, weddings, and funerals, where large numbers of Sudanese gathered. When I asked him about the jalia and what it means for Sudanese in the area, he told me that the spaces provided by the jalia create intimate settings of togetherness to help Sudanese immigrants establish social relationships in America. He also noted that the role of the jalia had changed over the years: The jalia is an old organization. Since the 1950s, Sudanese tried to form a social group that could represent them in exile. But because such work depends on volunteerism and the priorities of volunteers, these efforts were always discontinued. When I came to the area in the 1980s, I recall, we tried to organize, we continued for a little bit but then our work discontinued. Then we started again in 1997, we formed a steering committee, and it continued to this day. I worked in many of the various committees that directed the jalia here.

In interviews and conversations with SACDO members, the tension and pressure imposed by political changes in the Sudan, and their representation in the United States, came up often. The politically hardened ethnic divisions that characterize Sudanese communities, in the Sudan and in exile, were manifested in critiques levied against successive jalia committees that circulated both within the community and on Sudanese social media. Such critiques were often directed toward the political affiliations of the jalia board members and the inclusion or exclusion from the executive office of women and certain ethnic groups. The absence of Southern Sudanese, for instance, was raised repeatedly as a problem at jalia general meetings and on Sudanese social media. When I asked about the absence of women and Southern Sudanese, I was told by jalia members that the invitation was always there for all Sudanese to participate in the jalia activities. The political tension created by war and ethnic divisions, however, led Southern Sudanese to create their own diaspora communities and political forums in exile (see chapter 1).13 Few Southern Sudanese attended jalia activities, especially the Christmas parties that the jalia organized. In 2007, interviewees from across the social and political spectrum talked about the

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danger of involving Sudanese politics at home in the work of building diverse communities in exile. “Politics” here is defined as any leaning toward the major political parties in the Sudan, mainly distinguishing between a conservative camp represented by religious and sectarian politics and a secular camp represented by left and liberal politics. At a jalia meeting I attended in 2003, a group of former board members distributed a pamphlet describing the deterioration of jalia work due to the influence of politics in community affairs. Although the pamphlet did not describe the politics specifically, it pointed out that the first elected committee of 1997–2001 had a greater vision because it included diverse members from the community. The pamphlet noted that the involvement of politics since 2001 had led to a decrease in jalia membership, donation, membership dues, and the underrepresentation of women and youths, as well as to the decline of the community weekend schools for children. Dr. Nimat Awad Alseed and Muhammad Idris, a Sudanese couple who volunteered for the jalia school, told me that their involvement in the community was partly inspired by their desire to create a safe space for their children to navigate both Sudanese and American experiences (figure 9). And that most of the jalia revenue came from membership dues, donations, social events such as concerts, and services provided for jalia schools. One interviewee explained that the critiques and tensions reflected the concern of the secular members about the dominance of the Islamists at home, a concern fueled by fears that conservative politics “here and there” would overtake the social work that diaspora communities attempt to do in exile. He continued: There is a fine line between what is defined as political and what is understood as social. You are damned if you do the political and if you don’t do it. But as community volunteers we realize we are going to face such challenges. Community members have to know there is so much to be done. There are many families that need support. I got a call from an Alexandria cultural center one day to tell me that they received a call from a Sudanese who was about to be evicted from his house and they asked if we could do something about it. Of course a Sudanese will never tell a Sudanese about his/her difficulty but would tell a third party . . . there are so many things that we could do to assist community members but we don’t have the time and state support. Such tensions over what is defined as social work . . . and what is happening politically at home often deter what jalia members could do here as well . . . this is not Sudan. Our issues are different here; we are minority citizens, although we came from different ethnic groups with varied claims to power and status. We could be applying



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for grants instead to foster our work and build a viable community to help us become good citizens for here and there.

The tensions about ethnic divides, identity politics, and the conflation of the social and the political were also articulated in terms of gender participation as an important condition for renegotiating national and transnational citizenship projects. Many of the college-educated women I met talked about the male-dominated public sphere, despite efforts to include women in most jalia affairs. Women attributed such gender divides to deeply ingrained perceptions of Sudanese sociopolitical spaces as masculine. They remarked that “politics,” which they mostly identify as “Sudanese politics,” was consumed by Sudanese men in public as a way of validating their authoritarian social place within and without the home. Ghada, whom I introduced earlier and who volunteered with the jalia in different capacities, commented that most jalia members were more comfortable with women acting as mothers and homemakers than as public pioneers. She noted the irony that more women were getting involved in the public sphere in the Sudan, while in the United States Sudanese men were becoming increasingly conservative about women’s efforts to get involved. “In the Sudan, women participate in party politics, they demonstrate in public, and they are more outspoken in public events than women in exile,” she maintained. At most jalia events, both the speakers and the moderators were men. When women were invited, they usually sat at the back and didn’t fully participate; their main role involved “making food at home and selling it at jalia public events.” Ghada suggested that if the jalia wanted to become a development-focused organization for “here and there,” it would have to build the capacity of both men and women: “There are women thinkers, politicians, and poets that jalia can invite . . . and there are many women who are able to moderate panels.” As a young woman active in youths organizing in the Sudan and abroad, Ghada maintained that the gap between men’s and women’s participation in community-building work was still wide. Her views were shared by other women, who said that norms of “proper womanhood” remained predominant even among educated and secular exiled men, who continued to see women in public as a threat to their masculine authority. This gendered divide was the impetus for the establishment of the Sudanese American Women’s Organization (SAWO) in Virginia. In June 2002 a group of women, most of whom were university graduates, met informally and discussed the challenges that they faced in the United States—whether as wives, mothers, single women, or working women. They wanted to create a forum for discuss-

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ing their experiences in exile and sharing ideas about how to navigate life in America. SAWO, like SACDO, is registered as a nonprofit organization, with its main objective being to provide women and their families with information regarding social services related to education, health, childcare, employment, and migration. Since its inception, SAWO has offered information on various topics such as breast cancer, the provision of social services in different counties, and challenges facing both married couples and single women in the United States. The organization also celebrates International Women’s Day with concerts, poetry readings, and other art performances. Although created to emphasize women’s leadership and representation, SAWO works in parallel with SACDO. The same artists, performers, and businesses that support SACDO activities also lend their support to SAWO cultural events. Over time, members of the two organizations have learned to coordinate their public events and thus avoid competition for attendees. Despite the large number of Sudanese living in Virginia and other parts of the Washington metropolitan area, attendance at SACDO and SAWO events usually ranges between two hundred and four hundred people, depending on the event. Concerts by renowned Sudanese singers and musicians often attract larger numbers than do cultural seminars and workshops. Members of the Sudanese community who are involved in the activities of both organizations had strong reasons for their choices. Ghada, who supported the idea of independent women’s organizations, participated in SACDO activities as a strategy to assert her presence in a male-dominated organization. Having a separate organization, she reasoned, established the place of women but also reinforced the segregation of men’s and women’s public spheres—a product of the divisive male authority reproduced in the Sudanese hosh. With this reference, Ghada invoked the gender division manifest in the architecture of the Sudanese household (the enclosed residential area, hosh), which is divided into male and female domains. Though such division ensured the privacy of each gender, Ghada argued that it also prevented the exchange of gender knowledge in a shared single space and led to set ideas about femininity and masculinity. According to her, men would never learn the democratic processes necessary for gender equality in public if women remained ghettoized in their separate spheres. “I don’t think we came here [to the United States] to be ghettoized (nataqawq‘a). Women should dream about bigger roles to play in their community and in the American public at large,” she emphasized. Iman Garib-Alla, another Sudanese woman I met at a 2007 SACDO event where she was teaching children at the jalia weekend school, told me that she



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volunteered at SACDO because it was the first organization she learned of when she moved from Michigan to Virginia. Her participation in SAWO was limited by her busy schedule and other women’s activities she was spearheading, such as an initiative to provide women of different nationalities with a comfortable space to share their experiences of exile. Iman believed that the American narrative of citizenship should include the stories and experiences of other women immigrants. She led a “night out” initiative, for example, that focused on women’s well-being and aimed to give them a “time-out,” and a place of social care, in recognition of the major responsibilities that they shouldered in exile: We believe that women have the right to take a night off to discuss a social problem, to relax, or to do whatever they choose. Our idea is to create a foundation that provides a space for women, not to teach them who they can be. We understand that every woman has her own interests and priorities of how she wants to run her life. Women work silently despite the fact that they shoulder important responsibilities within and without the home.

Iman said that the idea of the “night out” was to bring women together so they could support one another and also learn from different cultures and social experiences. More than twenty women responded to her call, from different countries in Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean, Europe, and America. When I spoke with her, the group had recently enjoyed its first night out, meeting in a rented space to share food and discuss social issues. Members of the Sudanese community who don’t participate in the activities of either organization gave a variety of reasons, including that they were too busy, they didn’t like the involvement of politics, or they lived too far away. Although both SACDO and SAWO are known to the Sudanese in the area as formal community organizations, women also meet informally for other social and cultural events such as picnics, social gatherings at homes, and ad hoc initiatives such as the night out organized by Iman. Like SACDO, SAWO has also been criticized by some women who think the organization is nonpolitical and nonfeminist, and that it fosters traditional ideas about women’s place as providers of services for their families and communities. One Sudanese woman who hosted a dinner at her home in Fairfax believed the effort by Sudanese women to create their own organizations was a fad. She described it as a trend inspired by the NGO culture and Western liberal thinking that the women blindly followed without the ideological grounding for what it means to “do feminist work.” Such mobilizations, she said, fragmented women’s efforts and ignored the structural aspects of gender differentiation and

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the sociopolitical contexts that produce it. This woman was a member of the Sudanese Women’s Union, a pioneer feminist/womanist organization that has a long history of activism in the Sudan and a strong association with left-wing politics. Another interviewee argued otherwise, insisting that migrant women face different challenges in America; indeed, some women have better access to opportunities than their husbands do, which disrupts the gender balance and creates conflicts at home. Women’s organizations, such as SAWO, become spaces that parallel masculine organizations and help women to establish their positions as workers and as “good mothers and wives.” An organization like SAWO, she argued, proved that “women are not ‘bad mothers,’” and that they can take care of their husbands and children at home and in public. At another social event in Virginia, a Sudanese woman from Darfur told me that SAWO was too focused on providing social services and neglected to reflect on the plight of Darfurian women in the refugee camps. When I conveyed these critiques to a SAWO member, she responded that the organization was registered as a nonprofit with clear objectives that sometimes prevented it from engaging in political debates. Some members also warned that too much engagement in “Sudanese politics” threatened to pull SAWO away from its main goals of providing services to women in the area and helping them to integrate into the American system. Other women thought that by engaging in politics the social organization and its forums had become co-opted by the political factions in the Sudan and their active counterparts in the diaspora. In a later program, however, the organization invited the Darfurian human rights activist Hawa Muhammad Salih, winner of the State Department’s Women of Courage Award in 2012, to talk about women refugees in Darfur (see chapter 2). Similarly, the organization held other seminars to discuss issues of violence against women in the Sudan. Despite such controversy, both SACDO and SAWO have managed to create active diaspora publics for engaging with both Sudanese and American issues of identity politics and citizenship rights. Intellectuals, artists, poets, and visiting political leaders all present and perform in rented spaces where the organizations convene sociopolitical activities. These gatherings are shared with the Sudanese communities in the diaspora and in the Sudan through the websites of the two organizations as well as through major Sudanese websites, such as SudaneseOnline, Sudanforall, and the Web journal Sudanile. During the course of my fieldwork, I attended art exhibits of renowned Sudanese artists and talks and debates featuring leading visiting Sudanese male and female political leaders at the public venues of the two organizations. I also participated in and spoke at cultural activities, workshops, and seminars



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convened by both organizations. These public activities dealt with issues like the challenges facing the community after 9/11, the North-South peace process, the Darfur conflict, and, later, the consequences of the country’s partition. After such events concluded, members of both organizations often stayed late into the night to take care of their guests’ safety and return home, and to ensure that rented equipment was returned and rented spaces were properly cleaned. Community members viewed this kind of community organizing as creating a place for social care: a space to meet, socialize, and bond with the Sudan from afar. These places, in turn, served to ground the older and younger generations of Sudanese immigrants in their new country or second home-to-be. Community leaders, in particular, emerged as catalysts in building such diaspora public and cyberpublic spaces within which to renegotiate hegemonic representations of rights and identities and to facilitate the transition of both newcomers and young generations into citizens of multiple locations. The next section discusses several examples of how community leaders foster the work of jalia through their own personal visions, collective experiences, financial support, and social alliances.

The View from the Red Sea: Community Leaders, Dreamers, and Activists In January 2005 SACDO posted an advertisement about the ‘aid aladha (Sacrifice Festival) in Virginia, including an announcement about the prizes that businessmen in Virginia had provided for the event. North Irving Motors, for example, owned by Sudanese businessman Alfatih Altahir, donated a car, while Red Sea Travel & Tours, established in 1999 by Sudanese entrepreneurs Kamal Taifur and Fadli Ismail, donated airline tickets from New York to Khartoum. The announcement also thanked the Red Sea Travel managers for their continual support of the Sudanese jalia in Virginia. As I began to book my own travel to Khartoum through Red Sea Travel, I became more interested in the kind of parallel models of humanitarian and social care it provided to the community. I decided to visit the agency’s office and interview its CEO. Originally located in a commercial building on East Annandale Road in Falls Church, Virginia, the agency moved to a different building after a fire destroyed the old building in December 2010. It was the old office that I visited in 2009. I was immediately struck by how easily it could be mistaken for an office in one of Khartoum’s business districts. Images of the Sudan hung on the walls. The caption on one poster of cotton- and gum-pickers from the central and western parts of the country read: “Welcome to Sudan: The land of peace, love, and dignity.” Other posters advertised the agency’s activities, such as art performances

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in Virginia and other states, support for the Sudanese soccer team in Virginia, and photographs of business owners with various airline representatives. One poster also touted the launch of direct flights to Juba, South Sudan, through Ethiopia Airlines, following the signing of the peace deal. Red Sea Travel & Tours is well known among Sudanese communities in the United States, and many Sudanese consult it for their travel to the Sudan and other global locations. The agency’s slogan, “More than a travel agency,” speaks to the commitment of its managers to contribute to building a viable Sudanese American community. Red Sea has promoted the travel business as part of serving immigrant communities in general and Sudanese communities in particular. Kamal, one of the owners, is a 1980s graduate of the University of Khartoum and has a degree in economics. After his first job, with Sudan Air in Khartoum, Kamal became interested in promoting tourism in the Sudan. His work enabled him to travel to many parts of the country, including the Red Sea area, which he describes as a region rich in diverse cultures and histories and ripe for economic investment that could enhance development efforts there. As the head of the Sudan Airlines office in Rome (1995–97), Kamal began to direct tourists to the Red Sea area to explore the treasures of the sea through snorkeling and scuba diving. “Tourism in this region, including Yemen, Ethiopia, and Eritrea, is a billion-dollar industry,” he told me, and one that he wanted to explore through his own travel. In Rome, he and his wife, civil engineer Shadia Alfadil, applied for the lottery visa to come to the United States, in an effort to keep their future opportunities and options open. After winning the lottery visa in 1995, they moved to Atlanta, where some of Kamal’s old Sudanese friends had already settled. After the death of his parents in the Sudan, Atlanta did not seem so far away and it seemed to be the right moment to move with their small family. When his wife received a job offer from a firm in Washington, DC, the family had to move again. Kamal told me that before he left Atlanta, his friends connected him with Fadli, a Sudanese entrepreneur in Virginia, who shared his interest in the travel business. Sure enough, the two became close business partners and soon established Red Sea Travel & Tours. Eventually Fadli relocated to Doha, Qatar, but he and Kamal continued to run the agency. Inspired by his multiple social positions as an African, American, Muslim, and Arabic-speaking Sudanese, Kamal utilizes his broad network of transnational connections and alliances to integrate his business ideals and communitybuilding efforts. As he puts it, the agency’s mission is to “bring the Sudan closer to those who are away and those who cannot return.” For Kamal and his office crew, the agency is not just a place to conduct the business of travel; it is also a



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social conduit meant to facilitate connections between friends and relatives, to invest in an intimate space of togetherness, to deliver aid whenever possible, and to bring the country closer to the imagination of people who often dream about going back. Kamal told me that hiring Sudanese employees to run the agency was not a coincidence but rather one of many ways to reconstruct “the Sudan away from the Sudan.” In addition to helping customers feel closer to home, Kamal believes, his hardworking employees, especially his “dedicated, honest, and considerate” female employees, promote a positive image of Sudanese businesses abroad. The agency is also involved in activities that support the cultural life of the Sudanese community, such as concerts and art exhibits that feature renowned Sudanese performers and artists in the diaspora. As another contribution to the community’s well-being, the agency hosts fund-raising events to assist victims of conflicts and natural disasters in the Sudan, often in response to celebrity and other humanitarian mobilizations abroad; for example, Red Sea participated in the campaigns for Darfur, the activities organized by the Lost Boys of Sudan, and aid to the flood victims in Khartoum in 2013. Kamal is not alone in his efforts to use his business alliances to build a viable Sudanese diaspora public in the United States. As noted earlier, many elite men and women have emerged as community leaders seeking to reconstruct a Sudanese social identity beyond the boundaries of home and nation, and some play an important role in connecting their own community with wider national and international publics during times of crisis. One such person is Imam Muhammad Magid, who gained prominence as both a community leader and a transnational leader after the 9/11 attacks. In 1997 he was elected as an imam (Muslim leader) of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS), a Muslim religious center in Sterling, Virginia, and by 2012 he presided over the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). During my fieldwork Imam Magid was active in initiatives that fostered the Sudanese community abroad, but he also worked to create space for multiple meanings of citizenship among social and religious identities. He has also long been committed to connecting Muslim communities with the centers of policy making in the United States. In an interview at his office at ADAMS in 2007, Imam Magid spoke with me about the challenging but gratifying job he undertook as a Muslim imam, especially in the face of the rising tide of xenophobia and patriotism after 9/11 and the tense debate over identity politics, religion, and citizenship in the United States and the Sudan. As one of the most influential American Muslim leaders in the United States, he created alliances and interfaith dialogues with commu-

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nities of different religions, using mosques, Islamic centers, and other religious and secular venues to examine the relationship between religion and politics. Reflecting on his identity as Sudanese American, he told me about how his immigration to the United States in 1987 was not by choice. He accompanied his father, Haj Magid Haj Musa, a well-known shaikh, who was seeking medical treatment in the United States. After his father’s death in 1997, Imam Magid made the United States his second home and became an eminent imam working as a liaison among religious communities. So when the 9/11 attacks occurred, Imam Magid was in a position to respond to both extremism in the Muslim world and the attack on Islam in many Western countries, including the United States. He explained that in the aftermath of 9/11, “Muslims in the US, including Sudanese, turned inward to their communities” as places of communal care to shield themselves from the tension and misunderstanding unleashed throughout the media and other conservative venues. Indeed, the first time I met Imam Magid was in 2007, after a speech he gave at a jalia community school graduation in Virginia, in which he commended parents on their efforts to raise a confident generation of Sudanese American citizens. Integrating Muslim communities into the American system has long been a central part of his message as an imam; as he put it, “Muslim communities are part of the fabric of the American society, and they should be treated as such.” Imam Magid’s remarks reflect on the rising xenophobia and Islamophobia in the United States and how they have created many obstacles for Muslim immigrants. According to him Muslim Sudanese are no exception. “Muslim Sudanese tell me that their immigration papers and the visas of their wives and families are delayed . . . and this is because of the misunderstanding of many faith communities. I try to demystify images of Muslim communities through my work as an imam and through my media appearances and interaction with policy makers.” In his several meetings with the Bush administration, State Department, Department of Homeland Security, and, later, with Obama administration officials, Imam Magid emphasized that Islam is about tolerance and cooperation—a message that, in his view, all Muslim leaders should endorse in order to integrate Muslim communities into American society as rightful citizens. When I asked him to define what integration meant to him, Imam Magid responded, “I always say to Muslims in America that you have three choices: to integrate, to isolate, or to assimilate . . . and the way to go is to integrate . . . I believe in a salad bowl not a mixing pot theory.” On November 18, 2009, Imam Magid protested the alliance of Virginia governor-elect Bob McDonnell with evangelical leader Pat Robertson. Robertson openly declared his anti-Muslim sentiment by stating that Islam was not a re-



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ligion but a violent political system. Accordingly, he argued, Muslims should be treated as communists and fascists, and their inclusion in government administrative bodies should be minimized. Imam Magid’s strong stance against this position and his cooperation and interfaith alliances won him and Rabbi Robert Nosanchuk the title of “Washingtonians of the Year” in 2009. According to Washingtonian, the magazine behind the award: For nearly six years, Imam Mohamed Magid, spiritual leader of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society, and Rabbi Robert Nosanchuk, leader of the Northern Virginia Hebrew Congregation in Reston, have been holding public dialogues . . . Last May, the FBI and the New York Police Department arrested four men who had been planning to blow up two Bronx synagogues. Magid and Nosanchuk implored their congregations to stand together to denounce the violence, hatred, and religious bigotry . . . One day, Nosanchuk addressed 1,000 Muslims at a prayer service. That night, Magid spoke to the Jewish congregation gathered for a family Sabbath service.14

Imam Magid’s vision of integration, which is based on building an American Muslim citizenry, contrasts with reactionary interpretations of Islam in America and the Muslim world and the divisive politics and misrepresentation of Sudanese affairs in dominant human rights and humanitarian discourses abroad. He emphasizes that the experience of Muslims in America (especially that of Louis Farrakhan and the Black Panthers) is shaped by their history, their location in the West, and their understanding of home in the diaspora (see chapter 1). He also insists that “the American story can incorporate other stories as well. I am American, Sudanese, and Muslim but have the openness and tolerance to converse with everyone else . . . this is what my message is built on.” Sudan provides Imam Magid with both the textual and the cultural contexts through which he understands Islam as an experiential practice, since for many years he lived with Sudanese who hailed from various religious, ethnic, and political backgrounds. This experience, he argues, enabled him to “see, feel, and sense” differently and prepared him to understand Islam within a broader secular and transnational context. As he says, “I never thought I [would] marry a non-Sudanese, for instance, but when I met my wife [an African American of French Haitian background], my position changed.” The experience of living Islam in America was also nourished through his many connections with Sudan: the intermittent trips he takes to the country; the speeches he gives at conferences there; the cyberpublic communication with family, colleagues, and friends; and the remittances he continues to send to relatives back home. These

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communal ties are, in turn, fostered through his emotional and political devotion to Sudanese communities in the United States and elsewhere. In fact, in the midst of our conversation in his office, his assistant entered to tell him that an older woman who was visiting the center was stranded and did not have enough money to hire a cab home. Imam Magid reached into his pocket, gave her some money, and asked her to facilitate the woman’s safe return. Moreover, Imam Magid is often called upon to assist with marriage contracts, provide counseling to married couples, and speak to teenage youths in seminars about the struggle they face in America and in the Muslim world. As we see in the work of Imam Magid, the strong commitment to invest in these social spaces of renegotiations, care, and solidarities is often inspired by community leaders’ own multiple identities and experiences of dislocation. Many of my interviewees commented that their spirit of community organizing stemmed from the traditions of activism and solidarity that they had cultivated through hybrid cultural, political, and vocational practices in the Sudan and abroad. Many had long been involved in party politics, neighborhood associations, human rights organizations, youth groups, and other civil society groups. These experiences motivated them to devote time, emotional energy, and money to community and to the schooling of a new generation of Muslim Americans. Mahasin Ahmad, one of my interviewees, exemplified the approach described above. A community leader who was the president of SAWO in 2009, she recounted how her own identity and exile experiences shaped her decision to participate in community building. Her involvement in women’s activism and her work with human rights organizations, especially those focusing on the rights of youths and women in the Sudan and abroad, helped her navigate what many call the suffering and bitterness of exile. In the Sudan, she said, her citizenship rights were denied because of her husband’s political activism, his constant arrests, and her own engagement with mobilization efforts to demand democratic reform in the country. The policies of the Islamist regime excluded many secular and liberal Sudanese who dreamed of an inclusive citizenship framework for all Sudanese, regardless of gender, race, religion, or political affiliation, she stated. Fearing political prosecution, she and her husband fled to Cairo in 1993, where they received assistance from UNHCR and waited for resettlement to the United States. With two young sons to support, the family had to start from scratch. According to Mahasin, the Sudanese community in Cairo was an invaluable lifeline. Despite the struggle of Sudanese refugees in Egypt, they managed to create a public sphere of their own, informed by their political affiliations and civil engagement with a number of NGOs. Cairo’s Sudanese exiles fashioned an



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intellectual public, like the jalia public sites in Virginia, that enabled resident and visiting Sudanese politicians, artists, and other elites to gather for seminars, workshops, exhibits, and other events at which they could discuss Sudanese political issues. Mahasin described how she and other artists formed the nonprofit organization Karma Art as a forum for Sudanese artists to meet, exhibit, and discuss how to present Sudanese culture and art away from home. Resettlement in the Washington metropolitan area was not easy for Mahasin and her family. She and her husband struggled during the first two years because of poor living conditions, meager job opportunities, and little assistance from the government, and described their living situation during this time as “inhumane.” Finding a job was essential, even though she realized that “once you start working, whatever the job, you don’t get help, you are on your own.” Without a community to teach newcomers and their children the meanings of difference and multiple rootedness, Mahasin argued, they would fall between the cracks of America’s “institutional bureaucracy and business-oriented society”: I feared that my children would wind up making trouble and I asked myself what to do if they were detained or something happened to them. And I pictured myself going through the ordeal of navigating the difficult institutional processes. Teaching them who they are and where they come from would shield them from all of that and arm them with the language to explain themselves to others in America’s multiple publics. I myself was shaken when I came here. Life is tough in America, and I needed something to support me, an anchor—my language, my popular culture, a nurturing community.

In her second year in the United States, and after a divorce, Mahasin decided to move to Virginia to begin her work as a security officer and to be close to the Sudanese community. The suffering and struggle of exile that she encountered at the beginning of her journey caused her to give up her plans to pursue her education in art, psychology, or social sciences and invest instead in her children’s future. As had been her experience in the Sudan and in Cairo, community organizing and participation in public activities created a buffer zone that alleviated the struggles of exile and facilitated the transition for Mahasin and her children. When she arrived in Virginia, she volunteered with 4-H (an organization focused on children and youths), frequented jalia events, and later became an active member of SAWO (the Sudanese American Women’s Organization). She also formed a dance group to educate Sudanese children about culture and art, as a way for Sudanese American kids to perform unity from afar and present ethnicity as malleable in time and place. Mahasin choreographed the dances and

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designed the costumes, made with material that she bought with her own money and, sometimes, with donations by parents and friends. The dance group won the attention of Sudanese communities in the United States and back in the Sudan. It appeared at SAWO’s first celebration of International Women’s Day in 2008, and also received invitations to perform at Alexandria’s City Cultural Center, at an Arlington Culture Day event, and at a National Geographic event in Washington. Mahasin told me that she “was amazed that the kids loved the idea of performing Sudanese cultural art in public despite the fact that they were born in America.” Her idea of forming the dance group came at an inconvenient time, however, a time when political tensions and questions of Sudanese unity and inclusive citizenship were at the forefront of political and activist debates in the Sudan and the United States. Despite her fears of living in the United States, especially in the aftermath of 9/11, Mahasin told me, it was “the promise of diversity and of living multiple cultures in America” that made her experience tolerable. “Where I work in DC, we come from different nationalities and ethnic backgrounds: we are black, white, Hispanic, African, Caribbean, you name it. When my brother died in the Sudan, all of these people came together to stand by me. I did not feel there were boundaries among us.” Asked what she liked about working in such an environment, Mahasin laughed and said, “our multiple potlucks.” During these potlucks, each coworker would bring a dish: “Ten coworkers and ten dishes.” Each dish made her feel that each culture had a taste of its own that needed to be commemorated, celebrated, and even consumed in shared places. Mahasin worked with this group of colleagues for seven years and said that although she struggled, she also learned a great deal about the United States, humanity, and the meaning of community building in exile: “I was not a weak woman in the Sudan, but my experience in America made me stronger.” Community leaders work with other members to mitigate the setbacks of exile, the ruptures created by tragedies of war and conflict, and the exclusions embedded in dominant discourses and practices of national and transnational citizenships. Despite discourses of universal human rights, the aftermath of 9/11 has denied many Muslims and members of other immigrant communities acceptance and recognition in national and transnational citizenship projects.15 Before the tragedy of 9/11, for example, Muslim Sudanese community members used to do the ‘aid prayers (for Ramadan and the Sacrifice Festival) with a broader Muslim community in Virginia. The post-9/11 politics of fear and tension and the demonization of “Northern Sudanese” identities in mainstream American media, however, strengthened the idea of community building and motivated



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community leaders to bring Sudanese together to participate in the ‘aid prayers in one public space. Ibrahim Sa‘ad, an engineer who served as one of SACDO’s presidents and was an energetic community leader, told me that they wanted to build a community in which Sudanese and their children could meet together to focus on the meaning of Sudanese American citizenship. During my several visits to the Washington area, I attended numerous ‘aid events with community members where men, women, and children participated in festivities that included prayers, Sudanese cuisine, art performances, and games and entertainment for children. Interviewees commented that praying with the wider Muslim population in the area resulted in strengthening the idea of the Islamic umma (larger community), which they viewed as distracting from the important work of fostering a Sudanese sense of cultural citizenship and socializing future generations of Sudanese Americans. One interviewee noted, “It is very ironic that after the end of praying with the wider Muslim community, Sudanese start to look for other Sudanese acquaintances to greet and converse with, which made the idea of strengthening the community more appealing.” Imam Magid, for instance, also agreed that in the context of heightened tension, policing, and fear after 9/11, the national community seemed safer than a more broadly conceived transnational Muslim community. These political setbacks, together with the economic crises that affected many small and family businesses in the area, did not discourage community leaders from working tirelessly to shelter their communities, reinvent the notion of communal care, and explain the meanings of belonging and political violence to their children. At the end of my interview with Kamal at Red Sea Travel, he noted how hard it was to explain to his children the effects of violence and ethnic tensions that occurred in the United States and in the Sudan. How could one explain something like 9/11 to children who were growing up in a Muslim context in the United States? It was even harder to explain violence in a Sudanese context that they knew little about. When his family traveled to the Sudan in the summer of 2005, an eruption of violence occurred in the streets of Khartoum in response to the death of Southern leader John Garang. Many Southern Sudanese thought that the plane crash that killed Garang was an orchestrated assassination attempt by the government of Khartoum, designed to annul the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Although the North-South transitional government at the time quelled the tension, the violence and the clashes between Southern and Northern Sudanese in the streets left its mark on the memories of the many Sudanese who returned to the Sudan to spend the summer with their families

Graduation day, Weekend Community School, Alexandria, VA, June 2007. Photo by author. FI G U R E 9 .

Author joins two Sudanese American youths, Sireen Awadalla (right) and Nashua Algadi (left), in celebrating a henna party ritual for a close relative, Washington, DC, 2009. Photo by author. FI G U R E 1 0 .



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in Khartoum and other regions. Such complex political issues are difficult for children to grasp, and for community members to wrestle with in exile, Kamal noted. Building a viable public creates a cultural and political context in which one can provide comfort, explanations, and solutions, especially against the demonizing rhetoric that isolates Sudanese identities into limited categories of Muslim/Arabs versus Christian/black Africans or, in the case of Darfurians, Muslim/black Africans. These nationally inspired diaspora publics, to many leaders and other secular interviewees, provided the kind of intimacy, care, and comfort associated with cultural familiarity—benefits that were assumed to dissipate in broader transnational settings. They also eased the effects of violence and exclusion and gave people hope that there are alternative meanings of humanity. Kamal told me that despite these challenging circumstances, “the social aspect of [their] job at Red Sea and their community involvement” give jalia organizers strength and satisfaction. he was very hesitant to elaborate on the community activities that they supported, even though I observed many during my fieldwork. He explained, “Where we come from, you are not supposed to boast about what you do for your community; you can’t even label it as humanitarian or not. It is like a kind of nafir [community organizing] that brings people together.” His comment points to the embedded meanings of social rewards and the gains that community members reap through networking and reciprocating in times of need. “I am not contributing to community activities because I anticipate nomination for election,” he noted with humor. “No. I myself need this. I need to feel part of the community and part of its cultural legacies.” Such communal acts, which many would simply label as charitable or humanitarian, are in this context oriented inward, to building community and cultivating sentiments of solidarity, friendship, and togetherness. For many of my interviewees, then, acting transnationally meant both engaging the nation and transcending it in order to foster alliances that would, in turn, nurture a sense of familiarity and flexible belonging, especially in times of political turmoil and uncertainty.

Humanity Divided: Performing Unity at the New York SummerStage Diaspora publics imbued with national sentiments, dreams, and aspirations of diversity, unity, and multiculturalism abroad become sites for negotiating both hegemonic representations of identities and divided visions of humanity and transnational belonging. They are also crucial for welcoming, hosting, and connecting diaspora Sudanese from various jalias and locales. Visiting politi-

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cians, scholars, artists, guests, and newcomers all find that jalias, in America and abroad, serve as platforms for hospitality, cultural connections, and transnational affinities beyond the borders of the nation-state. Often the homes of jalia members also become temporary public spaces in which others are welcomed to stage debates, performances, and negotiations of Sudanese culture and politics. Like Khalid and Miriam, whom I introduced in the chapter’s opening vignette, Mahasin is one of the community leaders who offer support to community members. I saw her at SAWO and SACDO events, at Southern Sudanese public forums, at exhibits where she presented her artwork and the work of other Sudanese exiled and visiting artists, and at the summer picnics that she organized for her family members and friends. Mahasin, like others who welcomed me to their homes, frequently transforms her home into an extended public space to host guests and exiles. In one instance, Mahasin convened a henna party for a young community and human rights activist who was unable to celebrate his wedding among his family in the Sudan. His friends gathered at Mahasin’s house for a long night of music and Sudanese cuisine. After the dinner, Mahasin and another female friend began the ritual by smearing the groom’s hand with henna as the guests joined in singing and wishing him a happy wedding. Toward the end of the party, the groom thanked Mahasin and the others, remarking that the ceremony taught him a different lesson about the meaning of family and home away from the Sudan (figure 10). Just as the intersecting human rights and humanitarian publics described in chapters 1 and 2 offer some Sudanese and their allies a platform from which to voice their grievances, other secular Sudanese, who feel demonized by the “bad Arab, bad Muslim” rhetoric, employ their own community sites and other counterpublics to renegotiate their identities and the meanings of nation, humanity, and exile, to connect with other activists, and to respond to the dominant narratives of violence, rescue, and suffering. Such alternative platforms enable many of them to seek different alliances in order to communicate their injuries of dispersal and to present their own vision of a united Sudan and a unified humanity. In the early phase of mobilization for Darfur and toward the end of the CPA term, jalia members in the United States and abroad collaborated to send a different message about the Sudan and their position as secular and Muslim Sudanese living in the diaspora. Those actors included Sudanese celebrities, artists, human rights activists, and other professionals who used alternative social media such as YouTube, SudaneseOnline, and other jalia websites to spread their messages of hope and discontent. Exiled artists, intellectuals, and activists in particular have



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made significant attempts to organize and present a different image of the Sudan from abroad. In Virginia, for instance, leading businesses regularly collaborate with exiled Sudanese performers and musicians to raise funds to help families in need in America and the Sudan and to send donations to crisis-stricken areas in various parts of the country. They come together in what is called the nafir model of community or civil society collaboration, a well-known practice in the Sudan that seeks to mobilize each individual (nafar) to help during festivities, harvesting, and crises. This nafir strategy is often used to cement kinship and other communal relations outside the purview of the state (see chapter 4). Artists have also played a key role in connecting dispersed Sudanese communities. Many of the Sudanese celebrities (including singers, musicians, and visual artists) whom I met on the East Coast travel constantly to perform at Sudanese weddings and other national sociopolitical events, thus creating a sense of cultural connection from coast to coast. Musical bands, such as Awtar Alnil (Strings of the Nile), River Nile, and Nas Jota (People and Chaos), are present at various community events. Nas Jota, in particular, gained popularity among Sudanese youths in the Sudan and the diaspora for innovative musical styles and collaborations across national and transnational ethnic boundaries. The record company established by artist Ehab Abasaeed won the hearts of many individuals of the Sudanese diaspora over YouTube and SudaneseOnline, and was featured on the Alhurra news channel.16 In the midst of debate about Darfur and its representation in the media in 2006, Ehab recorded the song “Nas Dafur” (People of Darfur), which circulated through YouTube and other venues, and has been viewed more than 46,000 times. The song, a mix of Arabic and English, addresses the war in Darfur and directs attention to the dominant role of humanitarian groups in the region and the liminal position of the Darfurian refugees in a political climate characterized by war, aid work, and the absence of accountable governments and other international institutions.17 Ehab, an active member of the Sudanese jalia in Virginia, is a diplomat’s son and has lived in the Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, Eastern Europe, and the United States. He told me that his music style benefited from his collaboration with Sudanese in exile and in the Sudan, and also with Americans, Jamaicans, and Arab artists. His collaborations produced what he called segae, or Sudanese reggae. This diasporic collaboration culminated in a major mobilization of Sudanese artists on July 23, 2007. At the height of the media frenzy about Darfur and South Sudan in the United States and one year after the Darfur rally on the National Mall, Sudanese celebrities from jalias across the world came together to send a message of unity

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amid tension and the anticipation of the country’s division. News that Sudanese celebrities would perform at the SummerStage Music and Dance Festival in New York City circulated in Sudanese cyberpublic spaces and generated intense feelings of hope and national belonging. As stated in the concert advertisement posters and brochures, the objective of the event was to present an image of the Sudan that differed from the image offered by the media, human rights and humanitarian groups, and competing politicians. As one poster read: Musicians Call for a Unified Sudan: This summer, an unprecedented gathering of musicians from the East African nation of Sudan will come together in New York to accomplish something politicians, war lords and diplomats have thus far failed to do: Unify Sudan!18

Members of the Sudanese diaspora, along with their friends and allies, assembled in Central Park on a sunny July afternoon. It was a magnificent scene, saturated with emotion and aspirations of unity from afar. Such feelings were manifested in enthusiastic audience responses to the national songs that juxtaposed the Sudan as a place of hope with the Sudan as a place of violence, suffering, and terror. The voices of the performers called for peaceful negotiations to end Sudan’s conflicts and imagined a diverse and unified nation. As another festival poster stated: Everyone involved in this event shares one overriding motivation, to work for a united, peaceful, democratic, and just Sudan . . . It’s time that these senseless wars stopped, and that people sat down together and solved their problems once and for all.19

After the musical event, the renowned Sudanese flutist and devoted jalia member Abed-alhadi Osman invited me and others to his home in Virginia to welcome some of the Sudanese artists. Because of the tight budget of the Central Park event, Abed-alhadi, like many others, offered his house to host artists from Europe, North America, and the Sudan. For Abed-alhadi, who identifies himself as an unhyphenated SudaneseNubian first, and a SudaneseNubianCanadianAmerican second, the evening also provided a chance to reunite with some of the musicians he once performed with back home. He left the Sudan for Canada after the Islamist coup d’état in 1989, and after receiving his Canadian passport he was persuaded by family and friends to come to the United States. He applied for the lottery visa, which, to his surprise, he received on his first attempt. At Abed-alhadi’s home, I met with Dr. Mahmoud Mutwakil, one of the festival’s key organizers. Dr. Mutwakil, a medical doctor, intellectual, and promoter of the arts, told me that he became active in Sudanese jalia affairs in California



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after the influx of Sudanese exiles to America in the aftermath of the 1989 coup. His activism included serving as a witness in asylum cases, organizing talks and seminars, and promoting art as “a great unifier” to address the complex ethnic, political, and religious divisions among Sudanese exiles. He began planning the concert after the signing of the peace agreement in 2005 and the ensuing escalation of the Darfur conflict, in particular as a response to the dominant representations of Sudanese conflicts by American and Arab celebrities and artists in the media. He approached artists who represented different parts of the Sudan, such as the Sudanese Darfurian singer Omar Ihsas and the Southern Sudanese exiled singer Emmanuel Kembe, inviting them to perform as part of a Sudanese diaspora response. He explained, I have been driven by a simple fact, which also bothered me, that George Clooney, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Sherihan [an Egyptian artist], and Bob Geldof were working for Darfur . . . although I thank them a lot because, of course, what binds us together is humanity . . . but my inner feelings resisted and refused that Sudanese artists won’t have a say on this . . . I began by talking to the Sudanese artists who welcomed the idea . . . then I talked to Dawn Elder [an Arab American composer and an award-winning music producer] who collaborated with me before . . . She responded to me eight months later and said take the bus to New York, we are going to meet with Central Park representatives.

Dr. Mutwakil immediately left to meet with Dawn and key Central Park representatives, including John Kuri of Stay Tuned Television. The positive reaction they received was a dream come true, but they also learned the cost for the concert. “When I looked at the bill I laughed, it was over $700,000, but I said to them I’ll see what I can do. I went back to DC and I wrote back to them saying, ‘By giving me this bill you are silencing the voice of the Sudanese artists.’” To his surprise, the committee responded with ideas: they would secure federal funding, for example, and the organizers could use revenues from selling videos to cover additional expenses. As co-promoter of the event, Dawn Elder announced the concert in major media outlets, such as BBC News, the New York Times, Reuters, al Jazeera, Alsharq Alawsat (the Middle East) newspaper, and SudaneseOnline, as the first Sudanese musical concert of its kind to take place at SummerStage in New York. The Central Park event was a great success and demonstrated the solidarity of Sudanese artists in exile and their efforts to present a counter-voice and a counter-representation. Indeed, the summer concert would never have been possible, Dr. Mutwakil claimed, without the solidarity and collaboration of the Sudanese community in the United States. He told about how one Sudanese

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businessman, a jalia member from the Washington, DC, area, donated $20,000 to cover some of the artists’ travel expenses, and how artists in Virginia offered their homes as accommodations. The park’s event manager was amazed by such generosity, according to Dr. Mutwakil, and said to him, “You have people to be proud of,” and when the Central Park management saw such demonstrations of solidarity, they in turn “offered two days free of charge at the Plaza Hotel.” The Central Park festival was also important to show those back in the Sudan the positive response of US organizations to the Sudanese request to launch such a performance of unity and peace. As Dr. Mutwakil put it, “We wanted to reverse the negative images of Sudan in the media by presenting a vision of peace . . . but we also wanted to reverse the image of America to people back home after the events of 9/11, that good things can happen in America . . . that if you have a will, you have a way.” This will, for Dr. Mutwakil and the other contributing artists I interviewed, is grounded in an imagined futurist and humanist vision that respects national sovereignty and includes everyone: a vision that can materialize only through constant efforts to promote peacemaking and diversity within a united Sudan and other nations. Many of the artists who contributed to the festival cited the suffering of ghurba as another force that motivated them to reunite in the United States after years of exile in other countries. One artist commented during the focus group interview, “They [politicians] can take us out of Sudan, but they can’t take Sudan out of us.” This sentiment of Sudanese-ness, which brought all the artists together in one place, shaped their responses to my questions. At Abed-alhadi’s house, we enjoyed food and soft drinks as we conversed about Sudanese cultural politics, the meaning of humanity, care, and hospitality, and shared our visions of a new Sudan, different from the one that drove experiences of exile. The event enabled me to meet some of the most renowned Sudanese musicians, who, for decades, performed with Sudanese celebrities such as Muhammad Wardi and Muhammad Alamin. Artists such as Azhari Abdel Qadir, Abdel Hafiz Karar, Tariq Shandi and Bakri Ahmed al Mustafa (nicknamed Samandal), Sharhabil, and the female trio known as Albalabil, have indeed contributed to the advancement of Sudanese music, spreading it to public spaces in the Sudan, Africa, and the Middle East. The fame and visibility of these celebrities, who influenced the Sudanese art scene for decades, have been eclipsed by their histories of transmigration and their constant struggle to fit in as citizens of their host countries. The romantic idea of becoming global citizens of humanity that many heard and dreamed about was disrupted by the realities of secondary citizenship and attempts to balance the social and economic obligations in their



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birth and host countries. Dispersed in Western countries such as Canada, Norway, and Britain, the musicians who came to perform at SummerStage welcomed the invitation of their counterparts in the United States as a “national call.” As they all agreed, “it was not about fame or financial reimbursement.” In my conversations with them, they emphasized the awkwardness and suffering of living in exile, the benefits and perils of having dual nationalities, and the effects of violence on their border-crossing experiences after 9/11. Their comments were mixed with both laughter and tears from being reunited after long years of living abroad. They all hoped that their reunion would bring a different image of Sudan to the attention of Western celebrities, media, and politicians. These excerpts from my focus group interviews with them reflect the moment of their reunion: Tariq: I never thought of leaving Sudan, but the coup d’état took place . . . and then I decided to go to Cairo. From there, I applied for asylum in Canada. I am now a Canadian citizen. I performed with Muhammad Wardi [during the height of] the Sudanese opposition in the camps in Ethiopia . . . that famous concert in the 1990s, you remember? If you remember, that alone would put me in the government blacklist. Bakri: I am cofounder of the Samandal band [a famous band in the Sudan]. After the change of the regime in 1989, I decided to seek refuge in Norway. Like the others, [I found it] hard to follow a musical career. Some of us were able to do it, but not without a struggle because of many reasons . . . including work and family obligations. Azhari: I am like the others. I tried everything from waiting tables to photo finishing, but always found a space to perform in community-related events. At some point in my life, I thought driving a cab in London is like trying to be a professor at Oxford. That is why working at Burger King was easy. Driving a cab required so many exams and of course you earn more money. So driving a cab was a big move for me. The hard thing about it is that you are always reminded of your difference. One time I was listening to a famous European composer and the senior British guy I was driving asked me why I was listening to this composition and not to Bob Marley. When I told him I am a musician and I know the name of the composer and his work, he was very skeptical and dismissive . . . Once a lady I gave a ride to said to me, when she discovered I am a musician, “Oh, but then why do you drive a taxi?” Such comments bother me so much and always remind me of my place as a black immigrant. Hafiz: The New York festival for us was a national call. It was an attempt to diagnose the Sudanese condition, to shed light on how it is possible to keep Sudan united despite its diversity. We wanted to give examples from our own

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dispersal experience, that we are all united here [in New York]. It is also good that [the reunion] happened in America. As a leading country, America can be a place that fosters peace and not divisions. Tariq: People know places not just by their politics, but also by their cultures. We wanted to send a different message from here. Because in the West, people know the ugly face of our countries . . . famines, conflicts, wars. We wanted to fix this, and I am glad that part of the audience was non-Sudanese so they can spread the word. Azhari: But coming here was not easy for so many of us. Some of the great singers like Sharhabil Ahmad and Abu ‘araki Albakhait could not come from Sudan because they could not get their visas on time. After 9/11, security procedures tightened and Sudan became a trouble spot. I often get subjected to so many questions at airports despite the fact that I am British . . . Tariq: Yes, it does not matter if you are carrying a European passport or a musical instrument, you are still a suspect. I was very tense when the officer reviewed my passport on my way here. As he continued to flip the pages of my passport I could hear him saying, “Oh my God what the he—?” and my heart jumped . . . but when he said, “Yes, yes, I got it,” I sighed. He gave me my passport and because I was very tense, instead of going towards the exit, I went towards entry. Another officer said, “This way, sir.” [We all laughed.] Bakri: Same happened to me. I thought I am so cool entering with a Norwegian passport. (Laughs.) When I entered, I filled all the forms, but the officer stared at me and at my musical instrument when I presented my passport. He asked, “What are you doing here?” Then he transferred me to a secondary investigation office. The officer there flipped through my passport and kept looking at the pages and looking at me for a lengthy time. She screened the passport again and I could hear the confirmation message through the speaker system, but she was not convinced and she asked if I had other supporting documents. I gave her my credit card and driving license. She screened the passport again. Then she asked if I used my Sudanese passport to go to the Sudan and I said no, of course not. But this investigation showed me how 9/11 had changed the perception of people here. Of course my name is Ahmed, which associates me with Islam and Sudanese nationality, so for me this is no coincidence because the white, blue-eyed Norwegians who came with me were not subjected to such interrogations. I felt sad because of the provocative questioning despite my Norwegian nationality.

Sudanese transnational celebrities who performed at the New York SummerStage defied spatial boundaries to claim a common temporal space within which they



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could express their claims as rightful national and world citizens. They articulated their desire for a unified nation, away from the nation, despite the complicated circumstances created by political negotiations, divisive identity politics, biased human rights and humanitarian logics, and border-control regulations. Sudanese diasporan publics, such as jalias, therefore, continue to give many secular and Muslim Sudanese the opportunity to collaborate and create an array of alliances and solidarities in order to present a new vision of the Sudan abroad. In this context, the public spaces created by majority Muslim Sudanese immigrants offer places to perform, renegotiate, and redefine identities in broader terms informed by gendered, sociopolitical, and national affiliations. Like the intersecting human rights and humanitarian publics I introduced earlier, these humanist diaspora publics are pieced together from official sites such as schools, university halls, stadiums, or private homes turned public for social events. Such sites serve as social stages for ameliorating the effect of violence and alienation, reconstructing the visibility of subaltern celebrities, elites, activists, artists, and performers, and sometimes providing familial support and social care away from immediate and extended family settings. Various social actors interested in building communities and debating meanings of rights, belonging, and nationhood collaborate to nurture these sites in order to defend both national and transnational affiliations. Although the experiences of Sudanese exiles differ according to the circumstances of their immigration, they are all circumscribed by global regimes of violence, underdevelopment, and a lack of access to inclusive forms of national and transnational citizenship. The varied experiences of these social actors and activists, therefore, defy the rigid political and cultural categorization of identities and the hegemonic narration of suffering that characterized the human rights and humanitarian framing of Sudanese wars and ethnic conflicts. As the stories above show, many Sudanese immigrants associate the violence of war and the conflicts that shape their exile experiences with other modes of violence and other life struggles. It is not a coincidence that the death of Khalid’s friend’s father, the story of the woman burning her rival’s face with phosphoric acid, Saddam’s death, and ‘aid aladha (the Sacrifice Festival), were all woven together into narratives of leaving home after the Islamist coup, seeking refuge, and becoming citizens of America and elsewhere. Similarly, Mona’s story of giving birth during the Kuwait invasion is combined with her narration of finding a good job in America, connecting with the Lebanese day care manager, enduring the terrifying experience of a bank burglary during Christmas, and finally working as a recruiter for a US subcontracting company serving in Middle East war zones. Nationally inspired and transnationally nurtured community sites thus pre-

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sent alternative diaspora publics within which social actors rearticulate meanings of affinities, humanness, nationhood, and transnational belonging. While humanitarian activism and its celebritization of ethnic conflict can sometimes provide activists with spaces to highlight their ethnic grievances and to educate youths to become global citizens, it all too often does so at the exclusion of other visions, performances, and citizenship regulations. The tension among these transnational publics demonstrates the extent of global national fissures and reveals the shortcomings of visions of both national and transnational citizenship and the inability to manage the complexity of ethnic divides and cultural diversity. National and transnational imaginings continue to be constrained by limited neoconservative liberal frames, whose resulting exclusions are then managed within newly reinvented transnational humanitarian publics and their enunciations of social care that build on similar divisive identity politics and alliances. Diaspora as counter-response, then, offers a new perspective through which to diagnose and, perhaps, mend the fissures caused by the mobilization of identity politics, and their reproduction and circulation in the form of narratives of violence and suffering, on national and transnational levels. In the final two chapters of this book I focus on the reproduction of these constraining visions through new media technologies that circulate violence narratives and shape the responses of transnational actors. The chapters situate such circulations in a particular understanding of social vulnerability—another articulation of affective violence—that, I argue, feminizes humanity and reflects the deployment of identity politics and the tropes of human rights and humanitarianism.

Chapter Four

Contested Borders of Inhumanity Refuge and the Production and Circulation of Violence Narratives

I [sing] for this nation I call my own . . . Peace be upon it, and comes from within . . . [By] its people of mixed genealogies and various skin tones . . . —Tariq Alamin 1

December 10, 2008, a Darfurian woman using the pseudonym Halima Bashir entered the Oval Office to meet with President George Bush. Halima appeared before the White House press wearing a colorful Sudanese taub (body wrap). Her face was veiled to protect her identity, given fears that the Sudanese authorities might harm her family in Darfur. Halima presented President Bush with her recently published biography, Tears of the Desert: A Memoir of Survival in Darfur, which she coauthored with well-known British journalist Damien Lewis.2 In the book, Halima details her rape and abuse by the Khartoum government proxy militia in Darfur when she worked as a volunteer medical doctor in the refugee camps. During the White House press conference, Halima was introduced as a human rights activist and described by President Bush as a “good soul” who O N H U M A N R I G H T S D AY,

brings firsthand accounts to what life is like in Darfur. She witnessed violence, deprivation, and she carries a message of a lot of people who want our help. I assured [her] that, in spite of our economic difficulties, our aid will continue to flow. We will use our influence to make sure the aid gets to the people of Darfur.3

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“The urgency of the situation,” Bush declared, “was never more apparent than when I had the honor of visiting with this brave soul.” Halima thanked the president and added that the crisis had been going on for five years, noting that the people in the refugee camps could not wait any longer. She stressed that the International Criminal Court (ICC) ruling against the Sudanese president should be upheld to stop the genocide and atrocities in the region. “I am very happy because Darfur victims’ voices [are] heard in the White House and to the American people and to the world.”4 Halima Bashir’s story is one of the many master narratives produced and circulated during the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) transitional period to point blame at a predatory Islamist government and highlight its inhumane practices against minority citizens. Unlike the infantilized stories of the Lost Boys and Girls of Sudan, however, the stories of women such as Halima project a particularly feminized narrative of vulnerability and suffering. Anthropology’s turn to the didactic coproduction of ethnographies since the 1980s has alerted scholars and students to the power of narration and its ability to capture subjects’ agency, voice, and life histories. Similar attention in the social sciences to the power of narration has focused on the production of stories and their political influence. In her research on the sociology of storytelling, Francesca Polletta shows how storytelling has been used in political campaigns to mobilize American citizens around both conservative and progressive agendas. Stories belong to the realm of the moral, the emotional, and the imaginary, providing an invaluable counterpart to the forms of knowledge privileged in official and academic accounts.5 They also relate to what I refer to as the domain of “audiopolitics,” in which meanings are transmitted through particular media and devices to motivate people to listen, respond, and act. In the case of the Sudanese conflicts and their representation in American mainstream media and other counter-publics, stories of women and children circulate in different forms to communicate the suffering and exclusion of minority citizens. These stories are often taken out of their intricate sociopolitical and historical contexts and presented to humanitarian and diaspora publics in familiar, emotional, and dramatic guises. As we have seen, mediated narratives of suffering, infantilization, and sexual violence circulate widely, countering refugees’ invisibility and representing them as minority role models and authorities on their own suffering. At the same time, however, such stories are complicated when transnational actors mobilize them in order to insert themselves into a higher transnational moral community and contest the exclusive practices of the nation-state. Subaltern



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actors themselves sometimes choose to lend their voices to highly visible transnational actors, who may appropriate their suffering experiences to produce certain kinds of authoritative knowledge about an imagined transnational community.6 Mediated stories about Sudanese refugees, migrants, and other translocal subjects condense knowledge about them into easy-to-consume images and narrative forms that appeal to a broad humanitarian public and engage it to protest the inhumane practices of nation-states and the exclusion of minorities. This chapter traces the production and circulation of infantilized and feminized master narratives to examine the ways in which “affective violence”—the narration of violence that gains attention by triggering an emotional response— has inspired protests and counter-responses among translocal actors. I show how the emergence of Sudanese cyberpublic media, such as SudaneseOnline, Sudanile, and Sudanforall, which connect Sudanese transnational elites in diaspora locales, has facilitated this form of narration and storytelling. Stories of suffering, sexual violence, and infantilization posted on mainstream media often find their way to Sudanese cyberpublic and print media, and then are mobilized by Sudanese social actors, activists, and journalists to speak to the politics of nationality, exclusion, and an imagined transnational humanitarian order. Such circulation, and its simultaneous discursive practices and effects, contributes to the expanding moral politics of rights and humanitarianism. Moral politics challenges national sovereignties by reanimating liberal and universal ideas of global kinship ties that thrive on deeply hierarchical imageries of motherhood, sisterhood, and infantilization.7 I follow the traveling master narrative of the suffering Sudanese minority across the Darfur conflict and its feminization, the assaults on Sudanese refugees in Egypt in 2005, the resulting exodus of Sudanese refugees from Egypt to Israel, and the counter-humanitarianism crafted by Sudanese activists and journalists through the revival of nafir (solidarity and community organizing) practice in the United States and the Sudan. I propose a different reading of the narrative of ethno-gendered violence—one that takes into consideration the root causes of political violence and the “injuries of dispossession” that it produces. Such an approach highlights the differences in political hegemonies, “structures of feelings,” and moral claims of national and transnational affinities.8

The Power of the Master Narrative: Halima at the Gate of Western Humanity Before Halima’s meeting with President Bush, American journalist Nicholas Kristof (who has championed the cause of human rights abuses in the Sudan

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through his reporting on Darfur and, more recently, the Nuba Mountains) wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times headlined “Tortured, But Not Silenced.” Kristof introduced Halima’s forthcoming book and described it as a test of President Bush’s moral courage as he “engages with two Sudanese named Bashir”—one the president of the Sudan, whose authorities raped Halima, and the other Halima herself. Toward the end of President Bush’s second term in 2008, Kristof urged the president to invite Halima to the White House upon the release of her coauthored memoir, to prove to the world “which of the two Bashirs America stands behind.”9 Halima’s memoir is a production of One World, an American publishing house, and is a narration and translation by Damien Lewis. Lewis has gained fame through coauthoring translated memoirs of suffering based on his experiences in covering various conflict zones in Africa and the Middle East. This genre positions him as the narrator/translator of individual men’s and women’s dramatic tales of suffering and survival—from fighting for justice against humanitarian atrocities (Against a Tide of Evil) to enduring servitude (Slave), escaping a genocidal regime and gang rape (Tears of the Desert), and giving back to one’s people after becoming prosperous in the West (Forbidden Lessons in a Kabul Guest House). The narratives present the protagonists as heroes and heroines, role models, and iconic symbols of bravery, healing, and anti-corruption. In the most triumphant cases, they become humanitarians and human rights activists themselves, and their stories serve as “hearing aids” for politicians and policy makers. Furthermore, through his own acts of witnessing, translating, and co-narrating, Damien Lewis also becomes a hero, a renowned journalist, an award-winning filmmaker, and a best-selling author, endowed with fame and the power to make the international community listen. Lewis’s personal website, for example, depicts him as a hero/survivor who endures conditions similar to those of his heroes and heroines. As a journalist, he is described as having delved into the underworld of crime, child prostitution, military operations, warlords, mercenaries, and arms dealers in order to write his stories and present them to the world as testimonies. His author profile catalogues his own experiences with injuries and bizarre tropical diseases, “including flesheating bacteria, worms that burrow through the skin and septicemia,” but the reader is assured that Lewis “survived all that and continued to report.”10 This marketing of suffering is apparently extremely effective, as Lewis’s books—which fall somewhere between truth and fiction—have enjoyed enormous popularity. In one CNN interview, aired in September 2008 and featuring both Lewis and Halima Bashir, Lewis told Fionnuala Sweeney (the host of the segment) that the



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production of Halima’s story was his idea.11 When Lewis visited Darfur refugee camps for the first time, in 2006, he interviewed an eight-year-old child who told him that she had been gang-raped. Lewis told his crew that if he could take that girl to London and New York and “put her in front of an international audience,” her testimony would speak to those who “say Darfur is too complicated.” Lewis recognized that the girl’s testimony could be instrumental in convincing politicians and maybe hesitant academics that the government authorities in Khartoum were using rape as a weapon against children. It was, however, impossible to present the child as a witness. When he returned to London, Lewis said that the idea “was lodged in [his] mind.” When he read another newspaper article about rape as a weapon of war, in which Halima was interviewed, Lewis contacted Halima and she agreed to tell him her story. Tears of the Desert relates Halima’s experience of growing up in a peaceful Darfur village and then being accepted to the University of Khartoum, one of Africa’s most prestigious schools, to study medicine. The story is presented in language familiar to a global audience already educated about the conflict in Darfur through the reporting of the rape of Darfur women by the Janjaweed militia. When Halima graphically describes her experience with female circumcision, the narrative also taps into anthropological and human rights debates about female genital cutting as a rite of passage or a form of violence against women. Although Halima excelled at the University of Khartoum and became a medical doctor, her educational journey was made difficult by the racism she encountered. Her description of racial tension in the Sudan fits easily into the already hardened categories of Muslim/Arab Northern Sudanese versus Christian/Black African Southern Sudanese and Muslim/Black African Darfurians that Western journalists and rights activists have established in their writings and reports on South Sudan and Darfur. Halima recounts being called a “slave” and a “black dog” and being frequently excluded from the city’s urban settings. When she became outspoken about racial differentiation after the outbreak of the Darfur conflict, she was posted to a remote village to do her medical work. In Darfur refugee camps, she treated injured victims, until one day she was confronted by the horror of the war when the Janjaweed raided a school and raped the girls inside. She describes how rape was a particularly violent experience for the girls because of female circumcision, which also increased their risk of contracting HIV/AIDS. She reports that she had to treat about forty girls at the clinic where she worked, often with very few available medical resources.12 Halima decided to inform the United Nations officers in Darfur about the atrocities against these girls,

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even though this decision put her face-to-face with the government security forces, whose members, in turn, kidnapped her and raped her repeatedly. That traumatic experience propelled Halima to leave the country. An agent smuggled her through Khartoum airport into London, but before leaving Darfur, she married her cousin Sharif, a rebel leader living in London. Sharif is presented as a liberator who agreed to marry Halima despite her trauma and the shame associated with her rape experience. When she attempted to present her story as an asylum case to the immigration bureau in London, she was appalled by the “paper culture” and its intensive reliance on documentation. By the end of the narrative, however, we are told that Halima was finally granted asylum with other members of her family and now lives with her husband and two sons in London. After the release of Tears of the Desert, Halima appeared in a number of high-profile media venues, wearing a black burq‘a—sometimes with big black glasses, to talk about her ordeal. Particularly notable in her media interviews was how discussion of her rape was downplayed and articulated as part of violent cultural norms similar to female circumcision, henna, veiling, slavery, and tribalism.13 In the interviews, Halima was also positioned as the voice of the victims; as Fionnuala Sweeney remarked in a CNN interview, “Rarely do we hear from victims who suffered as a result of the [Darfur] conflict.”14 Halima was thus seen as the victim speaking for those who couldn’t, a voice that could be heard within the international community’s just and secure legal borders. As Damien Lewis explained in the same interview, his hope was that the story would bring Darfur closer to home, so to speak, engage the American public, and appeal to its humanitarian compassion. As he put it, for most Americans, Darfurians “feel like thousands of miles away, in a different culture, in a place we don’t understand.” Lewis later introduced Halima to British prime minister Gordon Brown during a book festival, and she presented him with a copy of her book.15 Constructing Halima’s narrative in a way familiar to Western audiences and policy makers renders it credible and legitimates the case as deserving international attention and requiring the application of international laws. Indeed, Halima’s story and its rendering in Tears of the Desert—which has been translated into thirty languages—facilitated her passage into and through the otherwise inaccessible corridors of media corporations and policy makers, and granted her the often capricious recognition of both national and global citizenship affiliations. Darfur was thus legitimated as a crisis through media reportage and the circulation of narratives of rape victimization and a feminized humanity under assault.



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Feminizing Humanity: Darfur, Rape of a Nation Halima’s story has become, for some, a tool to compel Western policy makers to listen to the plight of Darfurians by invoking a familiar genre of translated suffering that condemns and contests the acts of the Sudanese Islamist state. At the same time, however, the genre renders Halima’s story singular and does not comment on the intricate context and the role of multiple political players in a story of West/East accusations and the “war on terror.” After the escalation of the Darfur conflict, and when news of the war reached the Western public, media reports produced a wealth of conflated images about Darfurians in refugee camps. Refugees were represented as “voiceless,” “subordinate” victims, but also as key actors mobilized by the warring factions and other parties involved. Images of displaced refugees variously depicted a landscape of inequality governed by the flags of NGOs waving over camps and a desolate territory where Land Cruisers traveled around to guard the internally displaced population. Television cameras captured memorable images of seemingly gendered activities: shaikhs roamed outside in their white jalabias (local attire) and big turbans, a female African Union soldier conversed with a group of Darfurian women passing by on donkeys, and girls pumped water from a nearby well where rows of jerricans waited to be filled. Early reporting of the conflict showed a morbid fascination with images of women and girls carrying wood on their heads, or walking in groups to fetch wood. There were also repetitive images focusing on girls transporting water on donkeys or walking around with young siblings tied to their backs. Such scenes of gendered domesticity staged a stark contrast to the sexual crimes against women by the relentless Janjaweed militias. Boys, on the other hand, were shown carrying sacks of relief food on their heads or following young girls around.16 One powerful image posted on Sudanile, which later circulated through SudaneseOnline and other Sudanese digital media, showed Jan Egeland, the UN relief coordinator, surrounded by a group of Dinka girls, reporting on the failure of donors to meet their pledge of $764 million worth of food relief for the hungry in the Sudan, half of whom are Darfurians.17 Egeland’s call for assistance was also covered by a CNN news program that showed him sitting on the ground of a Darfurian refugee camp, surrounded by women telling stories of being threatened by the army and the Janjaweed and of losing their husbands and loved ones. In the background, other women were cooking and breast-feeding as children in ragged clothing ate amid dusty air and pesky flies. Such imagery serves as a powerful strategy, convincing donors of the significance of their contributions

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through the “appropriation of suffering”18 and the appeal for compassion as helpless refugees tell their stories.19 Stories of camp refugees, however, cannot be reduced to tales of suffering; they also reveal political agency and the refugees’ particular struggle in a complicated war zone. Egeland had been in Darfur to investigate the situation in Kalma camp, the largest refugee center in Darfur (with a population of more than 130,000). The Sudanese government had complained that the camp was under the non-signatory rebels’ directive. Riots broke out there in May 2006, following the Abuja Peace Agreement between the government and the largest Darfurian opposition faction, the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM), led by Minni Arcua Minnawi.20 Though the SLM represents a smaller ethnic group (the Zaghawa), it has more armed power than the Fur ethnic group of Abed-alwahid Alnur, a French resident and Fur leader who rejected the Abuja Peace Agreement, calling it unfair to the Darfurian people.21 The riots vividly demonstrated the power of the opposing parties, who quickly mobilized to reject the agreement and to brand Western aid workers and their Sudanese allies as traitors who were partial to the Islamist government and its Janjaweed proxy. Apparently, the riots erupted when a woman in the refugee camp shouted at the Northern Sudanese translator, an African Union employee accompanying Jan Egeland: “Janjaweed! Janjaweed!” Her fearful and terrifying screams led to the man’s being killed and his body mutilated.22 Demonstrators in the camp continued their protests and threatened Egeland himself if he did not leave the area. Nic Robertson, a CNN senior reporter who was on the scene with Egeland, videotaped the riot on his cell phone camera, his voice rising as he anxiously ordered his chauffeur, “Drive away, drive away!” When the footage was aired on CNN, the accompanying commentary framed the scene as a “bloodthirsty mob” of refugees turning a “friendly encounter” into a deadly and chaotic one.23 These events demonstrate that a single narrative about suffering refugees cannot adequately communicate the complex story of a conflict zone fueled by local and global inequalities, political interests, divided visions, and territorialized identities, where political players change positions according to their place on the scale of power and where incidents of sexual violence and murder have been both feminized and masculinized. Rape, particularly in Darfur, has been widely represented in American media and organizational reports—in line with Western feminist understandings—as a violent crime against a woman’s personhood. Sudanese media, in contrast, have been relatively silent on the issue because of local interpretations of women’s sexuality and how rape is associated with family honor and the demasculinization



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of men. Contrary to Western representations of rape as a crime against individual women, many Darfurians and other Sudanese groups understand rape not as a private matter but rather as a political violation that signals the dehumanization of entire kin groups and populations. I once raised the question of rape with a Darfurian scholar who had given a public lecture about the conflict, asking why he glossed over an issue that so preoccupied Western media. He first paused, and the Sudanese man with him looked down, indicating embarrassment. Then he said, “This is a sensitive issue, you know.” Rape is indeed a violation of women’s human rights, an atrocity that signals their subordinate status and the objectification of their sexuality and womanhood, and thus it is often included as part of NGO policy agendas. Sometimes, however, the cultural and social contexts within which African women’s sexuality is discussed or negotiated are omitted in discussions of rape. For instance, the United Nations Population Fund (UNPF), as part of its humanitarian efforts among Darfurian women, initially required them to complete certain forms in order to qualify for counseling or medical attention, but the intimate questions asked proved to be such a major obstacle to treatment that the organization had to eliminate the forms.24 International reporting of rape atrocities in Darfur, similar to that in the West, has focused more on exposing the identities and tactics of the perpetrators than on the socioeconomic and political disparities that perpetuate gender differentiation and violence against women. While Janjaweed attacks receive wide coverage as “terror tactics,” rape crimes committed by African Union officers and opposition soldiers are glossed over, often framed as accusations, or contested by the parties themselves. In July 2006, for example, the UN mission criticized the SLM for committing major crimes of rape and murder against Darfurian civilians during SLM fights with non-signatory factions. Though the UN denied any formal accusation against the SLM, it had used as evidence a complaint by one Darfurian refugee who witnessed the rape and murder of fifteen women by Minnawi soldiers.25 The accusations angered the opposition leader, who formally challenged the UN report as making inaccurate and unjust allegations against a liberation movement. Minnawi was regarded by Alnur’s faction as a traitor for signing the Abuja Peace Agreement with the Sudanese government, which enabled him to hold a high-ranking position as vice president and chair of the Darfur Transitional Regional Authority. The African Union leadership has also contested similar rape accusations. In February 2006, Sudanile published another article stating that British TV Channel 4 reported a wide range of rape atrocities against women and girls by AU

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soldiers. Girls under eleven years of age from Gereida village in Southern Darfur said they had been threatened by and forced into sexual intercourse with these soldiers. The five-minute report also described how the soldiers, who had been sent to protect the population, had used several pretexts to lure and impregnate their victims. In response, the Sudanese government has regarded reports of rape by AU soldiers as a public health issue, accusing the soldiers of spreading AIDS among the population.26 Notably, AIDS-related accusations have not been associated with Janjaweed atrocities, only with the 7,000 AU soldiers who entered the country as foreign guards for the purpose of protecting the suffering population in Darfur refugee camps. The government’s accusations, of course, support the stance of denouncing intervention, which is communicated through the attribution of AIDS to “foreigners” who violate both women’s bodies and the sovereign national body politic. While the political scene shifts to highlight escalating fights among the signatory and non-signatory partners to the Abuja agreement, Minni Minnawi, who shook hands with both the Sudanese and the American presidents, now stands accused of human rights violations: rape, murder, and other crimes against his fellow Darfurian fighters. Reports about the conflict in its two different stages have thus represented the refugee as both agent and victim. Despite the “violent masculinization” of war atrocities against women, women themselves have been variously depicted in media reports as perpetrators of violent acts, propelled by their own sexual trauma and objectification, and as political actors for their parties’ cause. The reporting of the Darfur rape atrocities also distinguishes clearly between accusations of rape committed by “aggressors” and accusations of rape committed by “liberators-protectors,” ignoring gendered inequalities and power differentials in increasing global tendencies toward violence and militarism. Since the Abuja agreement, and as more reports have implicated all parties in the Darfurian conflict in escalating war crimes and sexual assaults against women, perpetrators have been more often referred to as “unidentified groups of armed men.”27 Contradictory media reports and conflicting statements about the identities of the perpetrators raise a significant question: to what extent has rape been used not only as a weapon of war and demasculinization but also as a weapon of criminalization, used by the warring parties to implicate each other? The point of such questions is not to raise doubts about whether atrocities of rape and murder have been committed by the warring parties in Darfur, but to highlight how a discourse on violence and terror has used women’s bodies and stories of sexual violence affectively as sites of conflicting national and international debate about rights, recognition, and military intervention.



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The production and circulation of the master narratives of rape and violence against women and minors have thus produced a culture of feminized vulnerability through which the warring parties challenge one another for ethnic, national, and transnational sovereignties over women’s injuries and dispossession. As narratives of violence against refugees, especially women and minors, circulate to other controlled border zones beyond Darfur, they legitimate certain national identities and denounce others. In these instances, the refugees themselves and their stories of suffering continue to be viewed as testimonies to the clash of national and transnational sovereignties.

The Death of Humanness at Mustafa Mahmoud Square, Egypt Sudan’s conflicts have also driven many displaced people out of their homelands to seek refuge in neighboring countries such as Uganda, Ethiopia, and Egypt. Egypt, in particular, attracts many Sudanese refugees, intellectuals, and activists who view the country as a transitional location on the way to Europe, America, and other Western countries. But far from being safe havens for refugees, host countries abide by strict nationalist regulations that undermine notions of human rights and global citizenship. Such rules often leave their marks on refugees’ experiences and shatter their belief in what are presumed to be universal human rights and humanitarian doctrines. The December 2005 attack in Cairo’s Mustafa Mahmoud Square against Sudanese refugees was one of the most widely reported assaults on Sudanese cyberpublic media. The event generated extensive discussion about Sudanese ethnic identities and the state of inhumanity encountered by Sudanese refugees and asylum seekers abroad. The traveling narrative of the suffering Sudanese refugee in these media reports shows how both Egyptian and Sudanese activists mobilized a discourse centered around “the death of humanity” in order to foster a notion of transnational solidarity and contest the oppressive politics of territoriality and nationhood. The assault took place when the Egyptian National Guard and security police broke up a three-month sit-in protest by Sudanese refugees (mostly Southern Sudanese and Darfurians), killing thirty and injuring hundreds. The attack, which vividly reaffirmed the vulnerability of refugees and their liminal status, provoked the anger of activists across the globe. Sudanese activists, in particular, viewed the Egyptian assault as an injury to their Sudanese-ness and a violent reminder of the colonial past and difficult postcolonial relations between the two neighboring nations.28

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Before the 1990s, under the Nile Valley treaty between Sudan and Egypt, Sudanese in Egypt had gained some benefits, such as free entry, residency, and health and education services. Egypt revoked the agreement, however, after the assassination attempt on President Hosni Mubarak in Ethiopia and the implication of Islamists in the Sudanese government. Egypt’s tense political relations with the Sudan have hardened the racial images of Sudanese refugees and their association with disorderliness and disruption to the security of the Egyptian nation-state. A front-page article in Sudanile by its chief editor denounced the representation of Sudanese refugees in Egyptian newspapers.29 Sudanese refugees, mostly Southern and Christian, are often characterized as drunkards, pimps, prostitutes, and violent others who terrorize local residents. In the article, the editor argued that such imagery was prompting some residents to commit violent acts against the refugees, in the name of neighborhood security. The editor urged activists and officials to take the matter under serious consideration, since such views distorted the image of Sudanese at home and abroad. At Mustafa Mahmoud Square, however, Sudanese refugees contested the action of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to privilege claims based on fear of political persecution over those based on fear of death resulting from war, famine, and poverty.30 This prioritization has left many refugees in dreadful situations as they await decisions on resettlement. Refugees, mostly from Darfur and Southern Sudan, have demanded protection of their dignity and human rights. They have requested resettlement to countries where they do not have to face racial discrimination, unemployment, disappearance, and detention of their members, or sexual abuse of women and children. In 2005, the classification of some as “economic refugees” and the withholding of aid prompted the sit-in protest by more than three thousand Sudanese refugees who endured makeshift conditions to camp in Mustafa Mahmoud Square in front of the UNHCR office. Translocal activists were quick to appropriate cyberspace sites and online networks to render visible the killing and injuring of Sudanese refugees when police and security forces moved to break up the protest. Sudanese Web journals reported horror stories of Sudanese who participated in the protest. Sudanile posted the testimony of a thirty-three-year-old Darfurian man who wrote, “I witnessed a long civil war in my region [Darfur], I have not seen [anything] like this, some people were beaten, others bleeding, children dying, I could not believe it, this is not real.”31 Sudanese transnational activists from Cairo to Sydney to the United States mobilized online to protest the massacre by writing letters to



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human rights organizations or by gathering in front of UNHCR offices in their own countries of residency. Egyptian activists circulated the news through electronic journals and other social networks and described themselves as eyewitnesses to the brutality of the Egyptian police and the injustices that the UNHCR inflicted on the Sudanese refugees. Their testimonies bemoaned the loss of dignity and the death of humanness and contested the Egyptian government’s nativist claims that framed Sudanese refugees as disruptive to the integrity of the Egyptian nation-state and its security. Egyptian eyewitness accounts reported that Sudanese refugees were drenched in cold water sprayed by the police, who were proudly chanting, “Ho-ho-ho Masr (Egypt),” “The most beautiful name in the world is Egypt,” and “For Egypt we live, for Egypt we die.” One activist declared there was “no humanity in the scene.”32 Soldiers beat refugees to death, destroyed their crude shelters, and dragged them relentlessly toward buses lined up to move them to detention and security centers. Activists’ photographs and accounts of what they termed the “circle of horror”—often with titles like “I Was There and Saw Everything” or “An Eyewitness Account of the Massacre”—employed new media technologies and mimicked sensationalist visual media accounts of events: [I] was standing right there . . . they are taking them one by one, right in front of my eyes . . . women, children blood flowing from their heads . . . [I] was screaming, crying, trying to stop them . . . they treated them like animals . . . [I] saw two dead bodies lying on the ground . . . [I] cannot describe [to] you what [I] have seen . . . it was inhuman.33

Through the production and circulation of such accounts, activists also grounded their own political subjectivities by positioning themselves as “counter-visible” agents and global citizen journalists protesting the exclusionary master narrative of national belonging and citizenship rights expressed by state police as well as passersby.34 Activists also assumed the moral responsibility to contest assaults against humanity and to claim borderless solidarities that transcend global disparities and social difference. Their narratives frequently voiced how police brutality and racial slurs, among them “filthy,” “drunkards,” and “black dogs,” repressively excluded Sudanese refugees from a master narrative of nationhood and belonging. One Egyptian activist contested the cheering, whistling, and clapping of some Egyptian local residents who were exclaiming during the massacre that the Sudanese refugees were “not Egyptians!”35 Another human rights activist condemned such xenophobic behavior among Egyptian passersby,

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writing, “What happened Friday is a crime against humanity. And it should never go without punishment.”36 A demonstration organized by Egyptian activists the following day manifested their opposition to the Egyptian regime and their solidarity with Sudanese refugees on moral and humanitarian grounds. Egyptian activists presented themselves as both responsible agents for witnessing police brutality and victims of state surveillance, detention, and interrogation. But given activists’ own subordinate position to state power, they could only apologize for what they witnessed. Their banners—images of which were posted on Misrdigital.com—displayed messages like “Humanity was killed right here,” “We are all Sudanese,” “Our condolences and apologies—not in our names,” and “25 humans died in front of our eyes, while demanding a decent life—we are all responsible.” The “death of humanness” at Mustafa Mahmoud Square was also emphasized in photographs circulated by Sudanese and Egyptian activists through electronic journals and online networks such as SudaneseOnline, Sudanile, and Misrdigital.com. These images showed holy books, passports, wedding pictures, and travel documents scattered on the ground, mixed with clothes, blankets, and plastic bags—all treated as litter to be gathered by sanitary workers in orange uniforms. One particular image that circulated on SudaneseOnline and captured activists’ attention showed the body of a four-year-old boy killed during the attack. The child’s dark, naked body, carrying the mark of innocence and racial difference, was peacefully laid on a bench in a public park, surrounded by a group of Sudanese men measuring a white cloth (kafan) in which to wrap the body. The details of the gruesome image—the child’s clothes on the bench, the expressions of anger and grief on the faces of the Sudanese men, and the child’s tiny body—all preclude the significance of a narrating voice. While the child’s bare body lends itself to efforts to mobilize shame and to denounce human rights violations, it also points to the muteness of refugee voices and their subaltern place in the context of marginality and global disparities. Yet, in the absence of real mechanisms to enforce actions against governments and perpetrators of violence, “mobilizing shame” is the imagined vehicle of power and enforcement through which “human rights NGOs understand their own work.”37 The image of the dead child stirred heated debate among members of the Sudanese diaspora conversing in electronic forums and other public spheres. Articles and poems cast murdered children as martyrs for freedom and described their victimization and death as crimes against humanity. These diaspora communities articulated both nationalist and anti-nationalist sentiments as they expressed their views from exile. The horrific experiences of Sudanese refugees



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abroad provided some Sudanese activists with a critical lens to contest the oppressive practices of nation-states globally. However, an inclusive, just Sudan was—and still is—often imagined as a refuge from the suffering and inhumanity that Sudanese refugees experience abroad. Sudanese activists in Egypt, Washington, DC, and elsewhere annually commemorate the tragedy of Mustafa Mahmoud Square. It has become a point of reference and a site of memory for Sudanese to denounce suffering and the loss of dignity at home and in exile. Proverbs, writings, songs, and art posted and circulated through the Sudanese cyberpublic lament how leaving home strips them of their identities and their worth. Consider, for example, statements like “Those who leave their home, they measure less elsewhere,” or song lyrics such as “Suffering prisons and ghost houses back home, exile is wound over wound.” On April 8, 2007, Egyptian security officers beat and detained eleven Sudanese refugees—once again, in front of UNHCR’s Cairo office.38 Protesters had gathered there to complain about the Egyptian government’s delayed compensation for the refugees after the 2005 massacre. Sudanese activists in the diaspora again protested the treatment of refugees, noting how this incident illustrated the predicament of exile and the loss of human dignity in Egypt and elsewhere. Renowned Sudanese French artist Hassan Musa published a telling cartoon online through Sudanforall, protesting Egyptian racism and the inhumane treatment of Sudanese refugees. In the cartoon, Musa locates the dehumanization of refugees in a postcolonial moment that depicts the alliances of national governments and Western-based human rights institutions. His cartoon shows how a UN organization, entrusted with the promotion of human rights, is actually furthering the Egyptian regime’s hegemonic practices of securing its own national borders and promoting its racist policies. Musa depicts the Sudanese refugee as an animal-like figure, stripped of human dignity. As the refugee squats in front of the UNHCR office, the Egyptian security police order the UNHCR khawaqa (European) who is inside the office to shut the door in the refugee’s face.39 In a phone interview, Musa told me that the image draws on a proverb that is popular in both Egypt and Sudan—“Shut the door that lets in disturbing wind”—in order to point out the dehumanization of Sudanese refugees in Egypt and the politics of national border control. Although Musa’s commentary references anticolonial and nationalist sentiments of unity between Egypt and the Sudan as depicted in poetry and metaphor such as “children of the Nile,” it also underscores the shift of political alliances that continue to mask such international romance. In their attacks on the oppressive politics of the Egyptian nation-state and its human rights abuses, transnational Sudanese and Egyptian activists aim to

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direct attention to the collective plight of refugees by employing images of women and children as icons of innocence who have access to only the very basics of humanity. As the ideologies of nationality and exclusive citizenship relegate refugees to the margins of existence, humanitarianism becomes the only legitimate moral discourse and practice that guarantees them the bare minimum necessary for survival. This biopolitics of “bare life” shapes contemporary humanitarian action and the production of its moral economies.40 Such structural linkages produce “a unique combination of policies of order and a politics of suffering” that maintain the security of citizens and assure the compassionate treatment of those on the margins.41 And yet, state actors still do little to alter the harsh realities of refugee exile. Despite the Egyptian government’s claims of compensating refugees and their families in 2005, for instance, many refugees continue to report that they have received no payment.42 The majority of refugees affected by the violence in Cairo remain in Egypt, living in miserable conditions.43 One year after the attack in Mustafa Mahmood Square, the UN Committee on Migrant Workers continued its investigation of the case of the Sudanese refugees in Egypt and determined the responsibilities of all parties involved.44 The event thus remains a collectively remembered—and contested—humanitarian site in and through which to debate the injuries and suffering of exile—‘azab alghurba, as many of my Sudanese interlocutors in the United States often refer to it.

Lost Venus: The Move to Israel Facing police violence and lack of support in Egypt, many Sudanese refugees crossed the border to Israel amid worldwide controversy about human rights abuses against Palestinians during the siege of Gaza in 2008 and 2009. The dispute of the Israeli occupation in the Middle East and the support of the Sudanese government for the Palestinian cause rendered Sudan an enemy state and Sudanese refugees risky subjects to Israeli security. Despite these issues, however, humanitarian groups and celebrities in Israel stepped in to bring the refugees’ plight to the fore, mobilizing ethno-gendered discourses of universal solidarity and compassion and using children as icons of innocence and humanity under assault. Amid global solidarities to raise awareness about the Darfur conflict, Abedalwahid Alnur, a French resident and Fur leader who objected to the Abuja Peace Agreement, created an Israeli office representing his Sudan Liberation Movement Unity (SLM) faction.45 After the crossing of Darfurian refugees from Egypt to Israel and in response to the establishment of Alnur’s office, members of the Sudanese diaspora posted several commentaries in electronic journals.



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Sudanile, for instance, posted twenty-five articles in February and early March of 2008 commenting on Nur’s political move and the border crossing of Sudanese refugees to Israel. Members of the Sudanese diaspora who were sympathetic to the Palestinian plight were skeptical of Nur’s establishment of an Israeli office, contesting the idea that Israel represented a “safe humanitarian haven” for Darfurian refugees and warning against Israel’s meddling in Sudan’s political affairs. Others supported the move as a valid tactic to expose the violent politics of the Sudanese state against its own minority citizens. They also cited the Mustafa Mahmoud assaults and the racism that Sudanese encounter in many Arab countries as examples of dehumanization. In the view of these commentators, refugees have the right to seek security and survival wherever possible. Stories of Sudanese refugees killed by the Egyptian police as they were crossing the borders to Israel, accounts of young children rescued from the aggressive grip of the Egyptian police, and images of Israeli soldiers carrying Sudanese children and walking side by side with their veiled Sudanese mothers circulated through electronic media such as IRIN,46 the website of the New York Times, SudaneseOnline, and Sudan Tribune as testimonies contesting the inhumanity of the Egyptian regime. The affective power of violence thus surfaced again in these master narratives, which were not just feminized but also infantilized, to draw attention to the case of Sudanese refugees in Israel. A short documentary video posted on SudaneseOnline from Israel’s Channel 2 television via YouTube depicted the rescue of a little Sudanese girl named Venus by a humanitarian group.47 The narrative tells the story of little Venus, who was lost during the border crossing from Egypt to Israel. Venus was left stranded in Egypt when her parents tried to cross a barbed-wire fence in the dark in an attempt to escape the bullets of the Egyptian border-control police. The program’s (unidentified) narrator comments on the danger of crossing a border through which drugs, pimps, prostitutes, weapons, and refugees are constantly smuggled. He notes, “It is not the first time that Egyptian soldiers are shooting and the refugees . . . are running for their lives.” Venus’s mother describes (in Arabic, subtitled in English) losing her daughter during the stampede of crossing. Those who crossed with her urged her not to return to look for the little girl lest she be shot upon reentry. The video’s program narrator affirms, “There [was] no wise consideration when the Egyptian police [were] shooting, and indeed they were shooting towards the direction of Israel and their intention was to harm.”48 But the politics of rescue, solidarity, and compassion underlying Venus’s story downplays the border-control politics that both Egypt and Israel negotiated in order to safeguard their national boundaries.49 In June 2007 the presidents of the

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Egyptian and Israeli states met at Sharm El Sheikh to discuss the repatriation of the Sudanese refugees in Israel. As reported in the online English version of the Egyptian daily newspaper Al-Ahram: “At a press conference at the end of his meeting with Mubarak, [Ehud] Olmert disclosed that Egypt had pledged not to deport any returning Sudanese refugees. Egyptian officials declined to comment.” Indeed, the subject is so sensitive that it has received little coverage in the Egyptian press beyond occasional reports of Sudanese being caught trying to illegally cross the border into Israel.50 According to the documentary, the Israeli humanitarian organization that endorsed Venus’s case underwent great risk to rescue her. A humanitarian worker describes how she used her personal connections across borders to raise awareness about the “lost girl” and the suffering of her parents. She recounts that it did not take her long to get help regarding Venus’s case from “a friend . . . in the other side of the country who is a brigade commander.”51 This action resulted in negotiations with the Egyptian border officers, who, according to the narrator, refused to hand Venus over unless the humanitarian organization surrendered her mother in return. “There was no need to imagine why they said that,” the humanitarian worker states, alluding to the probable involvement of police in prostitution and smuggling rings. To save the girl “who got lost in the desert,” the humanitarian worker called upon the wife of the Israeli prime minister, Aliza Olmert, and the heads of intelligence in both countries. After her efforts failed to yield results, she made a daring move via a crime organization that operates in Sinai, which “smuggles women, drugs, and probably more other horrible things,” to get information about Venus. The information gathered by the humanitarian organization helped to locate the girl, who was accompanied by three Egyptian soldiers and other refugees to the town of ‘Arish. The pivotal component of the search, the documentary suggests, was the letter that Aliza Olmert wrote to the wife of President Hosni Mubarak, urging her to aid in Venus’s rescue: To dear Mrs. Suzanne Mubarak, Although we are not personally familiar with each other, I see fit to speak to you and to ask your cooperation. Both of us divide our lives with leaders of countries, which are facing a reality, which has more dilemmas than solutions. I would like to ask you to activate your involvement and your influence regarding one incident which may be worthless in global terms but with a deep significance. It’s almost unusual and awful in particular and the humanitarian problem that it arouses is serious and urgent and shouts for an unusual recruitment. If we succeed to bring Venus to her parents, then we will do the necessary and the proper thing and maybe also arouse hope.52



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Shortly after this exchange, the narrator explains, the response came back that Venus was alive and in good condition in ‘Arish and that she would be returned to her family soon. The documentary showed Venus’s homecoming amid emotional celebrations as she was greeted by both Arabic and Hebrew praises, and words and gestures of love and compassion. Venus visited Olmert herself and was showered with gifts and a warm welcome in the presence of her parents, activists, and TV cameras. The documentary presents Venus as “the best thing that happened to Sudanese refugees in Israel.” The production and circulation of Venus’s story mobilized activists and politicians across the Israeli-Egyptian border around shared notions of universal solidarity, the “natural” place of the family as a source of morality, compassion, and peace, and the roles of women at all levels and in all places as wives and mothers. The story also, however, masked Venus’s subaltern social position as a Sudanese refugee who would grow up to embody the complex contradictions of gender, race, nationality, and refugee-ness in Israel.53 Venus’s story points to a subtextual politics of morality and compassion that invokes the broader border tensions and contested identities in the region. Embedded in her narrative is a gendered story of suffering, salvation, and compassion invoked by activists to make broader political claims about contested borders that have long been plagued by historical conflicts over nationality, territoriality, and belonging. Activists’ solidarities continue to inspire humanitarian groups and celebrities who still fight for refugee rights in Israel. In January 2014 transnational newspapers and social media circulated the news of a massive demonstration by Sudanese and Eritrean refugees protesting a recent crackdown by the Israeli government. Protesters marched to the United States, British, Canadian, French, and Italian embassies in Israel, as well as the UNHCR offices, demanding that their voices be heard. The protest, supported by celebrities and rights activists, was in response to the passage of an amendment to the country’s prevention of infiltration law, allowing for the detention and deportation of refugees. According to a New York Times article, about 60,000 refugees, mostly Sudanese and Eritrean, crossed through the porous border with Egypt between 2005 and 2012, when it was closed.54 Another news article reported that some 400 Israeli intellectuals and artists signed a petition to help stop the deportation of 700 Southern Sudanese after the December crisis in the new nation of South Sudan in 2013.55 Israelis living in south Tel Aviv, however, claim that their neighborhood has turned into Africa.56 The Israeli government views the refugees—termed “illegal infiltrators”—as exerting demographic pressure and posing a security threat to the Jewish state, and has thus demanded their departure or forcible removal.57

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The three-day strike in January 2014 included celebrities and NGO organizations joining forces to support the refugees by raising money and schooling the public about the racism inflicted upon African migrants, often invoking the Holocaust as a site of remembrance. At one event, the Israeli rapper and radio personality Quami performed his song “Who Isn’t a Refugee Here?” to extend solidarity and support to African refugees facing the threat of imprisonment and deportation.58 Although the Israeli government has continued to delay the date of the refugees’ removal, it has remained adamant about executing the new law. The decision is based on the claim that most of these refugees are economic migrants and do not fear political persecution. The narrative of violence of the Sudanese refugee does not map onto the plight of any one individual, and yet single stories are produced to direct attention to the overall challenges and struggles that these migrants face. As they circulate, such narratives acquire new life and highlight the clash of national and transnational affinities and imaginings and the place of women and children in the constantly emerging politics of rights and humanitarianism.

Arab Humanitarianism: The Violence of Culture and the Complicity of the State On May 30, 2009, Mahasin Ahmad, a Sudanese community activist first introduced in chapter 3, invited me and another friend to meet in Maryland with Sana Alamin, a young Sudanese woman who was subjected to severe burns on her face and body in the Sudan in 2005. The story of the violence committed against Sana circulated quickly in national and cybernational media, and mobilized community activists in the Sudan and the diaspora, who used her case as an example of how the Sudanese Islamist state is complicit in perpetuating the violence of culture and tradition. Unlike the stories and images of Southern Sudanese and Darfurian women, minors, and refugees in various media circuits, Sana’s is a Northern story. She was born and raised in a small town in central Sudan. As a young Northern Sudanese university student she is part of a new generation of youths who grew up under the Ingath (rescue) Islamist regime of Omar Albashir. Her discontent with her arranged marriage took a terrible turn when she resisted and escaped to her parents’ house. Unfortunately, this form of resistance was an affront to her husband, who tricked one of her brothers into helping him to “win” Sana back. The husband invoked the well-known practice of curing sickness or other social aberrations by massaging bodies with blessed water. During this ritual a cultural practitioner reads the Quran over water to transmit its power



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to the liquid, which will then be ingested by the person being treated. The divine power can also be transmitted if the healer reads Quranic verses over the person’s head or in his/her presence.59 In Sana’s case, her husband claimed to procure blessed water (mehaya) from a shaikh (a local healer/practitioner) and then persuaded the brother to throw the liquid over Sana’s face as she slept. Not realizing that the mehaya was actually phosphoric acid, the brother did what he was told, and Sana’s face and other body parts suffered third-degree burns. The incident was featured prominently in Sudanese news outlets and stirred heated discussion among feminists and in other elite circles in both the Sudan and the United States. The debate over Sana’s case and her well-being generated a powerful humanitarian response. In 2008 she was airlifted from the Sudan to the United Arab Emirates and then to the United States through a generous humanitarian grant from Shaikha Fatma bint Mubarak, the widow of the late Sultan Zayed of the United Arab Emirates and head of the UAE Women’s Union. Shaikha Fatma, known as the mother of the Emirates, is also the honorary president of the Red Crescent (a well-known humanitarian organization in the Muslim world). In Washington, DC, members of the local jalia were quick to respond to Sana’s tragedy even before her arrival. On March 21, 2008, I attended a fund-raising concert sponsored by artists and community members in Annandale, Virginia, in support of Sana. The event, which bore the slogan “Min ajl sana wa hata akhir alnisa” (Fighting for Sana until the last woman), was a demonstration of unity and solidarity among community activists, who spoke about violence against women in the Sudan and how to devise strategies to combat it (figure 11). Event organizers distributed cards to the group and asked that attendees write thoughtful comments to Sana; the cards would be sent to her in the Sudan, along with a video of the event, as a way of conveying the community’s message of solidarity and support. I followed Sana’s case over Sudanese digital media and through my interlocutors’ contact with her in the Washington, DC, area when she arrived and began her lengthy journey of healing. On the way to Sana’s house in Baltimore in 2009, Mahasin, who had helped to organize Sana’s reception in DC, told me that she was living in an upscale area overlooking Chesapeake Bay, where many visitors from the Middle East seeking medical treatment at Johns Hopkins Hospital reside. It took us forty-five minutes from Arlington, Virginia, to get to President Street, where Sana and her other brother, Awad, lived. Awad had recently graduated from Juba University in what is now South Sudan and had served as his sister’s companion to the United States.60 He was more hopeful and cheerful than suggested by descriptions of him in the Sudanese press.

Musician, singer, and composer Abed-alhadi Osman, joined by Awttar Alnil (Strings of the Nile) musical group, participates in the solidarity event for Sana Alamin, Alexandria, VA, 2009. Photo by author. FI G U R E 11.

Sana Alamin and Mahasin Ahmad at Alamin’s apartment in Maryland, 2009. Photo by author. FI G U R E 12 .



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Awad met us at the garage entrance with a big smile and led us through the apartment building to their unit. Outside the apartment, Sana and members of the Sudanese community were gathered near a swimming pool, ready to share the barbecue that male guests were busy preparing to complement the other Sudanese dishes brought by the visiting families. As the children of her guests enjoyed a cool summer swim, Sana sat nearby to entertain her female visitors, her face partially covered and her eyes hidden behind big black glasses. Her confident posture and sleek, colorful attire conveyed an image of a strong, elegant young woman, undeterred by her injury. She stood when she saw us coming and greeted us cheerfully, commenting on how Mahasin had lost weight while she, Sana, had gained some (figure 12). When we sat down, I was not sure how to start the conversation. Would my questions provoke sad memories that she would courageously try to overcome? I quickly decided not to ask about her painful experience in the Sudan, which I had already read about in the press; instead, I focused on the future of her treatment. The conversation was informal and followed the Sudanese style of wanasa (exchanging information while chatting). Sana began by telling us about a surgery that was scheduled in a few days. Since arriving in the United States, she had undergone multiple facial surgeries. She explained, “These surgeries are expensive . . . they must cost millions. . . . It has been a year since we came here . . . but the Shaikha takes care of everything, including my clothes, the house, everything.” She described meeting with the Shaikha before traveling to the United States: “I had a pleasant tour of the city [Abu Dhabi] that she paid for.” The story of Sana is not the first of its kind. Tragically, numerous women have suffered such attacks by their lovers, fiancés, and husbands, and their stories occasionally surface in the media, highlighting increasing incidents of violence against women in urban and rural settings in the Sudan. Furthermore, crimes of retaliation by phosphoric acid are not confined to women. In a few cases that have also received media attention, acid has been used in revenge attacks between male business partners.61 The focus on violence against women, however, illustrates how the language of gender-based violence infuses the practices of many NGOs working on women’s issues in the Sudan. During my trips to the country, I met with several Sudanese female activists, some of whom are still running NGOs that focus on violence against women. They told me that since the late 1980s their agenda has shifted from female circumcision as a form of bodily injury and violence against women to cover a wider spectrum of sexual harassment and forms of sexual violence in conflict

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zones and other social settings. They included these “emergency situations” to conform to the United Nations’ feminist agenda and to attract funding for their campaigning missions. For the UN and other transnational organizations, violence against women as a political category includes rape crimes committed against women in conflict zones, police and security harassment of women activists, and incidents of sexual violence and abuse committed against women and minors in domestic and other social settings. The brochures provided by such organizations describe the meaning of sexual violence and sexual harassment in order to empower women and to educate the public about women’s subordinate position at work and in other public spaces. Although the work of Sudanese women activists is becoming increasingly familiar to a limited elite public, many complain about the difficulty of translating such language into existing Islamic legal codes. The struggle of these activists to make their voices heard often clashes with Islamists’ interpretation of the moral order and women’s place within it. In most cases, female civil society activists depend on transnational networks to form pressure groups in order to articulate their feminist visions. But transnational feminists’ articulations are often disconnected from the long history of women organizing in the Sudan and, rather, are presented anew in the form of short-term initiatives and debates, as I show in chapter 5. Nonetheless, such forms of NGO organizing and transnational collaboration open a space of contestation and mobilization for those working toward the elimination of violence against women. In Sana’s case, many social and political circumstances were conducive to the production of her story and its subsequent wide circulation. She struggled with her injuries and the loss of her sight for three years before her brother decided to post a call for help through an editorial article in the popular newspaper Alray Ala‘am (Public Opinion) in February 2008. In response, the newspaper published three articles about the case, including a heartrending interview with Sana. In the interview, she broke the taboo against women speaking publicly about their private affairs, mainly because her male interviewer reassured her that telling her story was the only effective way to make people feel her pain, respond to her plight, and devise strategies to prevent such crimes. Desperate for help, she reluctantly let down the burq‘a that she had begun to wear after her injury in order to hide its gravity from the public eye. Despite an upbringing that emphasized marriage as a form of social security for young girls in her small rural town, Sana at seventeen—her age at the time of the attack—had dreamed of a different future. In her newspaper interview, she explained that she did not refuse her husband because she had another



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man in mind; rather, she wanted to go to school and finish her education. Her suitor, a forty-year-old government employee from a neighboring rural area, fell in love with her and was determined to have her as his wife. Despite her indication that she did not want to marry, the suitor found ways to convince her father that he was the best man for Sana, including posing as a devout Muslim who knew how to protect and respect his wife. When Sana passed the national high school examination and was accepted to study literature at Juba University, she was thrilled and left home to start her college education. During her absence, her father used his patriarchal authority and officiated the wedding without her consent. Sana was devastated and continued to resist her new marital status during the months she spent with her husband. When the journalist asked Sana if her husband forced her to have sexual intercourse on their honeymoon, her answer was that he didn’t because she had her menses. Her husband, who studied law at Alnilain (the Two Niles) University in Khartoum, did not batter her or force her into having sex. Instead, he relied on forms of social coercion to try to make her an obedient, loving wife. He would pour black liquids that she suspected of being mehaya or other witchcraft potions into her drinks and those of her visiting relatives. She once found small pieces of paper with “spells” written on them, including such phrases as aja‘al zawajati Muti ‘aa (make my wife obey me). A few days before the crime, she found that her husband had forcibly opened her cupboard and taken her wedding jewelry. The night of the crime, as she was sleeping in her family’s courtyard, she woke up screaming as a burning sensation paralyzed her face and part of her upper body. She could glimpse her brother standing by and her husband moving away swiftly. At that moment, nothing could quell her pain and her loud cries for help. Her brother, who had thought he was doing his sister a favor by pouring blessed water on her face, fled the house for Juba in South Sudan and never returned. Sana’s mother could not stop crying, and she refused to look at her daughter’s face. Her traumatized father realized the devastation of his family, but could do nothing more than ask the husband for a divorce. Village elders persuaded the father to forgive the man in return for compensation that would go toward Sana’s treatment. The husband was detained briefly, but ultimately released on the rationale that even if he did engineer the crime, the act itself was carried out by a proxy. At the time of my interview with Sana, her case was still under investigation. The husband later resumed his normal life and married another woman; Sana continues to seek treatment for her injuries.

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Story Production and Translocal Responses In the Sudan, many religious groups, including conservative ones such as Ansar Alsuna (Resurgence of Prophet Muhammad’s Teachings), publicly supported Sana, calling the crime “anti-Islamic” because Sana’s husband resorted to witchcraft and superstition (alsha‘awaza waaldajal), which negates both scripture and hadith. Secular groups, on the other hand, condemned the crime and regarded it as part of the state’s failure to provide security for its minority citizens, including women. Dia Balal, the chief editor of Alray Ala‘am, wrote an article (in Arabic) titled “Sana’s Tragedy, Officials Are Silent,” in which he dubbed it one of the worst crimes against humanity and related the newspaper’s own role in publicizing the story.62 According to Balal, he received a call from Alhaj, a relative and childhood friend, who asked to meet with him. “I thought it was a meeting for the sake of our old friendship, especially since I have not seen my friend who was exiled for so many years,” he wrote. Alhaj introduced Balal to Sana’s brother Awad. Balal described Awad as a handsome young man in his twenties, with a quiet demeanor and sad, tearful eyes. After the introduction, Alhaj began to tell Balal the story of Sana, showing him pictures of her before and after the crime. Horrified by the severity of Sana’s injuries, Balal asked his colleague Altaj Osman, the editor of the paper’s humanitarian section, to present it through “his masterful style” to the readers of the newspaper as a call for help.63 In the same article, Balal argued that it is the journalist’s responsibility to respond to national problems of poverty and deprivation, and to feel and heal the pain of the poor and injured. He wondered how it was that the Prince Sultan of Saudi Arabia, the Shaikha Fatima of the UAE, and the Sudanese diaspora community were all able to feel the pain of a young woman in the Sudan, but Sudanese officials failed to respond to the tragedy. Following this article, in March 2008, Alray Ala‘am also convened a nadwa (discussion forum) to present the opinions of an array of speakers, including religious figures, lawyers, feminists, and two other officials who responded to the call.64 Several feminist journalists wrote about Sana’s case, arguing that a new culture of violence was being nurtured by the current Islamist regime. Most speakers focused on revision of the legal codes and the personal status laws that govern issues of marriage and divorce. In the existing personal status codes, women are granted some liberties, but are still subjected to male patriarchal authority in cases of marriage, divorce, and child custody.65 Although people don’t follow these codes literally in practice, the personal status laws, which draw their influence from sharia (Islamic codes), give men more leverage in asserting



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their masculine identities. According to both Quran and hadith, women should be consulted by their male guardians in matters of marriage and divorce, but Islam has been interpreted differently in Sudan’s multiethnic social settings and the power of cultural practices and male authority often trumps the negotiation of some Islamic provisions and liberties. The predominant government narrative of rescue and salvation that many activists allude to ignores the loopholes in these legal codes that can put the lives of women in jeopardy. At the newspaper’s discussion forum, secular feminists, such as Nahid Muhammad Alhassan, called for more legal protection for women, especially those living in rural areas, to guarantee their independence and to ensure their safety. As an outspoken feminist psychologist and journalist, Nahid argued that Sana’s tragedy is both a feminist concern and a socioeconomic one. As a woman, Sana is subject to male authority, but her family is also subject to economic marginalization that exacerbates cultural biases against women. Sudanese feminists, Nahid asserted, must take such tragic cases seriously as they envision new feminist agendas for a democratic new Sudan before the end of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) term. A few days after the discussion forum, controversy flared when Sana’s file was purportedly “lost” in court and an influential relative of the husband was suspected of meddling with the legal system. The incident prompted Balal, the newspaper’s editor, to intervene again, threatening to expose the matter if the file was not recovered. The court magistrate later assured Balal that the file had never left the court, and described the incident as a grave misunderstanding. Ultimately, the debate over Sana’s case in the Sudan brought three issues to the foreground: the need to revise legal codes to ensure the protection of women, the suspect impartiality of the legal system from external influences, and the revival of translocal solidarity around humanitarian issues.

Reinterpreting Social Care: Reviving Nafir’s Structure of Feeling Sana’s case, like those of Halima Bashir and other subaltern role models, presents an important question: How should we think about this narrative genre produced and circulated through the virtuous lens of humanitarianism in a world where socioeconomic and political disparities loom large? Balal, the newspaper’s editor behind Sana’s story, was asked why Sana’s case, in particular, received wide coverage and many responses, when similar cases of assault against women are numerous in Khartoum’s courts. Balal insisted that the answer was not Sana’s “pretty face,” but that her case diagnosed many Sudanese “social ailments,” especially in remote rural areas where civil society organizations cease to function

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and government and opposition members are busy fighting over power. What needed cosmetic surgery, he argued, was not just Sana’s face, but also “our various traditional [practices] and legal codes.” In his description of the production of Sana’s story, Balal asserted: None of us knew that Sana’s case would generate such attention. That it would become the most important social case that confronted Sudanese journalism since its inception. That it would reflect our civil position among the nations and would present a harsh critique of our social and legal orders. All that my friend and Sana’s brother expected from me [was that I would] use my own connections as a journalist to help them collect part of the money, which is estimated at 10,000 dollars[,] to do more surgeries on Sana’s face.66

What differentiates Sana’s case from that of Halima Bashir, and from the Egyptian and Israeli protest cases and other cases presented in previous chapters, is the way it engendered a subaltern reinterpretation of humanitarianism. Sana’s case enabled many Sudanese social actors and activists in the Sudan, the United States, and elsewhere to look toward what one interviewee called the “culture of aid and support” that often characterizes Sudanese, Arab, and African communities. This brand of humanitarianism enables activists and community members in the Sudan and abroad to reflect on their own cultural practices and to craft a counterresponse that both critiques and celebrates these forms of social solidarity. Such a translocal reaction, however, like the dominant discourse of humanitarianism endorsed by Western celebrities and other Sudanese allies, often depicts the state as a culprit. Nafir, takaful, and ‘awn are all forms of solidarity and good doing (‘amal alkhair). They also reflect various moral values and social virtues such as karam (generosity and hospitality) and shahama (magnanimousness), cultivated through social discipline as personal qualities necessary for cementing social relations outside the purview of the state. Nafir, for instance, refers to the mobilization of individuals to work for the welfare of the community. Different forms of nafir have existed in the Sudan for decades to describe how community members, families, and work groups come together to support one another during festivities, agricultural cycles, funerals, and natural disasters by contributing money, food, labor, and other resources (see chapter 3). During my summer trip to the Sudan in 2013, I noted how youth groups and artists had begun to revive this slowly fading tradition of nafir in urban centers. In August, when the capital, Khartoum, experienced its worst Nile flooding in years, youth groups mobilizing on Facebook and other digital media created an organization they called Nafir (also Nafeer) to aid members of families who



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lost their homes during the flood. The organization was a response to the slow government delivery of aid to the 300,000 displaced people in the city, according to a group member I met in Washington, DC. The news of Nafir soon reached the Sudanese diaspora, whose members began to organize and raise funds to send back to the Sudan. When I arrived in Washington in September of that year, I attended two fund-raising concerts organized by community leaders and activists and Sudanese American youth groups. Donations or support in this potlatch-like circulation binds group members together through a ring of reciprocity in order to build communities, cement relationships, and heal suffering and injuries. In Sana’s case, feminists, journalists, and other interlocutors in Khartoum and in the United States mobilized nafir to nurture nationalist sentiments and to contest the practices of both the current regime and Western celebrity humanitarianism. These challenges, however, rely on nostalgic visions of a Sudan untainted by the presumed practices of the inhumane Islamist state. As one attendee at Sana’s 2008 concert in Washington told me, “In the past, if someone offended your sister, everyone in the group or neighborhood would stand up to him, because she is considered your sister too, bint alhai [daughter of the hood], but now this regime has shattered communities and neighborhoods and emboldened men and subordinated women.” A female interviewee in Khartoum made a similar comment in 2009: “In the past [zaman] we did not know about these practices of burning women’s faces[;] these were imported from conservative Muslim countries that the current regime is allied with.” Another interviewee in the United States linked Sana’s case to the humanitarian representation of the Sudan in the transnational media: “Despite the gloomy picture of Sudan in the West and elsewhere, Sana’s case presents a different picture: that Sudanese are all right, they can come together and do something about it, despite the atrocities of this regime.” These romantic visions of a past Sudanese society less contaminated by contemporary social ills often point to the tension resulting from the competing visions of neoliberal globalization, modernization, humanity, and political Islamization. They reflect the socioeconomic changes taking place and the debates through which political and social actors envision the nation and imagine its reconfiguration within a broader transnational context. Most humanitarian and diaspora counter-responses to Sana’s case, for instance, focused on the current regime’s reluctance to invest in socioeconomic reforms, educate impoverished Sudanese subjects, or change family and personal laws to protect women against all forms of violence. Such critiques also illustrate the regime’s narrow neoliberal economic policies and its militaristic attitude toward its opponents—all of which

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have unleashed new kinds of violent masculinities. The militarization of the state (‘askarat aldawla) has led to the mobilization of religion as a weapon to target women and violate their bodies and public liberties. Responding to the gains that have enabled Sudanese women to go public, these violent masculinities constitute a backlash that seeks to bring them back home. The production of Sana’s case and its circulation in media outlets challenge this trend and locate violence against women, and other minorities, in a different structure of feeling, relying instead on the neutrality of humanitarian compassion as a source of healing in the absence of the state. Balal, the editor we met above, for instance, was very appreciative of the prompt response of wealthy Sudanese who offered to donate money to help Sana but asked that their names remain secret as a sign of humility, in keeping with the Islamic conviction that “the left hand should not see what the right hand has given.” Wealthy individuals are part of the category of the benevolent (fa‘ailyin alkhair)—those who are endowed with the passion to give to the poor through alms (zakat), and other forms of charity, in order to uplift them from their misery and, in return, win the commendation of the divine power (Allah). This form of charitable giving is driven by communal obligation to help and distribute resources equally to avoid hate, competition, and envy among members of the social group. In Sana’s case, the Sudanese state, in its predatory neoliberal condition—constrained by international debt politics and strict austerity measures that feed its monolithic and militaristic Islamic ideology—earns the lion’s share of blame. It is this different understanding of humanitarianism, with its intersecting Islamic and other communal forms, that many social actors and activists invoke in their attempts to critique the practices of the state and claim a neutral space that allows for the reinterpretation of gender, ethnic, and racial differentiation. But as anthropologists have long pointed out, our feelings are hardly removed from various webs of power and political economies.67 Nafir and ‘amal alkhair models assume an apolitical stance that centers the politics of feeling as a strategy for contesting the withdrawal of the state, taking for granted the classist position of the giver. Sana herself succumbs to this politics when she explains that the conditions of her humanitarian grant do not allow her to seek political asylum in the United States nor to “bring politics” into our discussion, since her case is masala insania khalis (a pure humanitarian matter). “I don’t want to embarrass the Shaikha who was so kind to me.” Through unequal relations of gift giving and social care that naturalize poverty and other kinds of violence, new relations of social bondage are created that—whether intentionally or not—silence other



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political interpretations and critiques.68 The failure to address unequal class and power relationships, I argue, adds new injury to Sana’s and Halima’s bodies by manipulating their vulnerabilities as a site of debate to heal a nation pulled apart in different ideological directions. When Sana unveiled her face to the media, many recognized her as a courageous young woman using her story to teach a lesson to future generations. Her story also imparted a humanitarian lesson that aims to heal injuries, albeit while concealing the politics of regional alliances, militarism, and competition over power and resources. Despite the similarities of Sana’s and Halima’s veiling and unveiling strategies, Halima’s veiling sent a different message. None of my interlocutors identified the “real” woman behind the pseudonym “Halima,” but many recognized her story. One interviewee told me that he knew about her and that she had returned to the Sudan, and others told me that she is still married to the rebel leader and lives with her family in London. I was not able to verify these reports, but Halima’s story represents a resistance story of a Darfurian Zagahwa woman who sought an alliance with a different kind of humanitarianism—a version that, to date, remains in tension with an Islamist vision of governance in the Sudan, including the rejection of the Arab intervention to resolve the Darfur conflict through the Doha agreement (see chapter 2). The stories of many female role models presented in this book, including those of Sana and Halima, reveal how national and transnational politics of rights and humanity collided over women’s (injured) bodies before the country’s separation.

Approaching Context: Reading Affective Violence Narratives with Political History The representation of suffering raises three questions that I grapple with. First, how can I, as an anthropologist trained in piecing together and interpreting stories in the form of thick, grounded ethnographies capture the mobility of these narratives of refugee suffering, as well as their varied and contested meanings and their effects? The narratives of violence that originated in Southern Sudan, Darfur, and Northern Sudan traveled in the media and with refugees to Egypt, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States. Through these circuits, the stories were produced, reified, and reproduced by a range of political and social actors, including activists and journalists, as testimonies of national exclusion and the remaking of identities and human rights citizens, and as techniques of audiopolitics that enable participation in imagined national and transnational communities. The case of Halima Bashir, for instance, represents a top-down approach

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through which to condemn the practices of the Sudanese regime and solidify Western boundaries of rights and humanity. It was difficult to pin down such a narrative for a thorough ethnographic analysis, as the protagonist’s identity was veiled from the public eye and her narrative acquired a fetish-like popularism. Second, how can I balance and understand both the ground-level singularity of each story and the life history that it gains as it circulates? To resolve these conflicting processes, I have chosen to focus on Sana’s story, for it presents the best opportunity to examine the multiple moments and levels that enabled its production. In taking that approach, I also examine the complex implications of constructing master narratives and certain kinds of historical knowledge. How can these traveling narratives allow us to trace the rising tensions among national and transnational sovereignties as those tensions manifest in the gendered and infantilized bodies of women and children in the name of rights and humanity? How, too, do violence narratives tell an even larger story about a return to the perception of Africa as a tragic place—sexualized, infantilized, and brought into multiple borders of humanity through the logic of charity, rescue, and salvation? Third, and most significant, how can I conceptualize these ascending and descending political tensions without denying Halima, Venus, Sana, and other subaltern actors and role models the opportunity to tell their stories, heal their injuries, and fight for justice? To begin, we have to understand that the production and circulation of such humanitarian master narratives and counter-narratives mask the socioeconomic violence that produces them in the first place. Reading them without understanding the broader contexts of violence and power separates each narrative from the conditions of its own production. Attributing such violence to acts of an inhumane national state without understanding the broad political network within which state players and actors are entangled is counterproductive. The social structures that produce gender, ethnic, and class differentiation obviously predate the practices of existing nation-states, but what needs to be at the center of our cultural and political analysis is how various forms of exclusion are manipulated, reproduced, hardened, and reified in present practices. To offer a continuum, a time frame for reading these affective violence narratives, I propose locating them in the structures of feeling that examine both the roots of socioeconomic disparities and the competitive pursuits of national and transnational sovereignties. The feminized and infantilized master narratives of victims-turned-humanrights-subaltern celebrities, actors, and activists, including the stories of Halima, Sana, and Venus, all surfaced in the media at the height of transnational activists’ mobilization against war atrocities in Southern Sudan and Darfur, in the



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post-9/11 war on terror, and right after the signing of the peace agreement in 2005. They made headline news when attacks on Western humanitarian workers in Darfur were mounting, the Doha negotiations were uncertain, and Sudan’s unity was at stake. Such stories of suffering refugees, especially women and children, provided an ethno-gendered lens through which to debate Sudan’s political conflicts, the legitimacy of the Islamist regime, and the country’s place in a contested humanitarian order. Much less discussion has taken place, however, about the challenges that the Islamist regime in Khartoum was facing on both local and global fronts at the time when these narratives emerged. Conflicting debates over secularism, liberalism, Islamism, and rights governance helped fuel the specter of violence from which narratives of suffering emerged. Narratives of violence were then mobilized to accommodate a specific humanitarian vision. In the same year that the stories of Halima, Sana, and Venus circulated, an unknown gunman opened fire on the car of US diplomat John Granville in the upper-class neighborhood of Riyadh in Khartoum, at three o’clock in the morning on January 1, 2008. The diplomat was on his way home from a New Year’s Eve celebration at the British Embassy. The gunfire instantly killed his forty-year-old Sudanese driver, Abdel Rahman Abbas, and injured the thirty-three-year-old Granville, who died shortly after he was admitted to the hospital. At the time, he was working with USAID in his capacity as a diplomat facilitating the implementation of the CPA agreement before the referendum vote in Southern Sudan. As Sudanese and US official agencies investigated the crime, newspapers situated the attack in the regional and international interventionist politics of the time. The New York Times reported: The attack came just hours after President Bush signed a bill that makes it easier for mutual funds and other investment managers to sell stakes in companies that do business in Sudan. The bill is aimed at Sudan’s oil and defense industries, in particular, and is part of the broader campaign to put pressure on the Sudanese government to end the bloodshed in Darfur.69

The tension between Western and Eastern claims of rights and humanitarian moralities found fertile ground in the Sudanese national soil and in the bodies of its women and children. Different groups engaged in violence and appropriated its narratives to wage war against opponents and to argue moral claims of rescue, civility, and transnational governance. A few months after the murders of Granville and Abbas, for instance, a conservative Muslim group by the name of Supporters of Monotheism declared responsibility for the crime. The group announced that the murders were in retaliation

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for the “teddy bear” incident that had taken place in Khartoum in 2007. Gillian Gibson, a British teacher who had recently moved to Sudan to teach English at one of Khartoum’s international schools, told her young upper-class Sudanese students that it was all right to name their teddy bears Muhammad, after the Prophet.70 Given the tension that already existed between the West and the Islamic world over the 2005 publication in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten of cartoons showing the Prophet Muhammad in offensive poses,71 many conservative groups supported by Muslim clerics in the Sudan took to the streets again, demanding that Gibson be punished. The teacher was jailed and finally deported after the intervention of two British Muslim leaders who helped to secure her pardon. To further complicate the broader narrative of violence, it is significant to mention that the death of Granville and his driver took place only one day after the United Nations celebrated the merger of African Union and United Nations troops under the rubric of the African Union/United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID). The UN and AU flags were both raised in an official ceremony that took place in Alfashir, a town in Northern Darfur. The operation is considered the first UN/AU combined mission and the largest deployment of peacekeeping forces in the world. According to the UNAMID website, “The Mission has now an authorized strength of 23,743 personnel. This includes up to 19,248 uniformed peacekeepers (15,845 troops, 1,583 police advisers and 1,820 formed police units) and a civilian component of up to 4,495 peacekeepers (1,185 international staff, 340 UN volunteers, and 2,970 national personnel),” and is funded by a billion-dollar annual budget.72 The mission is an outcome of the Security Council resolution to protect Darfur civilians according to the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA), signed by the Khartoum government and the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) in Nigeria in 2006. Both Abed-alwahid Alnur of the SLM, who opened offices in Israel, and Khalil Ibrahim, the Zaghawa leader of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), rejected the DPA and continued their fight against the government. The advent of 2008 was also marked by exacerbated tensions in Sudan’s political relations with its western neighbor, Chad. At the end of 2007, the Sudanese Army declared the martyrdom of eight soldiers and the wounding of seventeen others during an attack by Darfurian rebels in Selia, a border region in Western Sudan.73 The Sudanese government accused the Chadian government of supporting the Darfur non-signatory rebel factions who orchestrated the attack, while the Chadian government accused the Sudanese government of supporting Chadian rebels (see chapter 5). In May 2008, one month before Sana’s trip to the United Arab Emirates en route to the United States, the Darfurian rebel



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Khalil Ibrahim—the leader of the Justice and Equality Movement, who shares the Zagahwa ethnic affiliation with Chadian president Idris Deby and Halima Bashir—mounted a daring attack on Khartoum. The attack—the first of its kind on the capital city by Sudanese rebels—was an attempt to take over the presidential palace and the national radio and television stations. The national security guard deterred Khalil’s 3,000 troops at the entrance of the city, and more than two hundred JEM troops, including leaders, were declared dead.74 The state television showed the horror and resulting violence of the military confrontation on the streets of Omdurman (one of the three cities that form greater Khartoum) by presenting footage of dead bodies, destroyed tanks, and smoking military jeeps, all scattered over the streets of the ghostly city. The JEM attack on Khartoum sent a clear message that the instability in Darfur could spill over to the seat of power. It also frustrated Qatar, the UN/AU mission, Egypt, and other major regional players who were pushing to persuade Darfur-defected factions to join the negotiation table in Doha (see chapter 2). Arab countries, particularly Qatar, whose leaders are seeking to play a major role in the Muslim/Arab world, are invested in the stability of the Sudan as an expansion to its Muslim Arab identity and as a site for Arab financial investments.75 As the Sudanese people celebrated the fifty-second anniversary of their country’s independence on January 1, 2008, the government presented an extraordinary Independence Day show of force in an effort to ameliorate the tension on its borders and counteract rising local and transnational voices of dissent. The independence celebration included the presentation of military marches and Sudanese-manufactured tanks bearing the names of the president and his close party members. The show also featured a thundering performance of war jets that pierced the relatively quiet skies of the capital city. The president appeared on national television in his full military uniform to celebrate the prospect of a peaceful Sudan, which would presumably be forthcoming through the merger of the UN/AU missions, the ongoing negotiation with the defected Darfur factions in Doha, and the approaching election in 2010 and referendum in 2011.76 The president’s address at the event sent a clear message to Chad and to the international community that Sudan is an independent, sovereign country that has the right to live and prosper according to its religious and other cultural traditions. Before the attention to the cases of Halima, Venus, and Sana and up to the date when the Emirates’ shaikha announced her grant to Sana in March 2008, other kinds of violence and political conflicts continued to emerge in the Sudan. Among the images and stories that circulated were descriptions of violence against Western aid workers, the kidnapping of Darfurian children by Western

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humanitarian groups (e.g., Zoe’s Ark), the rape of minority women, and the sexual abuse of children. The emphasis on sexual assaults on children, in particular, was highly publicized by the Sudanese press and digital media and discussed as an epidemic related to the deteriorating security of the public sphere right after 2005. Charges of the sexual assault of both male and female minors took center stage in the public debate, emphasizing how the “Islamic rescue and civilizing project” endorsed by the regime had failed to protect the nation and its citizens. The case of Muram, a four-year-old female child who was molested and killed by two youths (ages nineteen and twenty) in one of Khartoum’s workingclass neighborhoods in 2006 offered an example of how such violent crimes and their narratives preoccupied Sudanese public attention and were hailed by opposition groups as ominous signs of a decaying humanity, an ailing regime, and an immoral globalized world. Cases of child abuse are not uncommon, and families often choose not to publicize them in order to protect the victims and the reputation of the family. Similar to Sana’s case, however, Muram’s murder was publicized by a leading Sudanese newspaper and framed in relation to a nostalgic past, a “purer” Sudanese society that once existed, where all members of the community protected one another. This imagined society was sustained by good traditions now seemingly corrupted by foreign ones (‘adat dakhila) allowed in by the forces of neoliberal globalization, its technologies, and the failure of the Sudanese Islamist regime. Since its first publicity in 2006, Muram’s case has continued to receive special attention from journalists, activists, and government officials. The minister of social affairs paid a visit to Muram’s family, promising to pursue the case and ensure better application of the child protection laws (Qawanin himayat altifula). My sisters in the Sudan told me over the phone how this case has altered people’s perceptions of neighborhood safety: families have become more protective of their children, and all encounters with strangers are now regarded as suspicious. In 2007, the death sentence for the two youths found guilty of Muram’s murder was issued, but then postponed for procedural reasons. The delay of the execution stirred heated debate on discussion boards and in other social contexts about the unfairness of the justice system. On Sudan’s Independence Day, however, when the flags of the UN joint missions waved over Darfur, and the death of Granville was under investigation, newspapers announced that the two youths who molested and murdered Muram had been executed. Word spread quickly online, and many expressed a sense that justice had been served.77 A few months later, the Sudanese authorities jailed four members of a conservative religious group who were accused of the murder of Granville and ul-



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timately sentenced to death. The men, however, managed to escape from jail in June 2010 after the election that reinstated President Albashir and during the preparations for the referendum vote in the South (see chapter 5). Sana left for the United Arab Emirates en route to the United States around this same time, in June 2008. Before her departure, she was treated in a number of Sudanese and Egyptian clinics that proved to be ill-equipped to handle her severe injuries. Her official welcome to the UAE was a sign of Islamic and Arab solidarity and a celebration of an Eastern kind of humanitarianism. Then, upon her arrival in Washington, DC, she received an official welcome from the Emirates’ ambassador to the United States. Throughout Sana’s healing process, I followed the constant reporting on her improvement and the description of her many operations, including hair, cornea, and eyelash transplants and other cosmetic surgeries on her eyebrows, nose, and face. In total, she endured seventeen painful and lengthy surgeries and skin grafts so that she could see and look normal again. Sudanese friends and interviewees commented on the amount of money donated by the shaikha to facilitate Sana’s healing, and the latter’s endurance and resilience throughout the lengthy process. In my interview with Sana, she told me that her strength comes from all the support she has received and that she wants to provide a positive example to other women. She consoles herself through the ongoing process by recalling the Muslim proverb “The faithful should be patient.” In September 2013, when I began writing and finalizing my follow-up interviews, I learned that Sana had returned once again to Washington, DC, for a final checkup. Those who saw her told me that she is looking beautiful again and she will go back home soon.

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Chapter Five

Routing Humanitarian Visibilities Rights and Dissent on the Eve of Sudan’s Partition

Journalist Lubna Ahmed Al-Hussein traveled to France to sign a book based on her story on the 23rd of November 2009. Internet sales of her book . . . reached half a million copies, each selling for 18 Euros, 6% of which will go to Lubna. Lubna told reporters that the book will be translated into various languages. —Al-Ahdath 1

circulated news about yet another grave human rights violation perpetrated by Sudan’s Islamist regime, the latest in a series of violent crimes against humanity. Lubna Al-Hussein, dubbed “the pants journalist,” had been arrested by public order police in the Sudan and sentenced to flogging. Her case became one of the most widely reported incidents of the subordination of Muslim women in the world.2 Lubna was arrested along with twelve other women in a restaurant in Khartoum, the capital city of Sudan, and charged with disturbing the public order by dressing indecently, according to Article 152 of the Criminal Act of 1991. Lubna, a UNAMID employee, asked that her UN immunity be revoked to allow her to contest the flogging sentence as a Sudanese national, which resulted in a second trial, in September 2009. In that trial and in response to transnational attention, the judge revoked the flogging punishment and sentenced her to one month in prison or a 400 dinar ($200) fine. Although Lubna chose to go to prison, the chairman of the Sudanese Journalists Union paid the fine on her behalf and she was released. Similar to the cases discussed in previous chapters, Lubna’s case mobilized human rights advocates, politicians, diplomats, and diaspora activists to shame IN J U LY 2 0 0 9 , TR AN S NATI O NA L ME D I A

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the Sudanese Islamist regime and to contest its legitimacy. The sensationalized media coverage, with its focus on the heroic struggles of human rights activists and the condemnation of their oppressors, however, downplayed complex issues such as the debate over equal citizenship rights and the culture of dissent present in this turbulent country. Missing from the media narrative of suffering Muslim women was a feminist opposition politics concerned with equal citizenship rights and anchored in both nationalist and transnationalist sentiments about forging solidarities and building inclusive communities. Like Sana’s story (see chapter 4), Lubna’s is also a Northern one, whose production emulates the violence narratives of Darfurian and Southern Sudanese victims, survivors, and role models and highlights the voices of Northern Sudanese dissent parties from within a transnational frame of human rights and humanitarianism. As debate about the secession of the South hovered over dreams of unity, Lubna’s case served as a translocal symbolic site that reflected competing national and transnational moral claims about recognition, diversity, and inclusion. One claim represents a transnational solidarity anchored in a neoliberal moral ethos and in discursive practices of universal human rights and humanitarianism, while the other claim represents a translocal order that thrives on moral religiosity and discourses of containment.3 Within the transnational moral vision, Lubna is made visible through the neoliberal ethos of secular democracy, freedom, and humanitarianism pitted against a competing (oppressive) moral other. But the exclusionary moral terms present in both transnational and translocal claims of moral superiority and salvation leave little room for women’s struggles or agency. As human rights subjects and global citizens, subaltern Muslim Sudanese women can make their voices heard only through a cause célèbre that fits preconceived orientalist narratives of Islam’s misogyny, and as national citizens they can gain recognition only by lending consent to a hegemonic civilizing Islamic project. That project, against which I situate my analysis of the infantilized and feminized stories presented in this book, elevates sharia as the overarching moral code of national sovereignty. This code emphasizes transnational solidarity with Muslim countries, legitimates the silencing of dissent, and reorders social relations and public conduct. The introduction of public order laws in 1991 asserted government regulation of both private and public spheres through the surveillance of women’s bodies, movements, and dress. Women were foregrounded in nationalist rhetoric and discourses of morality and bodily containment as the state, and its allied Islamist feminists, staged the covered, modest woman as an icon of moral integrity and national identity and belonging.4 Such exclusionary citizenship strategies accompanied by the rhetoric of jihad fueled ethnic and religious schisms



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and war in the country and led to massive internal and external migration and the mobilization of opposition politics abroad. Dispersed Sudanese from Cairo to the United States, as the previous chapters detail, utilized multiple cyberspheres to comment on and mobilize against Sudanese politics at home, employing violence narratives and images of violated women’s and children’s bodies to contest the regime’s claims of moral integrity and its civilizing rhetoric. Although these contestation tactics have led to increasing Western pressures and sanctions on the government and divisions among the Islamists, they have not abrogated the arbitrary application of sharia laws. While upper-class women like Lubna are often untouched by these laws, arrests and flogging of powerless women continue to legitimate the working of the public national moral code. In this final chapter, I examine Lubna’s case as part of the complex negotiations and struggles among competing transnational moral regimes. I suggest that Lubna’s highly mediated visibility, like the narratives of other victims who turned into human rights role models and activists, be read in light of an emerging regime of transnational sovereignty, anchored in a neoliberal moral ethos and the discursive practices of universal human rights and humanitarianism that also, and quite often, include through excluding. Within this regime, Lubna’s visibility is rendered possible through neoliberal understandings of secular democracy, freedom, and human rights, which are contrasted with a competing Islamic moral order. I argue that the struggle and suffering of such newly produced subjects, role models, and causes célèbres are represented, in both humanitarian and diaspora publics, through the affective violence narratives and the hegemonic lens of colonial and postcolonial gender, race, and class relations. As an alternative strategy of reading, I propose what I term “routing visibilities”—a feminist retracing of the hyper-representation of subaltern actors, including Muslim women, that shows how their experiences are harnessed to legitimate certain kinds of power, authoritative knowledge, and global solidarities. Such an approach uses an anthropological sensibility attuned to history and context to balance the fast, competitive dynamics of high-tech media and communication networks. I retrace these highly publicized narratives through a variety of media spheres, and consider them through the lens of multiple ethnographic methods, including in-depth interviews, observations, and visual analysis. I am thus able to locate the stories of subaltern actors, such as Lubna, in the conflicting humanitarian and diaspora publics within which they were produced. Routing these visibilities helps to discern the effect of violence on the cultural and political representations of social actors and, further, to reveal how these representations are mobilized

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for the construction of national and transnational identities and the production of global subjects. I suggest that these stories and their mediated visibility must be situated in the charged and critical historical moments that enable their production and shape the state of vulnerability that characterizes the ongoing competition among political actors over the meanings of rights, humanity, and transnational solidarities and affiliations. At this historical juncture, transnational feminist politics lends legitimacy to Sudanese translocal dissent politics and renders claims of co-optation relevant but insufficient for understanding the multiple struggles and competing hegemonies that are in place.

Meeting Lubna It was my second week in Khartoum in August 2009 when two female friends invited me to one of the city’s magnificent new Lebanese restaurants. I could not believe I was in the city I had left ten years before, remnants of which still exist beyond the walls of such marvelous spaces. The restaurant is among many in the capital city that cater to an emerging transnational elite and business class. The mist of water sprayed in the air replaced the dry heat of the summer with a cool freshness and mixed with the smell of Lebanese food, Ethiopian coffee, and shisha.5 I looked at the faces around us: mostly Chinese, Arab, and Western expatriates, as well as a few Sudanese. The transnational scene attested to the government’s strategy of engaging Asia and the Arab world in order to mitigate the effects of Western sanctions and the mushrooming of Western humanitarian NGOs in the Sudan. My hosts pointed to a separate space on the right where women could also smoke shisha. These zones of comfortable consumerism are common in many of the new cafés and restaurants I frequented during my fieldwork, providing spaces with wireless Internet service, where one can connect with diaspora friends from the Sudan or escape the long hours of power cuts in working-class neighborhoods. Many times I commented to family and friends about the changing public scene of Khartoum—changes that, at first glance, made the city seem less restrictive than it was during the first years of the Islamists’ imposition of the public order laws that regulated dress codes for women and prevented gender mingling in public. It was rare then to see couples sitting side by side in public parks during the day or girls wearing tight pants (even with long blouses) in the streets of the capital city. But for many of my translocal Sudanese interlocutors, the changing public scene represents the contradictory facade of a country in turmoil, given the fragile peace agreement and the internal and external pressures imposed on the government. Some of my interviewees in both the United States and the



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Sudan called this new public facade the “Nifasha syndrome,” referring to the negotiated margin of liberties (hamish alhuriat) produced within the CPA rubric.6 It was not until I read about Lubna’s case in transnational Sudanese electronic media, including SudaneseOnline, Sudanile, and Sudan Tribune, during my second week in the country that I began to question Khartoum’s public contradictions. At dinner one night I spoke about Lubna with some of my family and friends, whose common response was, “Girls wear pants all the time. She must have done something really immoral.” “What is immoral?” I asked one of my male relatives. He replied, “You know, some girls drink and smoke shisha in these public spaces.” Such perceptions are not uncommon. Women and girls are easily stigmatized if they are arrested by the public order police and punished with flogging for indecent public acts. For this reason, many keep silent rather than contest the laws. The debate surrounding these ideas of respectability and the hyper-visibility that Lubna’s case received from national and transnational media motivated me to seek her out during my fieldwork in the Sudan. I met Lubna at the same restaurant where she and the twelve other women had been arrested. The restaurant, Kawkab Alsharq (Eastern Star), is named after the famous Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum and is located in Riyadh, one of Khartoum’s expensive upper-class areas. The journalist-activist who took me to meet Lubna quickly recognized her table: an unfinished sandwich, notes, and newspapers were spread out on top of it, but there was no sign of Lubna herself. The Egyptian waiter reassured us, however, that she was around. She arrived soon after and we engaged in general conversations about Sudan and how she felt about her approaching first trial. Despite the determination in her voice, she seemed distracted and kept answering her phone to respond to the many activists and friends who called to offer support. A journalist stopped by to speak to her and tell her that he had been present during the arrest. She responded accusingly, “Why didn’t you bail me out, then?” She then turned to me and said, “I did not care about myself. I was worried about the young girls who were arrested. Some of them were sixteen years old. I had to comfort them all the way, but the whole scene was scandalous.” Lubna was right to be less worried about her arrest. She is a visible journalist, well known among Sudanese elites and activists for her critical column, Kalam Rujal (Men’s Talk), in the leftist journal Alshafa (Journalism), established by her late husband, Abdelrahman Mukhatar, who is known as the father of Sudanese journalism. In fact, many people with whom I spoke tied Lubna’s boldness to her marriage to a man forty years her senior. Some frowned upon the union of a young woman from a humble family in central Sudan and a wealthy, well-

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known man. But Lubna maintains that it was a marriage chosen for love. She quit her job as a critical writer with Alshafa because of the restrictions imposed on journalists and joined the office of the spokesperson for UNAMID. According to her, both her journalism and her work with UNAMID expanded her translocal connections and immersed her in human rights discourses and practices. In fact, as we were sitting at the restaurant, an assistant to the UN human rights independent investigator for Sudan joined us and made notes on Lubna’s case and the latest news. Lubna told us that she had been threatened by a security person on a motorcycle who told her she would face the same fate as Marwa Al-Sherbini, otherwise known as “the Scarf Martyr.” Al-Sherbini was famously murdered in Germany in 2009 during the trial of a man who had shouted Islamophobic hate speech at her the year before—the same man who then killed her during the court appeal hearing of the case. The UN human rights assistant expressed frustration that, even in her role as a reporter, she could do nothing to change the outcome of such heinous violations as those suffered by Al-Sherbini and Lubna. Within a week of Lubna’s arrest, her story was being featured in top transnational news journals and other media outlets and stirring heated debates about human rights violations, crimes against humanity, and violence against Muslim women. Transnational media and activists instantly linked Lubna’s case to the ICC indictment of President Albashir and the rape of Darfurian women, in an effort to compare a just humanitarian order with a failing Islamic one. This activism and the humanitarian response to Lubna’s case ignited Sudanese progovernment media discourses concerning morality and women’s containment as a strategy to stifle dissent and defend a vulnerable nation-state. For example, pro-government media depicted the ICC as a tool of Western imperialism and neocolonial techniques of intervention mobilized by nonpatriotic members of the Sudanese opposition at home and abroad.

“What’s France Got to Do with It?”: Beyond the Rhetoric of Saving Lubna During my visit to the Sudan in 2009, a Sudanese activist in the United States e-mailed me the article cited at the beginning of the chapter, describing Lubna’s travel to France for a book-signing event. Perplexed, the activist asked me: “What does France have to do with this?” In this section, I attempt to answer that question, arguing that humanitarian visibilities must be situated in the political histories that enable their production. The human rights and humanitarian discourses that inform activists’ practices also inadvertently reproduce subaltern



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actors’ visibilities as victims through the circulation of violence narratives and the hegemonic discourses of rescue and salvation. My intention is not to discount the alliances made with Lubna and other Sudanese “role models” from various translocal locations, but rather to deconstruct the apolitical logic of saving and transformation that informs such alliances. Defying the government ban on her travel, Lubna slipped out of the country wearing a burq‘a and traveled to France to attend the launch of her book, in which she tells the story of the attempted flogging.7 She held a press conference with the French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, the cofounder of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) and a champion of humanitarian interventions. Kouchner commended Lubna on her courage, stating that he was impressed by her great simplicity and constant bravery.8 He went on to say that Lubna was to be celebrated as a defender of human rights and women’s rights not just in the Sudan but also in Africa and the Arab world. At the press conference, he noted that Lubna would soon be traveling to Egypt to accept an award from a women’s rights group there. For Kouchner, the fight for women’s rights is not a national matter; it has no borders. Invoking both humanitarian sentiment and human rights logic, he expressed his concern about the Sudanese regime’s oppressive treatment of women through laws linked to sharia that violate human rights and thus become everybody’s concern. The French response to Lubna’s case must be situated within a political climate that narrowly conflates Islam with the practices of certain regimes, and within Western liberal political discourses that portray Islam as a threat to Western values of democracy, freedom, and humanism. Lubna, like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali refugee who became a citizen of the Netherlands, fits French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s political category of a “martyred woman”—a figure he described in a 2007 campaign speech: “[To] all the children and the women martyred in the world . . . France will not abandon the women condemned to the burq‘a; France will not abandon the women without liberty . . . This is the message of France; it is the identity of France; it is the history of France.”9 After Lubna’s first trial, Sarkozy expressed his compassion and concern for her fate and vowed to work with her and support her struggle. The spokesman for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that France strongly condemned the floggings of women arrested for wearing “indecent” clothing and called on Sudanese authorities to drop the charges against Lubna and the other women. He said that French representatives had attended Lubna’s trial and that the French ambassador to Sudan had been instructed to invite her to the Résidence de France

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in Khartoum. He described Lubna’s trial as “an intolerable attack on women’s rights” and declared that opposing such attacks was a “just cause.”10 Lubna told me that after her first trial she received a call from the French minister for women’s affairs, who spoke with her at length about her situation and the situation of women in the Sudan in general. French support for Lubna’s cause and concern about her fate were translated into an invitation for her to reside in France. This response, however, cannot be divorced from Western liberal ideas and ensuing human rights practices. Such ideas are also not immune to Western hegemony and to misconceptions associated with the realities of the people they claim to liberate. In his speech, Sarkozy presented France as a liberated woman ready to rescue her sisters who have been forced to wear the burq‘a by their misogynist Muslim leaders. These women, in Kouchner’s terms, seem to be located only in Africa and the Arab world, an assumption that masks the historical struggle of migrant Muslim women in France.11 The simplistic conclusion behind such messages, as Lila Abu-Lughod warns, is that all Muslim women would remove the veil if oppressive Muslim rulers were overthrown.12 Although some Muslim women may willingly remove their veils (as Lubna did in Paris), a large number of Sudanese Muslim women choose to abide by existing social norms and practices. Codes of respectability have defined the boundaries of the private and public spheres in different parts of Sudan for decades and have shaped the ways in which both men and women are socialized. Such disciplinary codes are not static and are constantly negotiated and contested in reference to relations of power and constructions of gender and collective identities.13 Lubna is not unaware of the murky colonial and postcolonial routes she travels in her search for human rights, humanity, and justice. Her strategic gesture of wearing the burq‘a to break her travel ban and to leave the country was itself a powerful symbol of the transformative meanings of Islamic dress. At that unique moment of border crossing, the burq‘a can actually be read as a sign of liberation rather than oppression. Yet, when pressed by the media regarding her experiences with Islam and women’s rights, Lubna, unlike Hirsi Ali, has remained adamant about her position.14 At a public ceremony I attended in Khartoum, she maintained her perspective, saying, “Show me where in the Quran or Hadith it says anything about flogging women for wearing trousers.”15 In her interpretation of these religious texts at the ceremony, she contested the policing vision of Islam, which mandates the “hiring of morality police from taxpayers’ money to chase after women.” She continued, “The Islam I know respects women and ordained men to discipline themselves in order not to violate women’s bodies.” After her conversation with



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the French minister for women’s affairs, Lubna told me that she thanked the minister for her support, but emphasized that she is using her case to fight for vulnerable women who are subject to the arbitrary application of public order laws. Since the implementation of sharia laws in the Sudan, she maintained, many powerless women—including some non-Muslims—have been harassed, lashed, and jailed without attracting any national or international attention. The French endorsement of Lubna’s case can be interpreted as a political response embedded in the emerging moralities and practices of pan-humanitarianism and Pan-Islamism. France is asserting its identity and place in a just humanitarian order that works to rescue a vulnerable, feminized other, especially in Africa and the Muslim Arab world. Such humanitarian assertions erase histories of colonial and postcolonial interests and struggles at a time when the inclusion of African and Muslim migrants in the French republic is itself regulated through the same liberal values that maintain their exclusion.16 As a Sudanese resident of France told me in a phone conversation during Lubna’s visit to France, “I appreciated the solidarity of French politicians with Lubna, but these are double standards. . . . If you wear a veil to school in France, it is a big no. Freedom should be freedom for all.” Thus, the French official discourse of saving Arab and African women must be read as both a defense for and a justification of France’s own exclusionary policies, which some of its citizens believe to be oppressive. The French gesture cannot be read in a political vacuum, as there is a long history behind these relations. The constant tension between the Sudanese Islamist regime and the French government predates Lubna’s case. Since the 1990s, as we have seen, the Western bloc, represented by the United States, Britain, and France, has mounted restrictions against Sudan on the basis of charges of harboring terrorists. To clear its name, the Islamist government handed over alleged terrorist Ilich Ramírez Sánchez to the French authorities in the 1990s after he escaped to Sudan. Tensions between Sudan and the West increased after the escalation of the Darfur conflict and the ICC’s indictment of President Albashir in 2006. France, Britain, and the United States spearheaded the UN Security Council’s effort to submit the indictment case to the ICC. The residency of the Darfurian rebel Abed-alwahid Alnur in France and the political conflict on the Sudan/ Chad border resulting from the presence of European and UNAMID forces on the ground are often cited by government media as invasive strategies by the West to undermine national sovereignty and Islamic solidarities.17 In March 2008, tension between France and Sudan mounted again over the killing of a European Union Force (EUFOR) French soldier by Sudanese military when the former inadvertently crossed the Sudanese border from Chad.18 As a backlash to

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these events, the Sudanese government subjected Western humanitarian groups such as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) to arrest, investigation, and expulsion on charges of spying and false reporting on ethnic cleansing and sexual violence in Darfur. It is worth noting that as the French and the Dutch sections of MSF were expelled from the country, the Swiss, Belgian, and Spanish sections insisted that they did not violate humanitarian mandates and were allowed to remain.19 The debate over Sudanese national sovereignty and French human rights and humanitarian claims resulted in negotiations between the two governments. On March 14, 2009, Sudan Public Television broadcast the release of four Médecins Sans Frontières hostages abducted by gunmen in Darfur.20 The event aired during an official reception hosted by top government representatives at the Khartoum airport. According to one official quoted during the broadcast, “The gunmen attributed the operation to their ‘duty to protect national interests,’ but we convinced them that freeing the hostages is also a national duty and it serves the country’s interests.” The world’s reaction to Lubna’s case, therefore, signifies a broader political history of transnational relations, within which both Sudanese and French officials seem to debate questions of national and transnational sovereignty and alliance on moral humanitarian grounds. Transnationally, Lubna’s case represents a testament to the borderless universal solidarities that human rights and humanitarian advocates endorse. Translocally, however, this moral ethos is contested through the Sudanese government’s discourses of containment, sovereignty, and Islamic alliances. What the French and Sudanese discourses share are their moral assumptions and protectionist ideas regarding the vulnerable female body. Lost between the two competing sovereignties are any feminist and opposition politics.

Lost in Humanitarian Visibilities In her 1997 book Gender Politics in Sudan, Sondra Hale highlights the predicament of Sudanese feminism and its entanglement in party and government politics. Because the women’s movement in the Sudan has historically been tied to male-dominated political parties and governments, women’s emancipation projects are often co-opted by political leaders to serve broader party agendas.21 Here, I extend Hale’s contribution to illustrate that her argument about co-optation is invaluable, but insufficient to explain the multiple hegemonies constraining women’s struggle. In my analysis of the circulation of narratives of gender-based violence, I show how, on the one hand, the Islamic civilizing project renders feminists’ alternative visions marginal and non-Muslim Sudanese women, in particular, second-class citizens. On the other hand, transnational ideas about



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human rights and humanitarianism have provided platforms for Sudanese feminist activists at home and abroad and have influenced their cultural politics in multiple ways. However, such rights and humanitarian politics have added to the fragmentation of feminist voices and have framed their discourses in terms of humanitarian emergencies. Human rights and humanitarian perspectives on ethnic and gender violence render the struggle of Sudanese women visible only through limited emergent categories, such as female circumcision, rape in conflict zones, and, more recently, flogging under sharia. Lubna, for instance, has announced on many occasions that her mission as a human rights defender is to fight for Saudi women who are not allowed to drive cars and against female circumcision and lashing in the name of sharia in her own country.22 Although these categories are significant and worthy of feminist attention, they serve as fixed categories that restrict the ways in which the struggle of Sudanese women can be viewed. These emergent humanitarian visibilities, I argue, uncouple women’s struggles from colonial and postcolonial political histories and social realities. Under the current Sudanese regime, feminists from various opposition parties have continued their activities in exile and collaborated with NGOs, including the Sudan Human Rights Organization, to contest the application of public order laws.23 Many activist feminists I spoke with said that these cases of violence against women, including that of Lubna, may serve as a turning point to revive a once strong women’s movement in the Sudan. This movement fought since the decolonization period during the 1950s and 1960s when women won major rights related to suffrage, education, employment, and unionization. In Washington, DC, Sudanese American Elham Abdel al Raziq told me, “Sudanese women’s struggle against oppressive colonial and postcolonial rule dates back to 1946. I will take Lubna’s case as a symbol of resistance, a stone that stirred a still pool of history of women’s and men’s struggle to abolish restrictive laws against minorities in the Sudan.” Hadia Hasaballa, another feminist activist I interviewed in the Sudan, affirmed this view but elaborated: “There is no common ideational project that united Sudanese women . . . to fight against various forms of oppressions. Sudanese women’s movements suffered fragmentation under all oppressive regimes.” Hadia described how Lubna rendered her case available for feminist activists after her first trial to create a united front in order to contest legal discrimination against women. An initiative called La Li Qahar Alnisa (No to Women’s Oppression) is under way but, according to Hadia, suffers from “women’s political divisiveness and the absence of a unifying feminist agenda.” I have been following the work of the initiative through my visits to Sudan, my interviews

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with Sudanese feminists and journalists, and on Sudanese cyberpublics. The initiative continues to champion other instances of harassment against women, such as the case of Safia Ishaq, who was allegedly raped by security police after a youth demonstration against the regime, shortly before the division of the country. La Li Qahar Alnisa’s activities are guided, however, by the temporality of such events, and not by a more grounded long-term agenda and objectives. Shaped by the effects of violence and multiple hegemonies, feminists’ strategies and practices often privilege national and transnational alliances and solidarities, even though this approach can lead to the co-optation of their agenda. Such alliances are shaped by neoliberal economic globalization and the influence of communication networks that connect translocal activists in the name of universal solidarity and in defense of a shared humanity. Infantilized cases of Sudanese minors and various cases of violence against women underline how activists’ struggles, including Sudanese feminists’ opposition politics, are entangled in broader political strategies and transnational alliances. During Lubna’s trials, many feminist activists demonstrated outside the court and were subject to police violence and detention. Their presence spurred a counter-demonstration by some Muslim conservatives, who chanted against them and called them names in attempts to silence their dissent. One activist who was arrested after the second trial documented the detention experience and posted images on SudaneseOnline.24 Some extremists, she stated in her post, threatened to burn activists’ faces with phosphoric acid. Such incidents, similar to Sana’s experiences, present a backlash to the increasing number of women going public and the challenge they present to conservative ideas about morality and women’s natural place at home. This violence against women has also encouraged feminists’ solidarities with opposition groups. After Lubna’s first trial, a feminist activist invited me to attend Freedom of Conscience, Expression, and Thought (FOCET), an event that was initiated by members of opposition parties, including renowned Northern and Southern Sudanese feminists and journalists in solidarity with the Muslim SPLM leader Yasir Arman, head of the Southern caucus in the Parliament (see also chapter 2). Arman emerged as one of the most promising young politicians during the implementation of the CPA. Although Arman’s fame as one of the few Northern Sudanese who fought with the Southern opposition preceded this period, his activism during the CPA implementation gained him more support among secular and young Northern Sudanese seeking new leadership to endorse their cause. I first encountered Arman when I was doing my fieldwork in Washington in 2007. Since 2005 many



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SPLM leaders, including John Garang, visited the United States to negotiate the Southern cause with the American administration and to oversee the implementation of the CPA after the signing of the peace agreement. During these visits, SPLM leaders connected with their Sudanese base in exile, addressing them in seminars, workshops, and at other social and national events about political issues and about the future of the country. Before my interview with Arman in 2007, there were widespread rumors that he would be given a high-ranking ministerial position in the unity government. During the interview, I mentioned that I had read the news and heard rumors about his ministerial appointment. Arman refuted the possibility, saying, “I don’t consider myself as a politician only, but as a political activist whose hope is to bring democracy and equity to fruition in the Sudan. I am not in this for a position.” Arman’s endorsement of the Southern cause as a means to implement a vision of a new united Sudan won him many opponents, especially Muslim extremists, who saw him as a traitor who fought against Northerners during the civil war. Such sentiments against the SPLM Northern leader intensified during his endorsement of Lubna’s case. Three months before Lubna’s incident, Arman had received death threats from Muslim extremists after he contested portions of the criminal law that apply sharia penal codes to Christian women in the North, especially Article 152, which allows women to be punished for wearing “indecent” clothing.25 The parliament’s discussion of the criminal law came in response to the ICC decision as the Southern caucus, the government partner during the CPA term, attempted to introduce new articles that addressed “crimes against humanity” and “genocide,” to suit the interim constitution.26 Arman, leading the Southern caucus, argued that the sharia laws of 1991, which included flogging, adopted inhumane punishment and did not attend to the rights of non-Muslim citizens. In the parliament, some National Congress Party members interpreted Arman’s remarks as an offense to Islam. Some extremists targeted him through a fatwa (public order) that called for his death. Feminized imagery presented in some religious fatwas described him as having “breastfed blasphemy from his associations with Christians [Southerners].” Arman maintained that such imagery subordinated Southerners and denied them their citizenship rights, especially as the country prepared for elections in 2010 and the referendum in 2011.27 The FOCET event staged a deliberate show of solidarity with Arman with a ceremony that involved sipping milk as a wry symbol of unity and solidarity. In another public event, following Lubna’s trial, Arman accused the public order police of harassing poor women and humiliating them through flogging

Yasir Arman (far right) and feminist, journalist, and politician Rabah Al-Sadig Al-Mahahi of the Umma Party (far left) with other activists during Lubna and Arman solidarity event at SPLM headquarters in Khartoum, Sudan, 2009. Source: SPLM Information Office. Photo by Faisal Sa‘ad. Published by permission. FI G U R E 13 .

FIGURE 14. Burning Whips Ritual at SPLM headquarters in Khartoum during Lubna and

Arman solidarity event. Lubna appears in the photo with renowned journalist Alhaj Waraq (of the Haq Party, third, right) and other activists. Khartoum, Sudan, 2009. Source: SPLM Information Office. Photo by Faisal Sa‘ad. Published by permission.



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and imprisonment. He maintained that there were eight hundred Southern Sudanese women in prison awaiting trial: “It is unfortunate that a government with problems in Darfur, only 500 days away from the [South Sudan] referendum, is preoccupied with flogging and chasing after poor women. . . . [I]f the government is really concerned about moral issues it should better begin with the eradication of poverty.”28 During this backlash, Arman’s comments in the parliament drew more government attention than the economic problems the country was facing at the time. For instance, the capital city experienced long hours of power and water outages and rain flooding due to road construction malpractices and lack of a proper sewer system. Government officials were constantly thrust into the position of having to explain and apologize for these problems on media outlets. Arman continued to receive more threats for his address in the parliament and his overt criticism of the public order laws. A police order was issued to revoke his immunity and put him on trial for the allegations he made against the public order police, but the case never materialized.29 Arman’s case did not elicit international humanitarian compassion because it did not fit the grand narrative of a feminized vulnerability under assault by Islam. After all, he was a renowned politician with immunity. Yet, in Khartoum and on Sudanese transnational media, Arman’s and Lubna’s cases have been inseparable. Arman attended Lubna’s first trial along with other Sudanese politicians, UN representatives, and European diplomats. Whereas Arman focused in the parliament on the implications of sharia laws for Christian women, Lubna made the case for the Muslim side of the ledger. Her experience illustrated how a segment of Muslim women were contesting invasive state regulation of their bodies and behavior in the name of religious morality and at the expense of government investment in the welfare of its own citizens. In response to these bodily and economic regulations, many Sudanese feminists and activists demonstrated in front of the court and held a public event in solidarity with Lubna and Arman at SPLM headquarters in Khartoum in 2009. Later, I asked the activist who had invited me to the event, “But won’t having the event at the SPLM building make it an SPLM event?” She responded that SPLM is a partner with the government and its mandate offers a margin of freedom. Otherwise, activists may have to go through lengthy processes to get permission for their activities. That the event might be read as a political feat for the SPLM or other opposition parties was not an issue of mere co-optation; rather, the event was a necessary alliance shaped by a specific historical moment. Feminist activists prioritized common ground with political allies, despite political disagreements.

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Most speakers at the event in support of Lubna and Arman were feminist activists affiliated with opposition parties, such as the Umma Party, the Sudanese Communist Party, the SPLM, and the Unionist Party. The well-attended event was a clear demonstration of opposition politics enabled by various alliances. Despite the women’s differing affiliations, they all spoke about a common theme: the oppressive laws targeting women, especially powerless women who were not celebrated as Lubna was. The public rally referenced a tea vendor, Nadia Sabon, who died in a stampede during a police crackdown on women in the informal sector. Like the Economist article that designated Lubna “A Martyr to Her Trouser,” feminist activists dubbed the tea seller a martyr to poverty and oppressive laws that exacerbate social disparities.30 Lubna’s speech at the event was a provocative address in which she referred to Arman as a brother and referred to the public order police as the Khartoum Janjaweed, thus linking her case to the atrocities committed against women in Darfur and other parts of the country. The event ended with the symbolic burning of whips as a gesture of solidarity against oppressive laws (figures 13 and 14). As far as the proponents of the religious moralist discourse are concerned, the transnational media, opposition parties, and their Western allies are guilty of supporting Lubna’s case, contesting a divine moral order, and privileging secular agendas that, according to a prominent Islamist journalist, “allow foreign and western mores,” particularly “night parties, shisha smoking, and vodka drinking.” “Raising female dresses to the knee” is not a sign of liberty, he maintained. It is rather an invitation to immorality and contestation of God’s divine rule. According to this journalist, those who attended Lubna’s trial reduced themselves and their politics to the level of “girls’ short skirts.”31 For him, women’s personal rights are apolitical; they are defined by irrevocable religious morality that sets the boundaries of proper femininity and masculinity. This argument is silent about the fact that some women who abide by such moral codes are active in the public political sphere. For example, the president’s top legal advisor, who contributed to tailoring sharia laws, is a woman. Thus, this type of moralist response may be problematic for Islamist feminists who see no contradiction in veiling and public work. By siding with Lubna, however, male opposition members are emasculated and discredited for stepping outside the sphere of masculine politics. The alliances and solidarities made with Lubna nonetheless become a site where a counter-vision of feminism, secularism, and nationhood can be expressed in public. It also demonstrates the significance of solidarity for both feminists and opposition parties whose intricate histories of struggle are lost



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in the media translation of Lubna’s case. Feminist and oppositional alliances emphasize the significance of fighting for a grand national agenda that represents all citizens, regardless of gender or religious and ethnic affiliation. Sharia laws, which are championed by the ruling party, strip those on the margins of their citizenship rights and subject them to humiliation and police violence. The discriminatory laws, many feminists and opposition members maintain, discourage Southern Sudanese and other minorities from supporting a grand vision of a united Sudan.

Transnational Visibility, Cyberpublics, and Feminist Solidarities Feminist activists’ support of Lubna’s case at home spurred similar demonstrations by and solidarities among Sudanese activists and their allies in the United States, the UK, and France. The Sudanese Journalists Union in the United States, whose members actively write for Sudanese press media in the Sudan and online and organize seminars for visiting Sudanese leaders and politicians on the East Coast, issued a strong statement in support of Lubna, positioning her with historical women leaders such as Mihira bint Abboud in the Sudan and Rosa Parks in the United States.32 Artist activists in the diaspora also posted comments, art, and images in solidarity with Lubna on SudaneseOnline. Omar Dafalla, a Sudanese artist/activist who resides in the Netherlands, posted provocative caricatures that gave Lubna’s case more visibility among members of the Sudanese diaspora. Omar, like many transnational Sudanese, used SudaneseOnline to communicate his ideas and opposition to the regime’s policies. In a telephone conversation, he told me that SudaneseOnline made him famous, especially among youths. Many Sudanese in the Netherlands, especially the young generation, are beginning to know Sudan better now through Internet and Facebook discussions and forums. Although Omar has not been to the United States, he is well known among Sudanese in different locations because of his art. In our interview, Omar told me about his struggle as an artist and activist since leaving Sudan in the 1980s. He lived in several different places, including Lebanon, where he resided for eight years, working day and night to survive before finally deciding to resettle in the Netherlands. “The Netherlands could have been any place, really,” he said; what mattered most to him was being part of a large Sudanese jalia and creating new meanings of what it is to be Sudanese. Although the Sudanese community in the Netherlands is large—about seven thousand—Omar argues that it is constrained by ethnic and political divisions. Engaging with Sudanese democratic forums online enables him to envision a new national idea based on justice and inclusion (figure 15). He views Sudanese

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Lubna’s Pants. Caricature by exiled Sudanese artist Omar Dafalla (the Netherlands). Right to left reads: “10 lashes, 40 lashes, lashing and prison, stoning.” Source: SudaneseOnline. Published by permission of the artist. FI G U R E 15 .

human rights organizations as platforms for addressing urgent Sudanese political issues within the context of Sudanese historical struggles. Omar told me about the ICC indictment of President Albashir and how many activists, including him, were called upon by various NGOs and institutions to comment on issues related to the Sudan. Transnational human rights and humanitarian solidarity with Lubna culminated in the construction of a website by Sudanese human rights activist Dalia Haj-Omar in France in 2009, bearing the slogan “I am Lubna: Support Sudanese women’s human rights.” The site served as a nexus for organizing the fragmented voices of Sudanese activists in the Sudan and the diaspora in order to pressure the Sudanese government to eliminate Article 152 of the Criminal Act of 1991. Information available on the site included the flood of articles written about Lubna’s case and the names of the thirty national and international NGOs and human rights organizations that supported a petition calling upon Sudanese policy makers, the parliament of the Sudan, and the Ministry of Justice to eliminate Article 152: Thousands of Sudanese women have been dragged in police pick-up trucks and subjected to verbal and physical violence by POP [public order police]. The women who have suffered most have been the most vulnerable, such as women



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in the informal sector (food venders) [sic] and female students. In most cases those women are not given access to a lawyer or to proper court proceedings and the punishment and bail are administered in police stations. The psychological impact and the social stigma on women have a long lasting impact.33

According to the petition, Article 152, with its loose definition of “decent dress,” was used by the public order police to subject women to violent and inhumane treatment. The petition also emphasized that the imposition of Article 152 condones the violation of human rights, especially violence against women. This violation contradicts the Interim National Constitution of the Republic of the Sudan, 2005, and Sudan’s position as a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.34 The website posts telling scenes of Sudanese activists and their human rights allies protesting in front of the Sudanese Embassy in London. Images of the demonstration, which were also posted on SudaneseOnline, showed activists and their allies carrying banners and pants hung along the sidewalk as a symbol of their protest and solidarity with Lubna. The banners featured images of feminist activists from the Khartoum demonstrations and of women and children in Darfur, and slogans such as: “No to violations of women’s rights,” “No return to harem quarters,” “Protect women and children in Darfur,” and “Public order laws are violations of humanity.” Organizers of the demonstration described themselves as “a group of women and men who are outraged by what has happened to Lubna and thousands of other women in the Sudan.” They stated a desire to show their solidarity with Lubna and to add their voices to “those calling for an end to [the] barbaric treatment of women.”35 They distributed leaflets in Piccadilly and Green Park, urging people to sign a petition, contact their representatives in Parliament, the ambassador to the Sudan in London, and/or the secretary of state for foreign and commonwealth affairs, asking them to: Condemn the whipping and punishment of women for wearing trousers in Sudan; to call for the elimination of Article 152 of the Sudanese Criminal Code; to ask President al-Bashir to implement the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and respect the human rights of all Sudan’s citizens.36

Like the activists in London and the United States, Dalia, who created the “I am Lubna” website, maintained close ties with Sudanese at home and in the diaspora. She was reared in the United Arab Emirates, educated in the United States, and now lives in France. During my interview with her, she reported that she visits Sudan once or twice a year to work on a “volunteer basis . . . with civil society

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groups based in Khartoum, which focus on issues ranging from human rights to democratic transformation and civic education.” As an activist committed to “social justice,” Dalia said, she felt a responsibility to raise awareness about the restrictive laws against women’s liberties in the Sudan. She heard about Lubna’s case “like everybody else”—namely, from BBC News on July 17, 2009. Transnational sites, such as those through which British media circulate globally and the ones Dalia established with other activists in a number of locations, enabled her to set up the “I am Lubna” website and to organize the efforts of civil society groups in the Sudan and in the diaspora. Dalia told me about the lengthy process of contacting different groups and drafting a petition over the Internet to condemn the action of the government and to raise awareness about Lubna’s case: Initially, I drafted the petition . . . shared it with groups in Sudan and the US and wanted to circulate it to get as many signatures as possible as a way of raising awareness in and outside Sudan about . . . Article 152. However, I soon realized that there were a few other petitions floating around and that what is more important is to have a place to document what was happening and to reach out to people seeking information about the campaign to eliminate Article 152. It was soon apparent that there were a lot of efforts and interest on the ground in Sudan amongst the women rights movement as well as interest in the Sudanese diaspora. However, the link between those two entities is weak and I felt a website could help give the campaign a more international face and link those groups in Sudan and the diaspora, who have little resources to do their own public campaigning . . . The website is a voluntary project for me. I am the only administrator and Hisham, my brother [in the United States], helps with Web design and with uploading information. . . . However . . . the website . . . is a resource to all members of the campaign to eliminate Article 152.

Dalia also discussed how the website was useful during Lubna’s trial: “We received a lot of requests from the media for interviews, and I was sending them to . . . campaign members,” which kept the issue alive in the international press. The website was so powerful that five thousand individuals, mostly from the United States, Europe, Latin America, and the Sudan, signed the petition. In the two months preceding Lubna’s second trial in September 2009, the site attracted more than eighteen thousand visitors. It is undeniable that Lubna’s case struck a gendered chord among translocal human rights advocates. It mobilized Sudanese activists and their allies to meld human rights discourses, humanitarian sentiments, and feminist politics to claim



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an oppositional narrative of solidarity and citizenship, challenging the state’s monolithic vision of political Islam. Different kinds of media served as conduits through which activists organized and publicized Lubna’s case. Although such transnational alliances can be effective and worth celebrating, one has to ask why the struggle against the Criminal Act of 1991 public order law was finally rendered visible at that particular moment. Would the lashing of poor women be visible for the humanitarian community and its allied media if Lubna had not been in the right place at the right time? And how does such transnational visibility render invisible other socioeconomic injustices and other aspects of the plight of women across the country? Whether it’s the celebrity-status visibility of human rights role models, as discussed earlier, or the famous case of Lubna, humanitarian visibilities require subjects to be initiated into the role of human rights defenders who master the tools of narrating their own experiences of oppression in order to endorse a humanitarian cause. Above all, such narration and communication have to be directed toward a savage nation-state that is in dire need of political transformation through a universal language of rights and a Western ethos of democracy, liberation, and freedom. Central to this process of narration and initiation is what women wear—pants, skirts, veils, burq‘as. According to the narrative, in the same way that the savage state needs political transformation, the liberation of suffering minors and women is possible only through their inclusion in a grand transnational humanitarian community—one that promises to protect them from repressive cultural traditions and practices. Sudanese activists are aware of the usefulness of human rights and humanitarian strategies as mediums of resistance in the face of oppression. But one drawback to such practices, I argue, is the construction of totemic figures and causes célèbres whose identities and struggles are cut off from their own historical courses and validated through newly constructed routes of compassion and care that include social and political actors through humanitarian ethos, class status, and an economy of translating suffering. Additional factors that constrain possibilities for political change include the heavy reliance on the power of media sensationalism and the short attention span of media—both of which limit human rights practices to the naming and shaming strategies of exposing governments’ inhumane practices. Media interest waned after Lubna’s second trial and the journalists union’s payment of the fine. It was revived, for a short time, during her meeting with French officials. In her response to my question about the influence of the media in Lubna’s case, Dalia stated that the “I am Lubna” website received “around 8,000 hits during

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one of Lubna’s last days in court. So it depends on the day and on whether there is coverage/interest from the international media.” As the media interest in Lubna’s case waned, so did the hopes of many activists. Their energy then shifted to preventing media fatigue so as to keep the story alive. I detected a weary note in the tone of some of the exiled Sudanese activists I spoke with in the United States after Lubna’s second trial. One of them remarked, “When I heard the news on the media and how it was everywhere, I said to myself, man, there is a chance for a revolution.” Another activist indicated that Lubna’s case at first appeared to be a great chance for Sudanese women to rebuild a movement, “but it seems like a lost opportunity amidst media emphasis on Lubna’s pants and book.” Lubna told me from Paris in 2009 that in order to keep hope alive for Sudanese women, she might return to Sudan to continue her fight against Article 152. Her story and the solidarity it garnered show that activists’ mobilization of human rights and humanitarian discourses and practices can challenge the fixities associated with locality and nationhood through global networks and the circulation of ideas.37 These efforts, however, remain entangled with the hardened moral cores of sovereign nation-states. As my discussion indicates, competing discourses of morality, containment, and freedom reflect the hegemonic and assimilationist nature of both national and transnational sovereign projects.

Silva and Salva Kiir: The Case of the Southern Sudanese Girl Lubna’s case and the initiation of the La Li Qahar Alnisa campaign paved the way for activists to contest other similar incidents. Lubna was clear in her public and media speeches that public order laws, especially Article 152, discriminate against women, especially minority women who come from less-privileged classes and ethnic backgrounds. At the restaurant where I met Lubna, a young Ethiopian waitress came over to greet her. Lubna introduced her to me by saying, “She was one of the arrested girls and she is not even Sudanese or a Muslim.” The waitress explained how bad she felt after her arrest and flogging because according to her own religion she is free to wear pants. Lubna apologized, noting that there is a difference between Islam as a practice and Islam as used by politicians to silence women. The waitress maintained that after her arrest, she and other female waitresses had decided to wear skirts in order to avoid trouble. In fact, many of the feminist activists I spoke with in Khartoum confirmed the arbitrary application of the modesty law. One journalist there told me that the public order police stopped her one night when she and her husband were returning home after attending a relative’s wedding. The police contested their



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marital status and demanded to see their marriage certificate. “But who carries their wedding certificate with them?” my interviewee asked in our conversation. She continued, “And because we told him we [didn’t] have the certificate with us, he took us to the police center.” Such episodes are not uncommon. Indeed, hearing about them helped me make sense of an incident that I experienced one day in 2009 when I was waiting for my exit visa to be processed in Khartoum. I was seated outside a veranda-like room, wearing a long skirt with a long-sleeved blouse and a sheer scarf as a head cover. Bored with the long wait, I took a book out of my handbag and began to read. Suddenly a tall man wearing a blue safari suit moved in front of me and sharply ordered me to change the way I was sitting. Since I had not noticed that I was sitting with my legs crossed, I thought perhaps my skirt was inappropriately raised. I checked but found that not to be the case. Before I could respond to the security officer, who had moved away, a former University of Khartoum colleague called my name and came up to greet me. I did not mention the incident to my colleague, whom I had not seen for ten years, and I did not follow up with the security officer for fear that doing so might delay the processing of my papers further. At home, however, when I related the incident, my sisters suspected that the man was likely trying to intimidate me because of the way I was sitting and reading in public. Doing so presented a strong feminine image, one sister suggested, that may have contradicted the man’s own perceptions of proper womanhood. Many of these security officers, one of my friends later suggested, use public order laws to harass women sexually. Lubna’s case highlighted such instances of widespread harassment and the arbitrary application of public order laws to the general and international public. In various public and media appearances, Lubna cited an interview with a high-ranking police chief who stated that in 2008 alone, the public order police arrested 43,668 people on charges of indecent conduct.38 The police chief defined indecent conduct as dressing indecently, drinking alcohol, or participating in so-called sexual misconduct. He maintained that immoral violations of this sort were threatening the social foundation of the family and therefore had to be addressed. He also acknowledged that some police officers might make mistakes when making arrests, but in most situations, he insisted, their objective was to apply the law fairly to Northern and Southern Sudanese women (and men) alike. In November 2009, four months after Lubna’s case, a sixteen-year-old Southern Sudanese girl named Silva Kashif Iyol was arrested by the public order police and sentenced to fifty lashes on her back by a court of law. Unlike Lubna, Silva is a Christian Southerner living in the North—and, as such, according to the CPA

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interim constitution, should not be subject to sharia law. Sudanese politicians and activists in the Sudan and abroad contested the application of sharia to Silva, not only because of her different faith but also because of her age. According to Silva’s testimony posted on YouTube, her family contacted a lawyer after her flogging, and the lawyer in turn contacted Ajras Al-Huriyya (a newspaper known for its association with SPLM) to publicize the case. During my meeting with Lubna and other Sudanese feminists in Khartoum, I learned that many of the Sudanese feminist activists who supported the No to Women’s Oppression campaign contribute articles to Ajras Al-Huriyya and other independent and liberal Sudanese newspapers. Well-known public figures such as Rasha Awad, Nahid Muhammad Alhassan, Rabah Al-Sadig Al-Mahahi, and Hadia Hasaballa emerged as active feminist journalists during the CPA period. Despite coming from a range of political party backgrounds, they all endorse a secular, democratic understanding of the right of Sudanese women to dignity and respectful treatment. They have published articles in several newspapers in defense of Lubna and against the moralist discourse that legitimates detention and interrogation of women. Silva’s story, similar to Lubna’s, found its way to Ajras Al-Huriyya and other cyberpublic news venues such as SudaneseOnline. Ajras Al-Huriyya, together with the No to Women’s Oppression campaign, held a public event attended by Silva and other women who were harassed by the public order police, as well as by representatives from SPLM and other Southern parties.39 At the event, Silva spoke about how she was hassled by a public order police officer while at the market, buying her mother some groceries. She was wearing a skirt and blouse, which she described as decent and respectful. She maintained that every girl her age wore this style of skirt, which a relative had sent to her from Juba. On her way back home, however, a man from the security office followed her, mumbling some flirtatious comments. Angry, she stopped and loudly asked him why he was harassing her. Embarrassed, the man acted quickly to cover up his behavior; he forcefully grabbed her arm, accused her of wearing indecent clothes, and told her she had to go with him to the police center. At police headquarters, she was not asked to defend her case or allowed to call her family. She was released only after being lashed fifty times while seated. When she returned home, shaken and broken, her family was furious and called a lawyer to press charges against the police officer who arrested her.40 The cases of both Lubna and Silva occurred toward the end of the CPA period, when the possibility that the two sides of the government might work together toward unity was diminishing. The opposition criticized the National Congress



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Party government for failing to make unity attractive to Southerners, while the SPLM was facing its own challenges. Its two factions remained divided between those who were leaning toward secession and those who endorsed a vision of a united new Sudan. Some activists and opposition members viewed the cases of Lubna, Silva, and other women as testimony that unity was failing and secession was nearing, while others, including the SPLM–Northern sector, seized upon the cases as opportunities to expose government malfunction and envision a new democratic and united Sudan. Silva’s case, however, received less media attention than Lubna’s. When I went back to Khartoum in 2010, I asked one activist why the two stories had been treated differently by the media. Her answer reflected the political climate of the moment. She explained that for Southerners, secession seemed inevitable and endorsing Silva’s case might have increased tensions with the government of Khartoum and hindered a smooth secession. She smiled and added, “I am not sure Silva’s case is a priority for Salva Kiir right now,” referring to Salva Kiir Mayardit, the president of South Sudan. But other factors, such as Silva’s workingclass background and media fatigue after Lubna’s case, may also have played an important role in the lack of coverage.

Inhumanity and Affective Violence: The Case of the “Video Woman” One month before the South Sudan referendum in 2011, another case that surfaced in Arab and Western media was widely viewed as depicting the inhumanity of the Islamist regime. A video released on YouTube showed a Sudanese woman, dressed in a black Islamic gown, being flogged in a public courtyard in Omdurman town in the greater capital of Khartoum. Two policemen alternated beating the woman, while she screamed in pain as she tried to avoid the lashes that were inflicted on her back and other parts of her body.41 The tape of the “video woman,” as she was labeled, was released on International Human Rights Day, after that year’s global campaign, Sixteen Days of Activism against Gender Violence, which ran from November 25 to December 10.42 While the cases of Lubna and Silva exposed the invisible cruelty of the public order laws through the women’s testimonies of flogging and attempted flogging, the video enabled a virtual public to collectively witness the mediated reality of physical violence. Public flogging is but one possible punishment under the Sudan’s penal codes. Other penalties are amputation of the hands of thieves, stoning as expiation for adultery, and lashing for sexual misconduct and public indecency. The application of these laws is contested by some activists, who argue that such harsh

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punishments violate internationally recognized human rights codes. The woman in the video was sentenced according to the Criminal Act of 1991, under Articles 154 and 155 of the criminal code against prostitution, adultery, and running a brothel—charges that can result in up to one hundred lashes in a public court of law. Sudanese activists argued that the video revealed the corporeal effects of violence and the complete inability of the legal system to protect those labeled as unlawful citizens, let alone provide them a fair trial. Well-known secular lawyers such as Nabil Adiyib, whom I met in Khartoum in 2009 and who defended Lubna, argued against violent punishment by highlighting the humiliation it inflicts, the biased judgment of the trials, and the implementation of the sentences without thorough investigation. Perhaps the most disturbing part of the video is how the police officers are jeering and poking fun at their detainee. One of them, who encouraged taping the event, declared, “Let her suffering be witnessed by a group of believers,” and cited a verse from the Quran: “Falyashhadu ‘aazabuha taifatun min almuminin,” which conveys the power of witnessing in the regulation of immorality and the establishment of social order. For the activists who viewed the video, however, the footage revealed something else—namely, torture and the inhumanity of the public order laws. Sudanese human rights activists such as Muhammad Algadi, who lives in the United States, rallied against torture in the Sudanese penal system and globally. As a torture survivor himself, Algadi, along with other Sudanese activists, organized the Group Against Torture in the Sudan (GATS). In an online statement, GATS condemned the flogging of the “video woman” and emphasized the centrality of the body as a dignified entity to be protected against torture and other forms of violence and inhumane aggression. The statement explained that sharia laws are legal codes intended to meet the needs and demands of the Muslim community during the seventh century, an argument commonly made by scholars of Islam who advocate for a secular Islamic state.43 The group regarded the video of the flogged woman as another case that represented “the oppression and aggression of the Islamist regime where torture found its justification through the rules of religious dogma, specifically the Hudood [Islamic penal codes that regulate sexual and property boundaries].”44 The “video woman” episode also revived debate regarding the inability of public order laws to regulate a diverse, multicultural nation. The disturbing imagery of a woman being flogged and crying, “Oh mother, oh mother,” revealed the vulnerability of a nation on the brink of division and political unrest. A poster depicting the woman kneeling on the ground as the two policemen whipped



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her back circulated on SudaneseOnline and explicitly connected the woman’s suffering with that of a nation kneeling under oppression; the poster read “La wa la liqahar wa tarik‘a alnisa, la wa la lijaladi alsha‘b alsudani” (No to women’s oppression and no to the scourgers of the Sudanese people).45 The video was released anonymously, with no details regarding the woman or the crime she committed. The little information that did circulate through cybermedia and among activists indicated that she was arrested on prostitution charges, and that this was not the first time she had been subjected to flogging. On December 1, 2010, the police deputy chief issued a press release commenting on the video and defending the police administration.46 The statement argued that the timing of, and motives behind, the video’s release on International Human Rights Day was suspect, as the woman’s sentence had actually been administered in July 2009. The police deputy chief speculated that the video was deliberately released to increase foreign pressure on the regime and misrepresent the application of Islamic corporeal penal codes. The woman in the video, he insisted, had committed a punishable crime, but he assured viewers that the police administration would investigate any violations with regard to the application of the penal codes. He also commented that widespread reports of violence and kidnapping in the media had been exaggerated to create a state of fear and panic in order to undermine the country’s sovereignty, and he emphasized the readiness of the police force to ensure security during the coming South Sudan referendum. Similar accusations of external attacks on the sovereignty of the Sudanese nation were made by President Omar Albashir when he, too, commented on the “video woman.” On the eve of the 2011 referendum, Al Jazeera’s direct Arabic channel aired an interview with the president, who argued that Sudan was being targeted by transnational Zionists who saw Islam as a threat.47 According to Albashir, the woman had committed a crime that required the application of the Islamic penal codes, and it was the release and circulation of the video that should be criminalized and regarded as a form of tashhir—to circulate or make something public with the intent to shame someone or hurt his or her reputation. Tashhir, he argued, was not good Islamic practice because, far from protecting the woman’s reputation, the video publicized her crime. He further defended the policemen as being unable to carry out the sentence correctly, given the woman’s resistance and her refusal to sit in a particular way to receive the lashes. The video’s release was intended to embarrass Islam and Muslims, he suggested, but Muslims should take pride in their religious beliefs. He argued that since such penal codes could be amended, the core of them (alasal) should remain unchanged in order to keep the boundaries of the Islamic nation intact.

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The controversy over the “video woman” reignited debate over Lubna’s case and demonstrated how effectively secular protest of public order laws was now linked to an emerging transnational human rights and humanitarian framework. Sudanese activists at home and in the diaspora demonstrated and wrote against the laws in various cyberpublic venues. I counted 160 articles posted on SudaneseOnline in December 2010 alone, all bearing provocative titles such as “The Worst Video on CNN,” “No to Sudan’s Taliban,” “Flogging and Harassment of Women Continues,” “Humiliating Women, Humiliating All Your People.” As did the case of Lubna, the “video woman” case mobilized activists from a variety of political and civil society groups. The No to Women’s Oppression campaign, formed by activists in support of Lubna, organized an event in Khartoum for December 14, 2010. Female demonstrators and their male allies met to peacefully protest the application of sharia laws and to deliver a memorandum to the minister of justice calling for their abolishment. When forty-eight demonstrators were detained by government security, the already heavy media traffic regarding the case and subsequent protest only increased. In response to the activists’ detention, more than a hundred Sudanese lawyers volunteered their services and voiced their support for the peaceful demonstration. The public pressure prompted the release of the activists, who organized a press conference on the same day. Video of the press conference was posted on SudaneseOnline, generating more support from, and comments by, members of the Sudanese diaspora.48 The conference was held in the Umma Party headquarters and attended by activists, journalists, and lawyers. The feminist journalists Rasha Awad and Hadia Hasaballa spoke, describing the demonstration and their degrading arrest by security men in civil attire. According to Rasha, the demonstration was a peaceful means to contest the laws but also to “tell the world that the horrendous treatment of women [that] they witnessed on the video tape is not tolerated by many Sudanese people and political activists. This treatment of women does not represent Islam or other religions.” Another activist read the content of the memorandum that they endorsed and sent to the minister of justice. It emphasized that the public order laws oppressed women and negated international laws that underscore the protection of citizens and their human dignity. Islam also prioritizes human dignity, it noted, but sharia laws are an interpretation of Islam and are applied under unlawful circumstances. Rasha and other activists described being asked during detention about their tribes—a question they refused to answer because they feared how it might be used by the government security apparatus. Fatma Algazali, a journalist, congratulated the activists on their effort but asked if a No to Women’s



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Oppression initiative was really enough to address the broader issues related to the subordination of Sudanese women. Such an initiative, she maintained, is reactionary and temporal (lahzi) because it waits for a crisis to happen in order to mobilize people. Hadia responded that they realized women’s struggles involved a broader effort, including the need to change a patriarchal mind-set at both the family and the state levels. The initiative, nonetheless, was the beginning of their effort to modernize women’s activism in the Sudan. My previous conversations with some of these activists in Khartoum and online focused on similar issues related to their collaboration and solidarity to create a new agenda for women’s activism in the country. They are open to melding human rights practices with Sudanese cultural politics in order to create free and safe spaces for women to act as central members of their communities in their various roles as mothers, workers, activists, thinkers, and artists. They use multiple strategies such as collecting signatures via e-mail and cell phones, and utilizing international media to foster solidarity and mobilize Sudanese both in the Sudan and in the diaspora. During the press conference, Hadia announced that students from the University of Shandi in Northern Sudan had also taken to the streets in support of the women protesters, but government security interrupted the demonstration. According to Rasha, when women such as Lubna, Silva, or the “video woman” consent to tell their stories to the media, it has a powerful effect precisely because their experiences are not unique. Many women are silent, she said, and don’t reveal their stories because they fear retaliation against themselves and their families. For many secular translocal activists, a diverse new Sudan is possible only if gender, race, class, ethnicity, and religion are foregrounded in public debate about inclusion and equal citizenship rights. Addressing these questions is at the heart of a modern understanding of diversity, equality, and inclusion that can be both global and translocal. The claims of transnational solidarity embedded in this vision of a secular blend of national and transnational citizenship are facilitated by a UN-mandated structure and by human rights covenants that evaluate efficient governance based on a presumed idea of a transnational body secure from various forms of violence. Female circumcision, rape, and public floggings, in particular, are regarded as heinous crimes that threaten global security and slow the progression of humanity to reach a presumed modern state. Global media and the Internet are efficient public platforms through which the visualization of such violence is transported to a global audience. Viewers can then compare, contrast, comment on, and judge the levels of violence and cruelty inflicted on infantilized and feminized global subjects.

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At the same time, the violation of bodily integrity and its global witnessing through press and cybermedia circulation have unnerved many Sudanese translocal activists who adhere to a different vision of Islam, modernity, and citizenship. When I spoke on the phone about the controversial video with Suhair, a Sudanese activist on the US East Coast, she said, “Fadahauna ma‘a ala‘alam (They embarrassed us with the world),” referring to the way these representations of state practices cast all Sudanese as complacent actors isolated from notions of modernity and progress. The apologetic defense of Islam against what is seen as embarrassing state malpractice stems from the historical understanding of Sudanese elites about how the West has constructed a Third World-ist and orientalist perspective that treats Islam and other cultural practices as the antithesis of modernity and progress.49 In defense, these activists embrace Islam, humanity, and modernity to contest the monolithic visions of both Islamism and humanitarianism.

Back/Lash: When the State Strips Women Down At Lubna’s second trial, in September 2009, the judge found her guilty on counts of “disturbing public feelings” by wearing indecent clothing. His sentence was based on Article 152 of the Criminal Act of 1991, which, he stated, resembles articles from other countries, such as Nigeria, Somalia, Qatar, and Iraq. Seeking legitimacy through regional and religious alliances, the judge continued, “All monolithic religions preach women’s modesty [hishma] and sexual purity [‘ifa].”50 Representatives of the government of the Sudan made similar arguments during the twelfth session meeting of the Human Rights Commission (HRC) in Geneva (September 14–October 2, 2009). Once again, Sudan’s sharia public order and human rights and humanitarian laws clashed on an international platform. Lubna’s case was at the center of accusations against the government of the Sudan for discriminating against women in its national laws. Government representatives of the Sudan denounced the HRC’s report and accused the commission of being influenced by media sensationalism ignited by local and international secular political agendas. They defended their position that national laws in all countries include articles that punish those who dress indecently and offend public feeling. The Sudanese law, they argued, is no different and is in fact based on modified British colonial laws that similarly condemn indecent public acts. The accusations in the HRC report, therefore, were political and unfairly targeted a Muslim nation and its people.51 Caught in the middle of these debates was Lubna herself, whose body was symbolically stripped and exposed by precisely those arguing over its visibility



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and supposed indecency. Accounts of the trial, circulated on SudaneseOnline, described the conflicting statements of the witnesses—all of whom were male police officers—about the color and form of Lubna’s clothing.52 As police officers, sworn to tell the truth, they were authorized to gaze at Lubna’s bodily attire and to describe it graphically to the public. In this way, the police perspective afforded the general public an opportunity to examine Lubna’s underwear, belly button, and bra. The judge’s statement, circulated on Sudanese media, likewise provided explicit detail: The defendant was wearing pants and a blouse. The pants were tight showing her thighs and underwear. The form and the color of the underwear were transparent. The color of the underwear was beige. The sheer blouse was short sleeved and showed the shape and the form of the bra. The blouse was slit at the front and showed the upper part of her chest. The blouse was slit on the sides and showed the bellybutton and the underwear, [and] the defendant’s head was uncovered.53

Descriptions like this affirm feminist anthropologists’ classic arguments that women’s bodies serve as sites of conflicting political debates about morality, containment, social regulation, and public order.54 After the court decision that spared Lubna from flogging after the payment of a fine, a lull in mainstream media coverage occurred, as so often happens when the initial attention fades. But in Sudanese electronic media, many continued to express their disappointment. Those in the opposition had hoped for a firm action that would lead to the annulment of the controversial Article 152. Lubna herself wrote a cynical counter-argument about her sentence in Sudanile, in which she maintained that only her class position and her translocal alliances had spared her the flogging and imprisonment.55 Indeed, just two weeks after her second trial, two female engineers who had been arrested with her were sentenced to twenty lashes each. Lubna attended their trial and pointed out to Agence France-Presse, “During my trial there [were] media and diplomats, today there is no one.”56 Lubna also pointed out that the trial was not even really about her pants. She explained to me the arbitrary nature of her arrest by noting that she was at the restaurant in the first place “to inquire about renting a hall for a social event.” Apparently, the crackdown at the restaurant occurred because a colonel who lives in the neighborhood had called the police that night, complaining about a party there that was getting louder and going past the official curfew. The subsequent arrest and trial, however, provided an opportunity to punish Lubna for her more serious offenses—namely, her alliances with opposition members and her defense of powerless women.

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Censuring her for wearing pants was not just a pretense, but a crucial part of the debate over the government’s legitimacy and the work of the legal moral code. Wearing pants, for both men and women, continues to be contested within the context of a diverse Sudanese culture that privileges costumes as symbols of national identity. Wearing pants does not carry the same moral connotations for men as for women. Many Sudanese would frown upon women wearing pants if moral codes are not respected (i.e., if pants are not worn with a lengthy, long-sleeved blouse). For both men and women, however, pants and suits evoke an association with Western masculinity. For Lubna’s pants to take center stage at the height of Western interventionist and protectionist discourses about the Sudan was regarded by many as emasculating for a regime accused of violating human rights by oppressing and raping its own women. The ICC indictment and the French response to Lubna’s case, for instance, ignited extremist morality discourses that lament a nation-state with its head uncovered. A few days after the French response, newspapers reported the case of two young university students in Sudan—one male, one female—found dead inside a car in a home garage.57 The death was attributed to carbon monoxide poisoning. Because of the upper-class affiliation of the couple, little information was published about the incident. Their case, however, was the focus of media debate and conversations among family and friends about the limits of freedom and the boundaries of morality and sexual order. The couple were said to be lovers who escaped the public eye for a romantic rendezvous, but the tryst obviously went wrong. Romantic involvements are frowned upon if they involve sleepovers and sexual intercourse before marriage. Although these rules are often broken in practice, most violations remain invisible; in this instance, however, the case evoked debates about rampant sexuality and the threat to respected norms of the past. In response to the couple’s death, the Sudan Blue Nile Channel, for instance, broadcast a Friday khutba (sermon) by a renowned Islamist who addressed both cases, that of Lubna and that of the university couple.58 The preacher called for more government regulations to prevent the decay of morality in the country. The khutba was terminated, however, and the channel resumed regular programming. It was clear that the termination of the khutba was intentional—it is understood that such allegations can agitate public sentiment. It is significant, however, that the preacher described the French response as an attack on Islam and relegated Lubna to the category of unpatriotic citizen—as if, through her translocal alliances, she had seductively yielded to the West and allowed it to penetrate an already vulnerable nation. As Lubna and her translocal alliances expose and shame the regime, the state asserts its legitimacy



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by stripping her down and contesting her morality and national allegiance. The vulnerability of the state manifests in the escalating fear of a collapse in sexual order and in official discourses regarding the dangers of external intervention. To say that a country on the brink of partition was thrown into turmoil by a moral panic over veiling and a bra strap is not hyperbolic. I felt this state of vulnerability every day in Sudan during my informal conversations with family, neighbors, and friends, and when I watched the news and read the newspapers. Wherever I visited, conversations often turned to panicky subjects: young girls abused by older men, good girls picked up in cars at night, husbands and fiancés burning their partners’ faces with phosphoric acid, and children killing their rich parents for money. The number of illegitimate children abandoned in the streets of Khartoum and in orphanages was increasing, one interlocutor maintained, and “some of them look half Syrian and half Chinese.” Another one commented, “The UN and NGO vehicles are more than the number of taxicabs in the streets of the capital city.” Watching Sudan’s national television via satellite dish in Michigan has confirmed this sense of vulnerability. National songs and the rhetoric of a country under threat are recurring and dominant themes. A few days after Lubna’s second trial, the Council of Ministers discussed the National Security Bill, which gives the national intelligence and security services sweeping powers of arrest, search, and seizure, despite the disagreement of its Southern partner and other opposition groups. In a speech in October 2009 the president of the Sudan emphasized, “We are targeted and we have to defend ourselves.”59 And in a previous speech that was rebroadcasted, the president vowed to protect the nation, saying that although Sudan was the first nation south of the Sahara to gain its independence, it was not the last to have to still resist colonization. That same month, the sense of vulnerability was exacerbated when US president Barack Obama issued his new strategy for the Sudan, which extended economic sanctions and downplayed the military intervention proposed by some hard-liners in his administration. According to some analysts, the strategy was a move to pressure the regime to fulfill the terms of the CPA.60 The strategy also named the conflict in Darfur as genocide, despite a report authored by the UNAMID chief and Obama’s special envoy that described diminishing warfare in the region—claims contested by Save Darfur activists in the United States.61 At the anniversary celebration of Sudan’s popular October Revolution of 1964, Al-Sadig Al-Mahadi, leader of the Umma opposition party, maintained that Obama’s carrot-and-stick strategy reflected America’s hegemonic approach toward poor nations.62 He called the strategy “al‘asa liman ‘asa” [flogging for the disobedient].63

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As we have seen with the stories of Lubna and other subaltern Sudanese minors and celebrity role models, these cases are turned into public sites through which both sovereign and trans-sovereign discourses regarding morality, alliances, and rights compete.64 The sovereign narrative mobilizes religious sentiments and alliances for a pan-Africanist, pan-Islamist model of transnationality, and the trans-sovereign mobilizes global solidarities, armed with moral discourses and practices of human rights and humanitarianism. Between the two, secular activists and feminists find themselves in a murky position: they must either assimilate or act very strategically in order to get their message heard. According to the state’s moral logic, for instance, Lubna—like so many Sudanese women who are contesting these laws—has to assimilate to the national order despite her alternative vision. Though not previously known for her political or feminist activism in the Sudan, Lubna mobilized her visibility to forge alliances and illuminate an important issue that both the media and human rights proponents missed: how her class position rendered powerless women invisible. Lubna’s transnational solidarity highlights the dual predicament of the humanitarian politics within which the visibility of subaltern actors is enabled and produced. As a subaltern Muslim woman, she finds that her transnational visibility is made possible through orientalist biases that mask class hierarchies and humanitarian politics.65 But her emphasis on class does not appeal to human rights and humanitarian logics because, as Makau Mutua maintains, the duty of human rights practices is to police the space between the state and its citizens.66 Its duty is not, however, to investigate class injuries produced by neoliberal global economic disparities that put some groups at risk and uplift others. In order to route these humanitarian visibilities—to trace how and when different stories and identities emerge and fade from view—we need more embedded ethnographic accounts and critical feminist perspectives that examine the dynamics of power and knowledge production and attend to the intersections of gender, race, ethnicity, and class, both nationally and transnationally. The debate over Lubna’s pants, similar to the production and hyper-representations of other human rights and humanitarian subjects that I present in these chapters, also points to understanding the body in a transnational, performative capacity. Just as women’s bodies have served as emblems and sites of national pride, essentialized beauty, modesty, and mothering of future citizens, so too has the division of the Sudan—a nation encompassing the two extremes of Arabism and Africanism—been enacted on infantilized and feminized representations of the body and its various expressions. A transnational/transrelational approach that goes beyond the interpretation of the body as a site of inscription and sym-



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bolic representation67 helps us to ground the routed visibilities of subaltern actors and activists and their imaginings of rights, humanity, and transnational solidarities. It can also help us discern the national and transnational histories and linkages within which they are all entangled. This “return to the body,”68 as a broader gendered lens that pays attention to intertwined national and transnational encounters and performances across time and place, seeks to achieve three scholarly objectives: first, to reclaim the fragmented voices of subaltern actors and activists; second, to better understand the fluidity of people’s diverse expressions, including various modes of conformity and resistance to intersecting hegemonies; and third, to move toward an understanding of rights, humanity, and transnational alliances that goes beyond the narrow neoliberal representation of ethno-gendered national divides.

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Toward an Inclusive Humanist Future Borders, Bodies, and Funerals

I give you a gift of chaos and exile, . . . My disappointments, I give you a gift, . . . Stars’ ointment to heal your wounds, I give you a gift of nothingness [and] walk away. —Muhammad Hussein Bahnas

I received a letter from the US Immigration and Naturalization Service requesting my presence at the Detroit office to take my US citizenship test. The process leading up to this point had been a long one, and upon completing it, I would formally be recognized as an American citizen. The timing of the letter’s arrival was uncanny, but even more strange was how I felt about the forthcoming split of my birth country, Sudan. Despite my attempt to rationalize Sudan’s division, the idea of secession was hard for me to swallow. Two days before, I had confided to a close friend that I had thought, as a scholar, I would be immune to the overwhelming sentiment of nationalism experienced and expressed by many of my interlocutors upon witnessing their dreams of unity and diversity wither. As I grew up in the Sudan, gloomy news of war, hunger, and unrest had always reached me and my fellow students in Khartoum. These reports reminded us that aspirations of unity, diversity, and inclusion require collaborative work and a unifying citizenship project that goes beyond singing the anthem, respecting the flag, and imagining a nation that would stand tall among other nations.1 Though ON THE EVE OF THE SOUTH SUDAN REFERENDUM,

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we realized it was impossible to know every member of the national community, or to understand fully their complex religious and ethnic backgrounds, many of us nevertheless aspired to an education that would encompass gender, ethnicity, and race and unite us across the dividing lines. However, we learned little about these issues in our pre-college and college curricula to make it clear how much more had to be done. The idea of a united, inclusive Sudan, while it seemed farfetched, nonetheless remained an ardent desire expressed by politicians, activists, and renowned nationalist singers, musicians, and poets. Such dreams shriveled, however, on January 15, 2011, when Southern Sudanese voted overwhelmingly to secede from the North. A celebration of national independence took place in Juba in July of that same year, but I missed it because I was in the midst of taking the final steps for my initiation as an American citizen. Some of my US interlocutors did attend the celebration, and I was in direct contact with them; I also followed the event through national and transnational media. When I arrived in Khartoum two weeks later, I could not find a ticket to fly to Juba. The few tickets that were available were extremely expensive, and hotels were overbooked, despite fears of violent conflicts between the Northern and Southern governments over unresolved border issues, such as who would claim the oil-rich region of Abyei. Khartoum itself seemed like a ghost city. Places I had frequented during seminars and resistance rallies, and even cafés and marketplaces, seemed desolate, emptied of the vivid presence of Southern Sudanese. In anticipation of the country’s division, many Southern Sudanese had headed to the South amid tensions and nationalist rhetoric in the North that their citizenship would be revoked after secession. The Southern Sudanese writer Estella Gitano, who is married to a Northern Sudanese, gave voice to this feeling of non-belonging on the eve of independence.2 In a powerful article, she wrote of the disappointment of waking up in the morning to face the bitter reality of suddenly being a foreigner in her own country. Other Southern Sudanese, who had created social roots and wide networks in the North, expressed similar feelings of displacement and alienation when I spoke with them at the Khartoum airport, finally on my way to Juba. The scene at the airport appeared to be one of exodus. Southern Sudanese families were loading their luggage and rushing to go south. They were responding to two new realities: the summons of the government of South Sudan for them to come back to build the nation, and the announcement of the government of the Sudan that all Southerners would become foreigners in the North after July 9. While the SPLM leadership in the North suggested dual citizenship for those who were born in or had lived longer in the North,



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the government of the Sudan would not entertain this idea at the critical moment of separation.3 When I arrived in Juba after the independence celebration, I talked to many activists who had been in the Sudan, but left after secession for fear of persecution. Some thought that Juba would be a safe place, while others were planning to seek refuge in other African countries or elsewhere. Many told me that the celebration of national independence was an unprecedented event, filled with national sentiments of pride and victory following the Sudan People’s Liberation Army’s long-fought battles with the Khartoum government, on both ideological and military fronts. Feelings of jubilation, sadness, hope, and ambivalence mixed uneasily. The saddest moment for many was when the flag of the Sudan was lowered and that of South Sudan was raised at the event. Many of the people with whom I spoke appreciated the fact that Sudan’s flag was not returned to the North but was kept in the South. This political gesture soothed the pain of the split and gave hope that even if borders were redrawn, relations between the two nations would continue to thrive. The sense of celebration that Southern Sudanese experienced on Independence Day passed quickly, however, as the challenges facing the two nations became increasingly clear. One of the lingering questions, raised by many of my translocal interlocutors, was whether the predominantly Dinka elite government would honor its promises to hold the impoverished and ethnically diverse nation together. In the streets of Juba, billboards sponsored by cell phone companies, featuring images of Southern Sudanese political leaders alongside prominent hotel owners and businessmen, and adorned with words such as “Freedom” and “Independence,” offered glimpses into an emerging neoliberal state. It was too early to forecast how this new nation, whose history of war and suffering spanned more than four decades, would respond to the hopes and expectations that many experienced after the national flag was raised. To be sure, the discovery of oil in the South in the 1990s helped both nations to invest in infrastructure development, as manifested in Khartoum’s booming businesses, for example. In Juba, too, many people I met mentioned that the town had seemed like a little village only ten years ago, but new roads, hotels, and restaurants now attested to its rapid development and expansion. Unfortunately, the burgeoning militarism I mentioned in the introduction of this book overshadowed efforts to steer the new nation away from its war economy and underlying ethnic divisions. These deeply rooted socioeconomic ruptures were seldom included in the predominant human rights and humanitarian narratives that portrayed the Sudanese conflicts to the international audi-

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ence. On December 15, 2013, violence erupted in South Sudan, in the aftermath of political disagreements between the Dinka president, Salva Kiir, and his Nuer vice president, Riek Machar. Since then, the devastating situation in South Sudan has not only shattered the aspirations of Southerners who dreamed of nationalism, but also stunned the international community, whose various agents and human rights and humanitarian actors have invested heavily to end the atrocities between the North and the South and support nation-building. Steve McDonald, the director of the Africa program at the Woodrow Wilson Center in 2013, wrote a telling article at the onset of the conflict, “South Sudan: The End of a Noble Experiment.” In it, he noted how the leaders of the new nation squandered international support through the “short-sighted and self-aggrandizing policies” they adopted. Such policies, he maintained, did not take seriously the tasks of “reconciliation or trust-building among marginalized and disaffected population groups,” an oversight that threatened the stability of the nation. Despite a brokered peace deal, which was signed by the two warring Southern parties in 2015, fighting resumed in the country, inflicting more grave injuries on the already suffering majority of the population. I argue that it is because of the disappointment of the international community in South Sudan following independence that narratives of ethno-gendered violence—similar to those used to describe the conflicts in the Sudan before the secession of the South—have yet to emerge. As I explained in chapter 4, these narratives constitute a form of “audiopolitics,” through which the international community is briefed about the gravity of conflict and then called on to intervene. In the absence of the Muslim/ Arab/Northern nemesis, the story of the conflict in South Sudan has yet to be framed in a powerful narrative that alerts the international community to the human rights abuses in the young nation. Yasmin Sooka, chair of the Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan, raised similar concerns in her statement at the 26th Special Session of the Human Rights Council: “A UN survey found 70% of women in the camps had been raped since the conflict erupted—the vast majority of them by police or soldiers . . . With these sort of figures, it is conceivable that the scale of sexual violence in the world’s youngest country already matches that of the Bosnian war—and yet we rarely hear about it.”4 Sooka urged the international community to avert a future catastrophe by deploying protection troops and bringing the perpetrators to justice “both at a command and an individual level.” Moreover, a press release from UNICEF, declaring famine in several African nations, including South Sudan, urged im-



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mediate intervention through donations to save “over 270,000 children” who are “severely malnourished.”5 Another report from the African center at the National Defense University in the United States went even further, suggesting that the way for the new nation to break out of the cycle of war and violence was through a United Nations and African Union–led international administration that would protect civilians, prepare the country for a new leadership, and preserve its sovereignty.6 All of these developments, together with the state of insecurity that Southern Sudanese were now experiencing, including the government’s denial of human rights abuses, highlight the relevance of the questions raised in this book. How do identity politics, the mobilization of ethnic suffering, and violence against women and children figure in the severance and the making and remaking of the nation and its subjects? How will national and transnational aspirations clash over the meanings of rights, sovereignty, humanity, and citizenship? Although a strong narrative that describes the atrocities in South Sudan has yet to emerge, famine, genocide, and violence against women are cited in many media and United Nations reports as valid reason for transnational intervention, throwing the legitimacy of the current regime in the Southern nation into question.7 For the translocal Sudanese who still dwell on the separation of the prereferendum nation, the death of John Garang is often invoked in debates about the fragility of the national project and its entanglement in transnational politics and ideological competition. At Freedom Square in Juba, where Garang’s statue stands in front of South Sudan’s flag, a young SPLM affiliate told me that he believed that the Sudan would have remained united if Garang were alive. He said that Garang once told him that he was sure of Sudan’s unity, but what really concerned him was the unity of Africa as a whole. Garang’s vision was shaped by the decolonization rhetoric of Pan-Africanism as a great force that could unite Africans against colonial and postcolonial hegemonies. The young activist described the millions who came out to celebrate John Garang’s return to Khartoum after the signing of the peace agreement in 2005: “I could not believe his death, until I saw his funeral procession.” He then pondered how such a great vision could have been diminished, and asked why a great leader like Garang died at such a critical moment. Some suggested that Garang’s death, in a mysterious plane crash on July 30, 2005—only twenty-one days after his inauguration as first vice president of the Sudan—emboldened the separationist position in the Southern movement. Unfortunately, this separationist attitude met a very rigid religious fundamentalist regime in Khartoum,

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which saw any effort to establish a secular constitution as a threat to its “civilizing Islamic project.” Close to the date of the South Sudan referendum, many secular elites and activists in the Sudan and abroad hoped for a popular revolt that would change the regime, bring a democratic transition, and restore the country’s unity. Despite mobilization on the part of a number of opposition groups to take to the streets, a general sense of vulnerability, political insecurity, and racial panic, propagated by debates about Islamism, secularism, and humanism, stunted any attempt at an uprising. Secession was viewed by many as a compromise that would end the war and fulfill the CPA.8 But since the independence of South Sudan, this sense of vulnerability has not dissipated. Islamists’ rhetoric framing the North as having a monolithic Muslim identity has alarmed secular Sudanese who view the Sudan as a diverse and multicultural nation. Emphasis on sharia as the law of the land has created new tensions among Northern elites from Darfur, South Kordofan, Eastern Sudan, and the Blue Nile, who regard such rhetoric as undermining their claims for justice and recognition. Meanwhile, familiar patterns continue: disrupted peace efforts as negotiations break down, youth resistance, and increasing neoliberal economic measures. Sudanese living in the United States continue to voice their opinions about the policies of the current regime and to connect with their counterparts in the diaspora, despite an overwhelming sense of despair since secession. Both on the cusp of secession and three years after the country’s division, many of my interlocutors in the United States and in the Sudan mourned the passing of leaders, poets, singers, family members, and friends. Two of my interviewees, Bakri Mustafa (Samandal) and Dr. Ahmed Osman, whom we met in chapter 3, passed away in 2010 and 2014, respectively, leaving families and good memories behind. Bakri, who died in Norway, was buried in the Sudan, while Dr. Osman was buried, per his request, in the United States, the country he considered his second home. The deaths of national figures such as Muhammad Wardi, Muhammad Al-Hassan Salim Hummaid, Muhammad Ibrahim Nuqud, and Mahjoub Sharif were cited by many interviewees as symbolizing the “death of the nation” and the suffering of ghurba.9 On August 12, 2017, as I was adding the final words in this book, many Sudanese were mourning the death of exiled left-wing feminist and leader Fatima Ahmed Ibrahim in London.10 The unprecedented funeral processions of these national figures, similar to that of John Garang, became sites of collective mourning through which many in the Sudan and in the diaspora could express their grief and commitment to the values of justice, diversity, and equal citizenship rights.11



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For many diaspora Sudanese, these sad events evoke emotions of loss and serve as reminders of the hardship that refugees face when they cross national borders. Diaspora spaces built by community leaders in exile, though they exist in tension with humanitarian and other official publics, provide support in times of uncertainty, grief, and misrepresentation. But diaspora communities are often unable to reach and sustain every member of the community, especially in the absence of more institutional support and greater resources. One particularly high-profile incident after the country’s separation served to illustrate the tragic toll of the community’s limitations. On December 12, 2013, Egyptian authorities found the body of renowned Sudanese artist, poet, and novelist Muhammad Bahnas frozen to death on a bench in Mustafa Mahmood Square, after a rare cold snap hit Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries. The story of Bahnas’s passing circulated via SudaneseOnline and other press and digital media, reminding many of the Mustafa Mahmood attacks against Sudanese refugees in Egypt (see chapter 4). Bahnas was an artist activist who had called for the unity of the Sudan through his “Sudan Unite” initiative. He left Sudan for France, where he married a French woman in 2005, and from which he was later deported after his divorce. Some of his works, in particular his famous light drawings, were showcased in the Élysée Palace in Paris. Most of the Sudanese in the United States, Egypt, and the Sudan whom I asked about Bahnas told me that he suffered depression after his deportation from France to the Sudan, especially after he learned of his mother’s death in his absence, and later the death of his brother in Britain. He came to Cairo after Sudan’s partition to participate in an exhibit and decided to stay. But he was a refugee with no job, and his situation worsened until he became a well-known homeless figure in the streets of Cairo, spending most of his time wandering between Tahrir Square and Mustafa Mahmoud Square and Khartoum and Omdurman restaurants. Since he had with him no papers to prove his identity, his body lay in the morgue for several days until a few artists identified him and arranged for his body to be shipped for burial in the Sudan. The forensic doctor who examined the body ruled that Bahnas’s death was caused by cold and hunger. Sudanese exiles, who were quick to compare his case with the previous atrocities that took place in Mustafa Mahmoud Square, took to the cyberpublics to commemorate his work.12 In one of his poems, “I give you a gift of chaos”—an excerpt from which opens this chapter—Bahnas bemoaned the loss of the nation and his own inability to give back while searching for refuge. The Sudanese composer ‘Ala Alsanhori, whom I met in the Sudan in 2010, performed the poem as a song with a Sudanese musical group in Doha, Qatar, where Alsanhori now lives.13

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Bahnas’s story is not framed in the narrative style of infantilized or ethnogendered violence that so often relates the suffering of minority citizens in the Sudan. Rather, the reportage of his death was neutrally journalistic, lamenting the death of a dedicated activist and talented artist who, unable to find refuge, fell victim to dark episodes of depression. Still, even that narrative pointed to the vulnerability of the refugee, especially when diaspora communities fall short of reaching their members in need. Many of Bahnas’s friends and acquaintances continue to question and write about the nature of his death in a country where the Sudanese community is large. How could he have died homeless, with no food or shelter? Had the intellectual Sudanese community failed to offer solace and support? Did he die from cold and hunger or from the “coldness of our feeling, the coldness of our humanity,” as one acquaintance from the elite wrote?14 Comments about Bahnas’s death posted in the Sudanese cyberpublic sphere described the suffering of exile in a new light that emphasized the lack of institutional and social care at the communal, national, and international levels. Just as human rights and humanitarian actors and activists mobilize the narratives of ethno-gendered violence and suffering to construct multiple humanitarian publics, memories of violence, suffering, and death also become part of the cultural material that leaders and community members use to imagine citizenship, humanity, and belonging in the diaspora. Such memories are expressed in the stories immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers tell about their political persecution, expulsion, or loss of employment. In this way, diaspora publics become sites not only to contest exclusionary discourses of rights, humanity, and transnational belonging, but also to celebrate the living and commemorate the dead. Kamal, the CEO of Red Sea Travel and Tours whom we met in chapter 3, told me he often thinks about this struggle to tackle issues of life and death when people are separated from the cultural contexts that would normally provide solace and explanation. His travel agency has a network of relationships with funeral homes that facilitate the burial of those who wish to be buried in the Sudan or in the United States. When a Sudanese person dies in the Washington, DC, area, Red Sea Travel and Tours often plays a key role in assisting with the tangled bureaucratic procedures that have become particularly complex since sanctions were imposed on the Sudan. Community members also come together to support the families and friends of the deceased in exile and to donate money to cover expenses. In the case of a Sudanese taxi driver killed during a shooting in Washington, friends of the deceased accompanied the body to the Sudan. This kind of communal solidarity doesn’t reach everyone, as is illustrated in the



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case of Muhammad Bahnas; yet it nonetheless represents an effort to confront the suffering of exile (‘azab alghurba) with the humanness of coming together, whether online or in physical spaces, as part of a scattered nation away from home. This lived human experience in absentia crafts a new meaning of home in the host country and provides a site for socializing a new generation of Sudanese American citizens. During my fieldwork for this book, I met many young Sudanese Americans, many of whom appreciated community spaces for both their contrast to official humanitarian publics and their re-creation of the nation from afar. Conversations with Sudanese American youths revealed their embrace of dual citizenship as a form of social capital that would enable them to become citizens of the world. At the same time, however, they criticized their parents’ socialization efforts in community spaces they organized. The young people reflected on how the politics of fear produced by the clash of different national visions had filtered down to shape their own upbringing at home, as well as in the community spaces and humanitarian publics that they seldom frequented. Many of them asserted that “Sudanese culture” was often essentialized, depoliticized, and deployed as a pretext to shield them from a perceived “unruly American public sphere.” As one female youth, Israh, put it, parents in America live Sudan “in their heads, the Sudan they experienced when they were growing up, and not the Sudan their children hear about in the news.” The abstraction of the Sudan and the consumption of its memories without attention to the country’s changing sociopolitical realities have been confusing to youths who are attuned to the representation of the Sudan in other American forums. Sudan’s realities of conflict, war, and ethnic division are seldom discussed as part of educating children about their home country. Sudanese politics, many of the youths told me, is a topic that their parents talk about with their friends and in public gatherings but not with their kids. In a focus group that included youths from a variety of cultural backgrounds, one girl, Sireen, commented that she did not understand why Southern Sudanese were not present at many jalia events. Sarah, a Southern Sudanese, echoed a similar sentiment, saying that nobody explained to her why Southern Sudanese events, likewise, did not include Northern Sudanese. Since many Sudanese in the United States arrived as refugees, fearing persecution because of their political opinion or party affiliation, they represented Sudan to their children in romantic terms removed from the political context of conflict and other socioeconomic inequities. Youths, however, wanted their parents to talk to them about Sudan as a place with both positive and negative

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dimensions. They were often surprised by the images of Sudan presented to them by celebrities, human rights activists, and national and transnational politicians. They understood that fear motivated their parents’ efforts to shield them from the perils of political involvement, but they wanted to better understand the country they had been taught to love and cherish in absentia. Nashua, who migrated with her parents at a young age, was bothered by her schoolmates’ constant questions about the conflict in Darfur. She said that in many instances she would “feel very defensive” and would feel the need to say, “I never hurt anyone.” Because her parents came from Northern Sudan, she explained, she often interpreted her classmates’ questions as accusations. Other youths, however, found ways to incorporate the conflicting representations of the Sudan they heard about in various publics and still present them positively in their school projects or to their youth networks. Osama, Hiba, Yaser, and Rana all talked about how they organized networks at their colleges and schools to discuss issues related to Sudanese culture and politics. Another group of youths I interviewed talked about how community engagement and the public representation of the Sudan in the mainstream media and other humanitarian publics inspired them to learn about rights and justice issues, both for Sudan and for the world at large. Nahid, for example, was enthusiastic about a nonprofit organization she was trying to build with other youths. She explained that she was influenced by the experience of her father, a Sudanese human rights activist who was tortured in the Sudan. She remembered her family fearing political prosecution and having to flee the country, going first to Yemen and, later, to the United States. She also remembered how she used to attend Amnesty International meetings with her father every Saturday. These experiences prepared her to become “a citizen of America, Sudan, and of the whole world,” she stated. During the time of my fieldwork, Nahid and her friends, all of whom hail from different cultural backgrounds, created the Sudanese American Young Adult Project (SAYAP). Their objective is to extend the efforts of their parents and community leaders by engaging Sudanese youths in debates and activities related to gender, identity, ethnicity, and race in the Sudan and the diaspora. Suzan, who was born in Yai, South Sudan, accompanied her parents to the United States when she was an infant. She described SAYAP as an idea inspired by “what they heard and read in the media about Sudan.” The representation of Sudan’s conflict in mainstream American media and the leadership of American celebrities presented the youths with different images of the Sudan than those offered to them by their parents and community



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organizations. “Our main goal is to work for Sudan in general, whether you are Arabi, Beja, Nubian, or from the South . . . The main point is to find peaceful resolution, and to create dialogue to keep the country together [before partition],” said Suzan. She noted that hearing her parents talk about Arab racism shaped her ideas about Northern Sudanese-ness. Her experience with other Sudanese in Washington, DC, however, taught her that racism is not a taboo topic, but one she could and should discuss with other Sudanese youths of her age. And racism is not the only critical issue to be debated: sexism, ethnicity, tribalism, and poverty are other significant issues that confront Southern and Northern Sudanese alike. Suzan also explained that her friendship with Sudanese of different cultural backgrounds in the United States taught her how to discuss and understand issues of race, ethnicity, and difference in various American contexts and public spaces. The cultural spaces their parents created in exile, many youths explained, help them to navigate the challenge of living multiple identities. Because some youths felt unwelcome in highly visible humanitarian publics, such as the STAND conference—organized largely by non-Sudanese to debate Sudanese issues, diaspora publics function as alternative spaces for Sudanese abroad to voice their opinions and concerns. Magdi, another young interviewee, explained that the spaces that jalia community, their parents, or the youths themselves have worked to create help to quell the fear and tensions produced by the “fight over Sudan” and the secondary citizenship status the youths feel they occupy in America. Inspired by all the debates and visions presented in this book, I propose an idea of transnationality that takes into consideration the competition among different political players and social actors with regard to meanings of rights, humanity, and national and transnational belonging. In the clash of visions among Islamists, secularists, and human rights and humanitarian activists over the identity of the Sudan, the meanings of place and the parameters of belonging have all been challenged. Humanitarian and diaspora publics have emerged as influential, yet conflicting, sites where narratives of ethno-gendered violence and suffering circulate and acquire different meanings in the making and remaking of national and transnational identities, borders, and subjects. When pieced together, scattered national and transnational spaces represent extensions of lived experiences inscribed on bodies and places during times of political upheaval and socioeconomic uncertainty. A transnational/transrelational approach thus captures the wide spectrum of ethno-gendered and embodied discourses and practices, their visibilities and invisibilities, across time and space.

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As I have shown here, both hope and despair can be mobilized to contest monolithic national identities, and envision new humanist futures through fights and demands for rights, inclusion, and recognition. But it is vital to remember that the tools of struggle can also be co-opted and yoked to existing social divisions, conservative ideologies, and hegemonic understandings of identities and citizenships. While human rights and humanitarian languages and sentiments are deployed to fight for those suffering in the Sudan, the fragmentation of the nation continues to pose new and urgent questions. Has the fragment-nation of the Sudan ghettoized its people into two distinct categories of Muslim Northerners and Christian Southerners, as early activists proclaimed? And does the construction of such hardened identities rule out future conflicts over citizenship rights and equal distribution of power and resources? Already, the answer to the second question seems clear, as recent conflicts in the two Sudans continue to portend new contestations over gender and ethnic recognition and inclusive citizenship rights. The unfolding resurgence of the far right in the global West, East, and South also continues to produce new regimes of social and political control marred by the politics of fear and racial panics. Questions of national and transnational belonging, diversity, and inclusion are more salient than ever before. What is happening in the Sudans is relevant for first- and second-generation Sudanese, as well as for other refugees and immigrants, who dream about inclusion and recognition in both national and transnational community projects in the United States, in the Sudan, and elsewhere. Secular activists and dreamers of unity and diverse national and transnational communities are needed, today and for the future, to defend and reclaim the slim gains of the past. We can only hope they will do so armed with historically grounded solidarities, a rich array of discursive tools, and a vision keenly tuned to the goal of social justice everywhere, including in diverse transnational and diaspora publics.

Notes

Notes to Introduction 1.  Muhammad Abed-Alhai is a renowned Sudanese poet whose work is known for its focus on questions of modernity and identity. He argued for the modernization of Arabic poetry and discussed the influence of British and American poetry on his own writing. Regarded as one of the “Forest and Desert School” pioneers in the Sudan, Abed-Alhai had many publications, including his five-poem collection, “ala‘awda ila Sinnar” [Back to Sinnar.] He died in Khartoum in August 1989, at the age of forty-five. The epigraph from “Back to Sinnar” is my translation. See http://www.tawtheegonline.com/vb/showthread .php?t=5863 for documentation of Back to Sinnar, accessed May 15, 2018. 2.  Comprehensive Peace Agreement, accessed February 1, 2013, http://www.sd.undp .org/doc/CPA.pdf. 3.  Bob, Marketing of Rebellion. 4.  The Save Darfur Campaign was later transformed from a campaign focused primarily on Darfur to a broader campaign focusing on genocide globally in 2010. 5.  Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim; Shryock, Islamophobia/Islamophilia. 6.  Some interviewees, such as Khalid, requested that their names, professions, and places of residence be changed. Unless otherwise noted, all names in this book are real, especially those of public figures. For public figures, who are always referred to by their last name, I followed that practice. For on-site interviews and conversations, I used first names, as most Sudanese often do. 7.  Clarke, Mapping Yoruba Networks; Moghadam, Globalizing Women; Ong, Flexible Citizenship. 8.  Gupta and Ferguson, “Culture, Power, Place.” 9.  I coined the term “multifaceted ethnography” here to direct attention both to the multiple connected sites at which narratives of national and transnational belonging are debated and reproduced and to the temporal facades of visibilities and invisibilities that they engender across increasingly fragmented spaces and time zones. 10.  Anderson, Imagined Communities; Malkki, “Citizens of Humanity.” 11.  Barth, Ethnic Groups and Boundaries. 12.  Appadurai, “Dead Certainty”; Malkki, Purity and Exile.

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13.  See, for instance, Beshir, Educational Development in the Sudan; Beshir, The Southern Sudan. 14.  Sikainga, Slaves into Workers. 15.  Deng, War of Visions, 494. See also Reno, Warfare in Independent Africa. 16.  Hutchinson, Nuer Dilemmas. 17.  Jok and Hutchinson, “Sudan’s Prolonged Second Civil War.” 18.  Idris, Identity, Citizenship, and Violence in Two Sudans. 19.  On October 21, 1964, students and trade unions led a massive revolution—the first in Africa—that took over the streets of Khartoum and other parts of the country, demanding the overthrow of President Ibrahim Abboud’s military regime and the return to multiparty democratic rule. See Hasan, “The Sudanese Revolution of October 1964.” 20.  Sudan’s civil war between the North and the South is often referred to as two time spans: the first civil war, from 1955 to 1972; and the second civil war, from 1983 to 2005, which erupted after the failure of the 1972 Addis Abba peace agreement that gave the South regional autonomy. Deng, War of Visions. 21.  Sudan has more than twelve political parties; the largest are the pioneer nationalist parties, which include the National Unionist, the Umma, and the Communist parties. For more on the history of political parties in the Sudan, see Beshir, Revolution and Nationalism in the Sudan. See also “Sudan—Political Parties,” in Encyclopedia of the Nations. 22.  See, for example, Cole, Colonialism and Revolution in the Middle East; Spaulding, “Government of Sinnar.” 23.  Conflicts among the Islamists in 2000 resulting from international allegations of terrorism and other internal factors led to the decline of Al-Turabi’s power and to his successive imprisonment and home detentions. He died of a heart attack at age eightyfour at his residence in Khartoum on March 5, 2016. 24.  Peterson, Inside Sudan. 25.  UNCHR, “UNCHR Egypt Fact Sheet,” March 2011, accessed December 21, 2015, http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/news/updates/2011/3/4dad83df9/unhcr-egypt-fact-sheet -march-2011.html?query=number%20of%20sudanese%20refugees%20in%20egypt. 26.  UNCHR Chad, December 2015, accessed December 21, 2015, http://www.unhcr .org/pages/49e45c226.html. 27.  UNCHR, “The Number of South Sudanese Refugees Reaches 1 Million Mark,” September 16, 2016, accessed March 8, 2015, http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/news /briefing/2016/9/57dbb5124/number-south-sudanese-refugees-reaches-1-million-mark .html?query=number%20of%20sudanese%20refugees%20in%20uganda? 28.  Patterson and Kelley, “Unfinished Migrations”; see also Schiller, “Global Perspective.” 29.  Chandler, “Road to Military Humanitarianism”; Comaroff and Comaroff, Civil Society and the Political Imagination in Africa; Edwards, Civil Society; Stein and Fadlalla, Gendered Insecurities. 30.  Imber, “The UN and Global Citizenship”; Brysk, Speaking Rights to Power; Mamdani, “The New Humanitarian Order.” 31.  Appiah, Cosmopolitanism; Cabrera, Practice of Global Citizenship. 32.  di Leonardo, “White Ethnicities, Identity Politics, and Baby Bear’s Chair.” 33.  Basu, “Globalization of the Local/Localization of the Global.”



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34.  Grewal, Transnational America; Mutua, “Human Rights in Africa.” 35.  Leebaw, “Politics of Impartial Activism.” See also Action Aid’s training module, “The Convergence of Humanitarianism and Human Rights: Assorted Principles for a Common Project,” http://www.reliefweb.int/library/library/actionaid-rights2–2001.pdf. 36.  Fadlalla, Embodying Honor; de Waal, Famine Crimes. 37.  Jok, “Negotiating Security.” 38.  South Sudan NGO Forum. 39.  Sudan Tribune, “Report: 91 Foreign NGOs,” translated from Arabic. 40.  Christian Solidarity International, “Slave Liberation in Sudan.” See also Jacobs, “When Will We Act against Sudan’s Slave Trade?” 41.  I refer here to the surge of literature about slavery and suffering, particularly journalists’ coedited accounts with South Sudanese survivors, such as the Lost Boys of Sudan; see also Fadlalla, “Humanitarian Dispossession.” 42.  Flint and de Waal, Darfur. 43.  Fadlalla, Embodying Honor. 44.  Fadlalla, “Neoliberalization of Compassion”; Mamdani, Saviors and Survivors. 45.  For a discussion of the new interventionist doctrine drafted in 2005 under the rubric of the “responsibility to protect,” see Cremades, “R2P and the UN.” 46.  See HAC websites, section on procedures and regulations of humanitarian work, translated from Arabic, accessed May 30, 2018, http://hac.gov.sd/index.php/ar/pages/ details/99/98. 47.  Alsharq Al-Awsat, “Qatar Pleads to ‘Equality and Justice’ Movement,” translated from Arabic. See also RAF Foundation. 48.  See, for example, Bunch, “Women’s Rights as Human Rights”; Mohanty, Feminism without Borders. 49.  Basu, “Globalization of the Local/Localization of the Global.” 50.  Bernal and Grewal, Theorizing NGOs; Bernstein, “Militarized Humanitarianism.” 51.  Merry, Human Rights and Gender Violence. 52.  Ticktin, “The Gendered Human of Humanitarianism.” 53.  Razack, Casting Out; Fadlalla, “State of Vulnerability”; Fernandes, Transnational Feminism in the United States; Hawkesworth, Political Worlds of Women. 54.  Mutua, “Savages, Victims, and Saviors”; Schaffer and Smith, Human Rights and Narrated Lives. 55.  Fassin, “Humanitarianism as a Politics of Life.” 56.  Williams, Marxism and Literature; Berlant, Compassion. 57.  Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” I use the term “subaltern” in this book not to denote a fixed identity but to describe the deliberate positioning of subjects according to a hegemonic understanding of identity politics and the shifting regimes of labeling, categorization, and polarization that it produced. 58.  As many actors, activists, writers, and journalists in both the United States and the Sudan have noted, SudaneseOnline constitutes a “cyber-home away from home” for Sudanese across a range of social locations. According to exile Sudanese Bakri Abu Bakr, who manages the website from his home state of Arizona, SudaneseOnline, which receives two million hits a day, is an attempt to revive the University of Khartoum “café activism” and other discussion corners that students and the public used as platforms to debate

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urgent political issues. The University of Khartoum was the site of the two revolutions that toppled two military dictatorships, in October 1964 and April 1985. The Islamization and liberalization policies of the regime led to the Arabization of the curriculum and the decentralization of the university’s role through the establishment of private universities and educational institutions in multiple parts of the country. Many interlocutors I met in the United States and in the Sudan are avid readers of and contributors to SudaneseOnline and other cyberpublic Sudanese media.

Notes to Chapter 1 1.  The Good Lie is a Hollywood film produced in 2014 that tells the story of the resettlement in the United States of South Sudanese minors orphaned by the second North-South civil war. 2.  Scroggins, Emma’s War. 3.  The Lost Boys of Sudan are part of a broader phenomenon whereby children are recruited to serve as combatants in African conflict zones. The experiences of these children began to gain international attention by the end of the 1980s, leading to the drafting of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990 and the institution of the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict in 1998. Such efforts recognize children as constituting a special category deserving the rights of protection, assistance, and care, and acknowledge that the violation of these rights is a serious threat not only to family and international norms, but to global peace and security. See UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. 4.  Brauman, “Refugee Camps, Population Transfers, and NGOs.” 5.  Fassin, “Another Politics of Life.” 6.  I do not claim that these humanitarian publics are stand-alone platforms; rather, I envision them, in the Habermasian sense, as part of the structural transformation of the public sphere. They are characterized by their temporality, their rise and fall according to political urgency and circumstances. Humanitarian publics are best described as settings that are shared, and in competition with other publics. 7.  Evans-Pritchard, Nuer Religion. 8.  de Waal, “Exploiting Slavery”; Gabb, “McNair Report.” 9.  Christian Solidarity International, “Slave Liberation in Sudan.” 10.  The seder is a ritual that marks a commemorative retelling of the Israelites’ liberation from slavery in Egypt (the Exodus story). Jacobs, “When Will We Act against Sudan’s Slave Trade?” 11.  Ibid. 12.  “South Sudan’s Jewish Abolitionist,” Algemeiner. 13.  Christian Solidarity International, “Slave Liberation in Sudan.” 14.  “South Sudan’s Jewish Abolitionist,” Algemeiner. 15.  Abadi and Krischer, “Israel and the Horn of Africa”; Warburg, “The Sudan and Israel.” 16.  “South Sudan Vows to Establish Embassy in Jerusalem and Not Tel Aviv,” Sudan Tribune. 17.  Davis, “Studying Leviticus in Sudan.”



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18.  See “St. Josephine Bakhita,” accessed April 5, 2015, http://www.catholic.org /saints/saint.php?saint_id=5601 19.  For a thorough account of the history of slavery in the Sudan, see Sikainga, Slaves into Workers. 20.  Sharps, “Black Catholics in the United States.” 21.  “Sudan Catholics Turn to Darfur Saint,” Sudan Tribune. 22.  Ibid. 23.  National Black Catholic Congress, “Black Saints.” 24.  The chapel is located at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC. 25.  Shelby, “Pilgrimage Honors Special Madonna.” 26.  Lewthwaite, “‘Verify’ Sudan Slave Reports.” 27.  Gomez, Black Crescent; Diouf, Servants of Allah. 28.  Anti-Defamation League, “Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam.” 29.  Auda, “Duse Mohamad Ali.” 30.  Gibson, A History of the Nation of Islam, 11; Aidi, “Jihadis in the Hood.” 31.  Wainstock, Malcolm X, 49–50. 32.  Carson, Malcolm X: The FBI File, 171; Malcolm X, “Africa Eyes Us.” 33.  Malcolm X, “Africa Eyes Us.” 34.  Gaines, American Africans in Ghana. 35.  Aidi, “Slavery, Genocide, and the Politics of Outrage.” 36.  Khalid, “The African-American Divide over Sudan.” 37.  Ibid. 38.  Live 8 is a series of benefit concerts that took place in July 2005 in the G8 nations and South Africa. They were timed to precede the G8 Conference and Summit held at the Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire, Scotland, July 6–8, 2005; they also coincided with the twentieth anniversary of Live Aid. 39.  In 2011 Jal spoke alongside Kofi Annan and Martti Ahtisaari for CMI (Crisis Management Initiative) in Finland, Matt Dillon for Refugees International in Washington, DC, and Angelina Jolie at the International Criminal Court (ICC) for Cinema for Peace. 40.  See Gua Africa websites, accessed July 17, 2016, http://www.gua-africa.org. 41.  Matheson, “‘Lost Girls’ of Sudan.” 42.  Schaffer and Smith, Human Rights and Narrated Lives. 43.  Conrad, Heart of Darkness. 44.  Butt, “The Suffering Stranger,” 14. 45.  Richey and Ponte, Brand Aid. 46.  Barrie, Peter Pan; see a different adaptation of the popular Peter Pan story in Williams, Brothers in Hope. 47.  Barrie, Peter Pan. 48.  See also Holtzman, Nuer Journeys, Nuer Lives. 49.  Zimmerling, “Sudanese Refugee Makes New Life.” 50.  Ibid. 51.  Eastman, “Sudanese Man Rocks Rincon”; Jones, “Lost Boy of Sudan Embraces Education.” 52.  Eastman, “Sudanese Man Rocks Rincon.”

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53.  Ibid. 54.  Ibid. 55.  Ibid. 56.  The schism between Islam and Christianity that has shaped the debate about Sudan’s identity and the transnational alliances it engendered has been reproduced in many of the Lost Boys’ representations of their plight and is documented in their coedited memoirs and in documentary films and movies such as The Lost Boys of Sudan (2004), God Grew Tired of Us (2006), and The Good Lie (2014). 57.  Fadlalla, “Contested Borders of (In)humanity.” Thanks to Urban Anthropology for allowing the republication of parts of this article in this book. 58.  Comaroff and Comaroff, Modernity and Its Malcontents. 59.  Brauman, “From Philanthropy to Humanitarianism.” 60.  A phrase that often accompanied the Lost Boys’ stories and media representation. 61.  Raoul Wallenberg Lecture, University of Michigan, 2007; Sister Luise was the recipient of the Wallenberg Medal for that year. 62.  Ibid. 63.  Kleinman and Kleinman, “The Appeal of Experience, the Dismay of Images.” 64.  According to Micklina’s biographical sketch, she is considered the first “Lost Girl from South Sudan.” She originally comes from a village in Didinga Hills of South Sudan, and she is now settled in Boulder, Colorado, where she too founded a charity organization. Community of South Sudanese and American Women/Men (CSSAW), established in 2005, is Micklina’s effort to rescue other female victims of Africa’s longest civil war and recent conflict in Darfur. The organization is made up of a network of volunteers supervised and trained by Micklina. The group works with Sudanese girls “to mentor them to take on and conquer the hurdles of acculturation and foster self-sufficiency.” It also helps girls attain opportunities for education and occupations. As a child, Micklina reported, she witnessed terrible atrocities, endured starvation and separation anxiety from her family. She, like many Lost Boys, walked to the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. She finally found hope when she was taken to the Kenyan orphanage run by Sister Luise Radlemeier and began pursuing her education. She received her degree from the University of Colorado in 2008 and became an American citizen in 2009. See “Board of Directors,” CSSAW website, accessed April 1, 2014, http://www.csawcolorado.org/index .php?id=47&page=Board_of_Directors. 65.  Raoul Wallenberg Lecture 2007. 66.  Ibid. 67.  Efforts to engage diaspora populations in development plans are fostered by leading institutions, such as the World Bank as part of its attempt to address problems of poverty and underdevelopment in Africa. See World Bank, “African Diaspora Program.” 68.  The civil war between the North and the South was resolved after mediated negotiations between the warring parties resulted in the signing of a peace deal between the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and the government of the Sudan in the Kenyan city of Nifasha. The peace agreement was facilitated by US president George W. Bush and other European parties. The CPA terms privileged the Southern question and undermined other ethnic conflicts in the country. According to the CPA’s five-year term (2005–2010), the SPLA had to transform itself into a political party (Sudan People’s



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Liberation Movement/SPLM) in order to share the seat of power with the Khartoum government. A presidential election was required at the end of the agreement’s term to allow for a flexible and transparent transition to democratic governance, whether the country was unified or separated. Depending on the election results, Southerners had the right to self-determination through an independent referendum vote, which culminated in the creation of the Southern nation on July 9, 2011. 69.  Mission statement, conference brochure, 2009. 70.  Mabus, conference brochure, 2009. 71.  Patterson and Kelley, “Unfinished Migrations.” 72.  According to the organization’s 2009 mission statement, which was distributed at the conference, the United Sudanese Youth Organization was formed in 2005 to promote unity among Sudanese youths abroad, regardless of race, color, creed, gender, religious background, or ethnicity. The objective of the organization is to motivate youths about higher learning and raise awareness about diverse Sudanese cultures. 73.  Banet-Weiser, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World. 74.  “Supermodels and the Business of Fashion,” Ebony magazine. 75.  Ibid., 66. 76.  Fashion Model Directory entry for Alek Wek, accessed April 9, 2014, http://www .fashionmodeldirectory.com/models/Alek_Wek/.78.  77. Wek, From Sudanese Refugee to International Supermodel, 39. 78.  Ibid., 16. 79.  Ibid., 43. 80.  Ibid., 118. 81.  Ibid., 18. 82.  Ibid., 42. 83.  Ibid., 136. 84.  Shambhala and Bell, “A Week in the Life.” According to the interview, Ms. Wek also worked for the US Committee for Refugees; this work took her to the White House, where she spoke about Sudan and met with Hillary Clinton in September 1999. 85.  Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. 86.  Miss South Sudan, Representing the Republic of South Sudan (ROSS), online at http://www.missSouthsudan.com/beautycontest.htm. 87.  Ibid. 88.  See, for example, Banet-Weiser, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World. 89.  Sudaress.com, “Miss Southern Sudan Visit Cairo.”

Notes to Chapter 2 1.  The renowned poet Muhammad Al-Hassan Salim Hummaid was born in 1956. He is known as the poet of humanity, Sudanese struggle, and the voice of the poor and destitute. His poems, especially, “it’s my right to sing for my people” [min haqi aqani lisha‘abi], became mobilizing chants during demonstrations and civil protests (see also conclusion). For documentation of this poem see https://vb.alrakoba.net/threads /‫لشعبي‬-‫أغني‬-‫حقي‬-‫من‬-‫حميد‬-‫سالم‬-‫الحسن‬-‫محمد‬.180847/, accessed May 15, 2018. 2.  Kony 2012, accessed February 1, 2013, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4Mnpz G5Sqc.

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3.  The annual Secretary of State’s International Women of Courage Award was established in 2007 to honor women around the globe who, according to the US Department of State website, “have exemplified exceptional courage and leadership in advocating for peace, justice, human rights, gender equality, and women’s empowerment, often at great personal risk and sacrifice,” accessed July 3, 2016, and viewable at http://www.state.gov/s /gwi/programs/iwoc/. 4.  Bourdieu, Logic of Practice. See also Fadlalla, “Humanitarian Dispossession.” 5.  Traub, “The Celebrity Solution.” 6.  Malkki, “Citizens of Humanity”; Anderson, Imagined Communities. 7.  Mamdani, “The Politics of Naming.” I also refer here to Mahmood Mamdani and John Prendergast’s “Darfur debate,” which I attended in April 2009 at Columbia University, a video of which was accessed July 5, 2016, and is viewable at https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=yGOpfH_5_pY. 8.  Janjaweed means jinn (evil spirit) on horseback, an appropriated term used for militiamen from Abbala (camel herders) ethnic groups, recruited by the government to fight its war against the rebels in South and Western Sudan. 9.  Clooney was referring to the delayed response by the international community, especially the United States, to deter the Rwandan genocide of 1994. 10.  The Darfur rally was one among several protests organized by religious activists in various US cities on April 30, 2006. It also roughly coincided with a nationwide protest of Latino migrants that culminated at the National Mall on May 1, 2006. 11.  Rally brochure, April 30, 2006. 12.  See, for example, Simon Deng’s 2010 speech “Jihad and Islam” for the Freedom Defense Initiative, accessed June 24, 2016, and viewable at https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=XngNpFQ71M0. 13.  Interview with Simon Deng, Washington Journal radio program, April 30, 2006, accessed August 24, 2016, and viewable at https://www.c-span.org/video/?192251-4 /violence-sudan. 14.  Cooperman, “Groups Plan Rally on Mall.” 15.  See “Remarks by President George Bush on the Peace Agreement in Sudan.” 16.  According to Mahmood Mamdani, this is the largest movement since the mobilization against the Vietnam War in the 1960s. Mamdani, Saviors and Survivors. 17.  The ICC indictment of President Omar Albashir for war crimes and crimes against humanity constrained his travel to European Union countries as well as other Western and non-Western countries; Demirtas, “Turkey, EU Tension Mounting over Sudanese Leader’s Visit.” 18.  Fadlalla, Embodying Honor. 19.  See, for instance, Escobar, Encountering Development. 20.  UNAMID is the hybrid United Nations and African Union mission authorized by the Security Council in July 2007 to be stationed in Darfur, both to implement the Darfur Peace Agreement (signed in 2006 with some rebel factions) and to protect civilians in the area. 21.  DPDO annual report 2009, DPDO office, Washington, DC. 22.  Goodale, Surrendering to Utopia. 23.  These series of continuing negotiations began in 2009 to honor the previous



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treaties and negotiations among the Darfurian factions, especially the Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudan Liberation Movement, signed with the government of Khartoum. See, for instance, the Security Council Report’s December 2009 Monthly Forecast for Sudan/Darfur, accessed May 26, 2015, and available at http://www.securitycouncilreport .org/monthly-forecast/2009-12/lookup_c_glKWLeMTIsG_b_5614727.php. 24.  George Clooney and Ann Curry on the Today show, October 12, 2010, accessed January 11, 2013, and viewable at http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xf68ev_george -clooney-and-ann-curry-on-the_news. 25.  John Prendergast is a human rights activist who served as the director for African affairs at the National Security Council in the 1990s and later cofounded the Enough Project, a nonprofit organization concerned with anti-genocide and crimes against humanity activism; see the Enough Project website, accessed May 30, 2015, http://www .enoughproject.org/about. 26.  Clooney and Curry, Today show. 27.  “Star Power for Social Good: Clooney and Prendergast Speak Out about Sudan,” The Unofficial Stanford Blog, accessed October 21, 2013, http://tusb.stanford.edu/2010/11 /star-power-for-social-good.html. 28.  Satellite Sentinel Project website, accessed May 30, 2015, http://www.satsentinel .org/our-story. 29.  Mark, “Clooney’s ‘Antigenocide Paparazzi.’” 30.  Heaton, “Clooney, Prendergast Talk Sudan, with MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe’.” 31.  “George Clooney Witnesses War Crimes in Sudan’s Nuba Mountains,” accessed November 2, 2012, viewable at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p89OuPODBMM. 32.  See also the video by Nicholas Kristof, produced with Ryan Boyette, an American aid worker who moved to the Nuba Mountains in 2003 to serve with the evangelical relief mission Samaritans Purse; Boyette later married a Nuba woman, Jazira, and remained in Sudan after the end of his service, continuing his reporting as a freelancer. See also Brendan McDonald’s video Besieged in Sudan’s Nuba Mountains; Kristof, “The Man Who Stayed Behind (in Sudan).” 33.  Cremades, “R2P and the UN,” on the new interventionist doctrine drafted in 2005 under the rubric of the “responsibility to protect.” 34.  Erica Bornstein and Peter Redfield, “Genealogies of Suffering and the Gift of Care.” 35.  My follow-up interviews with some Sudanese activists who participated in the event and a video that one activist circulated on SudaneseOnline shed more light on Sudanese activists’ involvement in the Sheridan Circle demonstration and the protest in front of the Sudanese Embassy; see post by Kostawi (Nasr Aldin Hajam), “George Clooney in front of the Sudanese embassy,” translated from Arabic, March 12, 2012, accessed March 14, 2012, http://www.sudaneseonline.com/cgibin/sdb/2bb.cgi?seq=msg&board =380&msg=1331971089. 36.  African American politicians and other actors have long been involved in Sudanese political affairs, especially during the North-South war and the association it invoked with suffering and slavery (see chapter 1). 37.  Donald Payne, an advocate for Sudan and the African American congressional representative from New Jersey, died on March 6, 2012. 38.  Post by Kostawi, “George Clooney in front of the Sudanese embassy.”

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39.  Ibid. 40.  “SudanChangeNow: Not in Our Name . . . Open Letter to George Clooney,” translated from Arabic. 41.  See Kushkush, “In New Protests, Echoes of an Uprising that Shook Sudan.” 42.  See World Bank, “Sudan Review,” http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/sudan /overview; and “IMF and World Bank,” Sudan Tribune. 43.  See, for example, Baba, “Bay Area Sudanese Protest with Their Countrypeople.” 44.  Mutua, “Human Rights in Africa”; Bernal and Grewal, Theorizing NGOs; Marshall, Celebrity and Power; Ticktin, “Transnational Humanitarianism.” 45.  Lancaster, “State of Panic.” 46.  “Ghost houses” (biyut alashbah) is the term used by Sudanese activists to describe the disappearance of opposition leaders and activists and their detention at unknown locations where they are tortured, sexually assaulted, or killed. 47.  Richey and Budabin, “Celebritizing Conflict.” 48.  Harvey, The New Imperialism; Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism. 49.  I refer here to a UN World Food Program (WFP) brochure, titled “Fight Hunger, Walk the World,” handed to me by an activist on the Mall during the Darfur rally. The walk represented an attempt to raise awareness and funds to support the WFP’s schoolfeeding program and “bring the suffering of [more than 300 million] hungry children to the forefront of public attention.” 50.  Brauman, “From Philanthropy to Humanitarianism.” 51.  See also Said, Orientalism.

Notes to Chapter 3 1.  Mahjoub Sharif, born in Omdurman in 1948, was a Sudanese poet, known as the poet of the people (sha‘air alsha‘ab). His easy-to-digest poetry style, written in Sudanese colloquial Arabic, appeals to large sections of the population, and his work is sung by many different performers and musical groups. He is also known as a dreamer of unity, diversity, and peace, and as a secular and humane socialist whose poems celebrate the struggle of the poor and the working class in the Sudan. The poem “Aisha and Mary” questions war and conflict between the North and the South and calls for peace and reconciliation through a feminized impersonation of Aisha (representing the North) and Mary (representing the South). Sharif was imprisoned for his critique of the military dictatorship and for his provocative poetic style. He died on April 2, 2014. I use excerpts from this poem here as an illustration of popular secular voices in the Sudan that continue to inspire ideas of unity and nation building. See Youtube video of poet reciting the poem as part of performing his work at a Sudanese community cultural gathering in London in November 19, 2012, videotaped and produced by Sami Almak, accessed May 15, 2018, and viewable at https://youtube/8sesnqccd-8. 2.  Ghurba is a noun from Arabic (gharib) that translates as “stranger,” “foreigner,” or “exiled.” 3.  For privacy reasons, I slightly altered the names of people and places in this story. See also the introduction, where I introduce Khalid for the first time. 4.  Clifford, “Diasporas”; Clarke, Mapping Yoruba Networks; Pérez, The Near Northwest Side Story; García, Seeking Refuge.



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5.  Porta and Diani, Social Movements. 6.  Patterson and Kelley, “Unfinished Migrations.” 7.  ”A Sudanese Girl Deserves Courage Award in California,” November 22, 2007, translated from Arabic, accessed August 3, 2016, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAllGfJEyJI. 8.  Pérez, Citizen, Student, Soldier: Latina/o Youth, JROTC, and the American Dream. 9.  This untitled CD copy has five tracks. These excerpts are from track 3.The CD was given to me by Dawood after the interview. 10.  Clifford, “Diasporas”; Clarke, Mapping Yoruba Networks; Pérez, The Near Northwest Side Story; García, Seeking Refuge. 11.  Ali Amir, “The Way to Enjoy Social Services?” March 20, 2004, translated from Arabic, accessed March 28, 2004, http://sacdo.com/SACDOWeb?Categories.../040314 _ali_amir_social_services_1. 12.  Qabani, “The Power and Influence of the Sudanese Community,” March 13, 2004, translated from Arabic, accessed March 13, 2004, http://www.sacdo.com/SACDOWeb ?categories/featu.../040308_Jalia%20Articles.as3/13/2004. 13.  Holtzman, Nuer Journeys, Nuer Lives. 14.  Milk, “Teaming Up against Hatred.” 15.  Benhabib, The Claims of Culture; see also Ngai, Impossible Subjects. 16.  Alhurra [the Liberal], also known as Middle East Broadcasting Network (MBN), is an Arabic satellite news channel based in northern Virginia. It was established in response to the aftermath of 9/11 and tensions related to the Iraq War in 2004 to broadcast to audiences in the Middle East and North Africa and spread “democratic values by expanding the spectrum of ideas in the region”; see more details, accessed July 12, 2016, at https:// www.bbg.gov/networks/mbn/. 17.  Ehab’s song, “Nas Darfur”; Nas Jota, September 23, 2006, accessed July 12, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzNa6Heenro. 18.  Posted also on SudaneseOnline by Sudanese musician Yousif Almosely, under the title “New York Times and City Tune TV/ in a Largest Sudanese Musical Festival in America and the World,” July 23, 2007, translated from Arabic, accessed October 5, 2013, http://www .sudaneseonline.com/cgi-bin/sdb/2bb.cgi?seq=msg&board=140&msg=1185220260. 19.  Ibid.

Notes to Chapter 4 1.  From the popular song “baldan hili ana” [A Country I Call My Own,] performed by Hilahop, a Sudanese art and comedy group led by artist Tariq Alamin, whose performances lifted people’s morale and gave them hope during the height of tensions over the country’s division. 2.  Bashir and Lewis, Tears of the Desert. 3.  “Remarks by the President and Darfur Human Rights Activist Dr. Halima Bashir.” Standard Newswire. 4.  Ibid. 5.  Polleta, “Storytelling in Politics.” 6.  Appadurai, Modernity at Large; Foucault, Power/Knowledge; Foucault, Security, Territory, Population. 7.  Malkki, “Speechless Emissaries”; Mohanty, Feminism without Borders.

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8.  Harvey, The New Imperialism; Williams, Marxism and Literature. 9.  Kristof, “Tortured But Not Silenced.” 10.  Damien Lewis, “Author” website. 11.  CNN, “Survival in Darfur”; see also National Public Radio, “Darfur Women Scarred by Fighting.” 12.  In his New York Times op-ed piece, Nicholas Kristof corrected this information and reported that it was actually 110 girls, another example of how disputes about statistical data were part of the debate about atrocities of war and genocide in Darfur. For the increasing use of statistics as a technique of governmentality, see also Rottenburg and Merry, “A World of Indicators.” 13.  “Lifting the Veil,” The Economist. 14.  “Survival in Darfur,” CNN. 15.  Robinson, “Book Festival: Weekend Reviews.” 16.  These images were presented in a variety of mainstream Western and non-Western media such as CNN, Al Jazeera, and the New York Times. 17.  “Jan Egeland in Darfur,” Sudanile. 18.  Kleinman and Kleinman, “The Appeal of Experience, the Dismay of Images.” 19.  Moeller, Compassion Fatigue. 20.  The Darfur Peace Agreement of 2006, also known as the Abuja Agreement, was signed on May 5, 2006, by the government of the Sudan and a faction of the SLA led by Minni Minnawi (SLA-Minnawi). The agreement addressed the issues of national and state power-sharing; demilitarization of the Janjaweed and other militias; the integration of SLM/A and Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) troops into the Sudanese Armed Forces and police; a system of federal wealth-sharing for the promotion of Darfurian economic interests; a referendum on the future status of Darfur; and measures to promote the flow of humanitarian aid into the region. The agreement was rejected by two smaller groups: JEM and the rival faction of the SLA led by Abed-alwahid Alnur (SLA-Alnur). The accord was orchestrated by the chief negotiator, Salim Ahmed, on behalf of the African Union; US Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick; and AU representatives and other foreign officials operating in Abuja, Nigeria. Members of the AU and officials from Nigeria, Libya, the US, the UK, the UN, the EU, the Arab League, Egypt, Canada, Norway, and the Netherlands served as witnesses to the agreement. 21.  See, for instance, “Abed-alwahid Confirms Visit to Israel,” Al Jazeera Media Network. Also note here that Fur refers to the major ethnic group in western Sudan from which the name Darfur (land of the fur) is derived. 22.  Report by Khalid Izairiq, Alray Ala‘am. 23.  Robertson, “Protests Greet UN’s Egeland in Darfur.” 24.  IRIN, “Gender-Based Violence Still Rampant in Darfur.” 25.  See “Arcua Faction Demand[s] a Formal Apology,” translated from Arabic. 26.  Adam, “The Transnationalization of Darfur,” translated from Arabic. 27.  “Armed Fighters on the Streets of Gereida Town, South Darfur State,” Atlante Online. 28.  See also Powell, “Egyptians in Blackface.” 29.  “Sudanese Refugees in Egypt,” translated from Arabic, Sudanile. 30.  The UNHCR has argued that it needs to “prioritize help for people genuinely at



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risk of persecution and cannot solve issues of discrimination and deprivation in Egypt, where unemployment is high.” “Twenty Sudanese Die in Cairo Raid,” BBC News. 31.  “Journey among the Dead: Testimony of Survivors of the Cairo Massacre,” SudaneseOnline, translated from Arabic, accessed January 17, 2006, http://sudaneseonline .com/board/50/msg/Re%3A-‫من‬-‫نجوا‬-‫من‬-‫شهادات‬-‫الأموات‬-‫مع‬-‫رحلة‬-(1)-1137219144.html. 32.  Nora Younis’s official website, “Egypt Eye-Witness.” 33.  Aida Saif El-Dawla, who was honored in 2003 by Human Rights Watch as a leading human rights activist for her work against torture in Egypt, circulated an e-mail message to undisclosed recipients on January 5, 2006, titled “I Was There and Saw Everything.” 34.  Das, “The Act of Witnessing.” 35.  Younis, “Egypt Eye-Witness.” 36.  Tamer Wageeh, in “A massacre against Sudanese refugees in Cairo—Urgent,” an e-mail message to undisclosed recipients, December 30, 2005. Like Aida Saif El-Dawla, Tamer Wageeh is a visible political activist who grounds his defense of human rights in Egypt’s left-wing politics. See Howeidy, “What Is Left of the Left.” 37.  Keenan, “Mobilizing Shame.” 38.  Carr, “Sudanese Refugees Still Detained.” 39.  Kawaja is a term used in both Egypt and Sudan to refer to colonial Europeans; khawaja in Sudanese Arabic. 40.  Agamben, Homo Sacer. 41.  Fassin, “Compassion and Repression.” 42.  Carr, “Sudanese Refugees Still Detained.” 43.  Tafur, Rightful Yet Right-less. 44.  Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers, Sixth Session, Summary Record of the 51st Meeting, Geneva, April 24, 2007, accessed March 17, 2017, online at docstore.ohchr.org/SelfServices/FilesHandler.ashx?enc. 45.  Alnur defected from the SLM after it, represented by Minni Minnawi, signed the Abuja Peace Agreement in 2006. For more links to Alnur’s office in Israel, see “Darfur and the New Israeli Dimension.” 46.  IRIN (formerly Integrated Regional Information Networks) is a United Nations humanitarian news agency based in Nairobi, Kenya; see http://www.irinnews.org. 47.  The program was posted on SudaneseOnline in April 2008 from a YouTube broadcast, and had been accessed by 22,272 viewers by March 14, 2008. The video, Israel Saves Sudanese Girl Fleeing Sudan and Egypt, accessed January 28, 2017, is viewable at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQyzfakDCQc. 48.  Ibid. Video Israel Saves Sudanese Girl Fleeing Sudan and Egypt. See also “Egypt Police Shoot Sudanese Migrant,” Haaretz. 49.  Kershner, “Israel Returns Illegal African Migrants.” 50.  Nkrumah, “Here Today, Gone Tomorrow.” 51.  Israel Saves Sudanese Girl Fleeing Sudan and Egypt. 52.  Written in Hebrew, subtitled in English; emphasis mine. From Video Israel Saves Sudanese Girl Fleeing Sudan and Egypt. 53.  Shohat, Introduction to Talking Visions. 54.  Kershner, “Africans Continue to Protest in Israel.” 55.  Velmer, “Celebrities Unite against Deportation of Refugees.”

246

Notes to Chapters 4 and 5

56.  Derfner, “No Promised Land for Refugees.” 57.  Ibid. 58.  Kessler, “Tel Aviv Parties in Solidarity with Migrants.” 59.  Fadlalla, Embodying Honor. 60.  The University of Juba in South Sudan was established in 1975 during Nimeiri’s regime, in response to calls of equitable regional and national developments. During the years of wars and instability in the South, the university relocated to Khartoum. 61.  Abdalla, “A New Victim of Phosphoric Acid,” translated from Arabic 62.  Balal, “Sana’s Tragedy, Officials Are Silent,” translated from Arabic. 63.  See also “Public Opinion Case: Sana’s Misery: Tricked by the Husband, the Brother Committed (the Misery),” translated from Arabic, SudaneseOnline, February 27, 2008, accessed March 28, 2013, http://www.sudaneseonline.com/ar/article_17649.shtml. 64.  Alray Ala‘am Discussion Forum, “What Is Kept Silent Regarding Women’s Issues: Sana as an Example,” translated from Arabic, posted by Bakri Abu Bakar on SudaneseOnline, March 3, 2008, accessed January 28, 2017, http://sudaneseonline.com/msg/board/150 /msg/1204664748/rn/2.html. 65.  Laws of Sudan, “Personal Status Law for Muslims,” 2014. 66.  Balal, “Sana’s Tragedy, Officials Are Silent.” 67.  Asad, Genealogies of Religion. 68.  Bornstein, Disquieting Gifts. 69.  Gettleman, “U.S. Diplomat and Driver Are Shot Dead in Sudan.” 70.  “Sudanese to Hang over US Killing,” BBC News. 71.  The cartoon images, one of which showed Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist wearing a bomb as a turban, had sparked outrage, massive protests, and economic boycotts of Danish products in many Muslim and Middle Eastern countries. 72.  UNAMID websites, accessed May 28, 2018, https://unamid.unmissions.org /about-unamid-0??? 73.  “Sudanese Army Declares the Death of Eight Martyrs at Salia’a Battles,” translated from Arabic, Alsudani. 74.  Henshaw, “Assault Heralds Change in Sudan.” 75.  Khalil was later killed, by a government missile strike at 3:00 a.m., on December 25, 2011, on his way from Libya to join the newly formed revolutionary front after the secession of South Sudan. He fled Libya after the fall of Muammar al-Qaddafi, who gave him sanctuary as well as financial and military support. 76.  Adam, “Sudan Celebrates Its Independence,” translated from Arabic. 77.  “The Execution of the Death Penalty on the Murderers of the Child, Muram,” translated from Arabic, Alsudani. The story was circulated on various discussion boards, including SudaneseOnline. Two cases of violence against children were also publicized after Muram’s case and tried similarly under the newly ratified child protection law in 2010, before the country’s partition in 2011.

Notes to Chapter 5 1.  “Lubna’s Pants Earn Two Millard Sudanese Pounds,” translated from Arabic. AlAhdath, Khartoum, Sudan, November 13, 2009, circulated on several Sudanese websites,



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including the “I Am Lubna” website, accessed November 23, 2009, and viewable at http:// iamlubna.com/html. Translation is mine. 2.  “Lubna Ahmad Al-Hussein, Sudanese Journalist and Activist,” France 24; “Sudan Fines Trouser-Wearing Woman”; see also Amnesty International, 2009. 3.  I use the term “translocal” to indicate that the local is no longer an autonomous entity; it is, rather, shaped by global processes through the fluid circulation of people, capital, and ideas; see Ong, “Cyberpublics and Diaspora Politics.” 4.  Alarcón, Kaplan, and Moallem, Introduction to Between Woman and Nation. 5.  Shisha is a flavored-tobacco water pipe associated with Middle Eastern cultures. 6.  This margin of liberties allowed for freedom of press and assembly, among others. Nifasha is the Kenyan city where the CPA was signed. 7.  Al-Hussein and Tager, 40 Lashes for Wearing Trousers, translated from French. 8.  Apni Community, French Minister Condemns Charges against Lubna. 9.  Sarkozy, “Allocution de Nicolas Sarkozy.” 10.  “French President Vows Support for Sudan Trouser Woman,” Sudan Tribune; see also “UN Ban Ki-Moon Says Deeply Concerned by Sudan Trousers Trial,” Sudan Tribune. 11.  Scott, The Politics of the Veil; Bowen, Why the French Don’t like Headscarves. 12.  Abu-Lughod, “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?” 13.  Fadlalla, Embodying Honor. 14.  de Leeuw and Wichelen, “Please, Go Wake Up!” 15.  The event was organized by Campaign for Freedom of Conscience, Thought, and Expression and took place at SPLM headquarters in Khartoum on August 27, 2009. 16.  See Asad, “Reflection on Laïcité and the Public Sphere”; Keaton, Muslim Girls and the Other France; Diouf, “Why did Sarkozy . . . ,” translated from French. 17.  Azikiwe, “French-U.S. Imperialist Interests behind Chad-Sudan Conflicts.” 18.  “EUFOR Soldier Attacked by Sudan Helicopters,” Sudan Tribune. 19.  The publication of Prophet Muhammad cartoons in the Danish Jyllands-Posten newspaper and the publicity of the Hirsi Ali case in Holland associated the Danish and Dutch governments with anti-Muslim sentiment in Sudan and other Muslim countries (see also chapter 4). 20.  Sudan Public Television, Daily News at 7 a.m., March 14, 2009. 21.  Hale, Gender Politics in Sudan. 22.  Murdock, “Another Muslim Woman Fights Oppression, Atrocity.” 23.  Yusif, Sudan Human Rights Organization Bulletin. 24.  Post by Manahil Ibrahim on SudaneseOnline, September 7, 2009, “Women in Detention,” translated from Arabic, accessed January 28, 2017, http://sudaneseonline.com /cgi-bin/sdb/2bb.cgi?seq=msg&board=439&msg=1282708728&rn=1. 25.  “Newspaper Forced Shut after Call,” Sudan Tribune, 26.  “Yasir Arman Responds to NCP Religious Scholars Fatwa,” SudaneseOnline, April 25, 2009, translated from Arabic, accessed April 26, 2009, http://sudaneseonline .com/ar2161/publish/_1/Sudan_News_A249.shtml. 27.  “Arman’s Public Address at Al-Khatim Adlan Center, Khartoum, Sudan” SudaneseOnline, May 19, 2009, translated from Arabic, accessed June 19, 2009, http://sudaneseonline .com/board/200/msg/1242149595.html. 28.  Yasir Arman Accuses the Public Order Police with Corruption. YouTube video.

248

Notes to Chapter 5

Public address at John Garang’s fourth memorial day, Jabal Awlia, Khartoum, Sudan, July 25, 2009, accessed September 25, 2009, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiFPXBmYV-I. 29.  “Justice Department Receives an Order to Revoke Arman’s Immunity,” translated from Arabic, Akhir Lahza. 30.  “A Martyr to Her Trouser,” The Economist. 31.  Yousif Manan, “A Call to Shorten Girls’ Dresses in the Name of Struggle and Liberties,” translated from Arabic. 32.  Mihira bint Abboud is a female Sudanese legend who is said to have threatened the men in her clan by saying she would wear her rahat (leather miniskirt) and fight the war against the Anglo-Egyptian armies on their behalf. The threat was meant to feminize the men and thus motivate them to fight. Legend has it that thanks to Mihira’s courage, her male kin fought fiercely during the 1884 Battle of Korti in Northern Sudan. 33.  Petition, “I Am Lubna” website, October 20, 2009, http://iamlubna.com/petition .html. 34.  Ibid. 35.  Ibid. 36.  Ibid. 37.  Patterson and Kelley, “Unfinished Migrations”; Clifford, “Diasporas.” 38.  New Woman Foundation, Interview with Lubna, September 3, 2009, accessed February 16, 2017, http://nwrcegypt.org/‫حوا‬-‫في‬-‫الحسيني‬-‫لبنى‬-‫السودانية‬-‫الصحفية‬/. 39.  See documentation of the event posted by activist Najla Sid Ahmad (from Khartoum) on SudaneseOnline, January 8, 2010, “Young Silva Exposes the Public Order Law after Her Trial,” translated from Arabic, accessed January 10, 2017, http://www.sudaneseonline .com/cgibin/sdb/2bb.cgi?seq=msg&board=341&msg=1282023422. 40.  See Young Silva Tells the Experience of Her Oppression by the Public Order Police, translated from Arabic, YouTube video, accessed May 15, 2013, http://www.youtube.com /watch? v=5JXy_FDczQg. 41.  The video is viewable at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBJRsh4bn3k&oref =https%3A%2F%2F. 42.  For the history of this campaign, see http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw /news/vawd.html. 43.  An-Na‘im, Islam and the Secular State. 44.  Group against Torture in Sudan (GATS), “GATS Calls for Elimination of Sharia.” 45.  See post by Ameen Alnasri on SudaneseOnline, December 9, 2010, accessed March 13, 2013, http://www.sudaneseonline.com/cgibin/sdb/2bb.cgi?seq=msg&board =310&msg=1291899501. 46.  “The Police Suspect the Timing and the Motives of Releasing the Woman’s Video,” translated from Arabic, Sudanile. 47.  Al Jazeera Media Network, “South Sudan: The Referendum of Self-Determination.” 48.  See post by Najla Sid Ahmad on SudaneseOnline, December 14, 2010, accessed December 19, 2013, http://www.sudaneseonline.com/cgibin/sdb/2bb.cgi?seq=msg&board =310&msg=1292355865. 49.  Said, Covering Islam; Mohanty, Under Western Eyes. 50.  See post by Deng Goc, “From the Court,” SudaneseOnline, translated from Arabic,



Notes to Chapter 5 and Conclusion

249

September 7, 2009, accessed January 28, 2017, http://sudaneseonline.com/cgi-bin/sdb/2bb .cgi?seq=msg&board=486&msg=1255411821&rn=13. 51.  Posted on SudaneseOnline, September 13, 2009, http://sudaneseonline.com. 52.  See note 50 above post by Deng Goc on “From the Court,” SudaneseOnline. 53.  Ibid. 54.  Douglas, Purity and Danger; Stoler, “Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power”; Bledsoe, Contingent Lives. 55.  Lubna Al-Hussein, “They Flog the Weak . . . ,” translated from Arabic. 56.  “Two Women Arrested with Lubna Al-Hussein Sentenced with 20 Lashes in the Sudan,” translated from Arabic, Alarabiya News. 57.  “Bodies of an Engineer and a University Student Found [featuring] Another Crime in Khartoum,” translated from Arabic. 58.  “Friday Khutba,” Blue Nile Channel, Sudan Television, August 14, 2009. 59.  Daily News at 7 a.m., March 14, 2009, Sudan Public Television. 60.  “Sudan Advocacy Groups React to General Gration’s Statements to the Washington Post.” 61.  “UNAMID’s Adada Resigned to Protest against Six Month Renewal,” Sudan Tribune. 62.  See note 19 of the introduction about the popular October Revolution. 63.  “The Opposition Calls for a Political Revolution to Defeat the NCP in the Coming Elections,” translated from Arabic. 64.  I use the term “trans-sovereign” here to highlight the ways in which ideas about universal rights and humanity, for instance, transcend borders and are used by Sudanese in Sudan and in exile to protest against the government. 65.  Said, Orientalism; Mohanty, Under Western Eyes; Mohanty, Feminism without Borders. 66.  Mutua, “Human Rights in Africa.” 67.  Douglas, Purity and Danger. 68.  This argument parallels that of Martin, “The End of the Body?”

Notes to Conclusion 1.  I refer here to some verses in the Sudanese anthem that imagine the nation as equal to other nations in the international global order. 2.  Gitano, “Before I Become a Foreigner,” translated from Arabic. 3.  The government of the Sudan did, however, negotiate a deal in 2012, known as the Four Freedoms Treaty, that allowed citizens of the two nations the right of movement, trade, work, and ownership of property. 4.  Sooka, “Statement by Yasmin Sooka.” 5.  UNICEF press release, February 21, 2017. 6.  Knopf, “Ending South Sudan’s Civil War.” 7.  Sengupta, “South Sudan, Mass Killings, Rapes, and the Limits of U.S. Diplomacy.” 8.  “South Sudan: Nationhood and the Challenges Ahead.” 9.  The Sudanese musician and singer Muhammad Wardi, known for his national songs for unity and revolution, died February 18, 2012. He was born in Sawarda village,

250

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Northern Sudan, in 1932, and lived in exile during some periods of his life, including in the United States. Also, on March 22, 2012, Muhammad Ibrahim Nuqud, the secretary general of the Sudanese Communist Party since 1971, died in London. He was born in Qitina town, in central Sudan, in 1930. And on March 20, 2012, the poet Muhammad AlHassan Salim Hummaid (see chapter 2 epigraph), died in an automobile accident while driving from his birth village, Nori, in Northern Sudan to the capital city of Khartoum. In addition to these sad events, the poet Mahjoub Sharif died in the Sudan on April 2, 2014 (see chapter 3 epigraph). 10.  Fatima Ahmed Ibrahim was born in Khartoum in 1933. She is known for her long-lived fight for women’s rights to vote, hold political office, and work in public spaces in the Sudan. She cofounded the Sudanese Women’s Union in 1952, and presided over it in 1956. She was also the chief editor of the SWU’s monthly magazine, Woman’s Voice. After the October Revolution of 1964 that toppled the first military dictatorship in the country, Ibrahim became the first woman parliamentarian. Her encounter with military dictatorships and the violence they inflicted on their political opponents touched her personally, as her husband, unionist and left-wing leader Alshafi‘a Ahmed Alshaikh, was executed by President Jaafar Nimeiri shortly after a failed communist-led coup attempt in 1971. During Nimeiri’s regime, Ibrahim suffered interrogation, detention, and house arrests, until she sought asylum in the United Kingdom in 1990. She was an active member of the Sudanese jalia in London, and she continued to rally for human rights and democratization from exile. Her long-term fights won her the United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights in 1993 and the Ibn Rushd Prize for Freedom of Thought in 2006. She is buried in Khartoum. 11.  See, for instance, video of the funeral procession of the poet Muhammad AlHassan Salim Hummaid, posted on YouTube, March 21, 2012, accessed February 23, 2017, and viewable at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeLqbD3ELvE. His poem “It’s My Right to Sing for My People,” translated from Arabic, excerpts of which appear in the epigraph for chapter 2, became a mobilizing chant during demonstrations and civil protests. 12.  See, for instance, the post by Ali Hassan on SudaneseOnline, “Art Work of Mohamed Bahnas,” December 20, 2013, accessed February 23, 2017, http://sudaneseonline .com/board/450/msg/-drawing-with-light—1387523487.html. 13.  See video of the performance and listen to lyrics posted on YouTube, December 26, 2013, accessed February 15, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57HW0TIw47I. 14.  Wasil, “Bahnas Artist Honored in France.”

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Index

Page numbers in italics refer to illustrative material. Abbas, Abdel Rahman, 179 Abboud, Ibrahim, 234n19 Abboud, Mihira, 201, 248n32 Abdul-Ali, Hodari, 36 Abed-Alhai, Muhammad, 1, 233n1 abolitionist movement, 32 Abu ‘araki Albakhait, 144 Abu Bakr, Bakri, 235–36n58 Abuja Agreement (Darfur Peace Agreement), 154, 155, 156, 162, 180, 240n20, 244n20, 245n45. See also Doha negotiations Abu-Lughod, Lila, 192 Abyei region, conflict over, 92, 93, 94, 222 accountability, issue of, 16, 39, 44, 139 Addis Abba peace agreement, failure of, 234n20 Adiyib, Nabil, 210 advocacy education, 76 affective violence, 22–23, 25, 29–30, 33, 53, 66, 118, 146, 149, 163, 178. See also specific narratives Affleck, Ben, 104 Afghanistan, 66, 112 Africa, 6, 10, 13, 39, 41–42, 67, 76, 112, 142, 150 “Africa Eyes Us” (Malcolm X), 35 African/Africanism, polar categories

involving, 4, 9, 10, 17, 34, 35, 36, 93, 95, 112–13, 137, 151, 218. See also pan-Africanism African Americans, 30, 32, 33–34, 35, 36, 97, 241n36 African Times and Orient Review, 34 African Union, 91, 153, 154, 155, 155–56, 225, 240n20, 244n20 African Union/United Nations Hybrid Operation in Dafur. See UNAMID Against a Tide of Evil (Kapila and Lewis), 150 Ahmad, Mahasin, 132–34, 138, 167, 168, 169 Ahmad, Sharhabil, 142, 144 Ahmed, Salim, 244n20 Ahtisaari, Martti, 237n39 ‘aid aladha (Sacrifice Festival) event, 107, 108, 127, 134, 135 “Aisha and Mary” (Sharif), 107, 242n1 Ajak, Atong, 62 Ajak, Benjamin, 40–41 Ajras Al-Huriyya (newspaper), 208 Al-Ahdath (newspaper), 185 Al-Ahram (newspaper), 164 Alamin, Awad, 167, 169, 172 Alamin, Muhammad, 142 Alamin, Sana, 166–67, 168, 169, 170–71,

268

Index

172, 173–74, 175, 176–77, 178, 179, 183 Alamin, Tariq, 147, 243n1 Albalabil, 142 Albashir, Omar Hassan, 12, 18, 33, 73, 79, 90, 92, 150, 166, 183, 190, 193, 202, 211, 240n17 Alfadil, Shadia, 128 Algadi, Muhammad, 210 Algadi, Nashua, 136 Algazali, Fatma, 212–13 Alhassan, Nahid Muhammad, 173, 208 Alhurra (Middle East Broadcasting Network), 139, 243n16 Al-Hussein, Lubna, 185–86, 188–190, 191–93, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199– 206, 207, 208, 209, 212, 214–16, 218 Ali, Ayaan Hirsi, 191, 247n19 Ali, Duse Mohamed, 34 Ali, Noble Drew, 34 alienation, sentiment of, 118, 222 Al Jazeera, 1, 108, 141, 211, 244n16 All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS), 129 Al-Mahadi, Al-Sadiq, 217 Al-Mahadi, Rabah Al-Sadiq, 198, 208 Alnur, Abed-alwahid, 154, 155, 162–63, 180, 193, 244n20, 245n45 Alray Ala‘am (Public Opinion) (newspaper), 170, 172 Alsanhori, ‘Ala, 227 Alseed, Nimat Awad, 122–23 Alshafa (newspaper), 189, 190 Alshaikh, Alshafi‘a Ahmed, 250n10 Alsharq Al-Awsat (Middle East) newspaper, 141 Al-Sherbini, Marwa, 190 Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory, missile strike on, 13 alternative media, 40, 138. See also media coverage; specific media Altahir, Alfatih, 127 Al-Turabi, Hassan, 12–13, 85, 234n23

Amber Chand collection, 82 American Africans in Ghana (Gaines), 35 American Anti-Slavery Group (AASG), 17, 30, 31 American-ness, 64 American University, 52, 60 Amnesty International, 34, 37, 81, 230 Anderson, Benedict, 7 Andrews, Tom, 98 Anglo-Egyptian rule, independence from, 9, 181 Annan, Kofi, 237n39 Ansar Alsuna (Resurgence of Prophet Muhammad’s Teachings), 172 Ante Up for Africa, 87, 88 anthem, 221, 249n1 anthropological approach, 8, 148 antiwar movement, 114 apartheid, 110 Appadurai, Arjun, 8 Arab/Arabism, polar categories involving, 3, 4, 9, 10, 17, 34, 35, 36, 93, 95, 112–13, 137, 151, 218. See also panArabism Arab-Dinka peace agreement, 30 Arab International Media, 116 Arabization, 236n58 Arab League, 91, 244n20 Arab Spring, 97, 100 Arman, Yasir, 99–100, 196–97, 198, 199–200 arranged marriage, 166, 171 asylum, 14, 114, 121, 141, 143, 152, 157, 176, 250n10 audiopolitics, meaning of, 25–26, 104, 148, 224 Australia, 14 Awad, Rasha, 208, 212, 213 Awadalla, Sireen, 136 Awtar Alnil (Strings of the Nile), 139, 168 Badawi, Samar, 66 bad vs. good construct, 17



Bahnas, Muhammad Hussein, 221, 227–28, 229 Bakhita, Saint Josephine, 32–33 Balal, Dia, 172, 173–74, 176 “baldan hili ana” (A Country I Call My Own) (Alamin), 147, 243n1 Banks, Tyra, 55 bare humanity, under assault, reminders of, 21–22 bare life, biopolitics of, impact of, 162 Barth, Fredrik, 8 Bashir, Halima (pseudonym), 19, 147– 48, 150–52, 153, 177–78, 179, 181 Basu, Amrita, 20 BBC, 116, 141, 204 Beauty and Brain, 61 beauty/modeling industry, 54–55, 57–58, 59–60, 61–62, 63 Beja people, 17, 73, 80 benevolence (fa‘ailyin alkhair), 176 Biafran War, 21 Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, 50 bin Laden, Osama, 13, 73 black African identity, categorized by. See African/Africanism, polar categories involving black nationalism, 34 blackness, defined in relation to, 30, 55 Black Panthers, 131 black vs. white construct, 32, 113 Blood Diamonds (film), 40 Blue Nile, 13, 18, 66, 94–95, 95–96, 101, 226 Blue Nile Channel, 216 Bono, 58 border control, 145, 161, 163 border-crossing experiences, 143–44 Bosnia, 72, 224 Bowman, Dave, 48–49, 51 Boyette, Ryan, 241n32 Britain, 19, 34, 37, 57, 143, 193, 201, 203, 204, 214, 244n20, 250n10 British embassy, 165, 179

Index

269

Brown, Gordon, 152 Burgess, Susan, 82, 83, 86–87 Burma, 75, 77, 81 burning whips ritual, 198, 200. See also flogging burq‘a. See veiling Burundi, 8 Bush, George W., 17, 68, 71, 73–74, 130, 147–48, 150, 179, 238n68 Butt, Leslie, 39 Campaign for Freedom of Conscience, Thought, and Expression, 247n15 Canada, 41, 52, 76, 140, 143, 244n20 Canadian embassy, 165 capitalist ethos, 58, 92, 102, 103. See also neoliberalism cartoons, offensive, 180, 246n71, 247n19 categories, polar. See polar categorization/polarization categorizations, simple, defying, 7 CatholicOnline, 32 “causeumerism” economy, 39 Cease Fire (album), 28 celebrities: currency of, 55, 58, 104; era of activism by, aspects of, exploring, 25; mobilization of, increasing, 66–68, 138; ranking, based on global causes, 67; role of, as global citizens, 18; visibility issues associated with, 67. See also specific celebrities celebritization, 105 celebrity role models, status as, 19, 41, 46, 61–62 “Celebrity Solution, The” (Traub), 67 Central Park event, 140, 141–45 Chad, 14, 180, 181, 193 charitable giving, issue with, 176–77 Cheadle, Don, 18, 69, 87, 94 Cheek, Joey, 76 child abuse, 182, 217 child custody, 172 childhood, 42

270

Index

child protection laws, 182, 246n77 children: conscription of, 27, 38, 39; designation of, as a special category, 236n3; illegitimate, increase in, 217; kidnapping of, by humanitarian groups, 181–82; murdered, attention on, 160, 182, 246n77; plight of, familiar representations of, 28, 70; of refugees, conflicting representations of the Sudan to, issues with, 229–230 China, 13, 62, 92, 94 Chol, Deng, 45, 46 Christian/Christianity, polar categories involving, 3, 4, 9–10, 30, 34, 35, 62, 71–72, 73–74, 93, 95, 137, 151, 191, 197, 199, 207–8, 232, 238n56 Christian Solidarity International (CSI), 17, 30, 32–33, 36 Cinema for Peace, 237n39 citizenship: conflicting imagination of, 7; dual, 222, 229; liminal and incomplete, youth refugees with, 51; mobilizing narratives to claim, 19; secondary, 118, 142, 194, 231. See also global citizens citizenship rights: African American struggle for, 35; denied, in the Sudan, 132; equal, 213; future of, issues surrounding, 232; reassertion of, in exile, aspects involving, 25, 110, 115, 118, 120 citizenship test, 221 City Cultural Center, 134 civil rights movement, 35, 110, 112 Clinton, Hillary, 66, 78, 239n84 Clooney, George, 18, 37, 141; arrest of, 66, 95, 96, 97, 98, 100; central role played by, 69–70, 93–94, 98–99; collaborating with, 74–75; critique of efforts by, 100–101; currency-like image of, 104; documentary film by, xix, 69; endorsement by, recognition from, 28; media coverage of, 66, 97, 98; at the National Mall event, 68, 69, 70; on Rwanda, 69, 240n9; televised

appearances, 69–70, 93; YouTube video by, 96–97 Clooney, Nick, 69, 98 CNN, 150–51, 152, 153, 154, 244n16 Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, 37 Cold War era, 11, 12, 16, 35 colonialism, 9, 10, 12, 21, 67, 74, 113, 157, 187, 193, 195, 214, 225, 245n39 colonial laws, 214 colonization, 73, 217 color categories, nuanced, subscribing to, 113 Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan, 224 commodification, 54, 103, 105 communism, fall of, 6, 8, 11 Communist Party, 101, 200, 234n21, 250n9 community leaders, emergence of, 127, 129. See also specific leaders Community of South Sudanese and American Women/Men (CSSAW), 238n64 community organizing/building, 118–19, 128, 129, 137, 174. See also Sudanese American Community Development Organization; Sudanese American Women’s Organization community weekend schools, 122–23, 124, 136 compassion fatigue, 1, 97 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), 1, 16, 17, 44, 53, 59, 71, 91, 92, 93, 94, 102, 135, 138, 148, 173, 179, 189, 196– 97, 203, 207–8, 217, 226, 238–39n68, 247n6 Congo, 75, 77, 81, 112 Congo Conflict Mineral Act, 79 conscription, 27, 37, 38, 39 conservatism, 14, 110, 122, 123, 130, 175, 186, 196, 232. See also neoconservatism consumerism, 54, 55, 58, 188



contexts, broader, importance of, 178 Control Arms Campaign, 37 Cooperative Housing Foundation (CHF), 90 counter-narratives, charting, 23–24, 178. See also specific narratives Criminal Act of 1991 (Article 152), 185, 197, 202–3, 204, 205, 206, 214, 215 Criminal Act of 1991 (Articles 154 and 155), 210 Crisis Management Institute (CMI), 237n39 cultural familiarity, 137 cultural norms, issue of, 152 cultural politics, identity and. See identity politics Culture Day Event, 134 Curry, Ann, 93 cyberpublics, 7, 24, 140, 149, 158, 161, 196, 228. See also specific cyberpublic forums Dafalla, Omar, 201–2 dance group, 133–34 Darfur: appealing to the Lost Boys to also focus on, 53; clashing narratives involving, 5; confrontations over NGOs in, 18; and debate over naming, counting, and labeling, 68, 81; decreasing attention toward, attempt to regain, 1, 2; designing a course about, 75; early phase of mobilization for, 138; emphasis on sharia law and Northerners from, 226; eruption of conflict in, migration impacted by, 13; escalation of conflict in, impacts of, 16, 68, 141, 165, 193; focus shifting to, 66; fragmented approach manifested in activism for, 95–96, 100; increasing attention toward, impact of, 17–18, 68–69, 75, 112, 178; name of, origin of, 244n21; overshadowed by focus on South Sudan, 1, 91–92, 95; production

Index

271

and circulation of narratives involving, 21; representations of, issues over, 4; “second wave” activism involving, aspects involved in, 25, 29; visibility of refugees and immigrants from, 6. See also specific aspects involving Darfur DarfurFast, 76 Darfur Peace Agreement (Abuja Agreement), 154, 155, 156, 162, 180, 240n20, 244n20, 245n45. See also Doha negotiations Darfur Peace and Development Organization (DPDO), 82–83, 84, 86–87, 88, 92 Darfur Rehabilitation Project (DRP), 88–89 Darfur Transitional Regional Authority, 155 Dateline (TV program), 93 Davis, Kristin, 65 Dawood, Abdel Qadir, 115–17 Deby, Idris, 181 decolonization, 195, 225 demasculinization, 154–55, 156 Democratic and Republican parties, 93–94 Deng, Daniel, 31 Deng, Francis, 10 Deng, Simon, 71 Deng, Valentino, 48, 59 Denmark, 180, 246n71, 247n19 development plans/projects, 38, 44, 48–49, 50, 51, 59, 64, 80, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 92, 128, 223, 238n67, 246n40. See also nation-building diaspora publics: alternative narratives grounded in, 25, 231; aspirations of, expression of, sites of, 23, 137–38; benefits of, 145, 146; expanding, 138– 39; formation of, meaning of, 109, 110, 118, 227, 228; influence of, 229, 230, 231; informal, 107–8, 125; issues surrounding, 14, 23, 109, 110, 228–29;

272

Index

locating stories in, 187; reimaginings by, 7. See also humanitarian publics; specific public spheres, organizations/ groups, and people DigitalGlobe, 94 di Leonardo, Micaela, 15 Dillon, Matt, 237n39 Dinka (ethnic group), 10–11, 40, 51, 223 divorce, 171, 172, 173 Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), 58, 86, 191, 194 Doha negotiations, 88, 91, 92, 93, 177, 179, 181, 240–41n23 domesticity, images of, 153 Douglass, Frederick, 32, 33 dual citizenship, 222, 229 Duke, Annie, 87 Durani, Maryam, 66 Dutch. See Netherlands/Holland Eastern Sudan, 16, 17, 73, 80, 226 Ebony (magazine), 55 economic crisis, 11, 12, 101, 113 economic sanctions, 13, 16, 68, 92, 103, 188, 193, 217 Economist (magazine), 200 educating activists, 76 educational institutions: cultural tolerance at, issue of, 110–11; DPDO support for, 83; fund-raising for, 49–50; shifts in, under Islamization and Arabization, 236n58 Egeland, Jan, 153, 154 Eggers, Dave, 48 Egypt, 9, 11, 14, 19, 31, 63, 115, 132–33, 143, 149, 157, 157–162, 162–66, 177, 181, 191, 227, 236n10, 244n20, 245n30, 245n33 Egyptian National Guard, 157 El-Dawla, Aida Saif, 159, 245n33 Elder, Dawn, 141 elections, 44–45, 91, 120, 181, 183, 239n68 Elhebshi, Hana, 66

Elle (magazine), 55 e-mail messages, circulation of, 159–160, 245n33, 245n36 emasculation, 200, 216 Enough Project, 75, 83, 93, 94, 97, 241n25 Epstein, Norman, 87 equal rights, 213 ER (TV show), 69 Eritrea, 17, 128, 165 Essence (magazine), 55 Ethiopia, 17, 28, 38, 52, 119, 128, 143, 157, 158 Ethiopia Airlines, 128 ethnic cleansing: defining conflicts as one of, issues surrounding, 4, 21, 68, 102; laws regarding, sites serving as case studies for students to understand, 81; rape as a means of, 69, 70, 71 ethnic conflicts: exacerbation of, over identity, 6; increasing, escalation of, impact of, 8, 103; shifting, 3 ethnic diversity: concerns over, 15; demands for inclusion and, 9, 213; more nuanced understanding of, calls for, 11, 213; in nationalism, 23, 25; promise of, in the United States, 134; question of, undermined, 10; rethinking the project of, Nubia and, 99–100 ethnic labeling/categorizing, divisive. See polar categorization/polarization ethnic violence, 3, 6, 8, 30 ethno-gendered violence narratives, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 14, 16, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, 62–63, 67, 95, 109, 149, 162, 195, 224, 228, 231. See also gender-based violence; specific narratives and counternarratives ethnographic research issues, 7, 148 European colonialism. See colonialism European Union, 79, 244n20 European Union Force (EUFOR), 193 Evans-Pritchard, E. E., 10 exclusion: anthropological approach



involving, 8; in pan-humanitarianism, 9, 23; in pan-Islamism, 9, 12, 21–22, 23; in the post–Cold War era, 6, 11 exiled community. See diaspora publics exoticization, 39, 40, 54–55, 57–58 eyewitness accounts, circulation of, 159–160 Facebook, 100, 101, 174, 201 Fairfax Public Television, 116 faith-based groups, 17, 18, 25, 29, 36, 42, 63, 66, 70, 99. See also specific groups/ organizations famine, 16, 73, 97, 103, 158, 224–25 Farrakhan, Louis, 33–34, 36, 131 Farrow, Mia, 18, 69 Fassin, Didier, 29 Fatma bint Mubarak, Shaikha, 167, 169, 183 FBI, 120 Feed the Future initiative, 65 female circumcision, 151, 152, 169, 195, 213 feminism, 20, 26, 125–26, 154, 170, 173, 186, 187, 188, 194–95, 196, 199, 200, 201, 203, 208, 218 feminization/femininity, 21, 33, 42, 61, 62, 124, 146, 148, 149, 152, 153, 154, 157, 163, 178, 186, 193, 197, 199, 200, 213, 218, 242n1, 248n32 Fields of Sacrifices (Sahat Alfida) (TV program), 13 “Fight Hunger, Walk the World” event, 105, 242n49 first civil war, 11, 234n20 First Universal Races Congress, 34 “first wave” activism, 25 flogging, 34, 185, 187, 189, 191, 192, 195, 197, 205, 206, 207, 209, 210, 213, 215. See also burning whips ritual floods, 129, 174–75 Forbidden Lessons in a Kabul Guest House (Sadeed and Lewis), 150 Fordham University, 88

Index

273

Foster, Blanche, 88–89 Four Freedoms Treaty, 249n3 Fowler, Jerry, 76 fragmentation, 7, 15, 71, 95–96, 100, 103, 110, 125, 202, 219, 232 France, 185, 190, 191–92, 193–94, 201, 203, 216, 227 France-Presse, Agence, 215 Freedom of Conscience, Expression, and Thought (FOCET), 196, 197 French embassy, 165 From Sudanese Refugee to International Supermodel (Wek), 55 fund-raising, 49, 51, 53, 58, 59, 76, 77, 82, 105, 129, 167, 175, 242n49 funerals, 107, 225, 226, 228 Fur (ethnic group), 154, 244n21 G8 Conference and Summit, 237n38 G20 Summit, 37 Gaines, Kevin, 35 Garang, John, 10, 43, 47, 53, 135, 197, 225, 226 Garib-Alla, Iman, 124–25 Garvey, Marcus, 34 Gaza siege, 162 Geldof, Bob, 141 gender-based violence, 20–21, 22, 102, 109, 154, 169, 194, 225. See also ethnogendered violence narratives Gender Politics in Sudan (Hale), 194 gender segregation, 124 genocide: defining conflicts as one of, issues surrounding, 4, 21, 68, 70, 72, 74, 75, 81, 93, 102, 109, 217, 225; laws regarding, case studies for understanding, 81 Genocide Intervention Network (GI-NET), 79 George Clooney Witnesses War Crimes in Sudan’s Nuba Mountains (YouTube video), 96 George Mason University, 88 Ghada, 111–12, 123, 124

274

Index

ghettoization, 124, 232 “ghost houses,” 103, 242n46 ghurba, meaning of, 108, 242n2 Gibson, Gillian, 180 Giddo, Suliman, 82, 83, 85–86, 87–88, 91, 92 Gitano, Estella, 222 Give Peace a Chance Coalition, 36 giving back, 47, 48, 49, 51, 53, 55, 58, 61, 104–5, 150 global causes, tiered celebrity ranking system based on, 67 global citizens: celebrities as, role of, 18, 97; critique of, issues surrounding, 109–10; generation of, impact of, 81–82; meaning of, 15; romantic idea of becoming, disruption of, 142–43; visibility of, impact of, 6, 41. See also specific people and narratives globalization, 8, 15, 103, 175, 182, 196 global security issue, 103 God Grew Tires of Us (film), 238n56 Golden Eye (music video), 57–58 Good Lie, The (film), 27, 37, 236n1, 238n56 good vs. bad construct, 17 Google, 94 governance voids, filling, issue of, 13, 16, 44, 67, 103, 139, 238n67 Government of South Sudan (GOSS), 71 Government of South Sudan (GOSS) Mission to the United States, 59, 77, 80 government surveillance, 18, 160, 186 Granville, John, 179, 180, 182 Gration, Scott, 88 Green, Al, 98 Gregory, Dick, 98 Group Against Torture in the Sudan (GATS), 210 Gua (album), 28 Gua Africa, 38 Gulf War, 12–13

Habersmasian theory, 236n6 Hadith, 172, 173, 192 Haj-Omar, Dalia, 202–3, 203, 203–4, 205–6 Hale, Sondra, 194 handicrafts, use of, as an income-generating model, 82, 84, 86, 90, 105 Haq Party, 198 Harrison, George, 67 Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, 94 Hasaballa, Hadia, 195, 208, 212, 213 Hassan, Naila, 90 headscarves. See veiling hegemonic models/visions: aspirations constrained by, 25; clash of, effect of, issues surrounding, 9; counterresponses to, working to present, 23. See also pan-humanitarianism; panIslamism henna party ritual, 136, 138, 152 hierarchical ordering/positioning, issues of, 63, 67, 104, 105, 149, 218 Hilahop, 243n1 HIV/AIDS, 151, 156 Holland. See Netherlands/Holland Holocaust, 70, 72, 80, 166 Holocaust Museum, 70, 83 Hot Dogg (Mijok Lang), 52–53 household divisions, 124 Housing Choice Voucher Program (Section 8), 120 humanism: debate over, situating, 25, 109, 226; liberal, 39; neoliberal, 42; threat to, portraying Islam as, 191 Humanitarian Aid Commission (HAC), 18 humanitarian currency, 58, 104 humanitarian economy, 42 humanitarianism: attraction to, 91; capitalizing on, 40; community governed by, impact of, 6, 15, 97; doctrines of, presumed universal, shattering belief



in, 157; global crises as moral issues in, 67; language and practices of, use of, 3, 16–17, 21, 43, 53, 63, 69, 74, 81, 88, 90, 99, 100, 102, 104, 105, 109–10, 149, 162, 174, 186, 187, 190, 191, 195, 205, 206, 218, 223, 232; monolithic vision of, countering, 5, 175, 176, 177, 214; new, emergence of, 16; paradox associated with, 105; reinterpretation of, reflecting cultural practices, 174, 176; right to development through, approach centered on, 85; socialization into the fields of, reinforcing processes involved in, 25, 28–29; spaces of, affective violence transforming, 22–23; visibility creating a history tied to, 38; Western, opposition to, 18, 175. See also pan-humanitarianism humanitarian publics: affective violence and, issues surrounding newly formed, 29–30; expanding, 37, 38, 66, 74, 90–91; extension of, exploring, aspects in, 25; formation of, meaning of, 25, 28–29, 228, 236n6; influence of, 230; issues surrounding, 14, 23, 29–30; limitations of, 104–5, 146; locating stories in, 187. See also specific public spheres, organizations/groups, and people humanitarian workers, attacks on, 179, 181 humanity: bare, under assault, reminders of, 21–22; crimes against, deeming atrocities as, impact of, 18, 68, 81, 160, 240n17; marketing of suffering in the name of, issue with, 104–5; meaning of, competition over, 6, 8, 175; performance of, meaning of, 25, 28–29; shared, defense of, 196 Humanity United, 48 human rights: appropriating discourses of, to establish local NGOs, 16–17; community governed by, impact of, 6, 15, 97; doctrines of, presumed

Index

275

universal, shattering belief in, 157; and the emergence of new humanitarianism, 16; language of, use of, 3, 21, 69, 88, 90, 99, 100, 102, 104, 105, 109–10, 149, 186, 187, 190, 191, 195, 205, 206, 218, 223, 232; socialization into the fields of, reinforcing processes involved in, 25, 28–29; spaces of, affective violence transforming, 22–23; violence against women added as a violation of, 20, 21; visibility creating a history tied to, 38. See also humanitarianism Human Rights Commission (HRC), 214, 224 Human Rights Day, 147 Human Rights Watch, 245n33 Hummaid (Muhammad Al-Hassan Salim Humaid), 65, 226, 239n1, 250n9, 250n11 Hussein, Saddam, 108–9 Hutchinson, Sharon, 10 Hutu refugees, 8 hybrid identities, 110 “I Am Lubna” (website), 202–3, 204, 205–6 Ibn Rushd Prize for Freedom of Thought, 250n10 Ibrahim, Fatima Ahmed, 226, 250n10 Ibrahim, Khalil, 180, 181, 246n75 idealism, shattered, 91 identity: aspirations shaped by, 7; deconstructed and remade, 19; exacerbation of ethnic conflicts over, 6; hybrid, 110; new articulations of, reasons for, 4–5; questions of, poetry focused on, 233n1; visibility and, issues surrounding, 6, 14 identity politics: entrapment of, failing to escape, 105; escape from, 109; in legitimizing humanitarian intervention, 21; meaning of, in most

276

Index

interpretations, 15; new forms of, engendering, reasons behind, 8; shift in, global transformations resulting in, 15–19. See also polar categorization/ polarization Idris, Amir, 11 Idris, Muhammad, 122–23 Ihsas, Omar, 141 Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, 193 Iman, 54–55 immigrant Sudanese community. See diaspora publics immigration papers, issues with, 130, 152 inclusion: anthropological approach involving, 8; demands for ethnic diversity and, 9, 213; more nuanced understanding of, calls for, 11, 94, 115; in nationalism, 23, 25; strategy for claiming, issues surrounding, 23; undermined by focus on polar identities, 10 independence, celebrating nationalism and, 110 Independent, 58 (newspaper) India, 13 Indiana University, 87 infantilization, 21, 22, 38, 42, 54, 63, 148, 149, 163, 178, 186, 196, 213, 218, 228 injustice, naturalization of, 105 integration, 120, 126, 130, 131 interfaith alliances/solidarities, 47, 50, 51 interfaith dialogues, creating, 129–130, 131 Interfaith Hospitality Network of Essex County, 89 Interim National Constitution of the Republic of Sudan, 203, 208 intermarriage, 80, 109, 112, 113, 131 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 203 International Criminal Court (ICC), 18, 90, 92, 102, 148, 190, 193, 197, 202, 216, 237n39, 240n17

international financial institutions (IFIs), 83 International Human Rights Day, 209, 211 international law, 212 international media, utilizing, 213 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 11–12, 102 International Rescue Committee, 41 International Women of Courage Award, 66, 78, 126, 240n3 International Women’s Day events, 65–66, 124, 134 invisibilities: and identity, issues surrounding, 6; sources of, 14 Invisible Children, 66 “invisible hand and visible hand,” 103 Iraq, 47, 71, 112, 113, 114–15, 117, 214, 243n16 IRIN (Integrated Regional Information Networks), 163, 245n46 Ishaq, Safia, 196 Islam: conflation of, with certain regimes, issue of, 130–31, 191, 206; embracing modernity and, 214; as an experiential practice, 131; texts of, interpretation of, 192 Islamic codes. See sharia law Islamic identity, categorized by. See Muslim/Islam, polar categories involving Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), 129 Islamism: debate over, situating, 18, 19, 21–22, 179, 191, 226; grand narrative of, 8, 12, 42, 102; monolithic vision of, countering, 5, 176, 214, 226; opposition to, issues surrounding, 6, 12–13, 39, 53, 111, 132, 170, 175–76, 177, 191; perceived threat to, 226; rise of, 6, 10, 11, 12. See also pan-Islamism Islamization, 97, 175, 236n58 Islamophobia, 111, 130, 190 Ismail, Fadli, 127, 128



Israel, 14, 19, 31, 149, 162–66, 177, 180 Italian embassy, 165 “It’s My Right to Sing for My People” (Hummaid), 65, 239n1, 250n11 Iyol, Silva Kashif, 207–8, 209 Jacobs, Charles, 31 Jal, Emmanuel, 27, 28, 36–38, 237n39 jalia, meaning of, 119 jalia events/activities, 121, 123, 133, 145, 201, 229. See also specific community organizations and events jalia schools. See community weekend schools Janjaweed militia, 69, 71, 73–74, 151, 153, 154, 155, 200, 240n8, 244n20 “Jasmine Branch, A” (Fadlalla), vii Jealous, Ben, 98 Jewish community, 70 John Hopkins Hospital, 167 John Paul II, 32–33 Jolie, Angelina, 18, 28, 37, 67, 69, 141, 237n39 Jongkuch, 40 “Journey to Darfur, A” (TV documentary), 69 Judeo-Christian narrative, 31, 33, 35, 36, 48, 70 Juster, Sarah, 75 Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), 180, 181, 241n23, 244n20 Jyllands-Posten (newspaper), 180, 246n71, 247n19 Kakuma Refugee Camp, 45, 52, 238n64 Kalam Rujal (Men’s Talk), 189 Kalma refugee camp, 154 Karar, Abdel Hafiz, 142, 143 Karma Art, 133 Karman, Tawakkul, 66 Kembe, Emmanuel, 141 Kenya, 13, 14, 28, 38, 41, 43, 44, 45, 52, 62, 63, 238n64

Index

277

Keys, Alicia, 28 Khalid (pseudonym), 4–5, 107–8, 109 Khalid, Sunni M., 36 khawaqa, meaning of, 161, 245n39 King, Martin Luther, III, 98 Kony, Joseph, 66 Kony 2012 (video) campaign, 66 Korti, Battle of, 248n32 Kouchner, Bernard, 191, 192 Kristof, Nicholas, 18, 68, 96, 97, 149–150, 244n12 Kuch, Elizabeth, 48 Kuri, John, 141 Kwanzaa, 89 La Li Qahar Alnisa (No to Women’s Oppression), 195–96, 206, 208, 212–13 Lancaster, Roger, 103 Lang, Mijok (Hot Dogg), 52–53 lashings. See flogging Lazarus effect, 98 legal codes, 6, 29, 170, 172–73, 174, 210, 216 legal grounds, 15, 18 legitimization/legitimacy, 21, 26, 30, 36, 53, 63, 69, 152, 157, 162, 179, 186, 187, 188, 208, 216, 225 Lewis, Damien, 147, 150–51, 152 liberalism, 14, 39, 122, 179. See also neoliberalism liberalization policies (khaskhasa), new, adoption of, 85, 101, 103 Libya, 244n20, 246n75 life, bare, biopolitics of, impact of, 162 Live 8 concert, 37, 237n38 Live Aid, 237n38 Lord’s Resistance Army, 66, 79 Lost Boys and Girls Conference, 45–53, 56 Lost Boys and Girls of Sudan, 19, 27, 28, 37, 38–44, 46, 54, 63, 80, 129, 235n41, 236n3, 238n56, 238n60, 238n64

278

Index

Lost Boys of Sudan, The (film), 45, 238n56 lottery visa program, 121, 128, 140 Mabus, Julie, 46–47 Machar, Riek, 10, 28, 224 Madison, Joe, 97, 104 Magid, Muhammad, 129–132 Maimonides, 31 mainstream media, 3–4, 7, 17, 21, 29, 39, 40, 41, 60, 63, 69, 75, 80, 81, 84, 109, 111, 130, 134, 148, 149, 215, 230, 244n16. See also media coverage; specific media Make Poverty History, 37 Malaysia, 92 Malcolm X, 35 Malkki, Liisa, 8 Mandela, Nelson, 37 marketing of suffering, issues with, 104–5, 150 marriage, 166, 170, 171, 172, 173, 189– 190, 207, 216. See also intermarriage Maryal, Benjamin, 62 masculinization/masculinity, 123, 124, 154–55, 156, 176, 200, 216 master narratives, charting, 23–24, 178. See also specific narratives Mayardit, Salva Kiir, 31, 209, 224 McCune, Emma, 27–28, 36, 38 McDonald, Steve, 224 McDonnell, Bob, 130–31 McGovern, James, 98 Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)/Doctors Without Borders, 58, 86, 191, 194 media coverage: of the Arab Spring, 97, 100; circulation of narratives in, impact of, 7; of the Darfur conflict, 17, 68, 69, 75, 81, 150, 152, 153; engaging, 3; focus of, issues surrounding, 1, 2, 65, 91; of gender-based violence, images in, role of, 21–22; heightened representations of Sudanese conflicts in, effect of, 3–4,

4–5, 19, 29; of the Lost Boys and Girls, 39, 40, 41, 46; of the North-South conflict, 13, 17, 236n1; of the Nuba Mountains, 97, 150, 241n32; of refugee camps, 153–54; sensationalized, issue with, 186, 205, 214; of STAND, 79. See also specific media media fatigue, 101, 205, 206, 209, 215 media innovation, 115 media technologies, new, use of, 6, 159, 213 Merry, Sally Engle, 20 microfinance, 49 Middle East, 4, 6, 10, 11, 13, 97, 111, 112, 114, 142, 150 Middle East Broadcasting Company (MBC), 116, 117 Middle East Broadcasting Network (MBN) (Alhurra), 139, 243n16 migration, new patterns of, 6, 13–14, 103 militarization, 103, 176, 223 military coups, 12, 140 military intervention, 70, 71, 93, 217 military rule, overthrowing, 11, 12, 234n19 Minnawi, Minni, 154, 155, 156, 244n20, 245n45 Miriam (pseudonym), 108, 109 Misrdigital.com, 160 Miss Earth contest, 62 Miss Malaika South Sudan, 61–62 Miss South Sudan beauty pageant, 54, 59, 60, 61 modeling/beauty industry, 54–55, 57–58, 59–60, 61–62, 63 modernization/modernity, 41, 42, 62, 105, 175, 213, 214, 233n1 Moorish Science Temple of America, 34 moral codes, 6, 29, 104, 171, 186, 187, 191, 216, 218. See also humanitarianism; Islamism moral grounds, 15, 18 moral panic, 6, 8, 22, 217



moral politics, expanding, 149 moral rivalry, constructing, 17 Moran, Jim, 98 motherhood, 42, 149 Mubarak, Hosni, 158, 164 Mubarak, Suzanne, 164 Muhammad, Elijah, 35 Muhammad, Prophet, 180, 246n71, 247n19 Muhammad, Wallace Fard, 34 Mukhatar, Abdelrahman, 189 multiculturalism, 15, 99, 115, 134, 137, 226 multifaceted ethnography, 7, 187, 233n9 multiple social positions, 5, 7, 112, 128, 132, 133, 231 Mulwal, Bona, 34 Muram, 182, 246n77 murder, 154, 155, 156, 160, 179, 182, 190, 242n46 Musa, Hassan, 161 Muslim Brotherhood, 12 Muslim/Islam, polar categories involving, 3, 4, 9–10, 30, 34, 35, 62, 71–72, 73–74, 93, 95, 137, 151, 197, 199, 207–8, 232, 238n56 Mustafa, Bakri Ahmed al (Samandal), 142, 143, 144, 226 Mustafa Mahmoud Square massacre, 157–161, 162, 163, 227, 245n33 Mutua, Makau, 21, 218 Mutwakil, Mahmoud, 140–41, 141–42 nafir, tradition of, 137, 139, 149, 174, 175, 176 Nafir organization, 174–75 narration, tools of, mastering, 205 “Nas Dafur” (People of Darfur) (Abasaeed), 139 Nas Jota (People and Chaos), 139 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), 98

Index

279

National Black Catholic Congress (NBCC), 33 National Congress Party, 197, 208–9 National Defense University, 225 National Geographic event, 134 national identity: debate over, 9–10, 12, 53; imagining, aspects involved in, 25; new, linked to pan-Islamism, 6 National Islamic Front (NIF), 85 nationalism, 13, 23, 34, 110, 157, 160, 161, 175, 186, 221, 222, 224, 234n21. See also unity National Mall events, 69, 70–73, 74, 75, 240n10 National Network, 45, 46, 47, 48 National Security Bill, 217 national television programs, 13, 181, 217 nation-building, 46, 49, 51, 53, 59, 62, 224, 242n1 nationhood, 29 Nation of Islam (NOI), 34–35 natural disasters, 129 neocolonialism, 18, 92, 190 neoconservatism, 11, 36, 42, 74, 85, 105, 146 neoliberalism, 8, 9, 13, 15, 16, 20, 40, 44, 59, 85, 91, 92–93, 100, 102–3, 104, 175–76, 182, 196, 219, 223, 226 Netanyahu, Benjamin, 31 Netherlands/Holland, 191, 194, 201, 202, 244n20, 247n19 new generations, recruiting, mobilizing, and educating, 23 Newmyer, Debbie, 48 Newmyer, Robert, 48 New York Amsterdam News, 35 New York Times, 96, 141, 150, 163, 165, 179, 244n12, 244n16 New York Times Magazine, 67 Nigeria, 214, 244n20 “night out” initiative, 125 Nile Valley treaty, 158

280

Index

Nimeiri, Jaafar, 12, 246n60, 250n10 9/11 attacks, impact and aftermath, 3, 4, 6, 13, 41, 68, 89, 109, 111–12, 113, 116–17, 118, 120, 129, 130, 134, 135, 142, 143, 144, 243n16 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs): budgets of, and project categories, 16; collaboration among, lack of, 86–87; collective identities impacted by, 15–16, 29; culture of, following, issue of, 119, 125; expansion of missions by, 16–17; filling governance voids, 16; government surveillance and expelling of, 18; and IFIs, 83; increased presence of, 188, 217; legitimizing intervention by, 69; long-standing income-generating model adopted by, 82; mobilizing, 3; operation of, tug-of-war over, 92; presence of, inadvertently contributing to poverty, 86; promoting, through legal and moral frameworks, debate over, 18. See also specific NGOs nonprofit status, 119 Northerner, identifying as a, 113 Northern Sudanese: aspirations of, ignoring, 94; color categories associated with, 113; demonization of, 4, 134; in exile, visibility of, 6; new articulations of identity for, 4–5; recruitment of, to work for the US Army, 113–15; rigid identity surrounding, construction of, problematizing, voices involved in, 4, 25, 109, 112–13. See also specific people, issues, and narratives North Irving Motors, 127 North-South conflict: ending, investing heavily in, 224; escalation of, impacts of, 13, 16, 30; first civil war of, 11, 234n20; future of, issues surrounding, 232; heightened representations of, issues over, 4, 29; increasing attention toward, impact of, 1, 178; mediating, 17; moral frames for legitimating soli-

darities in, 36; and national identity, 9–10, 25; poem questioning, 242n1; second civil war of, 13, 28, 234n20; two time spans involving, 234n20 North-South peace agreement. See Comprehensive Peace Agreement Norway, 143, 144, 244n20 Nosanchuk, Robert, 131 “Not in Our Name” (published letter), 100–101 Not on Our Watch, 94, 100 No to Women’s Oppression (La Li Qahar Alnisa), 195–96, 206, 208, 212–13 Nuba Mountains: allied fighters from, 13; attention shifting to, 96–97, 98–100; clashing narratives involving, 5; conflict in, ensuing of, 18; eruption of violence in, protesting, 66; fragmented approach manifested in activism for, 95–96, 100; impact of South Sudan’s independence on, 94–95; media coverage of, 97, 150, 241n32; and STAND, 80; waning celebrity attention on, 101 Nubia, 80, 84, 99–100 Nuer (ethnic group), 10–11 Nuer Dilemmas (Hutchinson), 10 Nuqud, Muhammad Ibrahim, 226, 250n9 Obama, Barack, 65, 88, 93–94, 97, 130, 217 Obama, Michelle, 66, 78 October Revolution, 11, 217, 234n19, 250n10 Okaro, Anna Oloshuro, 65–66 Oliver, John, 98 Olmert, Aliza, 164 Olmert, Ehud, 164, 165 OneWorld, 150 One Young World, 37 Operation Lifeline Sudan, 16 Opportunities for Development in the Sudan (workshop), 49 Osama (student), 111, 112 Osman, Abed-alhadi, 140, 142, 168



Osman, Ahmed, 120–21, 226 Outlaw Productions, 48 Oxfam, 16 Oxfam America, 65–66 Palestine, 112, 162 pan-Africanism, 11, 34, 35, 110, 115, 218, 225 pan-Arabism, 11, 115 pan-humanitarianism, 9, 14, 22, 23, 25, 26, 29, 63, 109, 110, 118, 193. See also specific aspects pan-Islamism, 6, 9, 12, 14, 18, 21–22, 23, 25, 26, 29, 34, 35, 62, 63, 109, 110, 118, 193, 218. See also specific aspects paradoxes, 23, 91, 95, 105 Parks, Rosa, 201 Partners in Compassionate Care, 49 pastoralism, 112–13 patriarchy, 171, 172, 213 Payne, Donald, 98, 241n37 PBS, 79 Peace Drum Circle ceremony, 47, 56 pedagogical value, using narratives for, 40–41 penal codes, 209–10, 211 personal status laws, 172–73 Peter, Micklina, 43–44, 238n64 Peter Pan (Barrie), 39–40, 41 phosphoric acid attacks, 167, 169, 171, 175, 196, 217 Pitt, Brad, 37, 94, 141 Pledge2Protect campaign/conference, 76, 78. See also STAND Point Loma Nazarene University, 45, 48 polar categorization/polarization, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11, 14, 17, 22, 29, 32, 34, 35, 36, 44, 69, 71–72, 73–74, 93, 112–13, 121, 137, 218, 219, 232, 235n57 policy makers: engaging, 3; focus of, issues surrounding, 91, 92. See also specific policy makers political parties: in the Cold War era, 16; Democratic and Republican, 93–94;

Index

281

jalia avoiding any leaning toward, 122; largest, 234n21; multiple, rule by, 11; non-sectarian, aspirations of, 11; and revolutions, 11, 100. See also Communist Party; Umma Party; Unionist Party political persecution/prosecution, fear of, 4, 6, 132, 158, 166, 223, 229, 230, 244–45n30 political violence, 6, 8, 15, 22, 108, 135, 149 politics of identity. See identity politics Polletta, Francesca, 148 Post–Cold War alliances, 30–36 Post–Cold War shifts, 6, 11, 15, 24, 44, 54 postcolonialism, 9, 10, 21, 67, 74, 105, 110, 157, 161, 187, 192, 193, 195, 225 poverty: as a critical issue of debate, 103, 231; documenting, 100; genealogy of celebrity activism to end, 67; increasing levels of, impact of, 6, 16, 86, 103; naturalizing, 42, 104, 176; prioritizing political persecution over fear of death from, issue of, 158 precolonial legacies, 9 Prendergast, John, 18, 75, 76, 77, 83, 93, 94, 96, 103, 241n25 Pressman, David, 94 private and public spheres, defined boundaries of, 192 privatization, 13, 20, 85 proxy-neoliberalism, 13, 92–93, 103 public and private spheres, defined boundaries of, 192 public facade, 188–89 public order laws, 185, 186, 188, 189, 193, 195, 197, 199, 200, 202–3, 205, 206–8, 212, 214, 215 public spheres. See diaspora publics; humanitarian publics Qabani, Ismat, 120 Qaddafi, Muammar al-, 246n75 Qadir, Azhari Abdel, 142, 143, 144

282

Index

Qamar, Omar, 83 Qatar, 18, 91, 92, 117, 181, 214 Quran, 69, 166–67, 173, 192, 210 racial identity, narratives of violence and suffering involving. See ethnogendered violence narratives racial panic, 3, 10, 226, 232 racism, 34, 35, 96, 97, 103, 151, 158, 159, 161, 163, 166, 231. See also polar categorization/polarization Radlmeirer, Luise, 43–44 Ramadan, 134 rape, 22, 27, 69, 70, 71, 147, 150, 151, 152, 154–57, 170, 182, 190, 195, 196, 213, 216, 224 Raziq, Elham Abdel al, 195 recognition, uneven landscape of, 2–3 reconciliation, lack of, 224 Red campaign, 58 Red Crescent, 167 Red Sea Travel & Tours, 127–29, 137, 228 Refugee Advisory Council, 58 refugee camps, 38, 39, 45, 52, 56, 61, 70, 82, 84, 86, 87, 90, 126, 143, 147–48, 151, 153–55, 156, 238n64 refugees: attack on, in Egypt, 157–161, 162; conflicting representations of the Sudan to children of, issues with, 229–230; focus on, celebrity ranking based, 67; legal status as, issue of, 31; liminal position of, directing attention to, 139, 157; moving from Egypt to Israel, 162–66; new waves of, conflicts generating, 13–14; number of, statistical data on, 14, 121; portrayal of, as victims and survivors, circulation of, 19; strict screening requirements for, 40. See also refugee camps; specific refugees Refugees International, 237n39 religious groups. See faith-based groups repatriation, 164

Republican and Democratic parties, 93–94 Reuters, 33, 141 revolutionary front, 95, 99, 246n75 revolutions, 11, 12, 100, 234n19 Rice, Condoleezza, 73 rights: meaning of, competition over, 6, 8, 179. See also citizenship rights; human rights rights-based humanitarian models, issues with, 90, 95, 100–101, 102, 103–4, 149 River Nile (musical band), 139 Robertson, Nic, 154 Robertson, Pat, 130–31 Root (Khalid), 36 routing visibilities, meaning of, 26, 187 Russell, Jason, 66 Rwanda, 69, 72, 83, 240n9 Sa‘ad, Ibrahim, 135 Sabina, 80–81 Sabon, Nadia, 200 Sacrifice Festival (‘aid aladha) event, 107, 108, 127, 134, 135 Sahat Alfida (Fields of Sacrifices) (TV program), 13 Sahel famine, 21 Salih, Hawa Muhammad, 66, 78, 99, 126 Salih, Tayeb, 116 Salim, Abdel Gadir, 28 Samaritans Purse, 241n32 “Sana’s Tragedy, Officials Are Silent” (Balal), 172 Sanchez, Ramirez, 13 Sand and Sorrow (documentary film), xix, 69 Sarkozy, Nicolas, 191, 192 Satellite Sentinel Project (SSP), 94 Saudi Arabia, 18, 66, 92, 195 Saudi Arabia Television (SAT), 116, 117 Save Darfur Coalition/Campaign, 98, 217; business participating in, 129; criticisms of, 3, 81, 85, 87; described,



70; media coverage of, 1, 3; rally/demonstrations of, xx, 1–2, 69, 70–73, 74, 75, 92, 240n10; relative success of, reasons for, 3; shift in focus of, 233n4 Save the Children, 16, 86 savior/survivor rhetoric, 21, 26 scholarship exchange program, 120 Seaside High School, 110–11 secondary citizenship, 118, 142, 194, 231 second civil war, 13, 234n20 “second wave” activism, 25 Section 8 (Housing Choice Voucher Program), 120 secularism, 5, 6, 11, 122, 179, 187, 200, 208, 218, 226, 232, 242n1. See also liberalism September 11, 2001. See 9/11 attacks, impact and aftermath sexism, 103, 231 sexual harassment, 86, 169–170, 207, 208 sexuality, 59, 154, 155, 216 sexualization, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 178 sexual order, 216, 217 sexual violence, 20, 21, 22, 24, 86, 148, 149, 154, 156, 169–170, 224, 242n46 shame, mobilizing, 160, 185–86, 211 Shandi, Tariq, 142, 143, 144 Shankar, Ravi, 67 sharia law, 6, 12, 13, 22, 71, 100, 172, 186, 187, 191, 193, 195, 197, 199, 200, 201, 208, 210, 212, 214, 226 Sharif, Mahjoub, 107, 226, 242n1, 250n9 Sheridan Circle demonstration, 97–98, 104, 241n35 Sherihan (Egyptian actress), 141 Simmons, Kimora Lee, 55 sisterhood, 149 Sixteen Days of Activism against Gender Violence campaign, 209 Slave (Nazer and Lewis), 150 slavery: history of, invoking, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 97, 113, 236n10, 241n36; modern, media coverage of, 17, 21, 34,

Index

283

71, 152, 235n41; precolonial legacies of, 9 social activism, meaning of, 5 social bondage, new relations of, creating, issue of, 176–77 socialism, 11 social media, 7, 21, 101, 110, 113, 121, 138, 159, 165. See also specific platform social norms, 192 social order, 22, 102, 210 social work, issue of, in the diaspora, 122 socioeconomic disparities, 173, 175, 178 sociopolitical sphere, issues arising in, 123 Somalia, 115, 191, 214 Sooka, Yasmin, 224 South Africa, 110 Southern Army (Anyanya I), 31 Southern autonomy, debate over, 11, 234n20 Southerner, identifying as a, 113 Southern Sudanese: absence of, at jalia activities, 121, 229; aspirations of, 13; color categories associated with, 113; migration of, to the North, 10; perceptions of, post-9/11, 4. See also specific people, issues, and narratives South Kordofan, 226. See also Nuba Mountains South Sudan: approaching referendum on independence of, attention toward, 1, 36, 44–45, 91–92, 93–94, 181, 183, 197, 211, 221, 239n68; brokered peace deal and, 224; clashing narratives involving, 5; confrontations over NGOs in, 18; eruption of violence within, 224; “first wave” activism involving, aspects involved in, 25, 29; fragmented approach manifested in activism for, 95–96, 100; independence of, impact of, 11, 94–95, 101, 222–23, 224, 239n68; militarization in, 10–11; number of refugees from,

284

Index

14; recognition of, as a new nation, 31; secession of, 5, 10, 18, 53, 66, 94, 97, 209, 221, 222, 226; secularism, 80; visibility of refugees and immigrants from, 6. See also North-South conflict “South Sudan: The End of a Noble Experiment” (McDonald), 224 sovereignty, 8, 12, 15, 193, 194, 211, 218 Sri Lanka, 2 STAND (Students Taking Action Now: Darfur), 74–77, 78, 79–82, 94, 231, 240n16 STAND conference, 76–77, 78, 79–80, 81, 103, 105 Stanford University, 94 statistical data, 14, 120, 121, 244n12 Sternagel, Craig, 49–50 Stevens, Christine, 47 Strange, Johnny, 77 Strayer University, 87 Structure of feeling , 22, 176. See also affective violence student movements, strong, 76, 240n16 students’ organizations: in the Cold War era, 16; revolutions led by, 11, 12, 100, 234n19 subaltern, positioning and the meaning of, 23, 235n57 Sudan Air, 128 Sudan Change Now, 100 Sudanese American Community Development Organization (SACDO), 119–120, 121–23, 124–25, 126–27, 138 Sudanese American Women’s Organization (SAWO), 123–24, 125– 27, 132, 133, 134, 138 Sudanese American Young Adult Project (SAYAP), 230–31 Sudanese Army, 13, 55, 180, 244n20 Sudanese Cinema Club, 115–16 Sudanese conflict zones. See Blue Nile; Darfur; North-South conflict; Nuba Mountains; South Sudan

Sudanese currency, devaluation of, 116 Sudanese diaspora. See diaspora publics Sudanese Embassy, 66, 95, 97, 98, 203, 241n35 Sudanese Journalist Union, 185, 201 Sudanese-ness, 109, 142 SudaneseOnline, 11, 24, 40–41, 126, 138, 139, 141, 149, 160, 163, 189, 196, 201, 208, 211, 212, 215, 227, 235–36n58, 241n35, 245n47, 246n77 Sudanese Women’s Union, 126, 250n10 Sudanforall, 126, 149 Sudan Human Rights Organization, 195 Sudanile (online journal), 100, 126, 149, 153, 155–56, 158, 160, 163, 189, 215 Sudan independence, 9, 181 Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A), 154, 155, 162, 180, 241n23, 244n20, 245n45, 247n15 Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), 13, 27, 38, 39, 43, 94, 223, 238n68 Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), 45, 50, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 208, 209, 238–39n68 Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM)-North alliance, 95, 99, 209 Sudan Public Television, 194 Sudan Sunrise, 72 Sudan Tribune, 163, 189 “Sudan Unite” initiative, 227 suffering from violence, narratives about. See violence narratives SummerStage Music and Dance Festival, 140, 141–45 Supporters of Monotheism, 179–180 Sweeney, Fionnuala, 150, 152 Syria, 92 Taifur, Kamal, 127, 128–29, 135, 137, 228 Tamils, 1, 2 teacher-disciple model, 82 TEAM DARFUR, 77 Tears of the Desert (Bashir and Lewis), 147, 150, 151, 152



“teddy bear” incident, 180 TED Global Conference, 37 Temple of Islam, 34 temporary publics, 24, 138 terrorism. See 9/11 attacks, impact and aftermath; “war on terror” “Third World,” 66, 105, 118, 154, 214 Time (magazine), 94 Today (TV show), 93 torture, 13, 34, 100, 210, 230, 242n46 “Tortured, But Not Silenced” (Kristof), 150, 244n12 trade unions, 11, 12, 16, 100, 234n19 translated suffering, genre of, 39 translocal, meaning of, 247n3 transnational publics. See diaspora publics transnational/transrelational approach, 218–19, 231 trans-sovereign, meaning of, 218, 249n64 Traub, James, 67 tribalism, 152, 231 trickle-down effect, awaiting, 103 trust-building, lack of, 224 T-shirts, xix, 76, 105 Turkey, 79 Turner, Tina, 57 Twitter, 100, 101 Uganda, 14, 38, 66, 157 Umma Party, 10, 101, 198, 200, 212, 217, 234n21 Umm Kulthum, 189 UNAMID, 86, 180, 185, 190, 193, 217, 240n20 UN/AU missions, merger of, 180, 181 UN Committee on Migrant Workers, 162 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 236n3 UNICEF, 224 UN immunity, 185 Unionist Party, 10, 200, 234n21 United Arab Emirates (UAE), 87, 91, 139, 167, 177, 183, 203

Index

285

United Kingdom. See Britain United Nations: calls for intervention by African Union and, 225; and the Darfur Peace Agreement, 244n20; declaration on Darfur, 68; and feminism, 170; harnessing fame and visibility of celebrities, history of, 67; increased presence of, 217; and initiatives focused on women’s issues, 20; international community represented by, 102; military intervention by, CPA allowing, 71; news agency of, IRIN as, 163, 245n46; rally/demonstrations in front of, 99; reporting atrocities to, issue with, 151–52, 155; and the SSP, 94; survey by, on sexual violence in South Sudan, 224; troop merger between the African Union and, 180; universal frameworks implemented by, 15 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR): priorities of, issue of, 158, 244–45n30; protesting actions of, 158, 159, 161, 165; receiving assistance from, in Egypt, 132; refugees discharged by, assisting, 43; resettlement of minors approved by, 38–39; serving as a humanitarian ambassador for, 56; statistical data from, 13–14 United Nations Population Fund (UNPF), 155 United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights, 250n10 United States: facilitated citizenship in, 113, 114, 115; housing bubble in, 113; job market in, access to, 115; missile strike by, in Khartoum, 13; promise of diversity in, 134; relaxing political relations with Sudanese regime, 101; slavery in, history of, invoking, 32, 33, 34, 35; strong student movements in, 76, 240n16 United Sudanese Youths, 52, 239n72 United Sudanese Youths conference, 60, 61, 63–64

286

Index

United to End Genocide, 98 unity, 11, 25, 100, 115, 118, 137, 139– 140, 141, 145, 161, 208, 221, 225, 227, 232, 242n1. See also nationalism Universal Islamic Society, 34 University of Juba, 171, 246n60 University of Khartoum, 12, 87, 128, 151, 235–36n58 University of Michigan, 43 UN-mandated structure, 213 UN Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, 236n3 UN Security Council, 37, 94, 180, 193, 240n20 UN World Food Program (WFP), 242n49 USAID, 73, 83, 90, 179 US Army/military subcontractors, working for, 113–15, 117–18 US Committee for Refugees, 239n84 US Department of Homeland Security, 130 US Department of State, 38–39, 66, 92, 126, 130, 240n3, 244n20 US embassies, 13, 165 US Immigration and Naturalization Service, 221 US National Security Council, 241n25 Vanity Fair (magazine), 55 veiling, 21, 22, 62, 110–11, 147, 152, 170, 177, 191, 192, 193, 217 Venus, 163, 164–65, 178, 179 victimization, 21, 152, 160 “video woman” case, 209, 210–11, 212, 214 violence: depoliticizing, 22, 105; ubiquitous, 108. See also specific types of violence violence against women, shift in debate on, 20. See also gender-based violence violence narratives: appropriating, 19;

hierarchy of, and issues of visibility, 104; national identity and, 25; production and circulation of, issues surrounding, 19, 20–24, 25–26, 42, 148, 149, 177–78; rapid spread of, 103. See also ethno-gendered violence narratives Virginia Tech, 111 visibility: competition for, 2–3, 86; hierarchy of violence narratives and issues of, 104; and identity, issues surrounding, 6, 14; purposes served by, 38, 49; sources of, 14; toll of, 46 “visible hand and invisible hand,” 103 Vogue (magazine), 55 Voice of America, 1 voting rights, 120 Wageeh, Tamer, 245n36 Waraq, Alhaj, 198 war crimes, deeming atrocities as, issue of, 68, 81, 156, 240n17 Wardi, Muhammad, 142, 143, 226, 249n9 war economy, 30, 223 “war on terror,” 3, 4, 69, 102, 153, 179, 193 Washingtonian (magazine), 131 Washington Journal, 71 Washington Mall, 1 Washington Post, 34, 72 Wek, Alek, 54, 55, 56, 57–59, 239n84 West-East confrontations, 3, 6, 8, 153, 179 Western bloc, 193 Westerner, identifying as a, 113 Western imperialism, 190 Westernization, 9, 10 Western sanctions. See economic sanctions Western Sudan, 113, 180, 240n8, 244n21. See also Darfur What Is the What (Eggers), 48 WhatsApp, 101



White-Hammond, Gloria, 48–49 White House, xx, 1–2, 92, 99, 104, 147, 148, 150, 239n84 white vs. black construct, 32, 113 “Who Isn’t a Refugee Here?” (Quami), 166 Wilkens, Carl, 76–77 Williams, Raymond, 22 Winfrey, Oprah, 18, 69 Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle, 31 womanhood, 42, 123, 155, 207 Woman’s Voice (magazine), 250n10 women, violence against, shift in debate on, 20. See also gender-based violence Women of Courage Award, 126 women’s movements, 20, 194, 195 women’s organizations: in the Cold War era, 16; revolution led by, 234n19. See also specific organizations women’s rights, 15, 65, 191, 192, 250n10 Wondu, Steven, 34

Index

287

Woodrow Wilson Center, 224 World Bank, 11–12, 49, 101–2, 102, 238n67 world citizens. See global citizens World Economic Forum, 37 World Food Program (WFP), 242n49 World Vision International, 58 xenophobia, 109, 129, 130, 159 Yemen, 66, 128, 230 Yousif, Issra, 110–11 youth uprising, crackdown on, 101, 102 YouTube, 96, 97, 111, 138, 139, 163, 208, 209, 245n47 Zagahwa (ethnic group), 181 Zambakari, Nathalie, 60–61 Zionism, 211 Zoellick, Robert B., 244n20 Zoe’s Ark, 182