Friday, January 5, 2007

Identity Crisis

Who are we?
Are we Arabs?
Are we Africans?
Are we Afro-Arabians?
Are you an Arab becaue you speak Arabic?
Geographically- we are Africans
Ethnically- we are Africans
Culturally- we are Africans although some Sudanese tribes are influenced by Arabic or Islamic culture.

NorthAfricans have Middle-Eastern heritage but they also have african roots except the sudanese who are all virtually Africans. Most of the NorthAfricans look like Arabs (Tunisians, Moroccans, Egyptians, Libyans,Algerians and people from West-Sahara) but its hard to think of the Sudanese as Arabs because alot of Sudanese don't look like Arabs.
Most Northern Sudanese or Muslim Sudanese identify themselves as AfroArabians or simply Arabs (although some of them dont even have Arab roots) because they speak arabic, they are Muslims and their culture is dominated by Islamic or Arab values ,beliefs and norms.
We can't consider Sudan an Arab country because most of the population are not Arab but we still can't say that we are a 100% African country because simply, we can't ignore the Arab tribes in Sudan (there are alot of Arab tribes such as the Rashaida tribe and Baggara).
Personally, I think that speaking the language or being Muslim doesnt make you Arab because Islam is a religion practiced by different people all over the world and most Muslims speak arabic because its the language of the holy "Qu'ran"

Since Sudan is madeup of different tribes , each tribe can identify to their own heritage but geographically,linguistically and culturally its a pre-dominantly African country.

We have to deal with this identity crisis ASAP!

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