The Independent (UK): Obituary: Yousif Kuwa Mekki

["Yunan" <yunan@tiscalinet.it>]

Obituary: Yousif Kuwa Mekki

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News Article by TI posted on April 04, 2001 at 04:47:22: EST (-5 GMT)

Obituary: Yousif Kuwa Mekki

BY ALEX DE WAAL
The Independent – (UK)
April 4, 2001


FOR 16 years, Yousif Kuwa Mekki led a guerrilla division of the Sudan
People's Liberation Army in the Nuba mountains of central Sudan, and was the
figurehead of the Nuba people's struggle for survival against the repression
meted out by the government in Khartoum.

His life was dedicated to raising the Nubas' awareness of and pride in their
own culture. Nuba traditions of wrestling, dancing and body-painting have
been celebrated in the photographs of George Rodger and Leni Riefenstahl,
but since the National Islamic Front seized power in 1989, successive
governments of Sudan have considered these practices as "un-Islamic" and a
source of shame.

Yousif Kuwa Mekki was born on a small hill, el Akhwal, in the Nuba
mountains, during the rainy season of 1945, taking his father's name Kuwa
and his grandfather's name Mekki, in accordance with Sudanese tradition. As
with most rural Sudanese, his birthday is not recorded.

For two decades until his death, he was the most prominent and charismatic
leader of the 1.5 million-strong Nuba people. Kuwa was an unusual military
commander. Before joining the ranks of the SPLA he was a teacher and
cultural activist, and served as an elected politician in the regional
assembly.

He grew up in a milieu in which to be Nuba was to be regarded almost as a
slave. In a memoir of his early years (which appears in The Right to Be
Nuba: the story of a Sudanese people's struggle for survival, published
later this month), Kuwa recounts how he started "my rebellion" at school.
"There was a headmaster. Of course he came from the North [of Sudan]. And he
was always saying, `Why should these Nuba boys be taught, they should go to
work as servants in houses.' " At school, Kuwa was punished for speaking in
his mother tongue, the Miri language, rather than Arabic, and for protesting
when the religious education teacher insisted that in the afterlife, angels
were pale-skinned and devils were black.

This experience of discrimination led Yousif to look to his cultural
identity as an African. He read the novels of the Nigerian writer Chinua
Achebe, and the political philosophy of the Tanzanian president, Julius
Nyerere, finding that their visions of African culture and African socialism
echoed his own experience. He found anthropological studies of Nuba
traditions. "Why are we not taught about this in our schools?" he asked.

Studying at the University of Khartoum and thereafter working as a teacher
in the Nuba mountains, Kuwa was co-founder of an organisation called Komolo
(meaning "youth") dedicated to restoring the Nuba people's faith in their
own cultures and identities. Komolo was suppressed and its members forced
underground; most of its leaders later took up arms as part of the SPLA.

Campaigning for a seat in the regional assembly in 1981, Kuwa traversed the
mountains on foot and by bicycle, encouraging his people to resist the money
and blandishments of the Sudanese Arab candidates, and instead vote for him.
He won handsomely, but failed to get the Nuba case fairly heard in the
assembly. By 1984, as Sudanese politics became more polarised and the
country slid into civil war, Kuwa joined the southern-led SPLA. As a Muslim
from the geographical north, but dedicated to a tolerant, multi-cultural
Sudan, he was the embodiment of the "New Sudan" philosophy of the SPLA
leader Colonel John Garang.

SPLA forces quickly gained control of much of the Nuba mountains, where Kuwa
had the chance to put his principles into practice. His governorship was
marked by a cultural renaissance, as Nuba musicians rediscovered their
traditions. Kuwa always sought consensus and democracy, insisting that sound
civil administration, functioning courts and religious tolerance were the
foundation of liberation.

But these were also years of extreme hardship for the Nuba people. The war
has brought 16 years of relentless attacks from government forces, with
hundreds of villages burned, thousands killed, and tens of thousands subject
to famine. Challenged by his hungry people, Kuwa responded, "I myself have
eaten mukheit" -referring to a bitter berry eaten as a last resort in times
of famine.

One of Kuwa's longest and most bitter struggles was to bring UN humanitarian
aid to his people. But the Nuba never achieved the same recognition or
support as southern Sudan, and the UN has yet to honour a succession of
promises. This year's government offensive has left 15,000 Nuba burned out
of their villages. There is no peace in sight.

Yousif Kuwa Mekki, teacher, soldier and politician: born el Akhwal, Sudan c
August 1945; three times married (14 children); died Norwich 31 March 2001.