In the thousands of years of Sudanese Nuba wrestling history, there had never been anything like it: A barefoot Japanese diplomat in a tight-fitting blue singlet stepping onto the sandy pitch to take on Sudan’s toughest.
Four times this year, Yasuhiro Murotatsu has challenged the Sudanese. Four times he has lost.
However, “Muro” is not giving up.
Photo: AFP
He says his wrestling diplomacy highlights this “precious culture” and can help unite a divided country.
The Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan state are home to a linguistically and religiously diverse group of people collectively known as “Nuba.”
Wrestling is central to their farm-based society, but for more than two years a more modern form of combat has devastated the region.
Photo: AFP
Non-Arab rebels from South Kordofan have joined with other insurgents from Darfur, in Sudan’s west, in rising against the Arab-dominated regime which they complain has marginalized the regions.
“Sudanese wrestling can be a symbol of a united Sudan,” says Murotatsu, 33, a Japanese embassy political officer who tries to spend one hour a day training for his bouts.
“That’s why I am fighting. This is very important. I will be very happy if all tribes ... come to Haj Yousef to support Sudanese wrestling. This is my intention,” he said before his latest match at the stadium in the Khartoum district.
More than 1 million people in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states have been displaced or severely affected by fighting in the area, the UN says.
At the same time in Darfur, tribal violence has worsened this year, leaving hundreds dead and uprooting hundreds of thousands more.
Murotatsu has competed since February in special “friendship” matches during the regular Friday evening card in Haj Yousef, a poor neighborhood of mud-brick houses.
He says the Sudanese sport is similar to the more widely known freestyle wrestling, in which he finished among the top eight when he was in junior-high school.
“I read about wrestling in Nuba Mountains before I came to Sudan ... I became quite interested and wanted to challenge them. I thought that I could win,” says Murotatsu, a former oil industry administrator who is fluent in Arabic.
“I think I’m good,” he proclaimed in an interview before his latest match.
Murotatsu’s opponent is a thin, muscular high-school student, Saleh Omar Bol Tia Kafi, who says he has been wrestling since the age of 12.
“I would come to the ring, watch the matches, and after that I wrestled with other young boys,” says Kafi, 18.
He competes under the nickname “al-Mudiriya,” the same moniker used by his father, a wrestler who is “one of the heroes of the Nuba Mountains” — and Kafi’s inspiration.
Nuba men would hold impromptu matches while in the fields caring for their cows, Kafi says, wearing a tracksuit in the colors of the Sudanese flag.
Kafi came to Khartoum from the Nuba region at the age of eight. He lives with his family, but some relatives who remained in South Kordofan have fled to the mountains because of the fighting, he says.
The war has hit the sport hard in its Nuba homeland, but wrestling still takes place, officials say.
It is now formally known as “Sudanese” wrestling because it has grown beyond the Nuba community, says Hassan Abu Ras Saliem, deputy head of the local wrestling federation.
“We are fully convinced that this wrestling can unite Sudan,” says al-Tayeb Ahmed Ajoan, the federation’s secretary-general.
And that is Muro’s wish, as he sits on the edge of the circular red-earth pitch, stretching before his latest match.
Fans have taken up every inch of the stadium, which was built by the Khartoum state government a year ago.
They even perch atop the concrete wall, moving to the rhythmic music played between bouts.
Small boys lugging plastic containers of drinking water and silver cups squeeze through the crowd, while women sell trays of snacks.
Far away, people are fighting and dying in Sudan’s wars, but in the stadium, fans from different parts of the country have come together in joy.
“I think this wrestling can have a role in ending racism in Sudan,” said Mutasim Ahmed, who is from North Kordofan and is a regular spectator.
A Darfur native, Abdurrahman Tajideen, said he supported local boy Mudiriya because “he is representing Sudan.”
The widening appeal of the sport to people like Tajideen from other ethnic groups means it could help bring peace to the country and the Nuba region in particular, said wrestling fan Hafiz Sulaiman, a Nuba.
Sulaiman was hoping for a Muro victory “because he lost three matches and still came back. This means he has good will.”
Hands raised, concentrating in a half-crouch, the two wrestlers move cautiously, pawing each other like cats as the match begins.
The pace picks up. Mudiriya holds Muro around the waist and pulls him into the dirt before the Japanese twists around.
Mudiriya is on his back. Muro raises his arms, as if in victory.
No, not yet.
They play on, Mudiriya’s left shoulder dusted with dirt.
After about three minutes he puts Muro on the ground again. Game over. Mudiriya wins.
“A lion! He’s a lion!” a female fan calls in his honor as the two athletes are hoisted up by others.
“Muro’s tactics were completely different from last time and his skill has improved,” a sweating Mudiriya says.
“He’s a very good wrestler,” the Japanese diplomat says, vowing a return to the ring.
“I cannot withdraw until I get at least one victory,” he adds.
A win in Khartoum would, he hopes, pave the way for a bout in the wrestling heartland of Nuba itself.
“It will be a very good message for peace,” Murotatsu says.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was