Approaches to studying Sudanese culture The reality and theoretical ideology of Sudan

Professor Al-Tour D. Youssef Hassan Madani

This paper discusses trends in Sudanese culture. It examines the contradiction between reality and the imagined backed by an ideology of supremacist authoritarianism that cancels and ignores the people of Sudan. It also examines four trends and attempts to understand and study Sudanese culture from the outside, which resulted in significant mistakes: (1) Pan-Arabism (2) Pan-Africanism (3) Afro-Arabism and (4) Diversity.

Those involved in these trends did not drive the work and documentation in a way that led to an objective and realistic understanding that approaches and views people through a cultural lens; instead they were political trends that did not understand Sudanese ideologies. As a result, Sudanese culture was reduced to a coercive act that positioned Sudanese society in readymade templates that failed to include details, qualities, and personality. 

The imposition of these ideas resulted in pragmatic judgments being passed on people's cultures based on the politicisation of culture that did not derive from the people's way of thinking and heritage.

Starting with this paper, I advocate for a shift away from decisions based on the unilateralism of readymade ideologies that promote prejudice and deny people's history and heritage.