The Policies of DeNubianization in Egypt and Sudan: An Ancient People on the Brink of Extinction

Abstract

Background:

This paper deals with the officially explicit and implicit policies aimed at marginalizing the Nubians in both Egypt and the Sudan by, first, driving them away from their historical homelands by systematically impoverishing their region; secondly, re-settling Arab groups in the lands the Nubians left behind ;thirdly, pushing the Nubians into Arabization through biased educational curricula at the expense of their own languages and culture; fourth, nursing a culture  of complicity among the Nubian intellectuals so as to help facilitate these policies. Three cases will be discussed in this  regard; ( I) the  case of the  governor of Asuan, Egypt (the capital of the Nubian region in southern Egypt) in granting leases of land and built homes to non-:--;Nubians ; these  are the lands from where the Nubians were evacuated under the pretext of building the High Dam in 1964. So far, the incessant complaints of '.'Nubians have fell on deaf ears. 2) The official guarantees made by the then Minister of lnterior of the Sudan (General-Brigadier Abdul Rahim Muhammad Husain-presently the Minister of Defense) to the Egyptians regarding the safety of Arab settlers from Egypt into the Nubian basin in northern Sudan. 3) The recent decision taken by the minister of Education in the northern State, forbidding Nubian pupils from uttering a word in Nubian languages within the precinct of the schools.