Is it possible to achieve peace while keeping the ideology of war?

The author, Khatim Adlan who wrote this article in 2005 before his death asks a profound question: Is it possible to achieve peace while keeping the ideology of war? In 2005 many people assumed that might be possible, however, he warned against such naivety. Given what happen in Abyei on 19 May 2011, reading this article once again might refocus our thinking.

By Al Khatim Adlan

Translated by Ahmed Elzobier

May 29, 2011 — The Sudan war has lasted four decades, representing 75% of the country’s post-independence period. Is it possible for the Sudanese intellect to bypass this experience without any analysis?

I think there was a strong tendency to take no notice of this period, and there are sincere, hypocritical, naïve, deceitful voices that will argue and tell us ‘not to open the wounds, let us forget the past, look forward to the future instead of crying about the past’. This will suit many people because it emphasizes half the truth, and buries the other half. Of course the invitation to look forward to the future is far more noble than looking back to the past, the question is, what tools, lights and techniques will we take with us to the future? What guarantees that we will never make the same mistakes that we have committed in the past if we don’t analyze, investigate, and determine why we have committed these mistakes, and prescribe a new path to avoid them in the future?
What guarantees that those who committed these mistakes in the past and only stopped committing them because they were forced to, will not go back to them when the poisoned winds blow once again?

What guarantees that they are not going to ignite problems somewhere else in this country that has already suffered because of their existence?

What guarantees that they are not going to transfer this war that was stopped in the South (but not yet in Darfur) to the heart of Khartoum?

What guarantees that these acts they have committed, which were not mistakes, will be seen as sins?

How can we express our sorrow and pain for the millions that have died on both sides? How can we express our sympathy with the victims, those who have wandered around the land without shelter, carrying their sickness, hunger and misery along with their restless movement?

What have we learned from an experience that has shattered our country through the waste of money and people? Where we had filled the skyline with empty slogans that have meant nothing when measured by reason and not by immature, emotional agitation.

Are we capable of organizing our thoughts, and looking into them while leaving aside all those destructive, exhausted and harmful thoughts and concepts, the hatred and feelings of religious, racial and ethnic superiority? Turning away from worshiping power or licking the boots that would no doubt try to destroy the weak.

Are we ready to face ourselves and evaluate matters on a scale of right and wrong? Have we grown up? Or do we still exist with twisted childhood psyches, escaping from responsibility and always seeking to blame others, and ‘demonize them’, as noted in Dr Mansour’s excellent expression?

The great nations are not those which did not make mistakes, because this is alien to human nature and the reality of its relationship with others. Those who want to eliminate mistakes from human experience are deluded, they always end up with absolute hegemony through installing only what they believe in – ignorant or opportunistic – as if it was the absolute truth, and painting what others believe in – aware or opportunistic – as if it was the absolute evil. This will be used to legitimize the destruction, beheading and extermination of others.

Great nations learn from their mistakes and discover better ways, not shortcuts, to improve their systems. This is what Athena had done when it got rid of the 30 tyrannical rulers and established democracy.

The pinnacle of political awareness was symbolized in Pericles’(A prominent and influential statesman of Athens during the city’s Golden Age) speech during the funeral of the war martyrs, where he emphasized the essence of the democratic awareness that we need desperately in our world when he said: “Very few are able to put together policy, but we are all capable of judging it, finding out whether it’s wrong or right”.

A great nation will get rid of ideas that hamper its social and intellectual development. That’s what the French did when they got rid of the absolute monarchy that ruled them in “the name of God”, to establish people power based on the principles of freedom, fraternity and equality. A great nation gets rid of its main internal contradictions and liberates itself, and it’s not going to act in accordance with those contradictions. That’s what the Americans did when they eliminated the contradiction in their constitution between the freedom of individuals and the legitimacy of slavery. A great nation acts in accordance with its strategic interest, that’s what the Turks did when they waited for 40 years knocking on the door of Europe continuously, requesting entry to the Union despite the differences in religion and culture, and the historical animosity.

Are we willing to learn from experience, are we able to eliminate our contradictions and shoulder the responsibility for our mistakes? Or are we a nation with its brain in its ears, the latest slogan, the loudest voice, and the biggest throat controlling our minds? Are we fed up with self-compliments and inflated achievements, or do we want more? We have rebelled three times, during independence, in October 1964 and April 1985 – revolutions can be good but most nations need just one, so why has every revolution of ours lead to a worse situation than the previous one?

These questions may not be tolerable for those who have become addicted to flattering the nation, truthfully or falsely. But we will not move forward unless we stop to answer these questions. No doubt the current peace process and the Ingaz experience present many complex questions we should not ignore unless we want to jeopardize our existence, progress and future.

Creating peace is a great achievement, we should all be proud of it, develop it and work to further establish it. But why was peace not achieved in 1989? We do not want to go into details in this article, but it is well worth writers and thinkers doing that elsewhere.

Peace was not achieved in 1989 although there was national consensus on its necessity, because of the current ruling elite. They did not want a peace which they then called “surrender”, they wanted war because they thought it was the only way to shape the country in their own image. They put up the slogan that Islam is the Solution. They propagated the ideology of Jihad, and a philosophy of death which it named ‘Martyrdom’, and started to subjugate the Sudanese armed opposition in the South. They imposed their own concept of Islam on Muslims and non-Muslims, and as a result of what they named a “civilizing project” millions died and became homeless, sick and hungry. The cries of sadness from mothers, widows and orphans was a harvest seen all over the country. The people became like ghosts, living their life in pain, only the fear of loosing one’s life under the oppression and the uncontrolled power made them bear it, wasn’t that true?

The Majority of Sudanese said it was not right, that it was a crime against the country and its people. But what was the authority that owned this criminal program saying?

We have to find the answers – to be more specific, is it possible for a political program that is based on imposing a religion to be able to solve any nation’s troubles, if the nation believes in one, two or many religions? Is Jihad a useful tool to unify the nation and lead it to its goals? Are we willing to abandon equating Jihad with violence and war, deflate it from an aggressive disposition and transform it into a struggle against internal self-greed and delusion?

Has the Jihad as war, horses, spears and fanatical mobilization – according to the rulers of today – served the religion, any religion? Have the Crusades helped Christianity? Has the attack on the World Trade Centre helped the spread of Islam? Has it attracted many to enter Islam, or has it mobilized strong opposing forces that Bin Laden never expected, and cause those who sheltered him to also disappear by unleashing the unlimited economic, military and human resources of others against them? What was the outcome of Jihad in Sudan? Douglas Johnson mentioned in his book, The Root Causes of Sudan’s Civil Wars, the number of people who adopted Christianity in one decade since Ingaz took power in the South was larger than the number of people who become Christian since the beginning of colonialism?

Or do we not like to think on these issues, because we are powerless to face up to them, and our intellectual and psychological structure is too weak to give them even slight contemplation?

We would like answers from the “civilizing project” owners, because we know they did not examine their mistakes and dangerous actions, but only renounced them temporarily because they were forced to from a position of weakness, not for any serious ideological revision. Therefore, we do not have any guarantees that they will not resort back to them at the first opportunity.

We see in front of us the tragedy of Darfur, where those who became war professionals in the south theatre were transferred to an alternative theater after the south was closed in their face. We now see that we have the theater of the centre and the east.

We all know that this project will not unite the nation because it is based on religious discrimination and oppression, but when the regime looks at it we are faced with an intellectually blind attempt to say that peace was a natural result of authoritarian military rule rather than the defeat of all the slogans they have repeated for the last 16 years. No one could deny this unless they suffered from hopeless, incurable schizophrenia.

Religion or citizenship? Religious diversity and freedom of worship, or war and Jihad, to impose a partisan or a non-partison religious concept on people? Democracy or dictatorship? Free and fair elections or military coups? Armed forces or political parties?

These questions need some clarification so as to disrupt those who become professional in religious terrorism and blackmailing. Democracy can eliminate dictatorships, elections can eliminate coups, but citizenship is not a replacement for religion. A nation that accepts citizenship as an essential element of unity, but not a nation that rejects its religion. This is the situation in all contemporary societies that adopt citizenship as a matter of equal rights and duties.

It transfers to the private domain the special relationship between an individual and God. It guarantees people freedom to worship as they like, or get freely together according to their religious affiliation for their personal salvation or for the benefit or the society, without transgressing other people’s rights in equality and justice no matter what their religious path. Religion is something related to the conscience and citizenship is related to the law, so people should shape laws together and abide by them. However, no one can shape another’s conscience and when people try to shape conscience from the position of the State this means we have entered into the domain of fascism and the Inquisition.

I am writing this because I know for sure we will not be able to establish peace and defeat war unless we fight against the ideologies that create wars. When I look at the current Sudanese political arena I can see the ideology of war still exists as it has existed since 30 June 1989. I will not rule out the possibility of this ideology of Jihad surging once again, or someone else cunningly calling for the “Martyr Marriage”, or another dimwitted woman preparing “Mojahid food supplies”. The most dangerous thing is that the war this time might be inside Khartoum where a quarter of Sudan’s population lives.

We cannot establish peace without disseminating the culture of peace (as my dearest friend the late Taha Abu Garjah used to say) and we can’t build a new consciousness unless we demolish the old consciousness that has brought only tragedy.

I realized in the early 1990s how the Marxist project for social change had been proven wrong by history. I have not chosen to fall back on the 30 years I have spent serving that project. I was not paralyzed by fear to form or construct a new way of thinking, and create a new identity. I have not cared for what people will say, dead or living. I declared it to myself and then I went public. I went back to the roots of all our projects – the interests of the people and their right to live in dignity, peace and justice. I have tried, and I am still providing a modest contribution in this area, and many others have done the same.

Why is it so difficult for the “civilizing project” owners to stop and reflect, while they sit in lakes of blood among piles of dead bodies, and the land they have destroyed with their unblessed horses stretches away before their eyes? Why?

This article is an English translation of one the late Al Khatim Adlan’s finest articles on the peace process in Sudan, written on 5th of January 2005. He died in London on 23 April 2005, aged 55, only three months after signing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).