AEGIS ECAS 2007 - View abstract

Panel	13. Memory and Heritage in Post-conflict Societies
Paper ID	121
Author(s)	Leturcq, Jean-Gabriel
Paper	No paper submitted
Abstract	In the last fifteen years, Sudanese antiquities gained a worldwide visibility: national museums are being renewed or created and, international exhibitions (e.g. Paris, 1992, London, 2004) have been held. Apparently one of the goals of the Sudanese authorities is to provide to the world another facet of the country, far from the civil war and the Darfurian conflict. Nevertheless, in the Sudanese political context, it is difficult to draw out some clear tendencies on the importance of heritage in the reconstruction of the country. Since the signature of the Peace Agreement in 2005, the reconstruction of the country is presented as the priority of the authorities (National Unity government) ; the internal context remains very conflictive (i.e. Darfur region) and the national integrity is still problematic, taking into account that Southern Sudan may become independent through a referendum in six years time. It is possible to observe a revalorisation of the given incontestable heritage, the Nilotic antiquities. In identity terms, perhaps just the population from the Northern part of the country might be interested in those antiquities. Considering the limitative potential of this heritage, other fields of heritage are being invented under the auspices of UNESCO, in favour of the recognition and conservation of intangible heritage. The crucial question seems to be – Is there a trend towards a partition of heritages: tangible heritage of the dominants and intangible heritage of the “others”? On one hand, a tangible archaeological heritage would be valorised for the “use” of the people from the centre, i.e. riparian population of the Nile River from where are originated the Sudanese rulers and economic elites; on the other hand, a multiplicity of regional and/or ethnical intangible heritages would concern the large Sudanese periphery. However, some initiatives have been taken to promote heritage on the national level: the project Music for peace, directed by Khartoum University and UNESCO, aims at diffusing music to highlight the idea of cultural diversity in national unity. As the heritage became synonymous of identity, dissident groups are using traditions and customs as a mean of resistance to the “sudanisation” and the cultural centralisation of peripheries: for instance, an uprising movement against the 4th cataract Merowe dam resettlements is clearly focusing its struggle on the recognition of the regional ethnical identity. My fieldwork research in Sudan consists in identifying actors, cultural policies and agendas, discourses and actions interweaved with political context and international cooperation. Comparing the context in three neighbouring countries – Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia – this study aims to highlight on the interferences between local, national, regional and international levels. This paper aims at reconsidering the evidence of national identity construction in Sudan through a reflection on heritage-making as a mirror of political facts in a State that remains violent. As the country is simultaneously deconstructing and reconstructing, showing the role that authorities as well as dissident or opponent groups assert to their designated heritages, this contribution would balance the use of identity as a mean of pacification or, the contrary, political domination.

Heritage-making in the reconstruction of post-conflict Sudan