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April 2002 Cultural
Assault a Form of Genocide The takeover of the National Islamic Front government in 1989, and its drive to Islamize a country that is only partly Moslem, has not only led to massive killing, starvation, displacement, and pauperization of the Dinka and Nuba populations in southern Sudan. There also has been a systematic drive to eliminate their religions, languages, legal systems, and customs. I believe we need to broaden our theoretical framework beyond the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide to include the concept of what I describe as "cultural genocide." The original draft of the Convention contained a more inclusive definition of genocide: "the destruction of the specific character of the persecuted `group’ by forced transfer of children, forced exile, prohibition of the use of the national language, destruction of books, documents, monuments, and objects of historical, artistic or religious value." [emphasis added] In the debates leading up to the approval of the final Convention text, the concept of cultural genocide was excluded, though not without controversy.1 Over the years, numerous scholars have argued that the Convention’s definition falls short of encompassing the full scope of genocide. [Institute for the Study of Genocide] The American Anthropological Association has issued a Declaration on Anthropology and Human Rights, which states: "The capacity for culture is tantamount to the capacity for humanity. Culture is the precondition for the realization of that capacity…" The elimination of a culture is tantamount to the elimination of a people. In Sudan, the war against the southern populations has had a catastrophic impact on their cultures. My focus here is on the Nuba. For primary research, I have relied on the pioneering work done by African Rights in Facing Genocide: The Nuba of Sudan (1995), and on more recent articles by M.A. Mohamed Salih. African Rights has described the sustained assault against the Nuba as "genocide by attrition." I agree. It is worth examining the language used in the NIF’s Islamizing campaign. The government of Khartoum declared jihad against the Christian Nuba; Muslim clerics issued a fatwah against "the infidels." "The Comprehensive Call" (Da’wa el Shamla) has encompassed varying intensities of indoctrination, which include political/economic/social incentives, harassment, detention, and forced conversion, especially in the "peace villages," where Christian Nuba have been "resettled" and isolated from the outside world. "Popular mobilization" and "peace from within" are euphemisms for the terror operations carried out by the army and militia on behalf of the state. "Combing" refers to the destructive raids of Nuba villages, during which food, livestock, and other assets are looted, and people are killed or displaced. In removing these populations, the government has also removed a great deal of the region’s culture. The "combing" raids entail re-naming the village, district or canton; removing historical, religious and community markers, and destroying monuments. The material elements of the culture have been systematically done away with. I believe the targeting of Nuba women for rape, removal from their families, forced marriage, and sexual indenture have been integral to the destruction of the culture. In this regard, the "peace villages" are especially insidious. Families, neighbors, and communities are split up; groups are further separated by gender, which has had the effect of decreasing the Nuba birthrate. Children have been forcibly removed from their families [a violation of Article 2(e) of the Genocide Convention] for religious indoctrination, and in the case of sons, for military recruitment to the NIF cause. It
has been reported that virtually every woman placed in a peace camp
has been raped or forced into service as a prostitute or concubine
for the army or militia. Massive systematic rape functions as a
kind of ethnic cleansing, since it is designed to produce children
without a clear ethnic identity. It cuts off the future of the group
as a distinct ethnic and cultural entity. Rape and sexual humiliation
break down the fabric of society and undermine the moral codes.
African Rights has reported that Nuba men have been forcibly inducted
into the army and socialized into a culture of violence in which
they, too, rape Nuba women who are not their wives—a total
breakdown of Nuba tradition. The state’s intentional war of attrition on the Nuba has systematically violated the group’s right to practice, and pass on, its history, language, religion, customs, and morality. The future of the Nuba as a distinct group has been fatally undermined. This focused, sustained cultural assault is a form of genocide. Sondra Hale, Adjunct Professor of Anthropology and Women’s Studies, UCLA 1 See Leo Kuper, Genocide: Its Political Use in the Twentieth Century (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1981).
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