The power of ignorance in Sudan

On reflection my teaching in Sudan has been an absolute failure. My initial enthusiasm for combining English learning with interaction and discussion was quickly squandered among row-upon-row of blank-faced teenagers unaccustomed to thinking.

 After a number of mind-numbing discussions- devoid of either a worthy number of participants, or stimulating, critical content- I reverted to the spoon-feeding methodology, typical of the Sudanese classroom.

 At this point you may brand me lazy, lacking in perseverance or even, ironically, the creative determination to succeed. Moreover perhaps I am spiteful; overly hasty to condemn my difficulties upon ‘substandard’ students rather than myself- the ‘ make pretend’ teacher. Hear me out….

Revising old clichés

Like many, I came to Sudan in the belief that despite the inevitable classroom challenges, the enthusiasm and dedication of the students would shine through. I was wrong.

 I am tired of hearing those regurgitated clichés (and dare I say Sudan) that cast the ‘poverty-stricken’ students of third world countries such as Sudan as ‘refreshingly enthusiastic’; possessing a ‘thirst’ for learning that their Western contemporaries lack.

 Initially I embraced this narrative. I was encouraged by the abstract assurances that the students’ had a positive attitude towards learning. It was humbling to think that although lacking resources to an extent unimaginable in the UK, my students would be far more conducive and supportive to me, their teacher, than British equals. Naïvely, this is what I envisioned on arriving in Sudan.

Just as most British teenagers see school as an unwelcome obligation, Sudanese teenagers spend the day in anticipation for that all too distant promise of the school bell.  For them school holds out nothing to be enthusiastic about. It is a symbol of boredom, of repetition and rote learning, grammar and sweaty daydreams. In this vein the exercise of learning constitutes subjection to the teacher’s monologues.

 Disenfranchised and disillusioned my students are dead weights. The classroom is a prison, restraining students from expanding their minds and horizons. It is a place where passivity is actively encouraged.

 Looking back on my schooldays, I consider myself fortunate. Creative, discursive and engaging classes were the hallmarks of a good teacher. A student was encouraged to participate. The ability to question and criticise what one was taught were not simply the signs of academic prowess but also the benchmarks of academic achievement.

 The Sudanese curriculum disregards such skillsets.  Memorizing and reproducing the teacher’s monologues are apparently sufficient for life. The reality, worth and implications of this content is beside-the-point. After all everything relayed to them is considered fact; to question it simply upsets their sheltered vision of reality.

The deafness of dogma

 Despite my frustration, the attitude of my students is essentially inevitable. In fact the decay of criticality in Sudanese schools is simply the upshot of an unflinching, society-wide observance to government dogma. It highlights the power of ignorance in discouraging people to question and criticize the status-quo.

 The status-quo is the be all and end all of my student’s sensibilities. Anything that questions it is met by a shrug of the shoulders, an indication that everything they are told, everything they are used to is an incontrovertible truth-  while anything they are not told is probably not worth knowing.

To criticize, to question, to explore what one is taught are not merely neglected but shunned in the face of dogma. On the pretence of absolute truths, the mind becomes closed, the student unable to question what to them appear as facts.

 Take, for instance, a debate on co-education that I attempted to initiate. As students themselves the topic of co-education was something I expected them to engage with. In Sudan all secondary level schools are single-sex. Perhaps, I thought, they would view some of the deficiencies in their education through this wholesale single-sex schooling.

 To prompt some light discussion I raised some questions to the 60 odd boys in my class:

“Why do the girls get better results in their exams than you?”

“If co-education works in my country, the UK, why can it not work in yours?”

“Do you think we should have different work-places, hospitals and universities for men and women?”

 Retrospectively the path of this discussion was inevitable. Before we had even started the superiority of single-sex education had been established: ‘Islam’, ‘our religion’, the holy ‘Quran’ prohibits us from co-education. Without considering the intricacies or contradictions of their argument, the wrongness of co-education had been determined.

The burden of dogma

  For my students there was an unfounded, automatic causality between co-education and moral vice. My attempts to advocate co-education, merely for the sake of debate, were met by nervous giggles. In such circumstances possessing the audacity to question the existing logic paints one as renegade.

 Indeed, as an on looking teacher interrupted me to outline the righteous religious justifications for single-sex education, I was made to feel mistaken and ignorant. Even arguments clearly endowed with a subjective logic, such as the question of co-education, are seen in black and white absolutes. There is a clear right and wrong, Islamic and un-Islamic argument.

 The burden of dogma makes it nigh on impossible for one to consider themselves mistaken. In such a dogmatic society people do not know what it is to be critical, because criticality is seen as somehow treacherous.  It renders someone blasphemer, traitor, and Zionist. To be a Muslim and yet still believe in co-education is an equation that doesn’t add up.

 Nurturing the Ignoramus

 It is unfair to equate ignorance with specific beliefs or convictions. Rather ignorance is a state of following one’s beliefs and convictions blindly. By spoon-feeding students a diet of what it considers self-evident truths, the Sudanese authorities are, wilfully or not, nurturing a generation of ignoramuses. It is an imbalanced diet that binges on accepted theory and logic while forbidding rational reasoning.

 Attending a school prize-giving provides a good impression of the ignorance so endemic of Sudanese society. Amidst the shouts of ‘Allahu Akhbar’ (‘God is Great’), that follow and precede each speaker, it is easy to forget one is at a school and not a political rally. Sometimes I have difficulty in believing that the shouts of ‘Allahu Akhbar’ are simply a proclamation of faith.

 Rather it often seems confrontational; not so much an assertion of faith as a battle cry. Its echo eludes more to political expediency than the divine. By giving divine justification to the political realm it leaves the authorities beyond reproach. It takes hold, it claims people’s religious faith; manipulating religious belief for an unworthy purpose.

 The speeches at these school prize-giving ceremonies are exercises in brainwashing. They proliferate ignorance under the pretence of the divine. They are full of protestations against ‘our Zionist enemy’, giving the genuine impression that Sudan’s problems are a product of Israeli or Jewish (one cannot be sure) meddling. Although muddled by the relationship between Zionist, Israeli and Jew, ‘Zionist’ conspiracy theories expounded by the political elite flourish. The problem is people, politicians included, believe it.

  Ultimately this misguided view of reality is one that trickles-down to every level, every age group of society. It is manifested by unquestioning acceptance of the status- quo. While a dogmatic political culture fuels ignorance, the power of ignorance also enables a dogmatic political culture to prosper.