اين ياتي هؤلاء؟
السماء ما تزال صافية فوق أرض السودان أم أنّهم حجبوها بالأكاذيب؟
هل مطار الخرطوم ما يزال يمتلئ بالنّازحين؟
يريدون الهرب الى أيّ مكان ، فذلك البلد الواسع لم يعد يتّسع لهم. كأنّي بهم ينتظرون منذ تركتهم في ذلك اليوم عام ثمانية وثمانين.
يُعلَن عن قيام الطائرات ولا تقوم. لا أحد يكلّمهم.
لا أحد يهمّه أمرهم.
هل ما زالوا يتحدّثون عن الرخاء والناس جوعى؟ وعن الأمن والناس في ذُعر؟ وعن صلاح الأحوال والبلد خراب؟
الخرطوم الجميلة مثل طفلة يُنِيمونها عُنوةً ويغلقون عليها الباب، تنام منذ العاشرة، تنام باكية في ثيابها البالية، لا حركة في الطرقات. لا أضواء من نوافذ البيوت. لا فرحٌ في القلوب. لا ضحك في الحناجر. لا ماء، لا خُبز، لاسُكّر، لا بنزين، لا دواء . الأمن مستتب كما يهدأ الموتى.
نهر النيل الصبور يسير سيره الحكيم، ويعزف لحنه القديم " السادة " الجدد لايسمعون ولا يفهمون.
يظنّون أنّهم وجدوا مفاتيح المستقبل. يعرفون الحلول. موقنون من كل شيئ.
يزحمون شاشات التلفزيون ومكرفونات الإذاعة.
يقولون كلاماً ميِّتاً في بلدٍ حيٍّ في حقيقته ولكنّهم يريدون قتله حتى يستتب الأم
مِن أين جاء هؤلاء النّاس؟ أما أرضعتهم الأمّهات والعمّات والخالات؟
أما أصغوا للرياح تهبُّ من الشمال والجنوب؟
أما رأوا بروق الصعيد تشيل وتحط؟
أما شافوا القمح ينمو في الحقول وسبائط التمر مثقلة فوق هامات النخيل؟
أما سمعوا مدائح حاج الماحي وود سعد، وأغاني سرور وخليل فرح وحسن عطية والكابلي و المصطفى؟
أما قرأوا شعر العباس والمجذوب؟
أما سمعوا الأصوات القديمة وأحسُّوا الأشواق القديمة ، ألا يحبّون الوطن كما نحبّه؟
إذاً لماذا يحبّونه وكأنّهم يكرهونه ويعملون على إعماره وكأنّهم مسخّرون لخرابه؟
أجلس هنا بين قوم أحرار في بلد حرٍّ ، أحسّ البرد في عظامي واليوم ليس بارداً. أنتمي الى أمّة مقهورة ودولة تافهة . أنظر إليهم يكرِّمون رجالهم ونساءهم وهم أحياء، ولو كان أمثال هؤلاء عندنا لقتلوهم أو سجنوهم أو شرّدوهم في الآفاق.
Hello everyone! I am very excited to announce that I will be leading a three-session political education workshop at @theafricacenter exploring the radical traditions that the Sudanese revolution preserves this Spring 2026 on February 12, March 26, and April 23. I will be teaching this class alongside the brilliant @sudan.updates and our readings will be based on the 𝑺𝒆𝒆𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑾𝒐𝒓𝒍𝒅 𝑻𝒉𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉 𝑺𝒖𝒅𝒂𝒏 syllabus (link in bio). Participants are strongly encouraged to donate to @sudansolidaritycollective (SSC). This workshop builds off of SSC’s Workshop4Sudan series which has been running for the past year now! This will be a hybrid workshop, with 50 in person slots and 50 virtual slots. If you can’t make it portions of the workshop will be live streamed and made shareable. The link to register is in my bio, and the deadline to sign up is January 5th! …See you at the first session on February 12 💌
The last two slides in the carousel are the covers of the first two books we will read from for our session on “Land.” @walaayassien shot the photograph in the first slide 🌟
Interest form (due January 5): /sudantradition
Event description: /africacentersudan
Thank you to everyone who joined us tonight to remember and honor the legacy of Muzan Alneel (1986-2026) and Hamid Khalafallah (1990-2026), who we will achingly miss and hold close to our hearts as we realize their vision of a free and just Sudan, inshallah… We read Muzan’s piece “The Sudanese Revolution in Crisis” and Hamid’s essay “One year of the calamitous war in Sudan” and reflected on their writings and our memories of them together. It was honor to share this lifetime with them and I pray that they both find comfort and mercy in the next life… May they both rest in eternal peace and power…Thank you so much to the EFA Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop (@efa.rbpmw ) for providing us with a beautiful space to convene and celebrate the lives of our dearly departed.
Today I read this excellent piece by Joshua Craze published by Noria Research (last slide) and it reminded me of all the other rich and materially grounded texts that have shaped my thinking about Sudan today and those which I am indebted to.
I created this syllabus almost a year ago for the Seeing the world through Sudan conference at Brown, but it quickly turned into a home for all the other texts that build on some of the questions we raised at the conference and beyond.
The syllabus is at almost 100 readings and there is a form to suggest more. As you can see I need more for the sections on Sudanese music, journalism, and memory. I hope this syllabus inspires more people to write about these topics, we desperately need it! In the meanwhile please use the form to suggest any more English-language, publicly accessible readings that develop or suggest critical frameworks for understanding the counterrevolutionary war in Sudan. Please also use the form to make any suggestions or comments.
I am very grateful to all the amazing writers who have provided us with the language to think alongside our histories and our shared inheritances. The links to the syllabus and the recorded sessions are in my bio.
PLEASE JOIN US for a vigil honoring the life and legacy of Hamid Khalafallah (1990-2026) and Muzan Alneel (1986-2026) in NEW YORK CITY ON WEDS, MAY 6 AT 7 PM at the EFA Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop’s exhibition space (2nd floor of 323 W 39th St). We will read from their works and commemorate all the sacrifices they made for Sudan and Sudanese people’s future. If you would like to send something for us to read in remembrance of Hamid and Muzan, please email [email protected].
To God we belong and to God we return. May Allah grant our dearly departed Hamid Khalafallah the highest levels of Jannah and give us the clarity to accept His will. I will miss you so much my precious beautiful friend @hamidmkk .
Wow and that’s it! I can’t believe it. Thanks to everyone who attended and engaged with The Tradition of Sudanese Revolution workshop @theafricacenter and especially for joining us for our very special intergenerational panel with @mohammadomerkhalil (b. 1936), @mayadamayadamay (b. 1989), and @walaayassien (b. 1997) at our third and final session on “Memory,” held yesterday on April 23. We held a conversation with our esteemed panelists about the inheritances of collective memory and how they confront their share in it in their respective practices of printmaking and painting, photography, and translation. We used the photo collages we created during our first session on “Revolution” and reflected on what it means to bear witness to Sudan’s history and the painful and surreally beautiful realities that come with repeatedly making that choice. This is a choice made despite the colossal magnitude of the destruction that we are tasked with answering for.
I can’t thank everyone who was a part of this experiment to think critically about Sudan’s political and revolutionary history enough. I learned so much from everyone who came, thoughtfully engaged with the readings, and asked such rich and genuine questions. It is so rare that we can come together and produce knowledge from a space of vulnerability and genuine curiosity, it was a true honor to begin our study at the point of that which we do not know. Thanks so much to everyone at the @theafricacenter who made this possible and @ameenmekki who I could not have done any of this without! There will be recording of the discussion with the panel released soon.
Last Saturday's panel conversation was a very special afternoon at Twelve Gates.
Bayan Abubakr and Isra El-Beshir were joined by special guest Mohammad Omer Khalil himself for a rich discussion around his work and legacy, moderated by Twelve Gates advisory board member and scholar of Black Diasporic Art, Anna Arabindan-Kesson. Co-curators Jenna Hamed and Twelve Gates advisory board member Amina Ahmed were drawn into the conversation as well, speaking to their curatorial process and interpretation of MOK's work.
Thank you to our panelists, our curators, and to everyone who came out and shared the afternoon with us. The full panel recording is coming soon.
Common Ground remains on view through May 15.
#twelvegatesarts #commonground #mok #phillyarts #blackdiasporicart
إنا لله وإنا إليه راجعون … May Allah grant the highest levels of Jannah to our dearly departed sister and revolutionary Muzan Alneel. Let us convene for a vigil in her honor TONIGHT UNDER THE ARCH AT WASHINGTON SQUARE PARK (NYC) AT 730 PM. We will celebrate and remember Muzan and the many gifts she gave us during her life.
The root of the word “abstract” is ج ر د which means to “rind” or to “peel back.” So the abstract clarifies more than it obfuscates… Mohammed Omer Khalil’s 52 paintings of Suakin peel back the layers of loss and devastation that have colored the city since the Anglo-Egyptian government replaced Suakin as the official port of Sudan with the creation of Port Sudan in 1905. What do we do with our cities that have been destroyed? Do we abandon them and our memories of them, avoiding the grief? Or we do rush to embrace them? Picking up the pieces of what is left behind and making do with our inheritance. No matter how incomplete it is.
Meeting MOK and seeing his work has clarified my interpretation of this dilemma, making it clear that the latter choice is the only choice. I wrote half my dissertation about Suakin and the Ottoman, Sudanese, and British political geographies that run through it, so it is surreal and humbling to see this complex reality captured by MOK. I am grateful to have met an artist who doesn’t stumble over the lapses in our collective memory as Sudanese people, but follows the divergent paths they lead to to make clear that there is no such thing as a single Sudan. We can all learn from the ways that Mohammed Omer Khalil turns his gaze towards the destruction amassed in history’s wake and refuses to shy away from it.
@mohammadomerkhalil “Common Ground” is on view at @12gates until May 15 and @efa.rbpmw (where the first photo in front of “homage to Umm Kalthoum” was taken) until May 31. Curated by the amazing @j7md and Amina Ahmed.
