Fragile Sudan: Search for unity that will never be

By James Okuk

May 28, 2008 — Some people regard Mr. Famous BIG_LOGIC_BOY, the frequent commentator in Sudan Tribute website as illogical in his comments, but I find some of what he writes to be truthful even when not presented logically in a sound language. This boy who writes in a ghost name is really a free thinker and a true Southerner. I remember in the history of western philosophy that Nietzsche was regarded by the Judeo-Christian theist as a mad atheist when he said that human beings must become “Supermen” in their choices and efforts to find ways of living nobly without succumbing to “slave morality”. For Nietzsche, super human life has nothing to do with the divine because God is dead. But though hated and condemned to doom because of declaring GOD DEAD, Nietzsche presented this thesis to make sense of the Biblical myth of creation that God gave human beings the authority and freedom to become the super masters of the universe. So, I think philosopher Nietzsche was not mad. Instead, it was his critics who were intolerantly crazy. Indeed as the modern civilization has shown progress so far, human beings have become the super masters of the universe through the computerized technology and instant communication systems.

Mr. BIG_LOGIC_BOY gave a good reply to the article of Dr Ibrahim Abdalla (a Senior Lecturer, School of computing and Engineering, DeMontfort University, Leicester, [email protected]). This was enhanced constructively by brother Gatwech, another astute Southerner. As a continuation to the reaction to that article of a chauvinist Northerner, which was posted in Sudan Tribune Website on Wednesday 28th May 2008, I just want to put forward some more points. The purpose is to wake him up and also to shun others who carry the same colonial mentality about Southern Sudan.

The title of Ibrahim’s article should have been “Why Sudan Unity is fatal for peaceful living in South Sudan” and not “Why Sudan Unity is vital for peaceful living in South Sudan” if the author is honest about the reality – the past, the present and the emerging – of the Sudan. The writer went ahead elaborately in a futile attempt to prove that the consequence of secession after the referendum for self-determination by the people of Southern Sudan will be lost of development for Southern Sudan because of the border conflict with the North. I wish the author could have visited Southern Sudan to see the ruins that Northern elites have done to that beloved land. I do not know what ‘lost to development’ he is talking about when there is no development there.

Yes, walk around Southern Sudan. The potholes are so big; they swallowed our small cars. The roads look like dry rivers. You can’t step off the roads because landmines are just waiting to blow you to pieces. Bombshells and Antinove’s barrels of explosions are lying about. The bridges are sheets of metal and dusts of cements just placed there waiting to be washed away by rain. If you need to use the latrine, be prepared to squat on the roadside or river bank. If you are thirsty, swallow your saliva as there is no treated and clean water to be found in most places. If you are hungry, open your mouth wide and eat the dust. The ruins are everywhere to be seen as a reminder of the 21+ years of nightmarish wars the North waged against the South. The citizens are orphans and destitute in their own land. If you want protection, pack an AK-47. An this is what you call ‘development’ and ‘life’. Please Dr. Ibrahim, open your eyes or shut your colonial wide mouth about South Sudan. Do not remind us of bitterness!

The billons Dollars and Euros and the trillions of Yuans from the blessed Oil region of Southern Sudan have been looted (to the best ability of the looters) to develop the North and fuel the grand agricultural schemes and construct enormous Dams there. Even after the CPA has been signed, the South is just left on its own by the North to struggle from the scratch to do something from the leftovers that is thrown to it from the Ministry of Finance in Khartoum. Not only this, but also and unfortunately, the South has to fight on the leftovers with the hungry corruptists under that food table. Even the locals in ‘Unity’ State and in the North of Upper Nile State are not allowed to get hold of the empty barrels, tins, buckets, and other wastes from the oil companies operating there in their midst. The CPA has not yet brought the blessing to the South so that our children can giggle and our women can express their joy with ululations. And this is the vital unity of the Sudan that should be sustained according to the author and his likes. Shame on the blinds even if they have blinded themselves intentionally by tying black ribbons on their eyes to mislead Southerners! We know that the giggling of our bouncing children and ululations of our beautiful women will only come when we are separated from the North.

We know that our charismatic leader Dr. John Garang de Mabior is dead (May God forgive his sins and rest him in eternal joy), and we also know that his vision of the New Sudan has been buried with him even when some people try desperately to dick it out from the grave and mask themselves with it for some purposes known best to them. But real Southerners are not worried because they know it keenly that cosmetics do not keep the real ugly bodies to look beautiful for longer. We have learned how to kill God like what Nietzsche said. We have learn how separate Him from our government affairs if He cannot die. We will become the SUPER MASTERS of our beloved South Sudan, comes 2011. There will be no room for a Master apart from us!

The author concludes his article with a deceptive and irrelevant case of USA vs USSR during the cold war, just to try to confirm (in vain) that Southerners will lose if they separate from the North. Wake up from your slumbers, Dr. Ibrahim, and liberate yourself from 6th century’s appeals to Southerners like Big_Logic_Boy, Gatwech, myself and others whose eyes have been wide opened by their long struggle for liberation of the South from the North. Keep crying over the spilled milk, but we will continue to move with no brake towards achieving our dream of independent African State of South Sudan. Blame yourself and other Jellabas of the Sudan for having handled the milk pot carelessly, after having milked the black cow to the brim, right from the independence of the Sudan from British colonialist in 1956. Remember that it is the Shamaleen (Northerners) who dropped the milk jar of the united Sudan onto a sandy ground so that nothing remained in it to be desired by the victims.

Dear grand son of the slave trader and the collaborator for the Turko-Egytian and Anglo-Egyptian invaders of the land of the blacks – bilad el Sudan – get it well into your pig-head that Junubin (Southerners) are not going to tolerate any longer to continue doing all the nasty and humiliating servitude labour for Jellaba’s houses and factories in order to enable them enjoy the privileges and prestige of lecturing in universities and living in luxury, while the servants continue to suffer from poverty with unrewarded perpetual hard and sweaty work. We will not continue to be the working poor in our own land! Forget it! Hell No! Our grandfathers have also told us to protect the valuable blacks’ land – in Arabic‘Jududna zaman wasona hala el wathon wal turab el gali’. You will not continue sniffing and kissing our black soil because we shall not accept to be converted to that. We are steps forward to our destiny and nobody will deceive us again (like what happened in Juba in 1947) to deviate from the Zebra-crossing to our nearly finishing long journey to freedom. We will never return backward to endorse the unattractive unified Sudan whether it is renamed as a New Sudan or whatever Sudan.

Goodbye to slave masters! We have broken many chains and are just doing the last ‘warming up’ exercise to break the last chain of oppression and deceitful dubiousness! Let Dr. Ibrahim tell his people to prepare their congratulatory message and identify their Ambassador to the new neighboring country. Let him get enough pills for blood pressure and heart attack if he is not ready to receive the good news of the reality, because Junubin will soon raise their united hands of joyful cheers saying “Welcome to the new born South Sudan; bye-bye Fragile Old One Sudan!”

The Arab nomads who have occupied Abyei and continue to envy the greenness and oil-lucrativity of the South should get it well into their illiterate heads that they do not belong there, and will not enjoy being there without the consent of the owners. Let them blame God for having put them in the sandy hot desert (call it hell) of the North, or let them ask Him for a new creation if they wish. If they want to use our green land, they should bow down to us and beg for South Sudan Nationality (not by birth). We will screen their applications and see whether it is safe to grant them or deny them access to the ‘greeny’ and ‘wety’ paradise of South Sudan.

James Okuk, PhD student, University of Nairobi. [email protected]