Darfur in the realm of consciousness
By Chuar Juet Jock*
November 5, 2007 — A new dawn in African Sudan has emerged and Darfur has come into the realm of consciousness and is in intense search of its lost identity and roots as its sisters of Nuba Mountains, Blue Nile and Southern Sudan did before. African Sudanese in Sudan and after all this long wander and lost in the realms of unconsciousness are finally realizing that neither speaking Arabic nor being a Muslim make you an Arabic man nor speaking English or being a Christian make you a white man, in other words, religion and non mother tongue languages can’t change one’s origin or ethnicity as it was played upon by the successive Khartoum minority rulers as a philosophy of the Arabization and misleading scheme of these African tribes. With this realization, the African people of Sudan has marked a new dawn of self consciousness as well a beginning of continuous and costly war to liberate themselves from the control of dominant powers in Khartoum let alone the bias of a decades long scheme of Arabization and misleading, and as a result of this mental revolution, Sudan will never be the same as the late visionary leader Dr. John Garang has declared and upon his true words, the gloomy days of African Sudanese in particular and all Sudanese in general are all about to be gone and a new Sudan of dignity, freedom and democracy is the new born child of the new found consciousness.
For Southern Sudanese who think that Darfur is a separate problem and that it was the main region where the aggressors or the so-called Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) manpower’s comes from and that as a matter of fact the current problem of Darfur is not their main concern. Well this is completely not true and it just reflects a shameful lack of clear understanding of the problem of African people of Sudan as a one project that was being executed and still by the minority rulers in Khartoum in different timeframes and with different techniques and tactics. On other hand, this opinion is but a complete reflection of a mere lack of clear definition to the objectives and goals of the minority rulers in Khartoum Arabization scheme as well as the degree of efficiency of theories of divide to rule and kill the slave by slave respectively within our primitive African communities. The barriers and the separate walls that where built between us and the rest of Africans in Sudan are many, they were well crafted in our minds and reflected in our very own thoughts and opinions and simply without liberating our minds from such bias the struggle for New Sudan will be in vain and the cost and the time of total liberation of the people and land of Sudan will be too high and lengthy respectively.
The African people of Sudan have to know that these divide to rule tools including religion, tribalism and others, were employed by the Khartoum rulers to install themselves upon their vast majority and Darfur is just but a clear victim of this policy of Khartoum successive systems of governments that did put Darfur completely into a different course against itself and apart from its sisters in Nuba Mountains, Blue Nile and Southern Sudan. The strategy of the minority rulers in Khartoum was and still is to kill us separately and apart, their policy and strategy was and still is to held us incommunicado within our separate borders, and use all possible differences among us to widen the disunity and until recently neither Southern Sudan could interact with Darfur in the west nor with Nuba Mountains in the center.
The Darfuris were recruited into the SAF by misleading strategies and exploitation of their very imposed poverty and ignorance, they were mobilized against South Sudan out of their wide ignorance of the hidden agenda of the racist Khartoum rulers and who did use the religion factor as a pretext of its racist war. Southern Sudanese must not watch Darfuris dying as a result of false reasoning that neither Darfuris nor Southern Sudanese are responsible for it, we are all victims of the devil in Khartoum and it will be unforgivable mistake that we let Darfur down for whatever reason we may acclaim. Surely and strongly, Darfur is a fundamental part of New Sudan and the Sudanese dream.
Any real change or realization of the New Sudan will come through solving the conflict in Darfur, Darfur is a fundamental part in achieving the right democratic transformation of Sudan, it has already decided and paid and still paying so dearly that Sudan need to change, it did already join the dignified march toward new democratic Sudan. The poor people of Sudan have great expectations in both leaders of the liberation movements in Sudan led by Sudan People liberation Movement(SPLM) and Sudan Liberation Movement(SLM) and Justice and Equality Movement(JEM). This should make these leaders be up to the aspirations of their people, they must carry out the dream of not only African Sudanese but all the marginalized people of Sudan in coordinated responsibility and must unified the vision of New Sudan and be above the shortcomings and the barriers put between them by the colonists and Khartoum successive regimes. They must not accept less than the total liberation of their people and country whatever the cost maybe, they must reject all the makeup deals that but make Khartoum less ugly, there is no doubt that they will win and that the whole problem of Sudan will settle thereof and permanently.
All the bias and divisions created by the Sudan minority rulers need to be exposed and revealed, the New Sudan vision need a new set of mind, a mind that is conscious and clear, a mind that know what is the meaning of New Sudan in term of structure and substance, the new Sudan could be the old Sudan if we successfully and democratically transform it on the bases of attractive unity , or either if we fail, the seceded new Sudan could be Union of African Sudanese States, South Sudan, Nuba Mountain, Darfur and Blue Nile or if Darfur and Nuba Mountain decide on their own the New Sudan could be south Sudan alone, it depends completely on the free will of all Sudanese, Africans and Arabs, Muslims and Christians and that will be exercised in the projected elections of 2009 and referendum of 2011 if the minority rulers in Khartoum didn’t decide to take the country back into chaos and wars. Well even in the later situation, there is really certain thing that is assured and that is that there would be something new out of this struggle and as a result of the ongoing change and no doubt that, the New born Sudan will be one of the above.
However, in the march and the struggle to realize the New Sudan, it is of imperative that all the hidden agenda of Khartoum rulers Arabization scheme must be unearthed with focus on the its short and long term obejectives and goals and what mechanism did it employed to succeed in the decades long domination of the indigenous Sudanese and why this Arabization project success and influence did vary in the various African Sudanese communities in Southern Sudan, Nuba Mountains, Blue Nile and Darfur.
The vision of New Sudan is true and is the dream of all Sudanese, however without a clear explanation and particularly with the current low level of political awareness among the poor people of Sudan it is likely to fail. Confusion and misunderstanding of the very vision of the New Sudan has led to bloody internal wars and conflicts within the liberation movement itself and which did have contributed greatly in a grave setback of realization of this vision. A good example of this was the internal fighting within the SPLM/A from its very inception between the so-called separatists and unionists. In fact, that wasn’t the case, but it was the ambiguousness of the New Sudan vision Vs primitive political awareness of its bases that has led to that conflict and if there were more explanation by what was meant by the term of New Sudan, it could save the movement a lot of headache and lost in term of support and manpower. For some, the call for liberation of all Sudan was seen unrealistic as well as an easy pretext of rival politicians within the movement, many Southerners think that they didn’t went to bushes to fight for liberation of all Sudan.
In the march and the struggle to realize the vision of New Sudan, an excellent management in execution of the vision is imperatively needed through a strong and responsible leadership, in the lack of the later, the new African consciousness in Sudan won’t realize its collective goals and objectives. Therefore it is necessary that a collective vision have to be drawn and clearly explained, a collective mission need to be pursued and pressed on, but above all a collective coordinated leadership need to be in place to carryout this noble mission and cause.
The change in Sudan will happen through empowering the masses of poor Sudanese about the facts that are behind this miserable situation that they have been facing for decades. People of Sudan need to know that they are fighting for their rights, freedoms and a new country that is built on just and equal sound co-excision, and that won’t happen without completely changing the system in Khartoum in term of concepts and Ideologies. The poor people of Sudan won’t get their country back neither any real betterment will happen to their freedoms and rights if the roots of problem are not addressed honestly. Some may think and see our emphasize on race and religion as a call for racism or discrimination against some race or else, in fact that is completely not true but we believe strongly that we can’t avoid mentioning race when the race or religion are in the very center of the Sudanese problem. The Sudan dilemma needs all Sudanese to be true to the realities on the grounds and that are in fact the causes of this acute dilemma.
Sudan dilemma need no partial solutions that are not interconnected or consistent as a whole exit strategy or oversell solution, any separate peace deals here and there that are signed by the Khartoum rulers with so many factions of the fractured Sudanese opposition are but just a temporary tickets for the Khartoum regime to empower itself and maintain its control on power. Therefore any other peace deal in Darfur or eastren Sudan must be but an integrated part of the Comprehansive Peace Agreement(CPA).
The Sudan dilemma doesn’t need temporary drugs that just drugize our people will and shift the course of their just cause to a different sphere, but all its needs is a real final effective solution for the whole problem, a solution that must solve and settle this problem permanently and forever. It is not necessary whether this overall solution comes in different consistent processes or integrated peace deals, this is not the case, the case and the real important case here is that this bloody and protracted problem must be put to halt permanently and at all the cost, it is not acceptable neither it is wise to windback to the same problem after the temporary drugs are gone
It is very important for people of Sudan to be realistic to shorten the road and the cost on the way to New Sudan realization and no doubt that they will be tested by a lot of superstitions, illusions and so many barriers that Khartoum successive regimes has planted deeply in their brains and behaviors, no doubt that these bias are the real setback in our quest toward a strong unified liberation movement that will realize the New Sudan vision of dignity, democracy, prosperity.
For African people of Sudan and Sudanese in general, it is the right time for total unity of purpose as well as destination, it is the right time for the shortsighted among us to stop creating more wounds and divisions and welcome the gallant Darfur into the realm of African freedom and consciousness
*The Author is a Sudanese that resides in USA, he can be reached at [email protected]. To read more articles by the author go to http://chuarjuetonline.blogspot.com