The Political Culture of Young Nubians in Egypt: The Return Movement

Authors

  • Author

  • Ahmed Abdelmawgoud Elshenawy

Keywords:

Political Culture, Old Nubia, Nubian Return Movement, 2011 Egyptian Revolution, Egypt

Abstract

This article examines the role of Nubian political culture in galvanizing public action around a return to “Old Nubia”. It explores the achievements of Nubian Return Movement, and whether taking part therein correlates with a degree of awareness and political culture. The analysis interrogates the conception of this return among young Nubians, using qualitative data and Clifford Geertz’s “interpretation of cultures” approach. The article concludes that the political values promoted by the 2011 Egyptian Revolution heralded the emergence of a novel political culture among young Nubians that has revitalized the return, but lacks the necessary tools to rectify the issue.

References

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  5. New Nubia refers to the villages of Nasr al-Nuba to which the Nubians were displaced in 1964, located in an agricultural land reclamation area in Kom Ombo, north of Aswan. Each of its 43 villages bears the same ancient name, and the communities are distributed by ethnic group just as they were in Old Nubia. See: Mohamed Abdo Mahgoub, “al-Tahjīr wa-l-Tawṭīn fī al-Mujtamaʿāt al-Mustaḥdatha: Dirāsa Ḥaqliyya fī al-Mujtamaʿ al-Nūbī al-Miṣrī,” in: Mostapha Hamada (ed.), Dirāsāt Anthrūbūlūjiyā fī al-Mujtamaʿ wa-l-Thaqāfa (Alexandria: Dar Elmaarefa Elgameaia, 2005), p. 76.
  6. Old Nubia refers to the original location of Nubian villages behind the Aswan High Dam, extending northward from the Egyptian-Sudanese border until Aswan along the Nile. All the lands of Nubia once constituted a single, distinct geographical unit inhabited by an ethnically, culturally, and socially homogeneous people until 1899, when the British colonial powers partitioned Nubia into a northern region, known as Egyptian Nubia, and a southern region as part of Sudan, known as Upper Nubia. See: Leslie Greener, High Dam Over Nubia (Cairo: Egyptian House of Composition and Translation, 1966), p. 17; and Maher Ahmed Zaki, Hākadhā Takallama al-Nūbiyyūn: Mawsūʿa Nūbiyya (Cairo: Maher Zaki Esq., 2011), pp. 153-154.
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  8. By “return”, Nubians mean being repatriated to the lands from which water has receded near Lake Nasser (upon the stabilization of its water level) and receiving priority for the use of land that was once part of Old Nubia. Currently, the youth are calling for a return to this land on the basis that it be allocated according to the old divisions.
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  11. Article 236 of the 2014 Egyptian constitution prescribes that “the state shall ensure the drafting and implementation of a comprehensive plan for the economic and urban development of the underprivileged outlying regions (including Upper Egypt, Sinai, Matruh, and Nubia) within ten years of this Constitution’s effective date, as regulated by law, through participation in development projects on part of the primary beneficiaries thereof, i.e., the local population. The state shall work to draft and implement initiatives to return the Nubian people to their ancestral lands and to develop these regions within ten years, as regulated by law”. See: A rab Republic of Egypt, Parliament, Dustūr Jumhūriyyat Miṣr al-ʿArabiyya , April 2019, art. 236, p. 100, accessed on 22/05/2023, at: https://shorturl.at/kBLS7
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  21. 23 Ibid., pp. 111-114.
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  31. Mentioned in: Saliha Kebbabi, “al-Huwiyya wa-l-Thaqāfa al-Siyāsiyya ka-Madkhal li-l-Taḥawwul al-Dīmuqrāṭī fī al-Sharq al-Awsaṭ,” Human Sciences Journal , no. 46 (2016), p. 240.
  32. Kamal El-Menoufi, Mafhūm al-Thaqāfa al-Siyāsiyya: Dirāsa Naẓariyya Taʾṣīliyya (Cairo: Egyptian Center for Futurological and Strategic Studies, 2008), p. 34.
  33. According to Stephen White, “vertical” political subculture can be defined as relating to the social or demographic characteristics that its members have in common, like distinguishing between “mass” political culture and the “elite” political culture of decision-makers and their associates. Meanwhile, “horizontal” political subculture essentially coincides with sub-regions and affiliations. See: Stephen White, “Political Culture and Political Sub-cultures,” in: Political Culture and Soviet Politics (London/Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1979), pp. 143-165.
  34. Aliya El-Hussein Mohamed Kamel, “al-Thaqāfa al-Siyāsiyya bayn al-Rafḍ wa-l-Takayyuf lada al-Shabāb al-Sūdānī: Dirāsa Sūsiyū- Anthrūbūlūjiyya Maydāniyya,” Annals of the Faculty of Arts, Ain Shams University , vol. 45 (January-March 2017), p. 168.
  35. Randa Emad Mohamed Sabri et al., “Taʾthīr Muʾassasāt al-Tanshiʾa al-Siyāsiyya ʿalā Tashkīl al-Thaqāfa al-Siyāsiyya fī al-Mujtamaʿ al-Miṣrī,” Faculty of Commerce Journal of Academic Research , no. 66 (2019), p. 3.
  36. Ahmed Tohamy Abdelhay, “al-Thaqāfa al-Siyāsiyya lil-Taḥawwul al-Dīmuqrāṭī,” Majallat al-Dīmuqrāṭiyya , vol. 8, no. 31 (2008), pp. 103-107.
  37. The following are some examples of the language used: “Halt the incessant cultural and ethnic cleansing operations in Nubia”; “The governments of Egypt and Sudan are working in full coordination to destroy the coherent fabric of Nubia[n culture]”; “The Egyptian government carries out divisive policies and employs cultural cleansing tactics by promoting non-Nubian Arab settlement on Nubian lands”; “Nubia currently faces a real and grave threat, and Nubians cannot bear this perpetual, clandestine massacre alone”; “The protection of Nubians, the pioneers of history, is also an international responsibility”; and “We, the undersigned, implore the civilized peoples [of the world], the United Nations, and international organizations to immediately come to the rescue of the Nubians, their lands, their culture, and their heritage”. See: Haggag Oddoul, “al-Nidā al-ʿĀlamī li-Inqādh al- Nūba,” Odoul , Facebook, 02/01/2019, accessed on 02/01/2019, at: https://tinyurl.com/2p8kvzs6
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  40. El-Manoufi, p. 28.
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  45. Muhyiddin Sherif, al-Nūba: Ḥikāyāt wa-Dhikrayāt (Cairo: Dar Al Oloum Printing, 1986), p. 33.
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  47. Mona Gaber Abd El-Hady Hashem, “Miṣdāqiyyat Tanāwul Ṣiḥāfat al-Muwāṭin li-Qaḍāyā al-Ṣirāʿ wa-Dawruhā fī Tashkīl al-Thaqāfa al-Siyāsiyya li-l-Shabāb,” Egyptian Journal of Media Studies, no. 60 (2017), p. 350.
  48. Noha Tarek Abbas Hassan, “al-Taghayyur fī al-Thaqāfa al-Siyāsiyya al-Miṣriyya wa-Thawrat Yanāyir 2011: Dirāsa Maydāniyya li-l-Shabāb al-Miṣrī,” Journal of Independence , no. 8 (2017), p. 161.
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  50. For more details, see: Farook Mostafa et al., Awlawiyyat al-Ḥājāt al-Ijtimāʿiyya fī al-Mujtamaʿ al-Nūbī: Dirāsa bi-Muḥāfaẓatay Aswān wa- Qinā (Cairo: National Centre for Social and Criminalogical Research, 2010); Ahmed Abdelmawgoud El-Shenawi, “al-Awḍāʿ al-Maʿīshiyya fī al-Nūba al-Jadīda bayn ʿAwāmil al-Istiqrār wa-Dawāfiʿ al-ʿAwda,” Egyptian Journal of Social and Behavioural Sciences , no. 7 (April 2023).
  51. Mohyeldeen, p. 32; Shetawy & El-Shafie, p. 2.
  52. al-Qaḍiyya al-Nūbiyya wa-l-Ḥuqūq al-Thaqāfiyya: Muʿtaqalu al-Dufūf Namūdhajan (Cairo: HRDO Center to Support Digital Expression, 2017), p. 14.
  53. al-Qaḍiyya al-Nūbiyya wa-l-Ḥuqūq al-Thaqāfiyya, p. 14.
  54. An entity formed after the final displacement in 1964, headquartered in Nasr al-Nuba county, that includes representatives from all the villages of New Nubia. It was established with the objective of offering a framework of cooperation for Nubians in the displacement villages that addresses the problems they face and connects the Nubian displaced community to their homeland. The Union has branches in other governorates and abroad that gradually expanded to allow the displaced to help their relatives in the villages overcome the challenges of life, especially regarding lack of income and work opportunities.
  55. al-Qaḍiyya al-Nūbiyya wa-l-Ḥuqūq al-Thaqāfiyya, p. 16.
  56. This is consistent with the results of another study, whose sample of young people and political activists refer to their frustration with the results of the 2011 Revolution, their declining satisfaction with conditions in Egypt, and the desire to emigrate on part of some; see Hassan, p. 161.
  57. A national project to improve living conditions and provide the Egyptian countryside with services to improve quality of life and empower people to live a dignified life. According to available official statistics, EGP 700 billion has been allotted in expenditures. For details, see: “ʿAn Ḥayāt Karīma,” Haya Karima , accessed on 01/05/2023, at: https://bit.ly/3HsQuB9
  58. El-Manoufi, p. 36.
  59. Burhan Ghalioun, al-Masʾala al-Ṭāʾifiyya Mushkilat al-Aqalliyāt (Doha/Beirut: ACRPS, 2012), p. 39.
  60. Riyad & Abdel Rasoul, p. 12.
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