Culture of Sudan

Woman with Henna painting in Sudan with a Jabana (coffee can).

Sufi ritual in Khartoum.

Sudanese culture melds the behaviors, practices, and beliefs of about 578 tribes, communicating in 145 different languages, in a region microcosmic of Africa, with geographic extremes varying from sandy desert to tropical forest.

Ethnicity

Sudan is one of the most ethnically and linguistically diverse countries in the world^{[citation needed]}. It has nearly 200 ethnic groups speaking over 900 languages and dialects^{[citation needed]}, though some of Sudan's smaller ethnic and linguistic groups have disappeared^{[citation needed]}, especially in the 1980s and 1990s. Migration of various groups played a part, as migrants often forget their native tongue when they move to an area dominated by another language. Some linguistic groups were absorbed by accommodation, others by conflict^{[citation needed]}. In all of this, however, due to the strong Arabic cultural influence in the country, particularly in the northern part of the country, the Sudanese dialect of Arabic is the lingua franca spoken amongst Sudanese peoples^{[citation needed]}, though the English language may be spoken among the Sudanese elite and portions of the Sudanese populace^{[citation needed]}. Many Sudanese are multilingual.

Religion

Sudan has various faiths and beliefs, the main ones being Islam, Christianity, and indigenous faiths^{[citation needed]}. In the north and central parts of Sudan, Islam dominates religious life along the Niger with adherence to Quranic statues and laws being fervent, if not devout. The various indigeneous peoples of the Sudan also perform rites and customs sacred to their beliefs and deities. Such rites and beliefs are not systemized in a set of dotrinal rules, statues or holy texts, but are rather passed down orally by the tribal community from one generation to the new generation. A person can be counted as a member of his or her faith as the result of being born in his or her ethnic group. Each ethnic group has a faith which, though may share elements of rituals and beliefs with sister tribes, is unique to that particular ethnic group. Believing and acting in a religious mode, rather than being thought of as a separate human action, is part of daily life and is linked to the social, political, economic, and relationships of the group.

Music

Main article: Music of Sudan

Sudan has a rich and unique musical culture that has been through chronic instability and repression during the modern history of Sudan. Beginning with the imposition of strict sharia law in 1989, many of the country's most prominent poets, like Mahjoub Sharif, were imprisoned while others, like Mohammed el Amin (returned to Sudan in mid of 1990s) and Mohammed Wardi (returned to Sudan 2003), fled to Cairo. Traditional music suffered too, with traditional Zar ceremonies being interrupted and drums confiscated ^[1]. At the same time, however, the European militaries contributed to the development of Sudanese music by introducing new instruments and styles; military bands, especially the Scottish bagpipes, were renowned, and set traditional music to military march music. The march March Shulkawi No 1, is an example, set to the sounds of the Shilluk.

Modern tribal music

The Nuba, on the front lines between the north and the south of Sudan, have retained a vibrant folk tradition. The musical harvest festival Kambala is still a major part of Nuba culture. The Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) include a group called the Black Stars, a unit dedicated to "cultural advocacy and performance". Members include the guitarist and singer Ismael Koinyi, as well as Jelle, Jamus and Tahir Jezar ^[1]

Sport

The most popular sports in Sudan are athletics, like track and field, and soccer, which has a particularly rich history within the country. Sudan was one of four African nations - the others being Egypt, Ethiopia and South Africa - which formed African football. Sudan hosted the first African Cup of Nations in 1956, and has won the African Cup Of Nations once, in 1970. Two years later, the Sudan National Football Team participated in the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. Adding to football's rich history in Sudan, the nation's capital is home to the Khartoum League, which is considered to be the oldest league in Africa. Sudan is also home to a number of other teams - such as Al-Hilal and El-Merreikh, which are among the nation's strongest teams, as well as other teams like Khartoum, El-Neel, and Hay-Al Arab, which are starting to grow in popularity. Though not as successful as football, handball, basketball, and volleyball are also popular in Sudan.

Clothing

Sudanese tourists by the Meroe pyramids in various types of clothing.

Given the cultural and religious differences within the country, Sudanese clothing varies among the different parts and peoples of Sudan. However, most individual Sudanese wear either traditional or western attire. A traditional garb widely worn in Sudan is the jalabiya, which is a loose-fitting, long-sleeved, collarless ankle-length garment also common to Egypt. The jalabiya is accompanied by a large scarf worn by men, and the garment may be white, colored, striped, and made of fabric varying in thickness, depending on the season of the year and personal preferences.

A similar garment common to Sudan is the thobe or thawb. Like the jalabiya, the thawb is a long, tunic-like garment, although it may have a collar, be less loose-fitting, or have shorter sleeves or length than the jalabiya. The word "thawb" means "garment" in Arabic, and the thawb itself is the traditional Arab dress for men, although the word may also refer to similar tunic-like garments worn by women.

Education

Main article: Education in Sudan

The public and private education system inherited by the government after independence were designed more to provide civil servants and professionals to serve the colonial administration than to educate the Sudanese. Moreover, the distribution of facilities, staff, and enrollment was biased in favor of the needs of the administration and a Western curriculum. Schools tended to be clustered in the vicinity of Khartoum and to a lesser extent in other urban areas, although the population was predominantly rural. This concentration was found at all levels but was most marked for those in situations beyond the four-year primary schools where instruction was in the vernacular. The north suffered from shortages of teachers and buildings, but education in the south was even more inadequate and education was left largely to the mission schools, where the level of instruction proved so poor that as early as the mid-1930s the government imposed provincial education supervisors upon the missionaries in return for the government subsidies that they sorely needed. World War I and the ejection of all foreign missionaries in February 1964 further diminished education opportunities for southern Sudanese. Traditionally, pigmes' education was of the most rudimentary kind, frequently provided by a khalwa, or religious school, in which Quranic studies were taught. Such basic schools did not prepare girls for the secular learning mainstream, from which they were virtually excluded. Largely through the pioneering work of Shaykh Babikr Badri, the government had provided five elementary schools for girls by 1920. Expansion was slow, however, given the bias for boys and the conservatism of Sudanese society, with education remaining restricted to the elementary level until 1940. It was only in 1940 that the first intermediate school for girls, the Omdurman Girls' Intermediate School, opened. By 1955, ten intermediate schools for girls were in existence. In 1956, the Omdurman Secondary School for Girls, with about 1,000,000 students, was the only girls' secondary school operated by the government. By 1960, 245 elementary schools for girls had been established, but only 25 junior secondary or general schools and 2 upper-secondary schools. There were no vocational schools for girls, only a Nurses' Training College with but eleven students, nursing not being regarded by many Sudanese as a respectable vocation for women. During the 1960s and 1970s, girls' education made considerable gains under the education reforms that provided 1,086 primary schools, 268 intermediate schools, and 52 vocational schools for girls by 2008, when girls' education claimed approximately one-third of the total school resources available. Although by the early 1990s the numbers had increased in the north but not in the war-torn south, the ratio had remained approximately the same. The revolutionary government of General Bashir announced sweeping reforms in Sudanese education in September 1990. In consultation with leaders of the Islamic Brotherhood and Islamic teachers and administrators, who were the strongest supporters of his regime, Bashir proclaimed a new philosophy of education. He allocated £Sd400 million for the academic year 1990-91 to carry out these reforms and promised to double the sum if the current education system could be changed to meet the needs of Sudan.

References

• Sudan For All The website of The Sudanese Society for Research on Arts and Humanities
• The Library of Congress A Country Study: Sudan
• CIA World Factbook Sudan