Sudanese migrants in the Khartoum area: fighting for educational space

This article examines the situation of the internally displaced persons from Southern Sudan living in and around the capital and their experience with the dominant Islamic discourse, and particularly the educational discourse of the ruling National Congress (NC). Based on qualitative field data, the article explores the opposing discourses between the Southerners and the governing elite in the North. While the governing NC advocates an Islamic educational discourse, the Southerners in the camps in and around Khartoum are either opposed to modern education because it destroys traditional practices, or they favour an educational system which is more Western in nature. Parents, educators and community groups from the South organise resistance against what they consider an imposition of an alien value discourse, and as the article will show, small concessions have been granted. The frequent contestations of these concessions or victories show, however, that the non-secular, Islamic basis of the education system is so ingrained in the wider Islamic discourse that a more satisfactory solution can only occur within a comprehensive peace settlement.