Africanews "We, Nuba, will no longer submit to persecution. We do not want to be considered second class citizens. Here on our mountains we are fighting against an apartheid much more vicious than the one which existed in South Africa" It is Joseph Aloga Jargi, 38, who speaks. "I am from the village of Um Derdu, not far from Lubi, in the Tira area. In 1980 I went to Khartoum to look for a job. I did not get a job but I met some Catholic friends, went to their church, and finally found myself learning the Gospel in an evening class for catechumens. In the teachings of Jesus I have found guidance and fulfillment for my life. "
From Khartoum I proceeded to Port Sudan, where I helped the local catechists. In '84 I decided to go back to Um Derdu, since I could not find a stable job. In the village I came to know a wonderful girl who accepted to become my wife.
I also met Jimmu Teima, an old childhood friend who like myself had become a Catholic catechist. We were both enthusiastic about our newly found faith and we started teaching the Gospel. In a short time a small community was coming up. We built a simple church. My wife had our first child and I thought we had finally settled. Not so. In 1985 government soldiers began burning churches wherever they could find them. They came to Um Derdu, burned the church, and killed on the spot Jimmu who tried to resist.
Three other Christians were taken away and killed later. At the time of these events I was in another village visiting relatives." " I had no choice but to run away with my family. I joined the SPLA where I have been trained as a radio operator though I always give a hand to the local Catholic community wherever I happen to be posted. I have two children and I would like to see them grow up in peace. But there will be no peace while we are treated like slaves." We are outside the little church of Tendri where I have been the first Catholic priest to celebrate Mass in the last ten years. Joseph has accompanied me to translate my sermon in Arabic, while two other catechists translated in Moro and Otoro. As Joseph speaks the youth have started a wrestling match in the yard outside the simple church.
Wrestling is a regular part of the shared happiness in the villages I visit. Joseph cannot resist: he is just recovering from malaria and his 38 years of difficult life already show in his body. But he removes his shirt and throws himself into the arena and amid great laughter engages a much stronger and younger man. Wrestling, part of everyday life for men on the Nuba Mountains, was traditionally done completely naked. Now most of the men wear colorful homemade shorts. The Myth of the Nuba If there is any feature of Africa that has become more legendary in recent years instead of more common it is the Nuba Mountains and their people. Tourists nowadays reach everywhere: you can visit Mandela's prison, fish in an authentic Arab dhow in the waters off Zanzibar or go to Timbuktu riding a camel as part of a package pre-paid in London or Milan.
Yet the Nuba wrestlers, made world famous by the pictures of George Rodgers and Leni Reifensthal, remain in an isolation which contributes to the growth of their myth. But today the Nuba, their wrestlers, and their whole way of life are being systematically eradicated. There were about 1.5 million Nuba living in the South Kordofan, the geographical centre of Sudan. They are predominantly Moslem, but Christians of different churches as well as people of traditional religion are also present. Nuba are born to be tolerant: there are 52 tribes and languages among them. Adults usually speak several languages, including Arabic, and are accustomed to move easily in the maze of cultural differences present in their society. This astonishingly varied and tolerant society is mainly the off-spring of run-away slaves who took refuge on the mountains in the course of the last centuries. In spite of having been islamized - with the tolerant African brand of Islam - the Nuba have retained a great pride in their identity and in their Africaness. The systematic oppression of them by the government that seized power in Khartoum thrives on their isolation. Then in the second half of the '80's the Nuba joined the SPLA (Sudan People's Liberation Army) following one of their most skilled politicians, Yusuf Kuwa.
Kuwa, a Moslem who only after unsuccessful attempts to promote political and social changes by peaceful means turned to the armed struggle. The then Prime Minister, Sadiq al Mahdi, unleashed a vicious response. The military government of Omar el Bashir - who seized power in 1989 and is ideologically controlled by the fanatic Moslem cleric Hassan al Turabi - has escalated the war against the Nuba with all the means at its disposal. They cannot tolerate the presence in Northern Sudan of a Moslem population under Moslem leadership rebelling against a government which proclaims itself to be an Islamic republic.
A Strong Denounciation A book resulting from a careful survey done by Alex de Waal and Yoanes Ajawin of the London-based African Rights and published in July last year under the title "Facing Genocide: the Nuba of Sudan" proves with impressive documentation the determination of the Sudan government to culturally and genetically annihilate the Nuba. The Nuba region has been sealed off for almost seven years now. No relief or humanitarian agencies operate on the SPLA side, and the few operating on the government side are carefully manipulated to suit the government aims. The government distributes food, medicine and clothes to attract villagers to the "peace camps". Once there people discover that the "peace camps" are de facto concentration camps: the government's main weapon along with the "combing" operations of the rural areas, for the destruction of the Nuba culture and identity. During the "combing" operations the government army methodically destroys everything.
Houses, schools, mosques and churches are burned, food stores are looted or destroyed, animals are stolen or slaughtered. The idea is to force the Nuba to join the "peace camps" and to eliminate all possible support for the SPLA. People are gunned down, especially chiefs, teachers, health workers: anyone with an education. Captives are taken to garrison towns or "peace camps", forced to carry their own looted properties or drive their own stolen animals in front of them. In the "peace camps" a policy of deculturation and rape is carried out in order to permanently change the genetic and cultural shape of the Nuba society. Men are forced to join the "People's Defense Force", where, after brutal training, they are compelled to join in the destruction of their own communities. Children are separated from their parents and often sent to special camps outside the Nuba Mountains for indoctrination and military training. They will become the next generation of soldiers, "cannon fodder" against their own people. The majority of the babies born in the camps are the result of rape. This tactic is intended to divide the community by creating a generation of children who do not belong to their mothers' clans. But the Nuba are not ready to give up. In 1992 a remarkable conference was convened in the centre of the non-government controlled area. Two hundred delegates from all parts of the Nuba Mountains openly debated whether the SPLA should be given a popular mandate to continue the war. It was a genuine debate, with prominent civilians and SPLA commanders arguing on both sides. The final decision was to continue the war.
This decision was shared by the Muslim Nuba who do not recognize themselves and their faith in the fanatic Islam that Khartoum wants to impose. Since then resistance against the central government has become more and more a fact of the whole population. Villagers have pressed SPLA leadership to institute a full range of civil institutions and social services. During my trips through the Mountains I have seen a primary school with four hundred children hidden in the bush, without any exercise books or pencils, but functioning all the same.
I came across a court of law operating under a tamarind tree and dispensaries where traditional remedies are used along with drugs smuggled from the government controlled areas. There are regular market days when people meet to barter their products: from dresses produced by hand starting with raw cotton to agricultural tools made from bomb fragments. Religion has helped to focus Nuba resistance. Christians of all churches as well as moderate Moslems see in God their protector and defender.
Isolated by the Khartoum government and abandoned by the international community, the Nuba have learned to put their trust in God. But it is not a passive trust. Most of the schools and activities promoting the growth of the people in the Nuba mountains are the expression of some group inspired by religious ideals. Stories of Resistance Butrus el Amin Tibra, 28, is from Kuchama, not far from Heiban, one of the biggest government controlled towns. To attend the one week course I gave last December he walked for two days and then another two returning home.
Still he could not resist walking two more days to join the big crowd - one of the biggest gatherings in the Nuba Mountains since the beginning of the war - for Christmas celebrations at Regifi church. A former Moslem who converted and became a Catholic catechist, Butrus had incredible stories of destruction and suffering, and of determination to resist. "March 17th 1995 the army came out of Heiban in force and attacked Kuchama in the early afternoon.
Those who could, fled into the bush, many were slaughtered like cattle. The soldiers razed everything to the ground, including our church, the school, the teachers' houses. From the church compound they looted ten bags of sorghum, five bags of beans, six bags of groundnuts and all the furniture. Now we have moved a little away and, as a priority, we have rebuilt the school. We want our children to be able to read and write. They can find in the Bible the source of their dignity and strength.
We have called the school Comboni, to keep alive the work done by the missionaries. We desperately need text-books and school material. But even if nobody will help us, we are determined to succeed". Luka, a lanky 15 year old who also attended my course, has accompanied me during many long exhausting trips on foot. He carried my luggage on a shoulder and a machine-gun on the other. In every village we visited he had some friends to pray with first, and to be riotously happy with after. One day at Kerker, after having walked for hours under the sun and having helped to dig a grave, he joined the team of local wrestlers in challenging those from up the Moro Hills.
He engaged in the wrestling three times, three times he fought with determination and pride, three times was very close to victory, yet he lost three times because his opponents were older, bulkier and more experienced. Every time he lost he smiled and complimented the winner. At the end, as he was lifting from the ground the luggage and the machine-gun for two more hours of walking, he told me smiling: "Abuna (father), did you enjoy the wrestling? Sometime in the future I'll be strong enough to win!". Then he smiled, exposing the holes where some of the front teeth had been removed in the initiation to manhood, and said: "The same with the government. Soon, with the help of God, we will be strong enough to wrestle them to the ground!". The confidence of Luka might prove to be too optimistic. During my first visit to the Nuba in the beginning of August 1995, I met William "Shaker" Kuali, 26, an SPLA freedom- fighter who owed his middle name to his ability with the traditional guitar.
When Shaker started strumming the strings of his guitar and singing his melodies nobody could resist smiling and dancing. And when he joined the wrestling arena the public was all for him. Shaker told me about his love for singing and writing poetry, and of his determination that Sudan be a place where all people of different religions and culture could live in harmony. "My place is here to fight for a better tomorrow" he said, but he expressed also his ardent desire that the war would end soon. I learned when I went back to the Nuba in December that Shaker will never sing again his songs of hope, freedom and love. Just a few days after we met, August 18th, he was gunned down by government soldiers while defending his home village. Honey from the Rock If wrestling is the symbol of the indomitable resistance of the Nuba, there is another symbol properly depicting their soul. "I will satisfy you with the wild rock honey", God promises to his people in Psalm 81:16. Why wild rock honey? I asked myself this question many times when the Nuba offered me wild rock honey as the best treat you can find in their Mountains.
With its subtle, special aroma it is really the best honey I ever tasted. The honey from the rock of the Nuba Mountains is a proper image for the delicate feelings of the Nuba. I pride myself on having many African friends. Yet I have never received such generous hospitality as in Sudan. The Nuba routinely surprise me with gifts of beautifully decorated gourds, bead necklaces and hand carved crosses. People have thanked me in endless personal ways for my visits. A Protestant pastor broke down in tears when we had to part ways after a few days of walking together. Jibril Tutu, a Catholic Deacon speaks with veneration of his best friend, the Comboni Missionary Father Fenzi, who, among other things, taught him how to care for lepers. The Nuba are people who value friendship. Happy are those who receive the honey of their friendship. Their struggle, like everything in their life, has a strong communitarian aspect. In the Nuba community all participate.
There are no superstars. At the market, during the dancing, the liturgy, or the wrestling competition the participation of each person is total, at whatever level of involvement in the action. Christmas night was moonless. In the vast yard around the little church, with only a few fires to give light, the people joined in singing and dancing. It was like becoming part of one body. It was a unique Nuba way of expressing their joy and faith in Jesus. "I have no longer any doubt - I told them - Christ is a Nuba. I have seen Him in your generous love for the Church, in your faith, in the eyes of your children, in your dances. Christ is definitely a Nuba." Liberation and Inculturation It would be good to be able to express the faith of the Nuba people in a Nuba way; to write a Nuba theology starting from the experience of oppression, Africaness, culture, liberation and faith of the Nuba people.
A prominent feature of the Nuba people is that in their present experience, struggle for liberation and faith in God intersect. Their own human liberation and the defense of their culture become the reason and sustenance of their struggle. Christ meets them at this junction. The liberation theology which emerged in Latin America during the turmoil of the sixties proclaimed a faith centered concept of integral liberation to the oppressed. African theology instead started from culture and developed the idea of inculturation. Now there are signs that the two theologies of liberation and inculturation are going to meet and proclaim a liberation rooted in inculturated faith. To an evangelizing Catholic Church struggling to shed its ethnocentric roots, to overcome its own long history of cultural oppression and persecution, and to align itself with all those who hunger for justice, the Nuba offer a very special gift.
The Nuba Christ is crucified on a cross where the vertical beam represents the thrust for liberation, a liberation which transcends the economic and political to reach divinization. The horizontal beam represents the reaching out to culture, to the people in their concrete way of life. In the eyes of the world the Nuba are crucified on a cross of degrading misery and backward culture. Yet the same cross, in their hands, becomes an instrument of salvation, redemption and resurrection, a new way of life where human dignity and faith in God are one. Evangelization of the Nuba means to enter into this double dynamic of inculturation and liberation.
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