By Dr. Justin Ambago Ramba, M.D.
Download article...
The South Sudanese political position throughout history has been a most bewildering and confusing one. The traditional political parties in the North have been founded on the Islamic faith as a continuum of the Arabs’ non-ending dream to establish a great nation of Islam in the Sudanese belt of the African continent.
In the above vision, the South Sudanese have all throughout been left out in the cold either because of their strong African identity (incompatible with the state-declared pan-Arabism) or for the simple fact that they are perceived to be second-class citizens by their Arab fellows from the North. In the past, all the Northern political parties were automatically identified as national parties though they offered no hope of progress to the South. To the Northern mindset, it is they (Northerners) to think, plan and run the entire country, while the South must have whatsoever remains which usually is not much.
However, the South Sudanese in their struggle for a fair share and equal treatment in the Sudanese nation were all over the place. There were those who used to think that the South would stop to exist the moment it faced the North or even simply initiated any form of resistance to its arabization policies. So it was not a surprise in those days to see a good number of South Sudanese with memberships in all the Northern sectarian parties of the Umma, Khatimiya, the Sudanese Communist Party, the Ba’ath Pan-Arab Party, the Sudanese Socialist Union (SSU) and, lately, the National Islamic Front—even in its rivalling groups (the National Congress Party of President Bashir and the People’s Congress of Sheik al-Turabi), and worse still the so-called National Democratic Alliance, which is practically nothing but a scrub yard for all those failed policies of the traditional ruling triads of the historical cunning Shaigyiya, the arrogant Danagla and the most notorious and stubborn Jaalei’yin, who would want to dominate the Sudanese political arena using any tickets and the latest being the “New Sudan” delusion.
All these traditional Sudanese political parties in their struggles to get to the seat of power in Khartoum have seriously sought two strategies against any Southern opposition to their rule. Firstly, they have sought the destruction of the emergence of tough and secessionist leaderships in the South by making sure that all the potential leaders are brought into some sort of collusions with the different political parties. These dubious collusions have provided ways to the North through their Southern agents to keep track and effectively sabotage any anti-unity elements and organisations that are rapidly developing everywhere in the South and amongst the South Sudanese communities in the Diaspora up to these days. Based on this strategy, most of these parties have gone in length to establish Southern secretariats in the various Arab-controlled political parties and institutions with the basic aim of actually dealing blows to the South’s aspirations for an independent nation. Secondly, the North has developed in the South a generation of corrupt leaderships who have become addicts to institutionalised corruption and bribery. This second strategy has worked well in paralysing the emergence of real patriotic leaderships in the South, armed with genuine political abilities to unify the Southern masses in the fight against the widespread tribalism which is now devouring our nation of South Sudan.
Up until now South Sudanese find it hard to resist the repeated temptations of joining the Sudanese unity-oriented policies that continue to surface up, without critically analysing how vulnerable the South remains in such a setting which has always favoured the Arab and Islamic superiority over the indigenous African cultures and beliefs. You just need to hear the sporadic calls for unity of the entire Sudan, which some prefer to call the “New Sudan” in some SPLM circles, and you will know that the Northern Arabs are still in control of some Southern minds.
South Sudanese are to count on themselves in shaping their destiny and not what is happening elsewhere. It is because the SPLM has been conceived basically by power-hungry individuals, now even before properly securing their grip on the South they are already salivating to extend their rule over to Darfur and Eastern Sudan.
Is the philosophy of the emancipation of the marginalised people of the Sudan really justified to overrule the blood-documented rights of the South Sudanese to live in an independent nation of their own? This is not fair as far as our struggle to establish an independent state is concerned, because it is really not up to particular politicians to redefine the real problems and troubles which the people of South Sudan have undergone. It is enough that 2 million and more have died just within a period of two decades and more than 4 million displaced and scattered all over the globe. If a South Sudanese sees that he or she has a good chance of winning the leadership of the entire Sudan, this individual’s aspirations should not in any way allow the aspirant to redefine the goals of the South Sudanese struggles which started since time immemorial. I think if there are people, particularly in the South, who feel that they have a moral role to play in Darfur and the other parts of Sudan in their struggles against the Khartoum government, they can go on but without compromising the legitimate right of the South Sudanese people to aspire for an independent nation of their own.
Leave the Northerners to rule themselves under their Islamic system for which they have always fought against us including the Darfuris. They will know how to sort out that house and we should never fool ourselves anymore about the delusions of a united, secular Sudan, which is not in any part of the political histories of the various governments which existed in the North (never was it secular in the Darfur sultanates, nor the Funj kingdoms). These were Muslims ruled by the Qur’an, please leave them to themselves and let us think of how we can develop the South, rather than waste our efforts all over the place.
To those who think that the South can further destabilise the North in an attempt to weaken the NIF/NCP grip on the desert capital of Khartoum, you need to be ready for more military confrontations than negotiations. What that signifies is that the more people in the North who rebel against the centre, the more wars need to be fought. And can these wars not be better fought when the South is a strong, independent state, if there be a need? Though the lack of development has been sighted many times as the main reason for the repeated uprisings in the South, it seems many of these uprisings have really been driven by our wish to run our own affairs. Yet now we are hearing of some Southern Sudanese breeds who would want even to stay with the traditional enemy if only they could succeed in deceiving us to believe their power-motivated last minute change of heart.
