The Maneuvers within the Sudan
April 25, 2008 (Long Beach, MS, USA) - The current maneuvers within the Sudan’s national census to omit the questions concerning ethnicity and religion off the census questionnaire is an attempt to do away with Dr. Garang’s vision of New Sudan. If not, then any right minded person need to explain to us why the SPLA went to war with the so called Arabs in northern Sudan.
Since its inception, in 1983, the principle purpose why the SPLA took up arms against the Khartoum based governments had been to end the economic marginalization that has been based on racial and religious bigotry; the two means that were also used to falsely define the whole country as an Arab Islamic state. And as seen in what is now going on in Darfur, it is unquestionable that the questions of race, ethnicity, and religion are factors that have been used in all strives that have been going on in all parts of the Sudan. Therefore, to simply ignore these issues, as this is the case in this new national census, is simply forgetting the root causes of Sudan’s civil wars.
As with most, if not all, African countries, the Sudanese society is a one that exhibits diversity in its ethnic, linguistic, and religious composition. It is these differences that have played and prolong the wars in Sudan for some time now. Different groups in the South as well as in the North tended to take positions or devise policies that are more often than not informed by an actual or perceived tribal hegemony, the movement or party involves in the conflict, and as such create a situation of sociopolitical barriers where different groups identify themselves either through sectarian loyalties or ideological doctrines.
In 1972 for instance, when the first civil war was resolved through the Addis Ababa peace agreement, ethnic divisions took a different dimensions. Abel Alier, a former Vice President of Sudan, in his book, Southern Sudan: Too Many Agreements Dishonored, quoted Joseph Lagu, former second Vice President of Sudan as saying: “The only thing we have in common in the South is the African skin, the black color. It is time we cut the Dinka down to size. They must go home. They have nothing to do with Equatorians.”
Such divisions and rivalries according to Alier in his book enabled the central government under Nimeiry to play off one faction against the other and created the motif behind the policy of re-division of the Southern region in the early 1980s.
In another situation in1991, these ethnic divisions also provided the framework from which factionalism was carried out when hundreds upon hundreds of innocent civilians were maimed and murdered in Bor area by the current Vice president of Southern Sudan, Riak Machar and the former foreign minister, Lam Akol; giving the conflict in Sudan another ethnic overtones—a Dinka versus Nuer and Shilluk.
In this regard, the whole political process in both the South and North pointed to a grim picture in which both regions are not even immune to factors that could potentially take them back to war in the future even if they were to secede from each other. Furthermore, since history is easily forgotten, a good example, in the case of Southern Sudan, is what almost transpire, in recent history, during the Comprehensive Peace Agreement negotiations period, in 2004, when the late SPLA/SPLM leader Dr. Garang was accused of planning to dismiss and replacing his long time deputy, Salva Kiir with Nhial Deng Nhial, the son of the famous late leader William Deng Nhial who was assassinated before the Addis Ababa Peace Agreement was signed. Because of this reason, the Rumbek crisis meeting was convened and Kiir was quoted as identifying only with his group from Bar-El Ghazal saying that: “People of Bahr El Ghazal have suffered too much from repeated famine and from the Arab militias.”
Consequently, these, and others, in essence, are important lessons for us to draw on. For the sake of history and divergent sociopolitical traditions, ethnics and religious identifications have now become the strongest forms of sociopolitical expression in both the North and South conflict. And as such, they must be address and not ignore, as President Kiir was recently quoted in the Sudan Tribune at the enthronement ceremony of Archbishop elect Daniel Deng at All Saints Cathedral in Juba, as saying “the issues of ethnicity and religion that was omitted from the questionnaires to be addressed separately soon after the census is concluded.”
But the irony is that, how can these questions of ethnicity and religion be addressed outside of the national census framework when these issues were part of the conflict in the first place? It is indeed very disheartening that the SPLM leader seems to agree with these kinds of thoughts whenever decisive decisions are needed. Opportunity only knocks once and our country is now going through that period where these important issues cannot be dismissed as if they have no current relevance. These questions about ethnicity and religion are significant, not just as distinguishing factors, but also as essential considerations in the debates about the conflict resolution, not only between the South and North, but also in reaching a consensus over the country’s identity among the different ethnic groups in the Sudan.
That is why Dr. Garang draws up a vision of New Sudan, a concept that is based on simple notions that human beings, in any given society, have equal rights and obligations regardless of race, beliefs, and color. Thus, a Sudanese is a Sudanese is a Sudanese.
But the fact that the Sudanese people have been at war with themselves since independence from British in 1956, reflect the complexities of Sudanese politics that few people have cared to address. However, the reality of the situation is that, the Sudanese society is far more complex than the projected image of an exclusively Arab Islamic Country. Understanding these realities requires a reminder of how this country has arrived to where it is at the moment. And so I will leave you with the words once said by Dr. John Garang at the Rumbek Crisis meeting on November 29th, 2004, that “Our imperfect structures have brought us to the present day. Let us not throw away these structures now; otherwise we will throw ourselves away.”
