Dimah Mahmoud: The power in culture and the revolution of consciousness (ep358)
“We are not a lacking people. We are more than capable to provide for ourselves. The issue is those who continue to pretend that they are here to help are here for other intentions.”
In this episode, we welcome Dimah Mahmoud (@thefacipulator), who facilitates order by manipulating chaos and stops at nothing for truth, justice, and love. She co-creates grassroots solutions by growing her knowledge, skills, and community to build alliances for inclusive collective growth. As a self-proclaimed warrior of truth, Dimah vowed to beat the drums of truth until the world knows unity.
Subscribe and listen to Green Dreamer in any podcast app or read on for the episode transcript.
Artistic credits:
Musical feature: Trust The Sun by M!tch
Episode-inspired artwork by Hazem Asif
If you feel inspired by this episode, please consider donating a gift of support of any amount today!
Transcript:
Note: *Our episodes are minimally edited. Please view them as open invitations to dive deeper into each resource and topic explored. This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Dimah Mahmoud: I am Nubian and I had heard that word a few times as a child and growing up, but I had no idea what it meant. Not until 2006, when I was pursuing my Master's degree. I was born in Kuwait after the Gulf War, and had to go to Sudan for two years, then moved to Egypt, where I grew up, went to school, and then came to the U.S. That entire journey, that entire part of my life, I was raised and operated as an Arab Muslim girl. That's all I knew. That's how I knew it. There was very little context to anything at all, anything connecting me to anything or anyone else beyond my immediate family and distant relatives.
This journey has been wild. Fast forward to 2006, when the first mirror was raised to my face as a Nubian when I was attending a lecture held at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter. That was Professor Herman Bell News giving a lecture called Paradise Lost. It was about Nubia and Nubian heritage. I tell this story so many times, but I have to say it because it is where everything started for me.
This man came from Virginia and he's teaching at Oxford and Exeter. He comes to me and starts speaking in a language. It sounds familiar, but I have no idea what he is saying, and I look really confused. So. he looks at me, [and says] “Don't tell me you're not Nubian.” No, I am. He said, “Yes, you are. You know, even you could tell which tribe looked like. How dare you not speak your language?” That was the first mirror that was raised to my face. I don't know what language he's speaking of. I saw the look on his face with such a combination of both rage and heartbreak.
I went home. I went back to the dorms that night and I just kept researching. I was trying to get to the bottom of why this white man from Virginia was so angry. I couldn't speak a language that is apparently mine. He spent and dedicated his life revitalizing and protecting. That's where it all started. This connects to everything that I am doing. Everything goes back to language.
Everything goes back to how we communicate with all that is around us.
All that has been divinely created, understanding that the earth, that nature, that all that surrounds us is communicating with us. We're just walking around absentmindedly. Absolutely no idea of all the blessings, all the messages, all the lessons, all the whispers that are being sent to us because we don't understand that language.
Kamea Chayne: That really sounds like a pivotal moment for you. A lot of times with people's earlier inspirations, here isn't necessarily one thing that led to everything else, but it sounds like that was definitely a very transformational time for you that then led you down this rabbit hole of really wanting to get to know your roots and who you are and the struggles that your people may be facing today.
One of the key questions you've been keeping close to heart is this question of why people were saying that Sudan was starving, even though Sudan is at the same time called the food basket of the world. This contradiction sort of weaves together your roots as well as your work with a growing culture, focusing on food sovereignty. I can only imagine how significant it's been for you to expose the tensions here. Where did this curiosity lead you and what realizations did you ultimately make from leaning into this inquiry?
Dimah Mahmoud: See, that's the thing. It didn't actually fully come through into a full circle until a decade later in 2016. As I said at the time, I was doing my Master's. My Master's was in Sudanese-Egyptian relations and then, in particular, Sudanese foreign policy and international legitimacy. I was doing it at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies. It wasn't even from an African lens that I was researching Sudan, which at the time was the largest country in Africa.
But that's where I started recognizing the resources that are in Sudan, still not fully grasping what you just rightly said, it’s called a global food basket. But ten years later, in 2016, I'd finished my Ph.D., returned to the U.S., and at the time, the Bashir regime, or the Somali government at the time, was moving forward full force with plans to build three more dams in the Northern Territory of Sudan, which is the Nubian territories, essentially. Those dams would have displaced anywhere from 80 to 90,000 Nubians and submerged anywhere from 70 to 90-something villages, depending on how you define a village in terms of size, and submerged more than 500 archeological sites that we know of.
Just about everything that I had first looked into ten years ago when Herman Bell first asked “How dare you not speak your language” just came rushing and flooding back. I was just like, now or never. This is where this disconnection with land came and this is where I started focusing, there's a lot more here and heritage isn't.
It's not just the building or a museum or a tomb or a pyramid. It's this live heritage of human beings that is being lost.
Because the language is endangered. We can't pass it through. Two years after I started the Nubia initiative with my sister, Dalia, the greatest thing happened with the youth of Sudan, taking to the streets for this revolution of consciousness. It started for many reasons, obviously, but the biggest trigger was youth going to get bread and seeing how high the price hiked, and everything just basically connected from there. The flame that was lit through that revolution, the awakening that was just being spread across the continent and beyond the continent into the diaspora, Sudanese or people of African ancestry. It's just been amazing, and it's been overwhelming.
It continues to be because the revolution continues, despite what the media might tell you, despite what the media will have you believe, if you pay close enough attention, it's almost like if you're paying close enough attention, you recognize that the media and those running it are mainstream media. I would say by desperately trying and working on actively silencing mainstream media because it's happening on the streets of Sudan. What's been happening on the streets of Sudan is nothing short of miraculous.
It's a reclamation of our divine connection to land. There aren't enough blackouts or social media blackouts. There are enough ways they can try to block us out to silence what's coming out because it's coming out. It's being felt on Kenyan news coming out outside the Supreme Court, saying, “What are you doing in our name for the Sudanese revolution?” You have Ghanaians going out, marching to the presidential palace, saying, “What are you doing in our name in solidarity with the people of Sudan?” South Africans holding concerts, and Ethiopians and Eritreans here in the U.S. joining us in every protest we have.
It's just been amazing. It can't be silenced. It's that that’s bringing it all together. How I came to AGC was in 2019, there was this facade of an agreement between the military and the civilians saying, “Okay, this is how they're going to move forward because that's the only way to secure [that] Sudanese don't starve.” At the time I already knew the resources we have.
I already knew that our land is rich enough and fertile enough to feed the world, not just to feed us.
So, I packed my bags. Then I moved to my village and was like, “Okay, I need to learn how to grow food.”
Kamea Chayne: I was reading about how Sudan has been dubbed the “global food basket” or the “next global food basket,” in part because of the rich soils fed by the blue and white Nile and the abundant rainfall, and a lot of the “cultivable land” as well as the abundant fish reserves. Although it also makes me nervous that it's been globally recognized with this potential because that feels like an implicit or maybe even explicit invitation for outside investors looking for “productive land” to grow commodities for export.
So, what do we already know about the free trade agreements that have dispossessed community food sovereignty in other parts of the continent, writing off the colonial legacy of trade? What parallel concerns do you have in regards to how the Sudanese food basket may be taken advantage of not to feed their own communities, but for other vested interests?
Dimah Mahmoud: Going back to language.
When we say free trade, we really need to ask, "free," free for whom?
Who is agreeing on these agreements, who's designing and writing or co-creating these agreements, and for what purpose? But going into the flags it's raising for you, and very rightly so, because Sudan, African as it is, has been Arabized. For the most part, a lot of Sudanese, if not most Sudanese, do consider themselves Arabs. We have been Arabs as a country, the name of the country itself and the main language is Arabic. So, even in any reference to Sudan being the food basket, it is first and foremost referred to as the food basket of the Arab world. So, that's already one way that limits our knowledge of the extent of the resources we have on our land.
But then it's no surprise when you look at how the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia and Qatar and who else has “leased land” in Sudan to produce food. They're not employing Sudanese, for that matter. They're bringing their own people to grow this food, putting it in containers, slapping stamps on them, saying “made in the U.A.E.” or K.S.A. or Qatar or whatever, and shipping it over to their people, while Sudanese continue to starve. It's the same thing with cattle and other resources making their way to Egypt.
So, one of the most amazing things that is happening right now is the local resistance committee is where people on the street are recognizing we can't rely on the military, we can't rely on any form of official entity or government, local, regional, or international to secure what's ours. These local resistance committees are barricading their neighborhoods to protect the military from going in with live ammunition and all kinds of torture. But more specifically, the local resistance committee in the northern state, which is on the border with Egypt, has barricaded that border and blocked any trucks or containers that are taking the cattle or the main flour or whatever it is that they're taking over for each of them.
Not one thing that is coming out of our land can or should go anywhere before the people of the land have access to it first.
That is transformational because I think for the very first time, Sudanese are really reckoning with what it means for us to have control. Have that discern over food sovereignty and sovereignty over what comes out of our land and what that means and what that power allows us to wield on this international stage where everyone is looking at Sudan and looking at the resources coming out of it. I'm not just talking about food.
Sudan is also extremely rich in gold that France has its eyes on and it's been loading $25 million worth of gold daily out of Sudan. It's having that understanding, starting to reckon with things like who gets access to these resources and how independent are we if whatever government representing us is just literally leading a guy and selling us out. Then you recognize that this isn't just something that's happening in Sudan. We start connecting dots and see that that's what's happening in DRC, that's what's happening in Ghana, that's what's happening everywhere else. hat's ours is not. The Congo is not. It’s not Ghana's. It's from Ghana. But what percentage is Ghana keeping and how independent are we?
When we talk about how liberated or how free we are if we're not free to keep what's ours? If we are tied to agreements that are shackling us to sell things or literally give things away because it's not even selling it at a decent or reasonable price that allows us to grow in a reciprocal way. We're just being bled of our resources, of our hope, of our youth. Because even if the youth do want to and dare to challenge and look back and say, “Okay, well, let's look at this plan," government policies are effectively chasing them out
Because it's more convenient and it's more instant [for] profit and gratification to just succumb to the international bribes, to fit into whatever white hegemonic system that's already designed to allow for the constant and continuous extraction of the African continent and all things indigenous.
This isn't just limited to Africa. That's one thing that really gives me hope is that more and more people are recognizing that as long as you're searching for truth, all struggles are connected.
Kamea Chayne: This all really goes to illustrate that we cannot have conversations about sustainability or the health of the land without really contextualizing that with power. As you mentioned, something that's been central to your work is this understanding of the role of culture and languages.
Especially in the face of economic globalization, governmental centralization, and corporate monopolization, all threatening place-based relationships, and knowledge, how might this recognition of the role of culture and languages be more important than ever in helping us to stay grounded and reminding us of what power is and where it should and really lies?
Dimah Mahmoud: As ever, it goes back to language again. If we want to know how relevant or how important, or by some measure, how dangerous culture can be to the current status quo, we need only look at how quickly and how deliberately culture is being replaced in words. It's no longer agriculture. It's “agribusiness” or agro-anything that's going to bring money, “agritech,” whatever it is, it just can't be culture. It needs to be replaced, culture. There is a deliberate effort to replace culture, whatever culture means, because wherever you are if you are in your culture, if you are true to your culture, you are by default connected to everything else.
That is a threat to those in power because those in power, their only claim to power is how they have traumatized human beings into isolation. That we can't even imagine what coming together looks like. That's the healing that is required. That is what recognizing culture means, because, in every culture, there is some teaching of reconciliation, forgiveness, healing, and correction. What's wrong? It all starts with acknowledging that wrong has been done.
This system is not ready to fully acknowledge the magnitude of wrong upon which it is built.
Kamea Chayne: I guess the incompatibility also comes from this recognition that culture by nature is necessarily diverse, is community-oriented and centered, and also rooted in place and the system attempting to centralize everything really leads to homogenization because it attempts to make these commodities efficient for extraction. So, these two, they're going in opposite trends where the revitalization of culture would take us down a path, I believe, towards healing communities, healing place-based relationships, and building diversity, which lends itself to the resilience of social and ecological systems. Then this current dominant exploitative system is taking us down the other trend of unraveling all of these resilient and strong relationships and place-based networks.
Dimah Mahmoud: Absolutely. Absolutely. Again, when we talk about healing and it's not just healing us as human beings, it's also healing everything that is around. It is healing everything that we have inflicted trauma upon. It's healing Mother Earth. Well, it's not even healing Mother Earth, because Mother Earth is tough to do in our own world. I am done with you all. Let me just ground you while I do what I need to do.
But it's also recognizing things like that. It's calling in hip hop. I say calling in because I'm thinking of “calling out,” but calling in invokes love because you're bringing something in to your mind. But calling in this hypocrisy that we're seeing whether it's my fellow Sudanese going out and chanting outside the White House saying, “Oh, you know, help us get justice on our land.” Who is the U.S. to help anyone to get justice when the U.S. is this genocidal colonial entity that is on stolen land? How are we giving legitimacy to that?
Healing starts again, not just as human beings, not for just us as human beings, but as us making peace with the very earth that we are on, the very soil that carries us, that the spirit of the soil we are on is violated. We have a responsibility to attend to that, commend to hear that in every way we know how. That requires asking some very difficult questions and being prepared to answer them. That requires us to be prepared to belong. That requires us to be prepared to unlearn everything that we have learned. That requires us to be comfortable in our discomfort so that we might cause these shifts to actually finally happen.
Culture reminds us of that because culture is continuity.
There is a way that culture continues to stay as resilient as it is in the face of everything that's trying to shut it down. All these Indigenous communities that have kept the wisdom, that have kept their knowledge and are still passing it down, despite everything that is trying to shackle and silence it wherever however it is.
Kamea Chayne: One of those difficult questions that you've invited me to sit with and your invitations to unlearn is this need to reconceptualize power? We touched on this earlier, and I want to put this on the back burner and come back to this, but for our listeners who are not familiar with the political plight of Sudan, I wonder if you can share about the people-led revolution resulting in a civilian prime minister being put into political power, and yet those bottom-up efforts still being hijacked in order to preserve the existing system and dynamic which in part sparked the revolution in the first place.
Dimah Mahmoud: This might be uncomfortable for some people listening, especially some Sudanese who might be listening to this because personally, first of all, I start with recognizing, and honoring our martyrs, our great heroes, and heroes who have fallen in the name of this revolution and in the quest for justice and freedom, our peace, and our dignity as human beings and to them.
This popular uprising, this wave of revolution of consciousness which we have called the revolution of consciousness. We took to the streets in December 2018, which led to a massive sit-in outside the army headquarters for almost the first half of 2019. Actually, from April to August there was a massive massacre—look up the Sudan massacre of June 3rd to get an idea of the magnitude of these genocidal terrorists and what they will do to stay in power.
But in short, that led to an agreement between the military and the civilian chosen or appointed representatives. I don't personally recognize that agreement, and I know many Sudanese have. I personally do not. I don't recognize that agreement. I don't recognize that transitional government altogether because there is nothing just about shaking hands are signing any form of agreement with genocidal terrorists. At the time of signing, and right now as we speak, those currently in charge of the military, all wanting the military, are admittedly genocidal terrorists responsible for the genocide in Darfur. Those who are right now president and vice president, for all intents and purposes. So, I don't care what civilian signed anything that legitimizes the power of two genocidal terrorists over our land, [it] is flawed and illegitimate and a betrayal of martyrs and a betrayal to this revolution.
Now, there are regional powers that are seeing to it specifically that the military stays in power. Our neighbor to the north, Egypt, is one of them. It cannot afford to have the civilian government to itself because that will shake things in Egypt and Egyptians might then start asking questions about how their own revolution was hijacked and how after chanting for 18 days straight will they continue to be ruled by the military and the military takes over. But there are also powers like the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia who have illegitimate and illegal wars in Yemen that need to be catered to and their youth won't be sent to fight because their lives are too valuable. African lives, on the other hand, in their eyes, are not as valuable. So, they will pay these genocidal terrorists to send Sudanese youth to fight and die within the villages in between.
There are so many intricate parts to what's happening in Sudan because, again, as I continue to repeat, what's happening in Sudan right now is not just about Sudan.
The questions and the answers that are currently unfolding on the streets of Sudan are connected to every single form of injustice happening in this world.
I'm not just saying this because I'm Sudanese and I'm not just saying this because people need to pay attention to what's happening in Sudan. I am saying this because it is the complete truth. It is about our past. It is about our heritage. It is about our history. It is about our present. It is about our future. It is about reclaiming that future. It is about reclaiming sovereignty. It is about declaring our independence and saying no more military rule. It's about saying no more, any more structures of power. And if we feel like all people of the land should rule the land, then that's exactly what we are going to pursue. And there's no power on this planet that can stop us.
Kamea Chayne: Nothing ever happens in a vacuum. It's important to be attuned to and learn how place-based struggles like that in Sudan and the surrounding regions are tethered to the global system that we are all ultimately linked to and often complicit in as well. So, it's important to connect those dots.
To bring in this call to reconceptualize power, you've talked before about how a lot of people have been conditioned to believe that power lies in a particular place, for example, within the hands of political institutions. As such, this leaves many to feel powerless outside of the limited ways that we can participate inside of those political systems. I think what you embody, practice, and have shown in your leadership and membership in movements is an inspiration to question and broaden our understanding of what it means to engage in politics, especially through how you interpret the historically low youth voter turnout in the recent years across several elections in Africa, like South Africa and Nigeria. While some people may superficially interpret low voter turnout as apathy and as such even blame undesired political outcomes on those who refuse to partake in electoral politics in this way. How do you see this as something much larger and more significant in terms of how young people are rethinking power and politics altogether?
Dimah Mahmoud: Well, for starters, we're—and I say we're here because I'm counting myself as you—despite what my mother might think, we're making a distinction between power and politics because, for the longest time, we thought politics is power.
For the longest time, we've been conditioned to look at politics as power.
Only those in politics are shaping how we live our lives. Only those in politics are telling us what we can and cannot do. Alongside that, and specifically for the youth of African ancestry, because of the trauma imposed upon our people from those in politics, we've been told that politics is dirty and it's a dirty game and all politicians are conniving or evil or whatever negative label we want to slap on it. So, there's this intrinsic need to stay away from politics. There's this instinctive, “Yeah, this is a big mess.” I'm like, “I'm just going to be here, make my money, and be happy.” That's another dynamic that comes in. That power also means money. If you're not making X amount of money, if you're not making a six-figure salary, then you won't have the power to actually make your choices, actually live your life the way you want to live it.
This is shifting right now. It's shifting because people are recognizing, specifically, youth are recognizing, that now if we come together and take to the streets, we can actually stop things from happening. We no longer need to accept the things we cannot change. We can actually come together and imagine how to change them and actually change them. That's what's happening and this is why it's being called a revolution of consciousness.
This is why I'm saying it's beyond Sudan because this awakening is being felt across the world, really. It's the revolutionary winds of consciousness that are blowing into the air. It's this awakening that is thankfully becoming inevitable, that people are recognizing that we have the power, we are powerful, and that ultimately we are just spiritual beings having a human experience. What that means here on this planet changes how we engage those who think they have the power. Because this has been psychological warfare, first and foremost, that shift in our mindset in being able to discern between politics and power, being able to discern between our own power as spiritual beings, having this human experience and how that juxtaposes in everything that we have been conditioned to believe is power.
Kamea Chayne: Yeah, there's a lot of deprogramming to do. I think we talked about this in a separate conversation before, where it's not so much about the reclamation of power, but almost more so a recontextualizing of power or reframing of what power means.
Dimah Mahmoud: A reframing of failure and a reframing of fear and a reframing of our insecurities and a reframing of all how we perceive how others will perceive us. Because these are all things that inevitably shackle us. We get so overwhelmed trying to grasp everything that's happening around us and things are happening a lot and really fast and things are picking up and it gets overwhelming and it gets exhausting. Somehow we want to have some grip over all of it.
But really, if we just start again, it will have also been conditioned since he was like, be selfless and if you focus on yourself, then you're selfish and you need to focus on the collective and it's all about the greater good. You are part of this collective, and it's a double-edged sword. When we make these thoughts and when we're actively engaging in uplifting a larger message, it's so easy for us to forget ourselves in all of this. But when we go back to seeking our truth, we are connecting to everything that is true. Everything else starts falling into place, and power is one of these things.
It's a little bit challenging at first because when you start getting a glimpse of that power, then you start realizing that you can put your mind to something and decide that nothing's going to stop you from getting that thing. Nothing's going to stop you from finding the truth, regardless of whatever the mainstream media is telling you and you can recognize that, no, you can actually make it happen. When you come together with other people who are working on various aspects of whatever they're working on, it's still connecting and feeding into what you're doing, and it's uplifting your work, just like your work is uplifting someone else's.
What's happening right now is we're recognizing that in stepping into our power, whatever that looks like individually, it is pouring into the collective. So there is this curiosity about “All right, who else is doing what?” You want to find out and you want to support it because you're getting inspired. There's life that's just moving and really taking shape alongside you. All of a sudden you're not just a creature. You're a co-creator. You can dream up solutions that you can breathe into existence. That's a power we haven't been taught to consider or look at in any way.
Kamea Chayne: That's so beautifully said. The power of language has been really a recurring theme throughout our conversation today. It makes me think about how we might reframe or reconceptualize power so that we don't recognize the same power as in power over or power in a controlling way. But we might reframe that sort of power as being out of touch and disassociated, and we might learn to recognize success as it is defined in the dominant culture in a very individualistic way, as maybe a failure to recognize our interdependence.
So, it's not so much reclaiming power, but maybe reclaiming the meaning of power, and it's not so much reclaiming success, but reclaiming the meaning of success. A lot of the less visible and less tangible things that we need to shift, which again, I guess goes back to the revolution of the consciousness that you've been talking about as well.
Dimah Mahmoud: It's the essence, really, because even the meaning itself can differ based on experience, but the essence of things, and this is why some people have issues with the truth, right? Because they get really defensive.
But the thing is, truth has no emotion. Truth isn't happy or sad. The truth is the truth. But people get emotional about the truth. People need to be truthful about the truth. It's the essence of things that we're missing when we say, “Oh, I want to be successful.”
What embodies the essence of success for you and what you've experienced and what you've learned so far and what you've gone through and where you want to be going? What is the essence of success? What is the essence of love? What is the essence of justice? What is the essence of truth? What is the essence of power?
Kamea Chayne: Well, I know I'm going to continue to meditate on this and ponder this further long after our conversation. But for now, as we orient ourselves towards collective healing, an increasing number of people are waking up to the need for reparations in order to heal historical traumas and injuries that have never been addressed. Which then so far seems to have just manifested in furthering different cycles of harm and destruction.
You powerfully say, and I'm paraphrasing here, that everything outside of Africa was predominantly built on the backs of Africans. So, if those outside wanting to help, like Bill Gates, do not align with this or recognize this history, then they're just wasting their time. You conclude [that] Africa doesn't need help. “Africa needs the people who think Africa needs help to step aside.”
I think some people may misinterpret this as a nod to apathy or disengagement, when in fact, disengagement means allowing the present, really interventionist system, exploiting undervalued labor and cheapening lands and resources, as well as the centralization of power to continue. I'm not sure if I read the post there correctly in terms of what you were referring to. So please correct me, and I would love for you to elaborate on how you envision the idea of reparations when it means those wanting to help to step aside.
Dimah Mahmoud: This can be this is a whole other conversation in so many ways because it has to start with asking, why are those who are saying are here to say, “Okay, let's talk reparations,” finally coming to say let's talk reparations. It goes back into the intention of things. For those who are saying, “Oh, we're here to help.”
What makes you think we need help? What makes you think we don't have what it takes, and that the only thing that has been stopping us is crippling debts that work because there are policies that say that a country cannot join the World Trade Organization without basically signing off its rights to say we're going to accept or agree or sign off that Indigenous seeds will be criminalized moving forward, or that we're going to stop our Indigenous communities and peasants to stop growing in their natural ancestral way. Do you know what I mean? These policies that are there, how can we reconcile these things? We need to talk about reparations.
So, we're talking reparations. When I say step out of the way, I mean led those who have been actually doing the work of reparation with what they already have. Tell you where the need is. Show you where they needed. If you are here to repair whatever it is, you believe you or your ancestors have contributed to doing. Then come to learn. Don't come to tell us what will fix what you haven't done. We know what can and would fix [things] because we're not the first to do this. We're building on what those who came before us have done and you have tried taking them out.
Here I present this: the spirit of Sankara in my presence was speaking the day after the memory of Malcolm X's assassination in my presence. Every leader, every humanist, everyone who recognized that there can be no conversation about us without us and that…
We are not a lacking people. We are more than capable to provide for ourselves. The issue is those who continue to pretend that they are here to help are here for other intentions.
This is why I say people need to be truthful about the truth. People need to be honest about what's actually happening here.
Sure, this can be easily brushed off as this idealistic way of thinking. But really, sooner or later, the truth will come out. Sooner or later, you'll recognize that you can't keep lying about these things because Mother Nature, everything that is divinely created is going to start shaking and moving things in a way where the truth can no longer be hidden. This is where platforms like yours and the conversations that are that I've had on and offline are connecting these with this much, much larger revolutionary web of consciousness.
Reparations, specifically to people of African ancestry mean recognizing that when you talk about African people, it is not just people on the African continent. When you say African-led, it does not suffice for it to be led by African people, it must be leading to holistic African advancement and that includes those on the continent and those in the diaspora. There must no longer be any form of solution or reparation that is not rooted in restoring the connection between land and people. The land is Africa and the people are all her children on and off the continent.
Kamea Chayne: Well, as we recognize, there is a lot of tension in the fight over the narratives. As you touched on earlier, corporate media and mainstream media are not always very in touch with people's narratives and what is actually happening on the ground sometimes just due to the institutional bias and sometimes, of course, very intentionally as well. But ultimately, hopefully, the truth will prevail. So, I really appreciate you sharing everything that you've shared here with us.
We are wrapping up our time together, but what else do you feel stirred to share at this moment that I didn't get to ask you about? What are your final calls to action or a deeper inquiry for our listeners?
Dimah Mahmoud:
Ask more questions, whatever these questions are.
Whether they are about your personal life, your purpose, the people around you, your essence and sense of prosperity and growth, or the larger things that are happening around you. Your connection to food, your connection to land. Ask more questions, ask them publicly, ask them privately, and keep asking the questions. Because really, the questions we have connect with far more than the answers we seek.
There's always a lot more to talk about but shout out to A Growing Culture. I've joined that family about a year ago now today. There is a lot to learn and everything that is connected to food and what fuels you to keep moving forward. So I guess my call to action is to on a personal level, on a collective level, ask more questions. More personally as a Sudanese, I ask you to keep your eyes on Sudan. Check out Sudan.com. Ring the alarm wherever and however you can. Know that if you are a U.S. citizen, your U.S. taxpayer money continues to be poured into weapons and bleed my sisters and brothers dry.
*** CLOSING ***
Kamea Chayne: What's an impactful publication you follow or a book that's been really profound for you?
Dimah Mahmoud: A Growing Culture. I am not saying this because I get food on my table because I am part of that family. But it has truly been a massive journey of awakening and what a massive journey of learning and unlearning. So many things have connected so many dots for me, particularly an article called Divide and Conquer. It's on our media. It's also on our Instagram account. So check out A Growing Culture. There's a lot of information going on there. Yeah, there's a lot of information and a lot more coming. I'm really excited about the things we're bringing together and weaving together for 2022. I'm very excited about this article we're working on connecting Pan-Africanism and Food Sovereignty. So, keep an eye on that. I'm still learning. I still haven't gone through all the posts that are out there and there's always something that is mind-blowing in each of the posts.
Kamea Chayne: What is a personal motto, mantra, or practice you engage with to stay grounded?
Dimah Mahmoud: Ask more questions. Yeah, I really take that to heart. If something isn't making sense or if something isn't sitting well or resonating well, the first thing I do is ask more questions. I ask why I'm feeling that way. I ask why this could be happening. I ask where the lesson is. I ask Where is the silver lining? I allow myself to trust fully that all that is coming is out of love. Radical love.
Kamea Chayne: What is your biggest source of inspiration at the moment?
Dimah Mahmoud: Every single soul rising for justice. Every single movement, every single elder, youth, woman, man, all of it. Everything that is coming to the surface reminds us all that there's a new world coming and we can actively take part in imagining that comes through. Or we can keep resisting and then it’ll just be that much harder. It's been such an inspiration. As painful as it is to watch Sudan on the streets, it's been such an inspiration, seeing them continue to come out, facing live ammunition with drums and songs and laughter and joy, and to know that it's not just in Sudan. I do my work with ABC. I'm seeing it in the Filipino prison movement, in the insurgency in the South African Indigenous coastal communities. It's everywhere. Everyone is standing for justice. Everyone who's recognizing and looking to restore that connection with Mother Earth and Mother Nature.
Kamea Chayne: Dimah, I am endlessly inspired by your presence and all the ways that you show up and embody what you wish for the world. So, thank you so much for sharing this time with me and offering us your stories and learnings. For now, what final words of wisdom do you have for us as dreamers?
Dimah Mahmoud: Thank you so much. Come here. You have prompted me to reflect so much more on this journey, and I invite everyone who's listening to reflect on their own time and point. Reflect on their perception of truth and how that's changed and think and pause moving forward. This kind of world that you are working towards, whoever you are. Are you ready to be wrong? To prove yourself? When? To achieve that work. If you're not, ask yourself why. If you are, to what extent? Just keep asking questions and see where they connect you to. Thank you.
