Let war be history in these elections

By Atok Dan Baguoot

“In the democracy of the dead, all men, at last, are equal. There is neither rank nor station nor prerogative in the republic of the grave” Voting for SPLM in these elections would be a definite genesis of the second liberation for Northern marginalized, Islamized, and Arabised African Sudanese that were not directly or indirectly involved in the two decades war of liberation fought in Southern Sudan of which other exposed peripherals like Southern Blue, Nuba Mountains as well as eastern fronts participated. 

In fact, debates heated up the atmosphere between the SPLM and the National Congress Party NCP during the 2008 Sudan Fifth Household Census on the questions of Ethnicity and religion with a consistent stance by the SPLM to overhaul the questionnaires of inclusivity of questions on ethnicity and creeds, besides demographic facts. 

In every Census, there are predominant factors considered why census ought to be carried out in any nation especially in rare cases where the civil population was partially involved in protracted wars and massive migrations whether be it internal or external displacement like the case of Sudan. It is always a global assumption that lives were lost and children were born in the continuity of normal life but with intention of equating death to birth rate, besides the emphasis on how conflicts affected normal traditional settlements of the people hereafter long unrest, the census is always preferred to establish facts. 

Sudan is never exceptional because the civil population was displaced, lives were lost, and the traditional economic aspect of the people was in ruin leaving the rural population in total destitute, and in economic disarrays. Urban settlements were overhauled as the population moved to safer zones for periodical safeguards. Today, major towns in northern Sudan outburst as the population shot up in the shortest time as opposed to normal population growth given the fact that this very rural population urban and migration was forceful and given the deplorable conditions in which they are subject to, societies, communities, and individuals end up bending some of their traditional norms and customs to forge a new way of survival in that new environment and hence, assimilations through marriages of conveniences resulted into half breed offspring whose identities remain loyal to economic muscular individuals. 

The victims of such an unintended ploy were Black African tribes in both the South and the North and whose social beings were disrupted by social injustices as well as cross-cultural settlement patterns. Their daughters went for light-skinned or Afro-Arab men for the sake of survival because these men were historically privileged on the expenses of oppressed Africans. 

These were reasons why questions of ethnicity and religion were thrashed off as a matter of denying the true natural account of what this unfortunate country faceted. With false preaching in Northern Sudan pronouncing this country as both an Arab and Islamic state, these facts would have prevailed wrong in the previous census if the two components of ethnicity and religion were answered in the exercise. Now Sudan remains an Arab and Islamic state because of political dishonesty through genocidal procedures. 

Force displacement, trickery assimilation, and economic tortures amount to genocide in one way or the other. 

People lose their cultures, land, and even direct torturing and killings which deprived them of their cultural pride, subjecting them to a state of cultural inferiority or even seeing themselves as either a weak race or society, based on these silent intended strategies. But because these very people still have that cultural ego not completely deleted in them, the Arabs reinforce the strategy through a force like by inculcating into them rejection, self-identification, giving them Islamic names, and a forced belief. 

In the case of Sudan, Islamic names and beliefs were enforced as substitutes for their African norms and beliefs. In order to break these cycles, it is only possible through voting in SPLM in these elections so that a new political dispensation is created to provide equal opportunities to all the Sudanese people who are oppressed for so long. As a political force founded among the oppressed and none privileged Sudanese, it is ready to awaken our recess genes in recalling who we are exactly. It is called self-recognition. 

 Having stayed in slavery for a period older than my thirty years on earth, these black Africans actually need a concept of total liberation to dominate they are gone to recess genes so that they are able to stand tall in their persons and communities to revive and rejuvenate their cultures minus the conditionally acquired Arab cultures. Voting for SPLM to be the dominant party in Northern Sudan in these elections would actually catalyze recuperation processes among these culturally enslaved people because SPLM envisioned this war for cultural, economic, and social identification. That‘s why a renowned Southern Sudanese professor and an advisor to United Nations UN Secretary-General on Genocide and Mass Atrocities, Dr. Francis M Deng titled one of his famous books “War of Vision and Conflicts of Identities” referring to the protracted civil wars fought in Sudan. 

In this context, Dr. Francis Deng specifically summarized the Sudanese quest for freedom in a title of a book because it is all that SPLM was founded on, with a derivative core conception from the Pan Africanism as seen in Sudan African National Union SANU. SPLM and SANU were offspring and abstracted from the idea of the Closed Districts Ordinance then during the colonial periods. But unlike the SANU, SPLM had vibrant and lively objectives with a lot of zeal and enthusiasm among the Africans from those areas referred to as closed Districts. Current SPLM deputy chairman, Malik Agar, and Late Yusuf Kuwa Mekki are prominent examples of those who ushered the way forward among the northern black Africans enslaved in northern parts of Sudan. 

In my descriptions, they are never exceptional, however, their stance shaped the Movement into a recognized national liberation army that wanted to liberate the whole country from Arabs hegemony. It is the African tribes that were subjected to neo-colonialism in the country in spite of their massive contributions to realizing the independence of Sudan on 1.1.1956. 

For this matter, SPLM is the only choice and preferred option among the Northern marginalized African nationalities if they are to live a free life like the rest of their kin and kiths later in independent South Sudan as secession is eminent, comes the year 2011 referendum for the people of Southern Sudan. In the case of Abyei, the ax is already grounded despite the fact that it is a bitter pill to swallow among our northern brothers. 

As a person bordering Nuba Mountains, I know how costly it would be for the Nuba people to stand together advocating a uniform voice in ushering a new destiny in their popular consultation due to their existing ideological and political differences apart from deep Islamic influence on the region. In such a case, SPLM remains the only preferred option if they like to be a Nuba well adjacent to South Sudan, unlike their brothers the Nubia in the far North whose social settlement, political life, and traditional settlement were straddled across the international boundaries of Sudan and Egypt, the former political mentor of Sudanese Arab descendants in Sudan. 

In reference to the SPLM principle of liberating the marginalized, this concept would have been widely accepted amongst them because its referential sense made more impact in the north than in Southern Sudan the birthplace of the party. SPLM is their rightful remedy because if South Sudan secedes without them being granted their inalienable rights, it would be very difficult if not impossible for them to forge a cultural pride and identity or economic leverages due to their cultural docility and submissiveness to Arabs as signified by their easy acceptance to Islamic Cultures. 

It is a known fact today that Arab tribes form the majority of the Sudanese whereas Islam remains the religion of the majority thus, the two qualities of an Islamic state are met on assumption that Darfur, Nuba Mountains, and Eastern Sudan are cultured Arabs especially when some of them don’t voice in their tribal tongues or languages and don’t profess their African faith. Southern Sudan has withstood this simple temptation of Arabisation and Islamisation by tough adherence to indigenous customs and beliefs. 

If SPLM had succeeded in persuading NCP to add questions of ethnicity and religion on the census form, professors of history in Sudan would have been taken to the court of law for having misled the country or their academic papers would have been confiscated if not revoked because new history is to be rewritten and Sudan becomes a nation historical misled by educated fellows. To me, a graduate of history today in Sudan is worth none of the paper he/she holds because he underwent training through distorted syllabi. 

It is also worth mentioning that SPLM as the only vocal instrument that has shown up as a tough challenger to NCP and its extremist ideologies is optional because life would be normal if they take over in the north despite a separate South Sudan. Let marginalized survive SPLM in the North so that it advocates for their long denied and hidden rights. It is because we had learned enough from all other Sudanese political forces that have ruled Sudan since independence. 

If they had the political will to grant rights to the marginalized, they would have done it since there were neither visible nor invisible barricades preventing them from doing so voluntarily. So marginalized cannot rely on any political party in the North because enough is enough. 

Therefore, the only possible avenue the hope among the marginalized Sudanese is to vote for the SPLM whether be it at the presidency or in various legislative Assemblies in order to have decent human life otherwise, there would always be an unfilled vacuum of political doubts as our country is characterized by political dishonesty especially the ruling class which we have known for sometimes. Voting for the SPLM would remain the beginning of the second liberation for the oppressed Sudanese in northern Sudan.