Global media coverage of Sudan’s protests is lamentable

 In Sudan, a week of protests, demonstrations and killings (the Sudanese Doctors Union says 210 https://radiotamazuj.org/en/article/sudanese-doctors-report-210-dead-khartoum-during-demonstrations) have passed and most of us are none the wiser. In the meantime earnest calls for change have been met by brutal suppression.  School children shot in cold blood. Funeral goers attacked.  People made voiceless by nationwide internet blackouts.  Yet the response of the world’s media has barely been audible.

So while the BBC muses over the details of Prince George’s upcoming Christening and CNN speculates about the implications of President Obama and Rouhani’s exchange of niceties, human stories of unimaginable suffering have gone unheard. The idea that journalism should be a force for positive change in the world is once again put into question.

As the worlds media continues to turn a blind-eye to developments in Sudan, the momentum of the protests ebb. The longer you have to search the hidden links of an internet news website to find even vague mention of Sudan (usually written by an agency), the greater the injustice. 

There is a compelling story waiting to be told. A story of young and old, man and women ( see http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/2013/09/30/Tear-gas-fired-at-women-s-university-protest-in-Sudan-.html), whole families for that matter bravely taking to the streets in defiance of the status quo. It is a defiance so striking precisely because of the challenge it faces.

 More often than not, voices for change are stifled by the government’s overbearing security apparatus. Media and information networks have been censored. Civil society has been purged of its most persuasive voices.  Sudan’s protest may not be as large as those witnessed in Egypt and Tunisia, yet the challenge it faces is in many ways more daunting.

 The global media does not grasp this challenge. It does not recognize the significance of the moment a journalist accuses a minister of ‘lying’ in his claims that photographs of shot protestors are ‘fakes’’  (http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/sep/30/sudanese-journalist-criticizes-ministers-on-camera/).

 Instead given the breakthroughs at the UN, Syria’s chemical weapons, Egypt’s ongoing protests not to mention Prince George’s upcoming Christening, events in Sudan rarely reach the newscast’s rundown (AJE and France24 being exceptions).

 Perhaps we think we already understand the protests in Sudan. That with one instinctive brushstroke we can paint the same picture of political and social oppression, economic demise and civil conflict that we subconsciously associate with any mention of this ‘hopeless’ country.

 If so, we are very mistaken.

  

Female genital mutilation in Sudan: What is the tie that binds?

Reason to be optimistic?

“It only exists in rural areas….its a thing of the past,” says Amal, an unmarried middle-aged teacher, and passionate advocate of female education and empowerment in Sudan. Amal is not alone in embracing this optimistic narrative of progress in the struggle to save future generations of young girls from the scourge of female genital mutilation (FGM).

Ask Sudanese people about the practice and the same, reassuringly familiar message reigns: Sudan stands on the brink of eliminating FGM. It is not hard to accept this logic. Recent UNICEF reports (2008 + 2013) have highlighted a concerted campaign of local and national initiatives aimed at eradicating FGM in Sudan. 

A 2008 UNICEF report, for instance, outlines how community level projects have shifted FGM from being a ‘taboo topic’, to one which can be openly discussed. In government, the state authorities of South Kordofan and Gedaref have successfully passed legislation banning FGM, setting a strong precedent for renewed federal initiatives to outlaw the practice.

 Most noteworthy is the saleema campaign, a coordinated effort by government, religious leaders, artists and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) to eliminate FGM by reframing how people view the ‘uncut’ girl. Through the use of national television and community radio, the term saleema aims to delink the ‘uncut’ girl from abusive slurs such as qulfa, which arouse negative images of prostitution, low status and immorality, and instead create a more positive alternative based on a ‘whole, happy and healthy girl who is uncut, as God made her’. Centred on the expression ‘Every girl is born saleema. Let her grow saleema’, the campaign looks to revise preconceptions about what constitutes a natural, normal and Muslim girl.

Complex dynamics of change.

  However, despite tangible advancements in advocacy work and widespread assertions of progress, the dynamics of change surrounding the practice of FGM are more complex than it may at first appear.  Indeed, as a new report published by UNICEF ( Female genital mutilation/cutting: a statistical overview and exploration of the dynamics of change. Available from http://www.unicef.org/media/files/FGCM_Lo_res.pdf) highlights, there is a startling discrepancy (comparable in size only with Ethiopia) between the number of Sudanese women who have undergone FGM , and those who think it should continue.

 While 88% of Sudanese women aged between 15 and 49 have undergone some form of FGM, only 42% of women think the practice should continue (versus 53% who think it should end). Despite apparent attitudinal changes and augmented abandonment efforts, the prevalence of FGM in Sudan has remained static for the best part of a decade. In contrast, over the last two decades support for FGM has steadily decreased from 79% (UNICEF 1990) to 42% today. 

 Drawing on a comprehensive compilation of data from the 29 countries where the practice is most common, UNICEF’s report emphasizes the disparity that exists between attitudes and behaviour towards FGM, especially in ‘high prevalence’ countries such as Sudan. In many ways this discrepancy raises more questions than answers as to how future generations of Sudanese girls may become unbound from this tortuous practice perpetrated by those who love them.

Sudan is perhaps the most pertinent example of how concerted efforts by government and NGOs to make individuals appreciative of the physical and social costs of FGM, are futile in the face of a practice that has, over time, become so deeply entrenched in the social fabric of communities. It is identifying and combating the social dynamics that perpetuate this brutish behaviour, in spite of individual preferences to stop it, that holds the key to narrowing the gap between the prevalence of FGM and the attitudes, as well as misguided perceptions, surrounding it.

The nature of FGM in Sudan

 As girls enter their early years of puberty, FGM looms as a ‘rite of torture’ that families put their daughters through in the name of honour, chastity, purity and morality. In Sudan type III, the most severe form of FGM, is most prevalent. Some surveys suggest that as many as 80-90% (PATH) of ‘circumcised’ Sudanese women have undergone this type of procedure.

 Type III FGM, also known as Pharonic circumcision or infibulation, involves the total removal of all external sex organs, including the clitoris and labia, while what is left of the vagina is sewn up, leaving a small opening to permit urination and the passing of menstrual blood.

  FGM leaves its indelible mark on each stage of a girls passage to womanhood; a daughters evolution to motherhood. It controls a women’s sexuality. It confines women to lesser partners in their own marriage. It conceives femininity as synonymous with docility and obedience, laying the social fabric of communities for generations to come.

 Most girls in Sudan undergo FGM between the ages of 5 and 11. The procedure is usually carried out by a ‘traditional practitioner’, that is an older women from the community, or by untrained midwives.  Equipped with unsterilized kitchen knives, razor blades, scissors and pieces of sharpened glass, these practitioners ply their trade in the habitual surroundings of a girl’s home.

  Female members of the family and neighbours play a supporting role holding the girl down, leaving her destined for the inescapable agony, the gruesome disfigurement about to be inflicted upon her by the midwives razor blade. After the procedure the girl’s legs will be tied together, leaving her immobile for ten days until the flesh fuses together.  Here starts a recurrent cycle of anguish and agony that will afflict every stage of her development.

 Adolescence will be remembered for the excruciating pain that follows each period, as menstrual blood is unable to escape at the rate required.

 The consummation of marriage makes unavoidable the indescribable, bloody pain, experienced as the small vaginal opening is gradually- over a matter of days and weeks- probed open, and a girl’s virginity shed. Far from being a setting for intimacy and tenderness, the honeymoon would surely border on sadistic if it were not for the reality that more men oppose infibulation than women (65% of men favour stopping the practice versus 53% of women).

 Type III FGM increases the likelihood of infertility by 25%. Childbirth holds innumerable, unnecessary dangers for child and mother. Infibulation risks tearing, bleeding and obstructed labor. ‘Deinfibulation’, in childbirth, is followed by a process of ‘reinfibulation’ , reasserting a women’s obedience to husband and society.

 In deference to the risks, the agony, the anguish and the inequality enshrined in this practice, FGM remains persistent in Sudan.  Despite widespread advocacy and abolition campaigns the deep-seated social ties that bind people to FGM are yet to be cut. Why do they remain so potent and persuasive?

The social ties that bind

  FGM is so pervasive and persistent in Sudan because decisions to engage in it go beyond mere cost-benefit calculations that acknowledge its harmful consequences. Within each social category, a sizeable number of individuals hold beliefs- or claim to hold beliefs- that contradict their behaviour.

In Sudan 31% of daughters between the age of 0-14 have a mother who opposes FGM, yet has still surrendered their daughter to the procedure.  Almost 65% of Sudanese men (significantly more than women) want to see FGM end, yet the most offensive insult young men can throw at each other is ‘your mother is an uncut [whore]’. Support for FGM among the richest, most educated ‘quintile’  is only 21% (as opposed to 68% in the poorest ‘quintile’),  yet the prevalence of FGM for girls between the age of 0-14 is exactly the same  between the richest and poorest quintile.

 FGM is seen as a social obligation that transcends individual preferences.  Chastity, and consequently virginity, are seen as moral imperatives for prospective brides. FGM, specifically type III infibulation, is seen as an assurance of this. Female circumcision is a statement of purity, or ‘tahur’; the clitoris an illicit symbol of sexual desire, manliness and uncleanliness.  It is the dictate of ‘bride price’; the embodiment of a family’s reputation for moral integrity. FGM is a rite of passage to social acceptance.

Interdependent decision-making

 Using social norms theory the recent UNICEF report on FGM highlights the flaw of assuming a direct link between information, intention and behaviour change. Indeed, while Sudanese people have been exposed to a concerted campaign of community level initiatives, mass media advocacy and government attempts to outlaw the practice, their behaviour (the prevalence of FGM) has remained largely unchanged for over a decade. In this vein the decision of an individual regarding FGM can be seen as dependent on the decision of others.

 There is a social stigma attached to the uncut girl. Rightly or wrongly, individuals who disapprove of FGM, perceive that they are an exception, an anomaly in society. In reality, the statistics collected on individual attitudes suggest that there is a majority of people in Sudan who disapprove of FGM. Individuals incorrectly perceive the attitudes of other individuals.

 This leads to a phenomenon social norm theorists call ‘pluralistic ignorance’.  In its most extreme form, pluralistic ignorance may create a situation where every individual in a community disapproves of FGM, yet behaviour remains the same as these same individuals believe themselves to be social anomalies. There consequently exists a tendency to overestimate the support a practice, such as FGM, receives from others.

  In Sudan this situation may be put down to a lack of public scrutiny. There has been a failure to establish an effective, all-inclusive and comprehensive strategy to eradicate the practice of FGM.  While there have been numerous campaigns in Sudan to eliminate FGM, these have neither effectively targeted nor mobilized the key norm-makers. For instance while health professionals frequently visit girls secondary schools and women’s social groups to raise awareness surrounding the dangers of FGM, no such visits are made to boys secondary schools and men’s social groups.  Similarly mass media campaigns are more likely to be seen by women, who spend more time confined to the house, watching television and listening to radio, then men.

 While regretful, the reality is that in Sudanese society men, particularly fathers, hold greater sway over decision-making and norm-entrepreneurship.  There needs to be a more concerted, targeted effort to engage these multiple decision-makers (which, significantly, includes those pernicious little grandmothers), so that the significant individual opposition to FGM can be mobilized to prompt wholesale social change.

 There is, as alluded to at the beginning of this article, a visible, but as yet unfounded optimism, regarding the scale of FGM in Sudan. This false optimism (at least in relation to FGM prevalence) offers some interesting conclusions. The cynic may say that positive assessments of FGM prevalence characterize Sudanese flexibility, or rather the tendency to tell each individual what they want to hear. 

 A more rational observer, however, may connect this optimism to more fundamental change. The practice of FGM is less visible than it was 10 or 20 years ago. It is less ritualistic; less celebratory. Instead it is conducted with an air of secrecy.  Perhaps perceptions of social stigma are slowly shifting. It is in this manner that people see change occurring. While we are not there yet,  there is reason to be optimistic that progress in the struggle to eliminate FGM is not far off…

Teaching in Sudan: challenges and criticisms.

Overwhelming expectation

Expectations can be overwhelming. The unrealistic optimism of ministry officials, teachers and students in the Khawaja’s capacity to cultivate English fluency in Sudanese schools bordered on delusional. It is fair to say that if these miraculous expectations constitute the benchmark of success, my results certainly fall well below par

At an abstract level the quality of spoken English has not suddenly improved over the course of the last six month. Moreover, there has been no tangible progress in establishing the intended ‘English Clubs’ and ‘Teacher Workshops’ (I put most of the blame squarely on the shoulders of the inactive ministry personnel). The weight of overwhelming expectation has the tendency to bring my inadequacies and inexperience as a teacher into ever sharper focus.

 Yet, observing the teaching of my colleagues such concerns soon fade into irrelevance. Complacently, I find confidence in their shortcomings. Not only does the question ‘how much worse can I be?’ seem reassuring, rather than an ominous tempt of fate, but my presence seems to have purpose as well as the considerable support of both students and teachers.

 English fluency, and critical thinking have fallen victim to decades of neglect and inattention. Teachers, whether bound or simply blinded by the existing English curriculum, curb student engagement in learning. SPINE led learning (Sudan Practical Integrated National English textbook- a title as mindless/ gobbledegook as the classroom instruction itself) has disenfranchised students.

Improving spoken English

We are part of a pilot program designed to improve the level of spoken English in Sudanese secondary schools. Under the leadership of the federal Ministry of Education, the program looks to reverse the damaging effects that aggressive policies of Arabization (since late 1980s) have had on the standard of English- particularly spoken English- in Sudan.

Some of our students

 The decision to change the language of instruction in Sudanese schools from English to Arabic made certain the deterioration of English. As an independent, post-colonial country, English was an invaluable resource that had the potential to set Sudan apart from many of its non-English speaking, developing country rivals. Instead, decades of neglect have left Sudan with its two youngest generations unable to communicate, and consequently compete, in an irreversibly global marketplace.

 While English still constitutes one of the core school subjects its teaching is plagued by incompetence and strategic failings. Teacher led-instruction, prioritization of accuracy over fluency and the neglect of speaking and listening skills, combines to leave most students (at least boys) in their last year of secondary school still unable to introduce themselves in English. The SPINE textbook is no doubt a considerable cause of this. 

 Teachers use SPINE as a kind of binding script, veering away from its text only for the purpose of translation to Arabic. The content is abstract, with chapters designated to such trivial garbage as ‘bird migration’. Reminders of Grammar are ever-present. Always, SPINE strives to be informative about Sudanese culture, ignoring the important association between a language and its cultural context.

 It follows that my main aim has been to improve speaking and listening skills among students. Interaction is at the core of these efforts. Where possible I have attempted to take a backseat role, giving the students the opportunity to speak and, importantly, think. Lessons have a functional focus that, devoid of the abstract drivel concentrated in SPINE, aims to utilize English through situational learning (eg. directions and invitations).

Abdul Karim end of year party

 In addition to my lessons I have taken a handful of English clubs. Due to scheduling difficulties, and a typical lack of urgency to resolve them, only one English Club has been fully established.  This is a shame as the relaxed, leisurely environment of the English Club prompts far more interaction than the more strict and rigorous format of my ordinary classes.

My school routine

My time is divided between three boys secondary schools: Ismahel al-Welli, Abdul Karim Hussein Jaffa and El Obeid ‘thanwiya beneen’. Over the course of the week I will teach about 15 periods to 15 different classes.  Given that one period is only 40 minutes it is unsurprising that progress can be slow. While the lazy side of me, euphemistically referred to as  ‘resourceful’,  recognizes that 15 different classes requires only one, maybe two, lesson plans; the earnest, hardworking side acknowledges that English advancement is limited with only 40 minutes a week to teach upwards of 60 students.

  Sudanese working life assumes a typically unhurried, leisurely pace.  The considerable time between lessons drifts unconsciously from one hour to the next. Amid the intermittent, two-way language lessons with my Arabic-speaking colleagues, discussions ebb and flow. Trivial conversations on football and WWE soon become consumed by engaging, sometimes impassioned, arguments on politics and the declining state of Sudanese society.

My colleagues at Ishmael al-Welli

 The time drinking shy/ jabanna, learning Arabic and lamenting about Sudan’s better days, drifts effortlessly by for the better part of the morning. Feeling as though the working day is yet to start the 11am breakfast has arrived. As is seemingly obligatory, the teachers and I once again stop for a protracted breakfast of fuul (beans) or adis (lentils) with bread.

 Unlike in the West, time in Sudan is infinite. It can be leisurely whiled away, unconstrained by the finite, Western bounds that see ‘time as money’. In Sudan time is never wasted. Rather, like the rich man who frivolously gives away money, the Sudanese teacher whiles away a few more hours. In this vein, my day takes shape…

*

One evening last week I received a phone-call from Ustaz Hussein, a colleague from one of the Boys Secondary Schools I teach at. Hussein’s phone-call, not unusually, regarded semantics; more specifically his planned designation of an English Summer School for students as a ‘Summer Concentration Camp’.

  Besides being considerably amused by this most unfortunate of gaffes (which is itself noteworthy), I was left astonished that Hussein, not only one of El Obeid’s most respected English teachers but also an English literature Phd student (albeit a Sudanese Phd…) , could be so oblivious to the connotations and context of this term. Over the past week I have come to view this bungled experiment with the English language as indicative of the wider failings of English language instruction in Sudan.

Unengaged and uninformed

 An Inflexible obedience to the curriculum, manifested by unyielding adherence to the SPINE textbook leaves the students and teachers completely detached from the cultural base that carries the English language. Whether by intention or not, the SPINE curriculum supposes that English can be taught without the ‘cultural baggage’ that accompanies it. Not only does this leave English lessons’ devoid of creative and engaging content but, more worryingly, consigns students, and teachers alike, to the perils of systemic ignorance. The consequences of this are that terms such as ‘Concentration Camp’ are lifted from their appropriate context, translated literally and ultimately, used erroneously.

I am under no illusions about the unfailingly low levels of English I have had to contend with in my boys’ secondary schools. Yet, it is not so much the low level of English as the interactive and communicative method of instruction that has presented my biggest classroom obstacle. Classroom utterances  of ‘ma inglesi…Arrabi! Arrabi’ leave me frustrated and perturbed rather than sympathetic or reflective. Exasperated I urge the students to ‘switch on their brains’. I let the long silences persist, determined not to spoon-feed the students appropriate words or dialogue.  It is such that the role-play on ‘directions’ becomes a battle of wills.

 On the one hand I obstinately persist, insistent that my class will instil at least an inkling of the creativity, critical analysis and assertiveness which is so thoroughly lacking in other classes. Thus, I wait; urging my students to at least attempt to utilize the newly gathered vocabulary to guide their partners around the fictional town outlined on the blackboard. Encouraged to ‘think’, the students are out of their comfort zone.   

 Thinking has become an alien concept in Sudan. In Sudan the teacher is the transmitter of knowledge; the students their passive recipients. The existing classroom environment prioritizes rote learning and memorization over student engagement and understanding. As one teacher trainer in El Obeid said ‘the students know nothing’.  Despairingly she anticipated the coming of age of a generation of leaders deprived of the ‘real knowledge’ necessary to navigate a more promising course for Sudan.

 Class time is overwhelmingly dominated by the teacher. With the duration of the lesson spent religiously regurgitating the content of the SPINE textbooks and simplified English novels (eg. Treasure Island), the teacher leaves little time for student involvement. Exams, simply in a reading/ writing format, are based entirely on memorizing this content. Teachers lack both the will and capacity to bestow their students with skills that go beyond the meagre ‘one word’ ‘fill in the blank’ demands of the exam curriculum. Learning literature by rote and grammatical accuracy are prioritized. Fluency is overlooked; creative impulse stunted.

An exception: dressed for their self-made English language play

 It follows that guiding a classmate around my blackboard town is beyond the passive student. Unable to flawlessly memorize either the teacher’s exact expression, or the abstract grammatical explanations misleadingly emphasised in SPINE, the student is frozen in his footsteps; incapable of solving the unexpected, undetermined problem that confronts him.

 Almost a fifth of my lesson has been consumed as I determinedly wait for my student to come to an answer of his own making. Neglected, the 79 other students in my class have become rowdy. My obstinate will to persist gives way to the spoon-feeding strategy. It seems that the classroom is a battle of wills that I will always lose.

A question of resources

Perhaps it is not so much the method of learning as the dearth of learning resources that blights English language instruction in Sudan. Hussein’s Concentration Camp gaffe seems insignificant when teachers are regularly misapplying fundamentals. During my time in El Obeid, I am yet to find a teacher who can correctly tell the time in English. Half past four, for instance, is ‘ four and a half’. Likewise, I have found no teacher who has mastered the word ‘ago’. Instead of ‘two years ago’, teachers will always say ‘before two years’. The language proficiency of English teachers in El Obeid falls far below any presumed minimal level of competence.

 Thus, far from being an asset to students’ comprehension of English the majority of teachers are, regrettably, a liability. Saturating students’ minds ‘with incorrect English- to the extent that teachers regularly interrupt students in order to ‘falsely correct’- the teachers are instilling flawed English in a whole generation.

 Communicating with the majority of English teachers entails a struggle that betrays their job title. The simplest question must be rephrased multiple times in order for its premise to be grasped. Quicker than anticipated, conversations reach a point of exhaustion. “Zuzu” represents the most worrying example of this dearth of competence within the English teaching profession. It is no exaggeration to say that even a question as basic as ‘Where are you from’ was beyond her understanding.

Teaching a class of first year girls, Zuzu was, predictably, out of her depth. Metaphorically, she drowned. I felt sympathy for Zuzu; bemused that someone so obviously incompetent and under-qualified had been permitted to teach a class of 70 girls. She spent the entire class incorrectly reciting the text book, only modifying her instruction to briefly, and inevitably incorrectly, write some misspelt ‘key words’ on the blackboard which the class would then recite. The rolling eyes of her students as well as their superior English ensured that the lesson was an exercise in her humiliation.

 The teacher-dominated classroom is in some ways inevitable given the enormous class sizes teachers must contend with. In a class of 80 teenage boys it is infeasible to expect to give each student the attention and supervision necessary for real progress to be made. Unfortunately I am left with a ‘greater good decision’: teach some students something or all students nothing. As such, I decide to leave the raucous back-rows (often those students whose parents lost out in the competition to render their children front-row seats) to their own devices; only intervening when their disorderliness threatens the remainder of the class.

  The six schools we teach in are all ‘Model Schools’. Enjoying model status entitles a school to a greater concentration of financial (higher school fees) and material resources than non-model secondary schools (although these resources are not apparent in the model schools).  Supposedly, the model schools are composed of the more academically gifted students, empowering them to acquire a reputation of excellence that other schools lack. However, the link between academic proficiency and model status is not straightforward.

 The make-up of the model school directly parallels that of El Obeid’s more affluent communities. Naturally, the more academically gifted emanate from educated households, more likely to be found in richer neighbourhoods. Conversely the less academically gifted originate from less educated households, more likely to be found in El Obeid’s poorer neighbourhoods. The model school is a clone of the most prosperous families

 Perversely, public resources are concentrated in communities most financially and socially able to acquire them. Communities which lack these means are left perpetually under-resourced. In order to retain their model status schools, not so secretly, manipulate academic statistics.

 Those students who achieve sub-standard results in their second year (of three) of secondary school are grouped in the same class. Although still receiving their education at the model school- and required to pay the higher school fees- these students are not permitted to undertake their Sudan Certificate Exams (the Sudanese equivalent of British GCSE’s) under the name of the school. Instead they sit the Sudanese Certificate registered as attendees of ‘evening classes’. It is therefore misleading and overly simplistic to say that model school students are academically gifted students. It would be more accurate to conclude that the model school is the domain of the (relatively) wealthy.

 Manipulating exam results ensures that the façade of the model school, with its heightened reputation and resources, is maintained. Yet, in reality the level of excellence implied by the title ‘model school’ masks the wholesale deterioration of secondary school education in Sudan.