Down with Al-Noor Cultural Club

(We, from the modernist forces of all tribes, are required as long as we live to mobilize against the remnants of the Kizan [Islamists], the greatest evil, and to express our anger at their wrongdoing towards us. This call is limited to targeting the Kizan as the sole evil, neglecting other evils such as the Rapid Support Forces, which serve as an example to the world. On this occasion, I recall a piece I wrote in 1999 in my column “Nevertheless” in the “International Journalist” newspaper about the permanence of protest in us, even after the objective of the protest weakens or disappears. I once said that this persistence in us is like the myth of Sisyphus, whom the Greek gods punished by making him carry a rock to the top of a mountain, only for it to roll back down, forcing him to carry it up again, and so on, forever. The Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC) want us to carry the rock of the Kizan until the end of time, ascending with it to the peak, only for it to roll down again, and we would carry it back to the top once more. This is a curse, not politics. The curse is the politics of an angry, stubborn god frozen in time.

The late Sheikh (or Hasab al-Rasool) Rahmatullah, a prominent lawyer in Al-Ubayyid, was known for his wit and humor. One day, he told me a funny story about a protest in Wad Madani that he participated in during his time at the Ahliya Middle School in the city in the early 1950s. The school administration had arranged with a cinema to show an educational and entertaining film to broaden the students’ horizons. However, upon reaching the cinema, the students discovered that the screening had been canceled without prior notice. The boys were furious, protested, and chanted for the downfall of the film, the cinema, and its owners. Their protest did not change the situation. So, they angrily marched through the city streets toward the school in a protest of frustration and defeat, chanting at every shop, kiosk, sign, and taxi they encountered along the way. When they passed by the Al-Noor Cultural Club, they stopped, turned towards its sign, and chanted in absurdity and anger:

– Al-Noor Cultural Club, Al-Noor Cultural Club, Al-Noor Cultural Club.

Then they moved on to another target.

Sudanese national politics were born from the aspirations of opposition against British colonialism and its fervor. This politics came to the colonial cinema with the promises of civilization, urbanization, freedom, and Islam made by Kitchener. We received none of it. So, we revolted out of love for “Azza” [a symbol of the homeland] and “my dear national institute,” and we chanted: Down with colonialism, oh down with colonialism. That was a true chant, a righteous anger. Colonialism fell, and we were left bewildered. We divided into parties, sects, and factions without a noble goal or ideal objective, wandering aimlessly through the streets, forests, and mountains of our country and neighboring countries, chanting at whoever we encountered or didn’t encounter with any slogan, with or without purpose. And when we reach the Al-Noor Cultural Club, we will chant like the boys of the Ahliya School in Madani:

Al-Noor Cultural Club, Al-Noor Cultural Club, Al-Noor Cultural Club.