What South Africa and Sudan got in common
By Odongi IbaluKirram*
April 25, 2006 — On April 27, yearly South Africans commemorate the crumbled of evil apartheid! Interestingly not everyone, however, is happy with the celebration of “Freedom Day”. That the yoke of political apartheid is finally obsolete, though economic apartheid is yet to be destroyed, does not go down well with a segment of Afrikaners, an ethnic group of European stock responsible for the social construction of the defunct infamous discriminatory political system, apartheid. Some of them, really, view the celebration of a new democratic dispensation in this country with an awful utter condescension! The reason some Afrikaners loath this eventful day lie in the fact that they lost their ill-obtained power, are nostalgic of the heydays, and are still ingrained in their insular mentality of racial superiority. Despite a reconciliatory tone adopted by ANC that saw people like the “Big Crocodile” or P W Botha and many apartheid stalwarts walking free; as a Sudanese residing in Afrikaner heartland, I am often taken a back by their fairly unrepentant character.
Every year, it is reported, a galaxy of Afrikaner elders, business people, politicians, doctors etc., demand an audience with the president at Union Building, essentially to vend their worries and to request the president afford them privileges: They demand exclusive rights to have schools attended only by Afrikaners and where instructions are only in Afrikaans; they demand respect for their culture and language alleging these are under threat. In reality they face no eminent danger at all, it is the ghost of apartheid haunting them. Other ethnic groupings are reportedly harmonious and busy themselves with realizing the dream of a true Rainbow Nation.
The establishment of Orania, a racist utopia having a cyberspace functioning government and its own currency, after it was outlawed by South African government, is in effect a blemish to the Rainbow Nation and a testament that the Afrikaners consider ANC insistence for a non-racial democratic society as mere stupidity, cowardly, uncouth, in other words a reminder that the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) idea to severely punish apartheid doers and possibly expulsion of whites (you can include Arabs for a good measure) from SA and the continent at large, is indeed proved justifiable.
The Afrikaners are comparable to the so-called Arab Sudanese in so many ways: both are minorities in their respective countries; unrepentant of any wrong doing; obsessed with false racial superiority; guilty of coercive religious indoctrination; desirous of ultimate monopoly of economic and political landscape; ruthlessness; disrespectful; think of people with black skin as materials for them to enslave and bump off. While the latter will and embarks on total extermination of the natives, the former depends and survives through the labour of the despised.
Following the bilateral Naivasha peace accord which must be referred to as the comprehensive pro-war agreement aka CPA, it is expected the pro tem ruling old hawkish regime now dress in born-again pro-peace clothing, would substantially show decency in handling affairs in the country. But unfortunately we see an unerring investment in acquisition of military hardware, the demonstration of arm forces readiness for war, the aggressive invocation, by head of government, Al Bashir, in his address to parliament, for God to assist his efforts to defeat the infidels, that is the sheer subjugation of people with a Sudan-skin for the glory of Islamic barbarism. This is further supported by one opinion maker who regularly writes on Sudan Vision Daily, among other Arab Sudanese, who ridiculously described the botched visit to Darfur by UN Humanitarian Envoy as first not a fault of Khartoum but of Egeland himself; secondly that the envoy was on a campaign trail to amass international support supposedly to deter their treasured ideology, though an elusive concept to propagate Islamic imperialism which must ferociously start in Sudan prior to its conquers of the rest of Africa and the world.
Al Bashir and his fellow Arab Islamists, of course, are remorse-less for they committed no mistake, although the unremitting cycle of arms conflict in the country is ascribable to Arab and Islamic defects, Bashir and his cronies pompously think it a result of Islamic fundamentalists good manners generally misconstrued by Sudanese.
After Garang unfortunate death, Al Bashir now stands in a relatively unique position. With courage, good thinking and unwavering determination he can bring about unprecedented changes in Sudan. Apartheid came to an end thanks to reformist within the Nationalist Party, chiefly F W de Klerk and his like-minded nats (nationalists) colleagues’ strong zeal for reforms as it finally dawn on them that apartheid was inhuman, unnecessary if not self-defeating thus ordered its destruction. Though they were label betrayers by fellow racial nationalists, de Klerk et a al defied all odds and saw the need to end racial segregation and allowed South Africans to celebrate humanity hence the birth of a Rainbow Nation. The nats, rather ingeniously, averted the possibility to be indicted on charges of committing crimes against humanity, and de Klerk reap fruits of his work with receipt of a Nobel Peace Prize in 1996.
It is believed the National Congress Party is populated by reckless calculators and ill-though politicians. If rumours, however, holds true that Osman Taha, the 2nd vice-president, is the Mr de Klerk: a black sheep within NCP, a betrayer of Islamic and Arab racial ideals, harbours feelings of transformation and intend on reorienting NCP leaders to serve as catalysts for the realization of a New Sudan that’s democratic, peaceable, and free from religion infringements, then may be we got reason to smile, but for now we held our breaths and adopt a wait and see attitude till the truth is finally been let out.
Recent trade offs between NCP-SPLM, which culminated in the forthcoming joint meeting, is a good omen for mapping out positive changes. Hopefully when the pawpaw is concluded by mid May we would be alerted to what the allies intend on doing with the responsibility vested on them by virtue of Naivasha treaty.
Whether the Afrikaners like it or not their obsessive racial mischief to curve out yet another racist pariah state within the greater South Africa is all but unfeasible. Arabs in Sudan and in particular the crooked elites at Khartoum are left with little choice but to pick the cue from F W de Klerk and the moribund National Party (NNP) to begin dismantling Khartoum Islamic-apartheid system, thus succumb to forces of change and provide succour to previously disadvantage members of the Sudan. There really got to be a quick and radical paradigm shift in the policies of the Islamic-inspired National Congress Party, quite in a big hurry. Failure to do so would encourage the rabble particularly from south, Darfur, eastern and other areas to concertedly plot the ouster of the incumbent minority regime, possibly resulting in an undesirable isolation of Arabs for a very very long time from all aspects of Sudanese society: social, political, economic, military and otherwise, if not the retaliation of untold suffering to redress the injustices borne by the current victims.
Those Afrikaners, who shamefully resist peaceful change and seek racial dominion, have their equivalents in NCP and other politico-Islamic domains in Sudan. Unless those Arab racial supremacies reorient their thinking, they regrettably are bound to be history precious fools. They ought to understand they are sowing seeds of misery for their future young generations whom unfortunately would suffer the wrath of good willing Sudanese. What South Africa and Sudan have in common is a bunch of power hungry racial ideologues bent on maintaining some sinister selfish ideals.
It is the outcome of May 02 2006 joint meeting that determines whether a comprehensive resolution to Sudan wholesale orgy of destructive civil wars is in the offing; whether the NCP is about to prostitute itself this time around to benefit Sudanese people and not its member selfish interests as usual to avoid criminal indictment; whether SPLM will exhort NCP behind the scenes to shallow pride, abandon its inertia in as much as claim a prize for being the force responsible for authoring an era of peace and tranquillity. If the May meeting failed to hammer out a solution to Darfur and eastern Sudan issues, one can only pin Sudan problems to lack of visionaries, but prevalence of robots meddling with our country’s future.
* Odongi IbaluKirram is a Sudanese freelance researcher, journalist and a media & communications consultant based in South Africa.