Making sense of JEM attack on Sudan’s capital
By Amir Idris
May 24, 2008 — On May 10th, one of the Darfur armed movements, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), launched a daring attack on military targets within Omdurman, one of the twin cities of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum. Although the military operations by the JEM lasted only for a few hours, the event has far reaching political and military consequences. In response, racist and divisive terms were used by the government and the popular media to refer to the attackers as ‘foreigners’, ‘intruders’, ‘Zionist’ puppets, and ‘aliens’, etc. Shortly after the attack, the government succeeded in thwarting the attack and maintaining control of the city, many people from the western region of Darfur were systematically subjected to racist attacks and maltreatments. The goal of the government and its interlocutors is either to silence the voices of the marginalized regions or to deny them the right of living as citizens with mutual rights and duties in their own country.
The Islamist ruling party, the National Congress Party (NCP) and its interlocutors claimed that the attackers were either Chadian or Western Sudanese backed by foreign circles. Other Sudanese political parties including the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) condemned the attack as a direct threat to the constitution and the ‘integrity’ of the country. Both positions are informed by the conventional short-sighted view that tends to define any revolt led by people from the marginalized regions as a foreign conspiracy and threat to the ‘integrity’ of the country. This ill-informed and unhistorical view has dominated the political discourse in the Sudan since its political independence in 1956. The problem with this line of argument is two fold. First, Sudan has never been a united country consensually. The proclaimed ‘unity’ of the country has been historically imposed through state-sponsored violence. Second, it denies and ignores the agency and the rising political consciousness among those who revolted against the state as a result of their marginalization and exclusion. This argument indeed fails to capture the history and the politics of political violence, and hence, trivializes and simplifies the debate on the root causes of the Sudan’s tragedy.
The rise of regional and ethnic protests in the Sudan cannot be understood by dismissing it as a foreign conspiracy aimed at changing the Arab-Islamic identity of the country. Also, the launching of military attack by these regional and ethnic groups should not be perceived as senseless acts led by a group’s lack of a sense of history and culture. Denying the humanity of a group and fear mongering has never been an effective political argument. In fact, the history of the state in the Sudan is marked by racism, discrimination and violent confrontations between the center and the marginalized groups. Political violence thus should be understood in the context of the Sudan as a consequence of how the state was developed and structured. Violence has always been the language of the Sudanese state in dealing with the rise of regional and ethnic protests. The question of inclusive citizenship is at the center of the crisis. The identity of the country is defined by the ruling group as Arabized and Islamized. Indeed, the Sudan is a mythical state that defines itself by religion and race. Those who are considered by the state Arabs are treated as citizens, and those who are perceived as non-Arabs are treated as subjects. Those who are perceived by the state as non-Arab groups are systematically excluded from the polity and subjected to slavery, ethnic cleansing and racism.
Successive Sudanese regimes have cherished the myth of the Arab Islamic state so much that they have violently insisted on assimilation, instead of pluralistic inclusion and celebration of differences, as the only viable path to national unity. Consequently, two destructive and racist civil wars, justified by claims of religion and racial superiority, were fought in southern Sudan between 1955-72, and 1983-2005. More than two million people lost their lives and four million were displaced. The last civil war ended when the SPLM and the NCP signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2005. But the peace still remains fragile. Recently, heavy fighting has resumed between the SPLA and the government army in the oil-rich town of Abyei. The town is literally being destroyed by the government army with mounting civilian causalities. The long-running dispute over the status of Abyei threatens the collapse of the CPA and the resumption of war between the north and the south. The ongoing conflict in Darfur has led to the killing of at least 300,000 people and the displacement of nearly 3 million.
The attack on the capital city, however, has shattered myths about the unity of the National Congress Party and its military capabilities to confront the rise of regional protests militarily. Also, it becomes clear that there are competing factions within the security organ and the army. As Abyei burns, Darfur continues to bleed with no sign for peace and security in the region. Neither the government of the Sudan nor the international community seems capable of understanding the fierce urgency of reaching a just and lasting political settlement for the Darfur crisis and rescuing the CPA from its demise. Indeed, the use of violence has never been an effective tool for addressing a political crisis in a society with competing visions of histories and identities. The valuable lesson that can be learned from the recent attack on Omdurman and the fighting in Abyei is that the tragedy of the Sudan is a national one that urgently calls for a comprehensive political settlement that addresses effectively the question of citizenship and democratic transformation in the country. Short of this, political violence will escalate with tragic consequences for the entire country and the region.
Amir Idris is Assistant Professor of African Studies at Fordham University, New York City. His books include, Conflict and Politics of Identity in Sudan (Palgrave/Macmillan, 2005). He may be reached at [email protected]