CHAPTER 1
Beginnings
The western Sudan region of Darfur was known in the past for its long history of statehood, mosaic ethnic groups, and rich and diverse culture. Long before the Sudan became a state, Darfur had for centuries its own identity and organized polity and system of governing. In 1873 by a twist of fate it became part of or rather appendex of Nile valey instead of the Sahel region or Chad basin where it naturally belongs and finds itself at ease. Unlike other regions of Sudan, Darfur was incorporated in to Sudan by use of brute force. First in 1872 when the Sultanate was invaded and conqured by the slave merchant Zebier Rahma Mansor on behalf of Turko Egyptian administration in the Nile valley, but reverted back to independence in 1899, and again in 1916 when invaded by the Anglo Egyptian colonial administration in Khartoum and annexted to Sudan.
With the turn of the twenty first centuray the name Darfur, up to the writing of this memoir became synonymous with disaster, tragedy, crisis, atrocity, suffering, and survival. Since 2003, Darfur has been under siege by its own Sudanese national government and its allied militias, known by various names as time goes on, (Janjaweed, The fearful and light and fast, the rapid support force etc) with no sign of cessation of hostilities in sight but imposition of calm by brute force, no alleviation of the suffering. Hundreds of thousands dead; millions displaced and on the brink of death. Tragedy and fear, despair and uncertainty became the order of the day and the new normal. While governments and the international community argue about Darfur and the human rights violations committed there, the humans continue to face violation, starvation, death, genocide by attrition, and complete change of their way of life.
How Darfur the once beautiful, peaceful, and serene land came to this is my story. It is the story of every Darfuri from Kefiakangi to Owenat, from Tine to Sharif-kabashi, a story of various tribes of Benga, Kerisha and Bagara of the south, and Zaghawa, Massalit, Fur, Tunjur and Midop of the west and north as well as a story of Berti, Bergid and others in the east. Whether I am a good teller of the story, or good narrator of the historical oral tradition corroborated by documented events I will leave to the judgment of the reader. This story is also my perspective a recount of my own story and observations and participation in these events, a recounting of my contribution to the struggle of the people of Darfur towards self-realization and freedom. I write so that truth as I expreiced it will be known to succeeding generations
Before I became the teller of this tale, I was Bahradin. Like many Zaghawa families and households who cherish and commemorate the nobles and notables of the land, I was probably named by my father after the Sultan Bahradin of Dar Massalit, or Amir Bahradin, son of Sultan Ali Dinar. Often times he fondly called me Amir!but not Sultan, obviously because I was his favorite. To the rest of the family, I was simply Bardin. My mother favored to call me Derea - the shield – and also Amir - the prince - of the family.
I am the son of Hoqi Eram, Arabicised to Faki Ibrahim, a prominent religious healer in the cluster of villages in the small locality of Oro of Dar Toweir. He was the son of Arbi, the son of Hesien, the son of Adam Morme, the son of Tejero, the son of Hoqi, the son of Midoye, great-grandson of Karta the son of Nedy, great-grandson of Deqin the son of Omat - better known as Mahamat Bornawe, the son of Haj Ali.
My mother, Gania (changed to Khatra in Arabic documents), a woman in the environtment of traditionally conservative Zaghaqa society was of strong will, rare courage, and independent Opinion, She was the only child of her mother Hawa Hari, and the daughter of Haron, the son of Njorom, the son of Arko, the son of Bodi, the son of Adalla, who was also great-grandson of Karta from whom my father's family descended. In Zaghawa tradition they were distant cousins.
My grand mother Hawa Hari was the sister of the legendry Esakha better known as Esakha Tamara the Red-Headed, the venerated and charismatic Eladegain leader. When I was a child, my grandmother and the other village elders told stories about Tamara and the many battles he fought to defend the fatherland from marauding Arabs who sought to seize the land and enslave its people and in the service of Sultanate of Darfur's army.
My name, both Arabic and Islamic in origin and meaning, reflected my father's deep respect for the Darfur Sultans and their descendants. When I enrolled at the primary school, it was further Arabicised in the quest by Khartoum authorities to Arabize every non-Arab group and person. In the Sudano Lavantine tradition of standard Arabic, I was called Bahreldin Ibrahim Arabie, known in later years as Bahar Arabie.
Due to the absence of birth records, I do not know exact date of my birth, but only sure of my birth place, which is the ancestral village of Yakesie in Oro. My birth date could be some time between 1954 and 1957. I adopted 1957 as the year of my birth and chose January 1st as my birthday, as do most of the Sudanese without a birth certificate, because January 1st is the day of Sudan's declaration of independence.
My mother had two girls before me: Zerga the eldest, and Sonda, who later went by the Arabicized name of Aisha at school. After me, Mother had six other children: Eshaq, Nora, Deli, Aziza, Hawa, and Farah. Deli, Aziza, and Hawa died before the age of five from the measles, whooping cough, and lack of adequate medical care. Nora, whom I dearly loved, died tragically, but that dark event comes later in my story. Zerga, my mother's first, was the pillar of the household until she was given away in marriage. She was a rare human being of light spirit and an easy going sense of humor. She died in a tragic motor accident at age 57 and was survived by many children.
My father had two children from earlier marriage, with aunt Khadoj, whom I never met as she died many years before even my father married my mother, my elder two half siblings are Halom and Abdelkarim better known as Ediah. As I grew up I come to know both of them as my full siblings, as we all lived in the same household, and my mother who is their step mother became like their real mother. After my mother, my father also married aunt Zainaba and had five children with her, Khatra, Gesaima, Hasania, Heriya and Amir
My father combined religious healing with other means of Zaghawa livelihood. He was also a herder and farmer, and at times the village Imam and trader in sugar, tea, and palm dates. I was his favorite companion and accompanied him on many of his various travels, whether to markets out side Dar Zaghawa to sell rams and camels and purchase millet for the family in bad years, or on his healing contracts to various parts of Dar Zaghawa, or to buy sugar and tea leaves from another trader in a far away village.
Politically, he was an Ansar, a supporter of Almahdi's family and the Umma party. Almahdi, also known as Mohammed Ahmed Abdalla, who led a religious war from the village of Jazira Aba on the White Nile against the Turco-Egyptian authorities in the Nilotic Sudan in 1885. He defeated the feebled Turkish authority in Sudan and established the Mahdist state, which was overthrown by the British in 1998. After Sudan gained independence from the British in 1956, Almahdi's son, Abdulrahaman Almadi, established the Umma Party, which is until today a major poltical force.
My father spent many years of his youth at Jazira Abba, where he was initiated to Ansar's Sufi sect and committed Almahdi's Ratib – book of prayers-to memory before returning to Dar Zaghawa in the early forties. In his presence he will not allow anybody to speak ill of Almahdi's family or the Umma party.
After Sudan gained independence in 1956 and party politics came in to full play throughout Sudan, my father was one of the few literate Umma members who helped establish the party structures in northern Darfur. He vied with Mahmoud Altyb, a cousin of the Shertai Tijani Altyb of Dar Gala, for the party nomination to contest the election to represent the north western Darfur district, the 149 constituency at the national parliament. Mahmoud Altyb won the nomination and became the candidate and eventually the election, and went to Khartoum to represent the district on the national stage. My father did not venture in to politics again.
Our family is from the Ela-deqin or Ela-degain clan of the greater Zaghawa tribal group, traditionally from Northern Darfur and North eastern Chad, but presently spread to all corners of Darfur. My clan is called Ela-degain because tradition has it that we are descendants of Deqin, the son of Mahamat Bornawe, the son of Haj Ali.
Mahamat Bornawe, from whom my forefathers descended, was a Muslim and a son of a Muslim. He was either an immigrant or a refugee in what is known today as Beri Beih or Dar Zaghawa, from the region of Bornu in Northern Nigeria and North western Chad.
The exact date of Mohamat Bornawe's arrival and settlement in this region, and the circumstances behind his displacement and settlement in this area, are not precisely known due to lack of historical records. Depending on the memory of elders as handed down to them by their elders as far back as thirteen or fourteen generations, Mahamat Bornawe's arrival to the area must have been in the late fifteenth century.
The oral tradition of the elders also tells us better about the exact location of his home, water supply source, as well as his three sons and two daughters, who were Dore, Deqin, Kadawo, Noqui and Agab.
According to ela-Degain oral account, his home was said to been the top of mount Ebi-ere' in the Joktara area of Dar Toweir. His water source was said to be the well of Bir Bameshi. It could be that this land looked differently in those days than today's sand strewen waste. Whether Mohamat Bornawe came alone or with a group in which he was a leader, the tradition tells us very little and instead attempts to circumvent these facts, as with most of Islamized Sudanic groups who find some sense of Islamic originality by magnifying and adopting certain wise Arab folk heroes, which were said to have migrated from South Arabia to North Africa, and then marauded to the Sahel region.
Eventually some or one of them voluntarily or otherwise intermarried with Bornawe's ancestors and produced an offspring. The tradition also tells us at the time Mahamat Bornawe had his campfire on top of Mount Ebi-ere, the surrounding country was almost unpopulated but rich with vegetation. The tradition goes that there were few other camp fires which could be seen from great distances, as the nights in those days were said to be much darker than presently. One of those was said to be a fire on Mount Darma, west of the present town of Foraweya.
The relics associated with Mahamat Bornawe tell us that he was with a community and was able in tandem to dig wells, defend and provide security for themselve, and delimit the area of their habitat and domain. There was no government in their life yet they were not savage but, highly organized, but with no terrorizing greedy tax collectors and gun- totting or baton-wielding police whose sight sends shivers in the spines of the law-abiding and peace-loving before those with issues in their bags. The only authority in their life was the authority of the elders and the traditional leadership, which was attached to the Sultanate by nominal and subtle rules and norms, which was viewed as almost divine and obeyed, like answering the body's need for food and water.
Mahamat Bornawe and his people were nomads and subsistent farmers and hunters of giraffe and deer, which were said, abound in the marshes and forest fringed seasonal lakes of Wadis Hawar in the north and Seyra in the south. Hunting on horseback with long spears was said to be the pride of these people. They were also great builders, bearers of traditional civilized building, as the top of Ebi-ere stands witness today to their huge rock dwellings.
Historically the region from which Mohamed Bornawe came from was under the empire of Kanem, established by Zaghawa in the early eleventh century. The Kanem empire and its tributary states extended at its peak from the border with the seven Hausa kingdoms of Northern Nigeria in the west, to the regions immediately west of the Nile River in the east, and from Southern Libya or Fezan in the north, to the rain forests of Cameroon and Central African Republic in the south. It began declining in power and authority around the middle of the fifteenth century due to internal weaknesses and persistent attacks from outside enemies, especially by slave raiders from the greater Maghreb region, and from hostile and destructive Bulala tribal groups within the empire itself. That period witnessed both great social and political upheavals.
The story of the decline of Kanem Empire bears similarities with decline of the Funj power and ascendancy of the Hamaj in the Nilotic Sudan, which was also accelerated by in fightings and internecine wars among its princes and nobility who sought to escape the many crises of their empire by indulging in feuds and apportioning blames, and between the regional commanders of its armies and subordinate rulers, resulting in opportunistic foreign enemies taking advantage of and descending on its territories and domains.
The political institutions of the empire, as told by the few European and Arab travelers of the time, were very similar to the institutions of Songhai and Mali in the West and of the Kira and the Funj kingdoms which came into being in later centuries in Sudan.
History tells us that Kanem as empire collapsed and Njemi its capital, which was said to be on the shores of Lake Chad, was destroyed. Whoever survived from the hires to the power and a larger section of its nobility moved westward to salvage whatever remained of their empire in the region known today as Bornu. Their capital was established at a place known as Anzergamo, a well-known site in the present day Borno State of Nigeria.
From Anzergamo, the surviving rulers extended their authority farther east and west and adopted the name Kanem Bornu to their new domains. The collapse of Kanem and the disintegration of its social, economic, and political structure led some commanders, regional rulers, lords, and magnets to seek refuge else where, with their followers mostly out of the domain of Kanem.
One historical hypothesis which can be deduced is that in the absence of archeological evidence, Amara Dongus, founder of the Funj kingdom and his warrior group the Funj, could be a product of those Kanem commanders, because the events which led to the formation of the statehood - which still bewilders students of Sudanese history - reflect the character and pedigree of those who made it possible, plus the names Amara, Donqas, Deqin, and Funj (or Funi) are abound today from Dar Zaghawa to the Bornu region.
It is also a tradition of Zaghawa for whole clans to migrate long distances away from their homeland in years of drought and famine. One such migration probably occurred in the early eighteenth century, on a difficult year, when a section of the ela-Dore clan with the king of Dar Toweir settled in Kajmar in Kurdofan. As time passed the migrants to Kurdofan were completely absorbed in the Arabized culture of their neighbors, but still identified themselves as Zaghawa. In more recent times, when the Zaghawa were displaced by drought in North Darfur in the late sixties and early seventies, they migrated with the king of Dar Toweir, Malik Ali Mohammadian, to South Darfur. While Malik eventually returned to his domain in Omborow due to governmental pressure, a sizable number of the Zaghawa from Toweir and other Zaghawa dars remained in South Darfur.
As a child, I used to listen to an old folk song, said to be sang by a blacksmith maid during the Deqin era. It goes like this:
Mai yo, Beri Yo, Deqin Bagowe
Bado yo omo yo, Deqin Bagowe.
No blacksmith, no Beri left [in the father land],
it is the era of Deqin
No antelope no ostrich left [in the father land],
it is the era of Deqin
One of the descendants of Bornawe named Amara was also said to have left the king's town on Mount Ebi-ere with followers after a quarrel with the king, and built stone dwellings resembling a fortress in Shereyo village in Joktara. They later left the country with many other Zaghawas when draught and famine became so devastating, but the exact date of this event is unknown. Likewise, the founders of the Dajo kingdom and the Tunjur, who still retain kinsfolk in Chad, which was subsequently succeeded by the Fur, could be along this line of Kanem's displaced rulers in the wilderness.
Kanem's fall and the resultant socio-political chaos must have led to a great humanitarian crisis, in terms of that era which could have been for them, even larger in magnitude and worse in severity than the one in Darfur today, given the size of the area and populations involved. How long that crisis lasted is a matter of conjecture. It could have been decades or it could have lasted several hundred years, judging by the extremely difficult times of that period.
