Al-Turabi: Sudan’s Islamic Ideologue on Center Stage
By Steve Paterno
September 11, 2007 — Hassan al-Turabi, Sudanese Islamic ideologue, is back on the news again by conducting a long and elaborate interview with Sudan Tribune where he addressed topics on Sudan that cover pretty much from the general political history to the current predicament the country is facing today.
Al-Turabi is perhaps one of the skillful Sudanese politicians with ambition to rule who managed to maneuver his way through the power struggles and survived all the political turbulence in Sudan’s history. At an earlier age, Al-Turabi started his political quest with the communist ideology on school campuses, but as that could not get him anywhere, he had to switch to or take comfort in Muslim Brotherhood movement, which was then popular in Egypt. However, at the time, Muslim Brotherhood had no place in Sudan’s politics, given that Sudan’s political sphere was dominated by the two Islamic powerful sects, the Ansar sect with the Umma Party and the Khatmiyya sect with the National Unionist Party (NUP), which later changed its name into the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).
As such, Al-Turabi desperately allied with the al-Mahdi family through marrying from the family with the hope that it will help him with his ambition for power. It turned out that one can only progress in Umma Party hierarchy by hereditary succession, which disqualifies al-Turabi altogether. Realizing this, al-Turabi had to depend on his sheer intellect, charisma, and luck. He then developed a quasi-liberal interpretation of Islam as an alternative ideology to the decadent political system of the Sudan. Such was to help him with his quest to power whereby in 1977, during the Numayri’s regime, it got him closer to power as attorney general when he enabled Numayri decreed the draconian September 1983 Islamic laws (Sharia), and by 1990s when Omer al-Bashir took power in a military coup, al-Turabi then finally got ascended into the peak of power. Not surprisingly, he suddenly came down crumbling so hard than he had gone up. Now the 75 years old al-Turabi is rendered politically useless and dispensable. He blamed all his failures to the military regimes. His attempt to internationalize his Islamic ideology is among his miserable failure as he sadly blames that on his black race.
In his interview with Sudan Tribune, conducted sometimes in late August, one thing al-Turabi remains true to is his ambition for power and his quasi-liberal interpretation of Islam, but the rest of the things he says in the interview are just political rhetoric and distortion of the facts and history to suit his ambitions. Al-Turabi quasi-interpretation of Islam is still as convincing as they were when he introduced them, especially among the young Western educated class of Islamist. Boasting of his ideas, al-Turabi said, “but young people like it—I recently met young British Muslims… and they like my ideas.” And he added, “even in Saudi Arabia people down below like these ideas.” To begin with his ideology, al-Turabi argues that the constitution of Sudan must be based on the popular will of the people and in the case of Sudan since Muslims are majority, therefore, Islamic constitution must automatically prevail. He goes on to argue that Islam discourages dictatorship because of its shura (consultation) method through the uluma (the learnt ones) and ittihad (unity). His ideology goes on to state that an Islamic constitution would be a sacred law, which can discourage theocracy. As to the rights of the minority within such a system, he argues that the minority can be tolerated. However, contradicting al-Turabi’s view, Abdullahi Ahmed An-Naim, an Islamic scholar, argues that under Islamic constitution, “non-believers may be allowed to stay under the terms of a special compact which extremely restricts their civil and political rights. Believers who are not Muslims, mainly Jews and Christians, are allowed partial citizenship under Shari ‘a . . . and are disqualified from holding any position of authority over Muslims.” As popular as al-Turabi Islamic ideology could be among its aspirant, it will not have any appeal to the non-Muslims of the Sudan, therefore, confirming the fact that after more than a half a century of struggle and fight, al-Turabi has failed with his Islamic program, both nationally and internationally. Perhaps it is time for al-Turabi to just give it up.
To his credit, al-Turabi goes on to acknowledge that Sudan as fragile as it is does not constitute a nation. As expected as it is always a prevailing view of the Northern Sudanese politicians, al-Turabi blames the crumbling state of affairs of Sudan to the foreign imperial powers, mainly the “Italians, British, Belgians, Egyptians and the French.” But should these people really be blamed in what is happening today in Sudan given that all of them left Sudan years ago? What al-Turabi failed to acknowledge just like his Northern colleagues usually fail to acknowledge is that the distinction or division among various Sudanese, especially the South and North division was a natural one that predated any foreign invasion of the Sudan, and if at all, any foreign played a role in this division, they were enforcing the system that was already in place such as the Closed District Ordinance introduced by the British in 1920s that separated the South and North of Sudan—the separation that was already there before the invasion of the British—the separation that is still a contentious issue today more than half a century after the British left.
Trying to connect to the glorious past of the Sudan, al-Turabi could not find any but ineptly settle with the al-Mahdi Revolution. To him, the al-Mahdi Revolution provides inspiration for Sudan unity and an antidote for foreign powers. Whether this is a blatant distortion of historical facts or an outright ignorance from al-Turabi one cannot know, but it is disgraceful to say the least for the people of Sudan. First of all, al-Mahdi did not manage to unite the Sudan but forcefully capture most of it. Even though the al-Mahdi Revolution managed to drive the Turko-Egyptian out of Sudan, the very revolution never lasted for more than two decades, before it was defeated by a foreign power. Therefore, the al-Mahdi Revolution is not a cause for celebration when it comes to dealing with foreign powers. It was actually during the al-Mahdi Revolution that most Sudanese were killed percentage wise than in any other time in the history of Sudan. Famine and diseases were rampant during the al-Mahdi Revolution because they revolutionaries could not cope with the situation. Slavery was practiced to the core. Torture and arbitrary imprisonment was the norm of the day. Leadership rivalries among Mahdists were as common as there was number of leaders. It was the al-Mahdi Revolution which set the precedent that political mobilization in Sudan is only possible through the appeal of Islamic religion but not national consciousness, a phaneminon that plague the Sudan today. In short, the al-Mahdi Revolution provides nothing good for Sudan, but disaster. However, interestingly, the outdated politicians like al-Turabi will try to manipulate their way into power by glorifying the al-Mahdi Revolution.
When it comes to the issue of identity, al-Turabi found it troubling to identify himself either as an African or an Arab. When pressed harder, the best answer al-Turabi can provide is a more vague and opportunistic answer where he identifies himself of what he is not rather than what he is, and that is to say, “the word Arab is just describing our tongue, but we also speak other languages but we cannot claim to be English or French.” It is understandable that al-Turabi, who is said to have his origin in the Falata (A Sudanese derogatory word for African Fulani immigrants in Sudan), would not want to identify himself as Arab and at the same time with his obsession of being an Arab cannot identify himself as an African. Al-Turabi is facing a true identity crisis.
With respect to the South Sudan, al-Turabi like his Northern colleagues does not hide his dislike for the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), a South-North peace agreement. Al-Turabi’s phrase of the CPA is the “wrong thing.” He goes on to lie that he has been championing for the Southern cause to federate since 1964. In 1965, Twelve Men Committee (TMC), selected as a result of Round Table Conference of 1965, al-Turabi, single-handedly sabotaged the Southern Sudanese members in the committee who tried to proposed power sharing structure for the South. In one such example, al-Turabi went toe-to-toe with Abel Alier, a Southern Sudanese politician, where al-Turabi dismissed Alier’s proposal on power sharing structure to be too much of a separatist while Alier dismissed al-Turabi’s proposal to be accumulating much power for the central government. In the end, both al-Turabi’s and Alier’s proposals were dismissed by the chairman of the committee on the ground that the former was accumulating much power to the central government and the later was too much of a separatist. So, that could hardly be someone championing for federation to the South, unless al-Turabi misunderstand the conception of federation with his Islamic ideology.
As stated earlier, most of al-Turabi’s interview contains distortion of the facts to suit his ego. Therefore, the old man must simply bow out of politics—a failure that he has proven with his ideological program—the program which failed both in experiment and test of time as well as nationally and internationally.
*Steve Paterno is a Sudanese residing in the U.S.A and the author of the upcoming book, The Rev. Fr. Saturnino Lohure: A Roman Catholic Priest Turned Rebel, The South Sudan Experience. He can be reached at [email protected]