Isa from Chad
2:56 AM |
| Republic of Chad |
John have a roommate so different than us he comes from a country called Chad, Isa is now 23 years old and is currently studying Human Sciences in IIUM. He is much taller than us and we regularly exchange ideas and thoughts over coffee and cigarettes. According to him, Chad is a vast, ethnically diverse African country. It got its independence from France in 1960 after a sixty-year colonial period rule that did not create a meaningful national unity. Within the country's borders one may distinguish several national cultures that are based on the religious affiliations of the population groups. Many of the cultures can be traced back to a complex precolonial history of competing indigenous states and sultanates. Isa had lived there all his life and came to Malaysia to further his study. When comes to history, gotta give him credit though.
Isa also mentioned about the name Chad which is derived from the designation of the great Lake Chad (originally called Kuri). Chad is somewhat similar to Sudan in that it has a northern part inhabited by an Islamic (and partly Arabic-speaking) population of pastoralist semi-desert peoples, and a southern part of Christians and traditional religious people, engaged in mixed agriculture, crafts, and trade.
These two parts each comprise about half of the population. Postcolonial Chad has, like Sudan, been marked by deep regional-ethnic divisions and a violent history of struggle for power among the various elites that have alternative visions of the state and their place within it. Armed rebellions and years of protracted and destructive civil war, in which the role of Libya was at times notable, have characterized Chad's recent history. Sure many things had been going on since Isa was brought to this world.
Isa told us that Chad's national identity is unstable, and first and foremost derived from the inherited post-colonial administrative state structure. Constitutionally, Chad is unitary and secular, but in recent years a struggle has occurred to redefine the identity of the nation. The issue of how this would have to be reflected in the nation's legal system has not even been posed. Language policy also reveals the problems: French and Arabic were chosen as the official languages of the state— both long established in Chad but neither of them indigenous.
Having to know Isa and a bit of the background of his country, really gave us the urge to learn more about intercultural communication that thought us that culture is vas and culture is diverse.
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