Skip global navigation
St. Cloud State University

St. Cloud State University

Share Your Experience

Atem Aleu

Former Sudanese Lost Boy shares his journey

In April 2007, CHGE organized an event where Atem Aleu was the main speaker. He discussed his past struggles as a refugee and his goal for the future as an artists and activist.
Atem Thuc Aleu is a southern Sudanese Artist, college student and activist. As a child he and children like him suffered the loss of parents, adult relatives and entire villages due to the ravages of war. These children fled by foot from the violence of their lands to Ethiopia and then eventually to refugee camps in Kenya. Atem’s goal is to convey the history of his people and his own experiences through his art. In order that we can learn from the genocide that the Southern Sudanese have endured, guaranteeing that it does not happen again.

“I want to show my new neighbors in United States what life was like in Africa. I want them to know about my culture. I think that you will know this when you see my paintings. I want people who see my work to know that I am other thing in addition to being a refugee. Sometimes, my history- the history of my people- has been sad. However, we cannot be known only by what has passed. We have to present and a whole future together, my travels to America and my life in Utah is one part of the story” articulated Mr. Aleu.

Darfur: Roots and Reason

By: Zaynab Aden

As with any society divided by race, within those divisions are sub-divisions, creating a hierarchy of inferiority. Many countries still follow the colonial blueprint of distinction and this colonial legacy, passed down from generation to generation manifest into conflicts such as Rwanda and Somalia to name a few. Darfur is no exception. Indeed, there is a palpable color consciousness in Sudan as well as other colonized countries- however; this color consciousness is only a small piece of a larger puzzle. Falling out of line with popular opinion, the conflict in Darfur is a multifaceted one and cannot be looked at through a monochromatic lens.

As a student of history, specifically African studies, I quickly realized the masses did not share my interest and hope for the continent. While Africa has been on the world stage for centuries, it has been in a supporting role and it never made the final credits.

To establish order and a sustainable peace in a country, the roots of the crisis are as important, if not more important than the most recent statistics.  This is evident in the way the legacies of colonialism gone unadressed, have manifested throughout Africa in diverse forms. So it is with this experience that I explore all this attention that the world, by way of Hollywood, has given to the oft-labeled genocide in Darfur. Although it is wonderful that such a large and influential mobilization exists, there are important elements missing from the dialogue that are essential for a just and sustainable peace. 

Darfur is a region in Southwest Sudan, roughly the size of Texas. The conflict in Darfur began in 2003, with intensified insurgency and counter-insurgency driven mutually by a power struggle within the political class and a divide between nomads and settled farmers. It is necessary to note that in Sudan, the labels ‘Arab’ and ‘African’ hold diverse meanings. Mahmood Mamdani, Herbert Lehman Professor of Government at Columbia University and a renowned authority on African History elaborates on this fact in his article entitled The Politics of Naming: Genocide, Civil War, and Insurgency,“There have been at least three meanings of ‘Arab’. Locally Arab was a pejorative reference to the lifestyle of the nomad as uncouth; regionally, it referred to someone whose primary language was Arabic. In this sense a group could become ‘Arab’ over time. The third meaning of ‘Arab’ was ‘privileged and exclusive’; it was the claim of the riverine political aristocracy who had ruled Sudan since independence, and who equated Arabisation with the spread of civilization and being Arab with descent.” It is this last definition that has won the favor of activists everywhere. It is a view that is genius in its simplicity and requires neither research nor critical thinking to adopt it.  

Moreover the label ‘African’ carried its own set of meanings in Sudan. For one, an ‘African’ was someone who spoke a language indigenous to Africa. For example, members of the Fur, Massalit, and Zaghawa tribes are considered Bantu, representing a group native to the land and speak languages other than Arabic.  The racial meaning came to take a strong hold in both the counter-insurgency and the insurgency in Darfur. Mamdani, for his part, observes that the characterization of the violence as simply ‘Arab’ against ‘African’ is a consequential effect of many campaigns advocating on behalf of Darfur. A conflict as complex as Darfur is worthy of solutions and discourse just as complex, giving voice to the years that led up to the current. These conflicts do not materialize overnight; the seeds for conflict in most African societies were sown long ago in the ‘Scramble for Africa” in which colonial powers carved up the continent amongst themselves for the oppression of many and the benefit of a select few. The ‘divide and conquer’ maxim through which colonists maintained their rule is alive and well in Africa. Colonial supremacy could not be maintained without strategic laws and institutions to sustain it. One such way was to favor one group over another over time creating a hierarchy of inferiority.  It is arguable then, that years of such conditions can set the tone for future tensions.

In this spirit, I hope that a multi-tiered solution can be found for the people of Darfur. One that addresses the immediate consequences of war and provides immediate safety for those directly affected, accountability for perpetrators, as well as a sustainable solution that will truly seek to prevent future tensions.