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Reflecting on the social impact of Hakamat
The hakamat (pl.) are women poetesses and singers who hail from specific groups classified as nomadic/pastoralist “Arab” groups within Darfur and Kordofan.
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The hakamat (pl.) are women poetesses and singers who hail from specific groups classified as nomadic/pastoralist “Arab” groups within Darfur and Kordofan. The role can be inherited, can be based on talent or having charisma, and being respected within their communities. The title of hakama is officially bestowed during a festive ceremony. The articulations and performances of hakamat seek to comment on societal events, taking place in real time, to resolve them.
Through powerful performances hakamat, wield significant social influence since they sustain and fortify cultural values based on gendered understandings of honour and shame within specific contexts. They manifest the capacity to use song and poetry to invite men to engage in war by praising the virtues of aggressive and unrelenting warrior behaviour, based on reified cultural norms, that encourage men and young boys to remain brave and unflinching in the face of death in order to accrue power and wealth. The hakamat equally mediate inter-communal peace and suggest viable marriage alliances considered beneficial to diverse clans within the “Arab” structures of both Darfur and Kordofan where they are present as social actors.
The lyrics pronounced by hakamat guide men and women in enacting social norms and roles which are deemed as enhancing collective lives. However, the impactful socially grounded influence of hakamats’ performances remained invisible to many Sudanese who are unacquainted with the cultural heritage of locations within Western Sudan from whence they originally hail. The dominance of Nile valley culture and the centering of political power within the capital city Khartoum have contributed to this situation.
The Darfur conflict of 2003 has highlighted the role of these women as powerful social actors. They had been widely perceived by riverine culture and the international peace building community to be troublemakers who encouraged conflict. The relevance of the hakamat for bolstering national harmony became more salient after 2004. In Khartoum they were enjoined by international organisations (approved by the Sudanese state) to use their access to their local male dominated worlds and to reverse their messages transforming them into ones advocating for peace.
This activist role targeting robust nation building was poorly publicized. While the hakamat have become more well known within the capital city more recently, this visibility was facilitated by social media platforms through a depoliticized folkloric lens. This does little to reflect that the words of the hakama are wedded to lived cultural realities and seek to influence social orders.
At present, diverse Hakamat stand at the cusp of the undesired cultural and political strife now so obvious between Riverine Sudan and Darfur in Western Sudan. The war, which started in April 2023, has exacerbated preexisting grievances between the central state and its peripheries. The leadership of the Rapid Support Forces warring with the Sudanese armed Forces originates from the Maaliya (subgroup of the Rizigait) one of the Darfuri groups where Hakamat speak up. In this instance of active warfare, the image of the hakama has once again become negative since it has been widely propagated that they encourage their fighters and men to come back from the capital city bearing loot as a marker of sought after and highly valorised masculine honour and victory.
The narrative of the “hakama” (sing.) is neither good nor evil it is scripted according to the tale Sudan recounts. The words of the “hakama” reflect the travails of a nation at war with itself.
The hakamat (pl.) are women poetesses and singers who hail from specific groups classified as nomadic/pastoralist “Arab” groups within Darfur and Kordofan. The role can be inherited, can be based on talent or having charisma, and being respected within their communities. The title of hakama is officially bestowed during a festive ceremony. The articulations and performances of hakamat seek to comment on societal events, taking place in real time, to resolve them.
Through powerful performances hakamat, wield significant social influence since they sustain and fortify cultural values based on gendered understandings of honour and shame within specific contexts. They manifest the capacity to use song and poetry to invite men to engage in war by praising the virtues of aggressive and unrelenting warrior behaviour, based on reified cultural norms, that encourage men and young boys to remain brave and unflinching in the face of death in order to accrue power and wealth. The hakamat equally mediate inter-communal peace and suggest viable marriage alliances considered beneficial to diverse clans within the “Arab” structures of both Darfur and Kordofan where they are present as social actors.
The lyrics pronounced by hakamat guide men and women in enacting social norms and roles which are deemed as enhancing collective lives. However, the impactful socially grounded influence of hakamats’ performances remained invisible to many Sudanese who are unacquainted with the cultural heritage of locations within Western Sudan from whence they originally hail. The dominance of Nile valley culture and the centering of political power within the capital city Khartoum have contributed to this situation.
The Darfur conflict of 2003 has highlighted the role of these women as powerful social actors. They had been widely perceived by riverine culture and the international peace building community to be troublemakers who encouraged conflict. The relevance of the hakamat for bolstering national harmony became more salient after 2004. In Khartoum they were enjoined by international organisations (approved by the Sudanese state) to use their access to their local male dominated worlds and to reverse their messages transforming them into ones advocating for peace.
This activist role targeting robust nation building was poorly publicized. While the hakamat have become more well known within the capital city more recently, this visibility was facilitated by social media platforms through a depoliticized folkloric lens. This does little to reflect that the words of the hakama are wedded to lived cultural realities and seek to influence social orders.
At present, diverse Hakamat stand at the cusp of the undesired cultural and political strife now so obvious between Riverine Sudan and Darfur in Western Sudan. The war, which started in April 2023, has exacerbated preexisting grievances between the central state and its peripheries. The leadership of the Rapid Support Forces warring with the Sudanese armed Forces originates from the Maaliya (subgroup of the Rizigait) one of the Darfuri groups where Hakamat speak up. In this instance of active warfare, the image of the hakama has once again become negative since it has been widely propagated that they encourage their fighters and men to come back from the capital city bearing loot as a marker of sought after and highly valorised masculine honour and victory.
The narrative of the “hakama” (sing.) is neither good nor evil it is scripted according to the tale Sudan recounts. The words of the “hakama” reflect the travails of a nation at war with itself.
