THE LANDSCAPE OF POSSIBILITIES: EDUCATION IN A “NEW SUDAN”

THE LANDSCAPE OF POSSIBILITIES: EDUCATION IN A “NEW SUDAN”1 Gada Kadoda, Ph.D. Sudanese Knowledge Society [email protected] Abstract Generally, a lot of scholarly effort went into chronicling the historical development of the educational system in Sudan, analysing its current state, making comparisons with other countries, proposing reforms or envisioning alternative systems. In this volume, the lens for analysing the education system is “social justice”. This analytical framework is combined in this chapter with critical futures thinking to explore possibilities for the educational system in Sudan, but also to question whether we are seeing all the possibilities or being impeded by our worldviews and mental models. I elaborate on this argument by first exploring examples of images that we hold about the future of education, presumably a better one. Secondly, I use decolonial and feminist ideas, as well as draw on Paulo Freire’s educational theories, to investigate whether particular images have become dominant by reflecting on the power of knowledge and meaning nested in these images of the future. In other words, are they framing what is possible? For example, can we imagine a decolonised and feminist education in Sudanese schools and universities any time soon? 1"‫ التعليم في "السودان الجديد‬:‫الممكنات‬ ‫ الجمعية السودانية للمعرفة‬،‫ غادة كدودة‬.‫د‬ ‫مدى‬ ‫مس تخلص‬ ‫ متناولين ابلتحليل الحالة الراهنة و‬،‫ كثير من الجهود العلمية تنحو نحو التتبع الزمني للتطور التاريخي للنظام التعليمي في السودان‬،‫في الغالب‬ ‫ و‬،"‫ في هذا المجلد عدسة تحليل النظام التعليمي هي " العدالة الإجتماعية‬.‫عاقدين المقارنة بدول أخرى و منادين ابلإصالح أو اإستشراف أنظمة بديلة‬ ‫ بل يطرح التساؤل حول‬،‫ ليس بحث َا عن الممكنات للنظام التعليمي في السودان فحسب‬، ‫يجمع الإطار التحليلي لهذا الفصل بين التفكير المس تقبلي الناقد‬ ‫ سوف أس تجلي هذه ال ُحجة إابس تكشاف أمثلة للصور‬.‫ما اإذا كنا نرى جميع الممكنات أم أن رؤيتنا مكبلة بتصوراتنا المس بقة عن العالم و مخيلتنا العقلية‬ ‫ اثنيا سوف أس تخدم أفكار النسوية و تفكيك الإس تعمار بجانب الإس تعانة بنظرايت ابولو‬.‫ قطعا ابإفتراض مس تقبال أفضل‬،‫التي نحملها لمس تقبل التعليم‬ ،‫ بمعنى أخر‬.‫وذلك من خالل اإعمال الفكر في قوة المعرفة و المعاني المتداخلة في صور المس تقبل‬،‫فريري التعليمية لفحص صور بعينها أصبحت مهيمنة‬ ‫ هل يمكننا أن نتخيل تعليما تفكيكي ل إالس تعمار و نسواي في المدارس السودانية و الجامعات‬، ‫هلبمقدورها أن تؤطر ما يضحي ممكنا؟ على سبيل المثال‬ .‫في أي زمن قريب‬ ___________ .‫ المثقف السوداني الجنوبيي الثوري و الذي قاد الصراع من أجل سوداان يسع الجميع محذرا للتشظي خالفا لذلك‬،‫ جون قرنق‬.‫ هذا الجزء من العنوان مقتبس من رؤية د‬1 This chapter appeared in edited book “Towards Education That Achieves Social Justice in Sudan,” Al Karib, Aisha Khalil (Ed.), p. 81-104. Published by Friedrich Ebert Stiftun Sudan Office and Sudanese Organization for Research and Development. ISBN 978-99942-1-690-1. 2018. Introduction In this chapter, I adopt the view that for ensuring that opportunities are not overlooked and risks are identified, it is important to challenge our assumptions and beliefs, regularly. In envisioning the future, we are challenged with many unknowns. Would the benefit of hindsight, offered by historical analyses of the modern educational system in Sudan, for example by (Mohamed Omer Basher, 1983) who aptly covered the period from the Condominium rule through to independence, give us an understanding of how it is today? Could the dominance of Islamic discourse on the educational system, many decades later, been anticipated? I would argue for, not only because the Islamists are in power but also because the system is fundamentally built to cement the power of the state, be it the British, Arab nationalists, etc. Basher’s account of the impact of British policies on the orientation of Gordon College can make a comparison with the education philosophy of the University of Khartoum, and ask whether the initial purpose of producing technocrats for civil service is maintained? Has the hegemony of the State on the curriculum changed or does it always belong with who rules? Intellectually and administratively. His discussion of the impact of the national movement on shaping a “people’s model” that saw the expansion of the education system can also be compared to today’s privatization ideologies and neoliberalism; and his account of the impact of socialist ideas post WWII can be contrasted to today’s Islamist orientation. Why does one see one model noble and another abhorrent? A number of education scholars have been following the impacts of significant ideological and infrastructural changes to the educational system that were initiated by the current Islamist authoritarian regime which gained power in 1989, e.g. Haiydar Ibrahim Ali (2002) and Mohamed Elamin Al-Tom (2006). The debates about educational institutions that are significant from a historical viewpoint, like the debates about Bakht Al-Rudha Institute, or on enduring questions like “Arabisation” of the curriculum, offer examples of competing discourses on the formation of the educational system. For Fadwa Abdulrahman Ali Taha (2014), Bakht Al-Rudha Institute, that was established by the British to design the curriculum and train teachers, is the most concrete experiment in education that is unrivalled historically or in the present. On the other hand, Abdullahi Ali Ibrahim is critical of the much-cherished educational institution (2010) arguing that Bakht Al-Rudha was dismissive of local culture. This combined with his analysis of the Arabisation process, which he described as a “Manichean Delirium” (2016), poses the question about whose local culture dominates. At any rate, does it matter for those whose languages are ignored whether policies came through the polls or the guns? Al-Sheikh Babikir Badri (the pioneer of girls’ education in early twentieth century) famously started his first school in his own house where his daughters and those of his close relations made up the classroom. Considering how this legacy developed in steps into the Ahfad University for Women, it is an example not less than the British’s Bakht Al-Rudha, even more so because it continues to prosper -2- against the odds. Should this history be interrogated for whether the purpose of preparing the future “good wife”, which was perhaps a good strategy and a limitation of that time, is still maintained? Are the family and the patriarch exist in Ahfad University as they did in Al-Sheikh’s pioneering school? The questions, about the interactions between consciousness and adaptability are existential for a feminist in Sudan. Are we conscious about what we are adapting? I use a recent incident (January 2018) where the Vice Chancellor of the university was seen hitting several students in a video that was uploaded on social media. The incident2 created an uproar and generated a polarised debate. Some members of the public and activists were appalled at how a professor would hit students (not a rare occasion according to older videos and testimonies from past students), pointed out the patriarchal relationship between students and the VC, and regarded the behaviour as contradictory to the university’s mission of empowering women. Others offered apologetic defences of the VC using Ahfad’s history and reminded people of larger problems facing the country. The views of the students and the university were the most striking. Many students defended his actions, claiming that they were for their protection and marched to his office with banners scribbled with their apologies and love. The VC issued a defiant statement that he has nothing to apologise for and the university administration stressed its confidence in his leadership. Should we adapt to the idea of the patriarch and his “daughters”3? When we envision education in a “New Sudan”, one where social justice prevails, not only in education but also in everything else, should we be impeded by worldviews left by colonials, nationalists, or traditions? For example, our image of the University of Khartoum becoming the Oxford of Sudan or of one national curricula, or of producing individuals who are adaptable to reality as controlled by the powerful. Be it the State or family. Which “social justice” should we aim for? Some of us relate the concept to human rights others to free markets; we can see it through secular or religious lenses, among many other variations in modes of thinking and contextual settings. Along the workshop’s theme, the chapter is firmly situated in the human rights and secular interpretations of social justice, and focuses on tacit forms of injustices (e.g. racism, sexism) to explore their interactions with the educational system in the context of Sudan. In positioning myself to the subject matter, the future of education in Sudan, as an academic I am concerned with the politics of pedagogy and of research, and as a woman, who is also engaged in Civil Society, I am concerned with gender inequalities and the many issues raised at global (e.g. MeToo movement) and local (e.g. Public Order Law, gender-based violence) levels. The rest of the chapter in influenced by this positionality in thinking about the future. In the first part, I discuss examples of images that we hold about the future of education, presumably a better one. Secondly, I apply decolonial and feminist thinking to explore whether particular images have become dominant, what powers of knowledge and meaning may be nested in these images of the future, in other words, I ask, are they framing what is possible? -3- Education in Sudan 2030 The discussion in this section draws on a future thinking session that I facilitated with participants of a workshop4 on “Social Exclusion and Education”. While the methodology5 of futures thinking is rooted in the understanding that knowledge of the future is not possible, it allows us to create scenarios of alternative futures that are grounded in the logic and the intuition of the present. Along the workshop’s theme, the participants followed the futures approach to develop a number of alternative scenarios. Their experiences as representatives of different actors in education, the knowledge they gained from presentations by a set of highly regarded education scholars and human rights professionals, and the vibrant discussions they had in a number of activities that preceded the futures session, provided the logical grounding and theoretical perspective to think about possible futures in education. To create the scenarios, participants engaged in three forms of analysis. The first analysis is carried out by rooting current and emerging issues in a “known past” to identify the factors that helped create the present. The second involves tracking signals and drivers of change to imagine how it would look if they become dominant features of the future, and the third is done through retracing the path that might have led to those desirable, or not, scenarios. The next three subsections present the outputs of the exercise where participants imagined four different 2030 scenarios and described how these futures may transpire, through “backcasting” or tracing the events that happened between 2017 and a particular future. Describing the Present and Rooting in the Past During the first part of the futures thinking exercise, participants identified important issues facing the education system as, in part, political, such as conflicts and instability in some regions, low national budgets for public services, the political system itself, and the hegemony of the state. The other set of issues are associated with the educational content and infrastructure such as the education ladder (see below), curriculum, and school environment. In rooting these issues in the past, participants discussed the failures of Sudan’s ruling elites; some went as back as the Al-Mahdi era and its impact on the intellectual formation of Sudanese; whereas others stressed the historical dissonance between the curriculum and the local context, and the exclusion of non-state stakeholders from decision-making. Some of the key events that influenced the present, which were highlighted by participants included: (1) the change in the 1990s of the education ladder from 6-3-3 (denoting years spent in elementary, intermediate and secondary levels) to 8-3 (where the elementary level was extended and the middle school eliminated); (2) the centralisation of the education system (following in the legacy of the colonial era); (3) the substandard quality of teacher training (in contrast to the colonial time, which suffered the limitations of British policies but also exhibited better quality at least to proponents of Bakht Al-Rudha); and (4) the proliferation of private education (related to global trends of the -4- commercialisation of education). For higher education, participants identified similar problems, in particular, they explored the drastic increase in the number of public universities in the 1990s, and more so in the private realm, and the impact that had on quality of education provided and graduates produced. Sensing Emerging Issues and Trends This part of the exercise was about signals and drivers of change that participants saw around them. The process involves identifying important cultural, technological, economic, or political shifts on the Sudanese horizon. For instance, one looks at how positive changes such as increasing technology use or human rights awareness, or negative ones such as higher poverty or tribal tensions, can add to our understanding of the possible ways the future of education may develop, as well as the roles we should play to build desirable futures or avoid undesirable ones. In scanning the landscape, participants identified a number of emerging issues with increasing impact. There are those issues related to dwindling education budgets that see teachers going months without salaries and schools without maintenance. Others are related to the lack of stability in many parts of Sudan that see schooling, if it exists, performed under trees by mostly volunteer teachers, as well as the poverty and financial burdens that state schools have been imposing on families, resulting in higher rates of out-of-school children and massive disparities between the “centre” and the “periphery”(Al-Tom, 2015). Another category of issues is related to the State’s grip on the curriculum, including imposing “Islamisation” and “Arabisation”, the ramifications of which are seen, after three decades, in the indoctrination of the youth, limiting their possibilities, academic freedom and the wider implications on society and knowledge production capabilities. On the other hand, participants identified a number of positive signals. For instance, we have witnessed the spread of information and communication technologies such as the mobile phone. Some of the results have been the ability to reach remote communities, the rise in social activism to improve the school environment or to support disadvantaged students, such as the youth group Educators without Borders whose projects mainly target the school infrastructure but sometimes extend to substitute for absent teachers or add to extracurricular activities. Participants discussed various examples of citizens taking action to intervene in the educational process, e.g. women groups supporting female students evicted from dorms; human rights activists defending Darfur students’ entitlement to lower fees, etc. They saw this citizen action as a legacy of the Sudanese reminiscent of “Ahli” or the people’s model of expanding the educational system despite the limits imposed by British policies. Could these trends lead us to desirable futures like free education, better curriculum, and high quality school environment? Participants considered negative and positive trends as alternative futures. -5- Tracing Alternative Futures The outputs of this collective thinking about possible ways the future may develop, or the landscape of possibilities, is based on facts but also on imagination. By this stage of the futures thinking exercise, participants have identified a number of significant issues today and used their hindsight to trace the problems to yesterday’s decisions and events. They scanned their environment to identify emerging trends that may be small in magnitude now but can grow and occupy the future. These changes are used to imagine how Sudan might look if they become a characteristic of the future and not merely an emerging trend, and more crucially, how we got there (or Backcasting from 2030 to 2017) along a set of dimensions that participants agreed upon as descriptive of the educational system (policies, funding, management, environment, and curriculum). Participants split into three groups, each working on a pair of characteristics of the future, deliberately allocating one positive and one negative characteristic to foster creative thinking. For instance, more thought is required to imagine how a future can have both characteristics at the same time, as opposed to an impeccable or an all flawed one. The following table summarises the alternative scenarios participants discussed and traced to the present. While the duration of the session did not allow participants to explore all dimensions or trace the history leading to their allocated scenario, they provided ideas to explore in this chapter, and more importantly, examples of the aspirations and insights from a collective of actors about education in Sudan. Even the silence (empty cells) can tell us something. SCENARIO 1: Continued Improvement in the Curriculum as well as Dwindling of Funding Dimensions/Year 2017 2020 2025 2030 Free and Implementing international agreements, using compulsory precurriculum experts, decentralise and localise Policy school and curriculum, change from ideological to elementary levels citizen education Increased public spending, external funds Funding Establishing Training of cadre; effective monitoring monitoring and system Management evaluation bodies Availing required Well-equipped schools Environment school resources Appropriate curriculum, return to 6-3-3 Curriculum ladder SCENARIO 2: Realising Free Education under Absolute State Hegemony Dimensions/Year 2017 2020 2025 2030 Civil society organisations run Enacting Free Education Sustained free advocacy campaign for free Act, increase in personal education education in deprived regions, safety problems Policy state restrictions on awareness-raising of populace 2.9% Budget increases to 4%, Increased to 7%, reduced 9% Funding reduced training opportunities teachers’ salaries In collaboration with civil Involving civil society in Establishing a society, top jobs are inherited decision-making, lack of national Management experienced personnel consultative body -6- Initiative to improve schools Environment Designed by specialised committees involving international and regional bodies Starting real estate investments, elimination of extracurricular activities Changes to management structure and ladder, cluttered brains, absence of social values Using profits from investments Continued evaluation and improvement, Curriculum poor quality content SCENARIO 3: Improving School Environment and, at the same time, Increasing Political Instability Dimensions/Year 2017 2020 2025 2030 Setting improvement 40% implemented 60% 100% plans for school Policy infrastructure Increasing budget 10% 20% 100% Funding Putting legislations and Availing resources Appraisals, involving 100% Management rules in place for implementation students in management Untrained teachers Environment Language issue Curriculum Table 1: Writing Alternative Scenarios (Group Work) While Scenario (1) group focused on how the future will look along the different dimensions, their tracing went as far as the preceding few years, the pattern is different for Scenario (2) group who worked outside the present, and for Scenario (3) who focused more than the other groups on the present and missed tracing two dimensions. Common among the groups were the aspirations for expertise in curriculum development, system planning and evaluation processes, and allocation of extra public resources to education. For funding, two groups looked at additional resources where one listed external funding (e.g. Qatar), and yet another considered an investment scheme. The futures methodology used in the exercise encouraged groups to think in a linear way about the future. While it is important to involve the present, for example, because the actions we take today shape the future or to orient ourselves to where we came from and where we are going, linearity brings “value-laden” narratives that are weighted to “idealise the future” or to “utopianise the past” (Gidley, 2017). In Scenario (3), there is an example of the first narrative, 100% expectation of 2030. The return to the 6-3-3 ladder in Scenarios (1) and (2) illustrates the second narrative. Despite the dominance of linear thinking, there are examples of ‘Aha’ moments in the discussions considering some of the ideas generated by the groups, for instance, the decentralisation and localisation of the curriculum, replacement of ideological teaching with citizenship content, state sanctioning of the involvement of civil society in the educational process, and affirmative action in budget allocation. These ideas stand out because of their association with social justice, the analytical lens of the workshop. They address its social change aspect. Would a pluralality of lenses stimulate “future thinking for transforming” (Inayatullah, 2008)? For example, how would a decentralised and localised curriculum be seen from a feminist perspective? Should a citizenship-oriented curriculum conceal injustices of the past, e.g. atrocities committed by one group against another? -7- Decolonised and Feminist Education: An Alternative Future? Within futures studies, critical futures thinking is about creating different scenarios from those that maintain present power relations through the interrogation of our worldviews. The work of Richard Slaughter, who is credited with disrupting empirical ways of thinking about the future that is dominant in futures studies, was particularly focused on futures in education. In Ramos’s account (2003) of Slaughter’s early stages of transformation that evoked his critical lens to the future from his teenage years living in a working class neighbourhood in 1960s England and during his travels as a training teacher in 1970s, shows a process of his realisation of the “dysfunction of the Western worldview”. Slaughter was particularly concerned about the consequences of industrial thinking about the environment, and saw technology and education as value-laden and non-neutral. With futures thinking already sponsored by military and commercial complexes in Europe and the US, Slaughter took his futures thinking elsewhere. Gidley (2017) explores the philosophical foundations of futures studies in Western ideas of time and space, and important institutions that adopted the new ways of post WWII thinking (e.g. the RAND Corporation), as well as Slaughter’s influence on popularising critical futures theories, (e.g. Inayatullah’s critical post-modern approach). While Slaughter was influenced by his working class background and Inayatullah by post-structuralism, my analytical lenses are predisposed by “becoming a woman6” in a highly patriarchal society, much later on, a university lecturer, and feminist. I focus on a decolonised and feminist future of education in Sudan, discussing first their relevance, using examples in the introduction, and second, exploring how that future might look. The Sudanese Decolonisation Project One of the early decolonisation projects in Sudan was the Sudanisation process, which involved replacing colonial administrators and university staff with Sudanese. The process also involved a dual Arabisation/Islamisation process that represented the vision of the independence generation (dominated by Muslim northern/central Sudanese) who also inherited colonial institutions and power in the country. Virtually all ethnic groups outside of what is commonly referred to as the "central riverain culture" (the so-called "Arab-Nubian core” of the Sudan) have been variously marginalized by the socioeconomic, cultural, and religious policies of colonial, and later, by successive Sudanese multi-party and military governments, culminating in 1989 with the most extreme policies of the National Islamic Front government (now National Congress Party, “NCP”). Amidst the triple impact from the Ottomans, Egyptians, and British, as well as today’s Islamist and militarised Sudan, its decolonisation processes are of a complex multi-layered nature. We have studies of the influence of Arabic on Sudanese intellectual trends (Ibrahim, 1976; Tongun, 1999; Ahmed, 1999; Ismail, 1999), which add to our understanding of the complexity of decolonisation. Nonetheless, there are still class and power struggles and the particulars in Sudan’s colonial legacy and history (see, for instance, Fadl, 1971, 1979, 2008; -8- Niblock, 1987; Deng, 1995; Grawert, 2010) that correspond to the writings of Rodney and Mamdani on other parts of Africa. In contrast to the relative availability of literature on the colonial experience and its impact, there is much less written about decolonisation approaches and, therefore, on what future they may have realised. In considering approaches, there are early examples of the coexistence of traditional and modern systems of education in the early part of the twentieth century, such as the famous approach of linking “Al-Khalwa” with the modern school attributed to Al-Sheikh Babkir Badri. Another interesting example is by Mahjoub Sharif (the people’s poet) who brought Al-Habbouba (the grandmother) into his teaching to elementary school students in the early part of the current Islamist government (Ibrahim 2010). Both are revered concepts in Sudanese culture. Al-Khalwa taught young children the Quran and introduced them to the teaching of basic Arabic and arithmetic,, and Al-Habbouba is a resourceful, problem-solver, beloved character and possibly the first teacher a child meets. By integrating local systems, Al-Khalwa and Al-Habbouba, to increase the intake of students to the modern system or their exposure to knowledge outside the curriculum, these creative educationalists present cases of decolonising education that are almost a century apart. Despite the differences in context, suppose we explore possible futures that these approaches may bring, especially since Al-Khalwa and Al-Habbouba live also in the present, perhaps in new forms because of the grip of Islamic discourse on education (Breidlid, 2005) or the emergence of technologysavvy Habboubat7. Al-Khalwa may lead to a future where more children have access to education, even today, but may also orient the child’s mind towards rote learning and eventually eliminate other Sudanese cultures of learning. Could the curriculum of Al-Khalwa evolve to include critical thinking sessions about verses and stories in the Quran, essentially nurturing the child’s innate inquisitive nature? What might happen to children’s initiation traditions like Kambala8? Might Sharif’s secular approach maintain its appeal beyond the traditional Habbouba? What happens to the new Habbouba from Weam Shawgi’s9 generation, say, in 2050? Which future is desirable? Is it legitimate to explore fully this question without looking at it from a girl child’s perspective? She might ask if we thought about how she might be uncomfortable with feeling lesser in these old verses, and how her raising the point might be suppressed. Another girl who took the Kambala route to school, affirmed in the diversity act in the New Sudan, might still be critical. Even if she appreciated changing the child initiation model to include girls, she might find the curriculum still entrenched in how the community sees what girls should or should not know. By the same act, Al-Habbouba, translated into all Sudanese languages, has become a prevalent extracurricular activity in schools. The child’s transition to school has become gentler; the curriculum more grounded in culture; and local knowledge preserved and may be trickles into the school labs; and so on, from what Al-Habbouba represents. However, which ones will feature more often? -9- There are those girls who conform to patriarchal representations and those others who subvert them; the choice influences the future of both girls. Feminist and Freirian Perspectives on Education The girls’ critiques above offer examples of why feminist perspectives on education are relevant and useful to explore the contradictions that confront their education. These contradictions can be represented using what Paulo Freire calls, the “epoch”. According to his definition, an epoch “is characterized by a complex of ideas, concepts, hopes, doubts, values and challenges in dialectical interaction with their opposites striving towards their fulfilment” (1972:101), e.g. society can represent a large “epochal unit”. Freire offers the concept of “limit-situations”, central in his proposed Pedagogy of the Oppressed that involves identifying and concretely representing “generative themes” of the epoch. In his educational philosophy, “limit-situations” are the barriers that exist in the theme and “limit-acts” represent their opposites, which constitutes the praxis of human beings10. It is a praxis that involves creating and transforming values, ideas, institutions, etc. as humans “become historical social beings” in a “constant process of transformation”. Freire hypothesizes that when individuals are confronted by the dialectical contradictions in the complex of interacting themes of an epoch, or their “universe of themes”, they take contradictory positions where some subvert; whereas others maintain the power structures. Freire uses these concepts to understand the “epoch” of situations when individuals do not perceive a generative theme, or perceive it in a distorted way, arguing that this may “reveal a limitsituation of oppression in which people are still submerged” (p. 102). One of the examples he gives is the epoch of the “Third World”, which is relevant to the decolonisation lens. He identifies “underdevelopment” as a theme whose barriers include “dependency” (or limit-situation) and the tasks (limit-acts) are those overcoming the contradictory relationship between underdeveloped and developed countries, which Freire argues, “constitutes the untested feasibility of the Third World.” (p. 103). Our example of “feminist education” is also relevant to the decolonisation of education in two ways. The first is in terms of the relationship of the bulk of feminist theories to “Western thought”, which is a limit-situation for decolonisation. In opposition, are the efforts for the “translation and generation of local theories” (limit-acts) carried out by feminist scholars engaged in decolonising feminism. The second way is in terms of the relationship of feminist critiques to “Western thought” in terms of what is considered legitimate knowledge, which is a limit-situation for local knowledge systems. In opposition is the “integration of local knowledge systems” (limit-acts) by scholars concerned with the decolonisation of knowledge making use of feminist critiques of knowledge production. I apply these concepts to an incident at Ahfad University for Women on January 2018 when the Vice Chancellor (VC) beat girl students who were demonstrating inside the gates of the university -10- (see Note 2). One of the themes in the Ahfad epoch is about the right of students to demonstrate where a limit-situation for the students is its banned status in university policy. From the public statements of the VC, his own limit-situation might have been the brutal police outside the university gates. In their confrontation with the complex of interacting themes in their epoch, the students and the VC took contradictory positions demonstrated in their varied limit-acts. While the students staged their demonstration, the VC he tried to stop it using violence, which reveal another generative theme – the power of patriarchy in Ahfad, and society. The limit-situation for Ahfad’s administration was what Professor Gasim Badri represents, the patriarch of the family who traditionally reigned over the institution from grandfather to grandson, and a “good person”; as well as what Ahfad represents, a “progressive” institution. The Professor’s limit-situation in responding to the controversy for those who waited for a public apology and/or a resignation appears to be his “ego”. From his perspective, his actions are part of “fatherly” protectiveness as well as supported by his confident assessment that beating is a legitimate pedagogy that he himself experienced from his father and teachers. For the students, their limit-situations varied according to how they viewed the VC, as their father or teacher, split further by how they viewed violence at school or the home. Similarly, their limit-acts varied between issuing an apology and condemning his actions. With “business as usual” at Ahfad, it is not difficult to identify which trend won in the present and which oppressions persist. Suppose scholars from Ahfad’s Gender Studies program reflect on the themes in the epoch of Ahfad’s community and the larger society using the January incident to discuss limit-situations of women education in a patriarchal society. Would they orient the curriculum towards conforming to the structures or confronting its themes of oppression? While this is Ahfad’s “untested feasibility” to take action “that truly transforms reality”, it is also a possible future. “Backcasting” from this possible future, we can imagine that transformation might have started with feminist critiques that revealed the discriminatory, objectifying, stereotyping, etc., in primary school textbooks such as those teaching boys to race and girls to watch11. These analyses also covered university courses that exclude women altogether (e.g. Surveying, Mining and Petroleum Engineering at the University of Khartoum12) or in prospectuses that lean towards health sciences as opposed to engineering, to management more than computing (e.g. at Ahfad). Other action along the way to the future might have included a number of studies that were conducted to advance our understanding about intellectual trends in Sudanese feminist scholarship, for example, on Ahfad’s theoretical contribution to liberatory pedagogy. The recommendations from these researches helped develop a monitoring and evaluation system of praxis where performance is measured by “limit-acts” of girls and women in the school, university, and public space. When these measurements lean towards reluctant confrontation of power and patriarchy, new and more radical frameworks are produced to accelerate the process of transformation through the curriculum, among other dimensions like culture, policy, legislation –i.e., the “universe of themes” in the epoch. -11- If we were to think of this possible future, our signals of change today would include Weam (see Note 9) and Wini13, in opposition to the increasing trend of intellectual terror. Our strategies of change would build on feminist expertise where we begin at what constitutes the epoch of women education and use our intuition of emerging issues and trends to build a desirable future for the daughters of those resisting the status-quo of today. Their struggle is as much with the idea of one supreme “Sudanese culture”, as it is with those who do not see the issues they raise, a priority in the revolution. Concluding Remarks This chapter has probed possibilities that may seem utopian to some readers, wholly or partly undesirable to many, or outright impossible, as they sit among many different told and more untold images of the future. The broad and contested nature of the concept of “social justice” brings to the fore diversity and a spectrum of images from utopia to dystopia; and the “not-yet” nature of the future challenges our imagination but also frees us from the now, which is part of future thinking approaches and social change theories. In following on the discussions that participants generated at the workshop about the future of education in Sudan, and the view that “social justice” is a process that requires identifying and dismantling the structures that reproduce injustices, the use of decolonisation and feminist ideas served two purposes. While their political discourses offer us ways to clarify what we mean by “social justice”, their theories offer us pedagogical tools necessary for any transformation. Would a university, established in the colonial image like the University of Khartoum, be able or even want to transform itself into one that thrives on a decolonised curriculum, rather than on global rankings. Should Ahfad University, established on “fatherly” culture, confront values that continue a legacy of societal relevance? With the current global drive for the internationalisation and commercialisation of education, and in a complex society like Sudan where many are not attaining the right to survival, a debate on decolonisation or feminisation of education might seem avant-garde and even contradictory. After all, decolonisation is meant to decentre Western thought (that also generated feminism) to give way to local knowledge systems. In decolonising education, feminist methodologies contribute to recognising local systems but raise questions when they fail to recognise the human rights issues of the present. Feminised decolonial thinking decentres dominant narratives giving way to the wide-ranging women experiences and priorities. Perhaps the transformations will reveal new contradictions where relativist thinking, absolute truth, or universal standards are some of the limit situations. However, critiques of cultural, moral, or ethical values would be the opposing action or limitacts that yield new ideas and praxis with the constant process of change. Training the new generations to reflect and act on social justice transformation, would require lucidity about our failings and contradictions, creating a culture that promotes diversity of thought, with the intention to change minds, to learn and unlearn. -12- Acknowledgement The author would like to thank Professor Sondra Hale for her valuable comments on the manuscript and to Engineer Marwan Awad (from the Sudanese Knowledge Society) for translating the abstract into Arabic. A special thank you goes to the participants of the futures thinking session at the SORD-FES workshop whose ideas make the foundation of this chapter. References Ahmed, Adil Mustafa. (1999) On Arabisation and Islamisation of Knowledge. In proceedings of Conference on the State and Future of Higher Education in Sudan, Cairo, 1 – 5 August 1998, AlTom, M.A. (Ed.), pp. 139-152. Ali, Haiydar Ibrahim. (2002) Education and Human Rights. Political Culture Series. Published by the Centre of Sudanese Studies. Basher, Mohamed Omer. (1983) The Development of Education in Sudan: 1898 – 1956. Dar Algeel (Beirut) and Khalifa Atia Library (Khartoum). Breidlid, Anders (2005) Education in the Sudan: the privileging of an Islamic discourse, Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 35(3):247-263. Deng, Francis. (1995) War of Visions: Conflict Identities in the Sudan. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution. Al-Tom, Mohamed Elamin. (2006) Higher Education in Sudan: Towards a New Vision for a New Era. Sudan Currency Printing Press, Khartoum. __ (2015) Mohamed Elamin Al-Tom’s chapter on the “Challenges in Access and Justice in Primary Education in Sudan”. Chapter in book “The Reality of Primary Education in Sudan and the Challenges for Reform”, Ombadda, S. (Ed.), Mamoun Behairi Research Centre Publishing, Khartoum, pp. 49-90. Fadl, Yousif. (1971) The Sudan in Africa. Edited and introduced, Khartoum University Press. __ (1979) Some Aspects of the Writing of History in Modern Sudan, Khartoum University Press. __ (2008) Dirasat fi tarikh al-Sudan, bilad al-Arab wa Afriqiya, 3rd Vol., Khartoum 2008. Freire, Paulo. (1972) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Penguin, London. Gidley, Jennifer M. (2017) The Future: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. Grawert, Elke. (Ed.) (2010) After the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in Sudan. Ibrahim, Abdullahi Ali. (2010) Balkht Alruda: Education and Colonialism. Katib Alshouna Series. Dar Al-Musawarat Publishing, Khartoum. __ (2016) Arabisation: Manichean Delirium. Katib Alshouna Series. Dar Almusawarat Publishing, Khartoum. -13- Ibrahim, Mohamed El-Makki. (1976) Sudanese Thought: Origins and Development. Aro Commercial Publisher, Khartoum. Inayatullah, Sohail. (2008) Six pillars: futures thinking for transforming. Foresight, 10 (1):4-21. Ismail, Abakar Adam. (1999) On the issue of Arabisation in Sudan. In proceedings of Conference on the State and Future of Higher Education in Sudan, Cairo, 1 – 5 August 1998, Al-Tom, M.A. (Ed.), pp. 153-174. Kuhn, Deanna. (2017) Building Our Best Future: Thinking Critically About Ourselves and Our World. Wessex Learning Publishing Co., New York. Moshman, David (2017) Education for Deliberative Democracy. Huffpost, 19 November. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/education-for-deliberativedemocracy_us_5a1219c9e4b0e30a95850867 (Accessed September 2018) Niblock, Tim. (1987) Class and Power in Sudan: The Dynamics of Sudanese Politics, 1898-1985. State University of New York Press. Ramos, Jose R. (2003) Critique to Cultural Recovery, AFI Monograph Series 2:1-31. Slaughter, Richard A. (Ed.) 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Notes 1 This part of the title is borrowed from the vision of Dr. John Garang, a revolutionary South Sudanese intellectual, who led the struggle for an inclusive country and warned that it would divide otherwise. 2 Information on the Ahfad University incident in January 2018 is available on social media. This article “Dean of Sudan’s El Ahfad University in discredit after beating students” on Dabanga News Website summarises the controversy that the incident generated. See https://www.dabangasudan.org/en/all-news/article/dean-of-sudan-sel-ahfad-university-in-discredit-after-beating-students. 3 The events in January 2018 at Ahfad University included the Vice Chancellor being recorded on video beating female students were discussed in a program at Altayar Newspaper with Professor Gasim Badri, and published on 9th September 2018 by the Newspaper (see article at https://www.bajnews.net/news/34380 reporting his more recent views –in Arabic). -14- 4 This workshop was organised by the Sudanese Organization for Research & Development (SORD), in partnership with Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES), September 2017. It is part of a series of activities on the theme “Social Exclusion and Education” that took place between May – October 2017. The series engaged a number of civil society organizations working on basic and adult education in addition to representatives from relevant government authorities. 5 The methodology used at the workshop is part of the toolset of the Institute for the Future (IFTF), Palo Alto, California, U.S.A. The author is a Certified Foresight Practitioner. See http://www.iftf.org/home/. 6 Part of quote is from Simone de Beauvoir “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” [citation] 7 Grandmothers, plural for Al-Habbouba. 8 Al-Kambala is known as one of the major dances and part of cultural heritage of the Nuba Mountains, it is also an initiation of young men who are between 12 and 14 years old. Less focused upon is the organisational elements of Al-Kambala where children are split into cohorts (3 years apart) and dealt with as a group in terms of community chores and socialisation, as they progress to manhood. 9 This is in reference to the attack on Weam Shawgi and the views she voiced on a DW News talk show (18 September 2018). An article by Yosra Sabir discusses extreme condemnations that reached death threats against Weam, but also to the host and those of her generation who hold similar strong views against child marriage and sexual harassment. In the talk show, Weam confronted the head of the Islamic Scholars institution who promote extreme interpretations of Islam seen in the country laws, and general lack of freedoms. 10 In Freire’s notion of praxis, only human beings are capable of reflection and action, of creative activities that truly transforms reality. Animal activity, he reckons, is devoid of praxis. Compared to animals, people operate on the three dimensions of time (past, present, and future) creating their history through a “constant process of transformation within which epochal units materialize”. See https://7dnews.com/news/extremism-alert-debatingwomen-rights-incites-death-threats-in-sudan. 11 Appears in the Arabic language textbook for first grade primary students (Part 1, page 41). 12 Extracted from Directory of Admission Rates for Sudanese Universities for 2018-2019. 13 Wini Omer is a human rights activist who has been targeted by state laws of public order; her case has reached international attention and drew support from women and human rights organisations (e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/jul/26/sudanese-journalist-could-face-death-sentencefor-crimes-against-state). -15-