What is this vague unity all about?

By Atok Dan Baguoot 

“I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts”.

Having learned a lot from all unbelievable cruel deeds done to us in the last 50 years of Sudan’s Independence and count back to historical backdates in those dark hours of colonial periods when South and other areas inhabited by black Africans were still under the Closed District Ordinance administration to Juba 1947 two days conference where the South forged a marriage of convenience with the North. 

Those were years of learning from the nursery, primary to secondary schools, and university in analyzing what is all funny with vague unity or forced marriage in which the kids born by the couples are too old to attend to themselves. It is always a mind bothering question if one is to go the normal vertical thinking trends in relation to the current looming political rationale of this mismanaged vast piece of land on the face of the continent of Africa. 

This is a country that will never agree to itself beyond normal human thinking even if our smooth tongue politicians are trying to buy time by persuading the masses to deface their present sights of viewing the whole matter in its current ruinous state. There are people beyond our lifetime who never knew that peace is exact but not only found on paper as the case here in Sudan. 

These are those to whom the future belongs but not the politicians who have failed this country for almost a century yet none is admittance to the mistakes done to ourselves. For those of you who are Christians, God never got angry with those of Adam and Eve on the fact that they ate that fictitious Biblical tree but on the fact that none of them admitted to having eaten the fruit. 

When God asked Adam if he has eaten the fruit, he never answered yes but weighed the whole issue on the woman God himself provided likewise, Eve went on blaming God for Serpent he has placed in the Garden until the serpent didn’t exchange blame to anyone but I think if there was a fourth party he would have done it also. What I’m trying to tell you and I is that, our Northern colleagues whom the whole issue rested upon their shoulders are ever in defensive moods; wanted even to add more weight to the existing messes they have created. 

 As a person familiar with this old existing game of deceits from a certain direction, we better go for another option because we had been deceived for so long that enough can emerge as the best term to describe it by saying enough is either too enough. An English language adage says if a man deceives once, shame on him if twice shame on me because it is a sham on me I who is able to be deceived twice. So our deception by the Northern brothers is too enough. 

As people with distinctive cultures, distinctive languages, norms, values, beliefs, colors, and even distinctive physiques as well as a wizard that represents our political ideologies, we can better suffer on our own instead of always crying faults while pointing accusatory fingers at their praying direction. It is better to be cheated by our own political wizards than to be always prey to an individual whose terms thereto are unique in the name of forging this natural unstable parasitic existence in a very vast ecosystem where any of us can stay without bothering each other. 

Due to all these political inconveniences, entrusting our affairs to those whose political allegiances are questionable was and is a deadly decision ever taken by anyone on this planet unless that person who opted for such a decision is naturally half like us in Southern Sudan and other marginalized peripherals in Sudan. We are half because we refused to identify ourselves and even refused to forge our own economic stand simply because there are people somewhere who wanted to be consulted first before you can name your child born tonight. 

This actually falls within the description of the enemy and total slavery as defined by the SPLM in its manifesto of July 1984. Books and big volumes have been written by many scholars on the relationship between the North, South, and marginalized areas in the plain language of calling spade a spade but not a big spoon, yet our numbed senses couldn’t tolerate interpreting why all these foreign scholars see things within us far away when we cannot see them. 

Dinkas say what a child cannot see while standing can be seen by an elder seated. Even our elders don’t see things while standing today because they would have seen all tricks of NCP and advised young ones to be cautious of foreign intruders. Arabs and Africans are foreigners to themselves and there is no way you can make them become one and not even the best scientists of the modern era have succeeded in doing it. Unless when we want to abuse nature, Arabisation and Islamisation philosophy can become realities in Sudan. with traditional and primitive weapons, Anya Nya 1 succeeded in defending the territorial integrity of the South until the historical Addis Ababa 1972 peace agreement was signed when the Sudan Army with sophisticated weapons could annihilate disorganized and unprofessional Anya Nya soldiers. 

Not we to be either Arabised or Islamized with equivalent weapons. SPLM with meager resources also ventured through until the CPA we are enjoying today came to what most redundant northern politicians confused us on in its implementations. Not even a single old mum or dad in the villages of Southern Sudan has to awaken up, asking for compensation for his/her lost son in the battle yet our learned colleagues are going here and there confusing people in the name of voting for NCP. I thought we would be talking the tongue of the vote for the SPLM so that we obtain what had been denied us for centuries. 

Qualitatively, I doubt the kind of education given by Arabs to Southern Sudanese and other marginalized black Africans in their northern universities. One time I told a friend of mind in a casual discussion that if Dr. Garang graduated from Khartoum University, he would have retreated in the battle like the rest of his graduate colleagues who deserted the battlefields for Khartoum. I refused to go to Juba University in Khartoum when Southern Students from East Africa were granted that privileged. In fact, it is not the education acquired in the North which is the problem but the way Arabs subdued Southerners is what I didn’t like because I was ideologically different given my background. 

“Whatever spoken within a reach of a child turn to the formation of a character of that child”, I refused Khartoum-Juba University until is brought home. Be aware that any political destiny determined in the north in our names in the South here, is worth none of the support in the South and that’s why SPLM-DC is just like a shoe brushed in the eyes and minds of normal Southerners. 

If there are people to sue in the court of law because of our wasted youth and childhood happiness, it is those Southern politicians who opted to affiliate with the north in determining our political fate. If there is anyone outside there who still holds on to those Arab's fallacy of Southerners being unable to manage their affairs, tonight is your answer to evacuate from that well-calculated negative statement of subduing your senses to their control. 

Since none of us can reverse his/her past but all of us are able to change our future, tonight is your turn to reverse your fixed thinking of yourself because you had been in the den of lions and that you can be a completely independent being for you were created to as independent without cost. These elections whose process is rigged are soon coming to pass therefore, your target is the referendum in which you will determine your political destiny. Late Dr. John Garang De Mabior said if you opted to continue as second class in your own country, it is absolutely yours. Enough is enough, so let SPLM runs by our own brothers and sisters be the one to do those bad things to us if we really liked to be mistreated forever and ever. 

 Otherwise, the time has come for the old to listen to the young because the old is too old to be listened to. Both history and contemporary events have taught us that we hardly are deceived. Northern-born SPLM-DC of renowned politician Dr. Lam Akol is one of those ancient north-sponsored programs of set the South in disarray. Indeed, events that took place in the government of Southern Sudan after its inception was really unexpected because these were actually characteristics of Old Sudan hence, deserve transformation but they don’t need someone to be sponsored in the North. If Dr. Lam had stayed in the South after he lost his Foreign Ministry portfolio and form SPLM-DC in the South, he would have been the right option to correct them but when he extended his tentacles to the North for blessings, Southerners see Bashir in the big picture of Lam. 

Beyond that, Dr. Akol remains a great thinker and a liberator who only missed taking the child to its rightful and supposed birthplace. Not even a stupid politician can form a political party as an option for the purpose of the South in the North and thinks of garnering huge support when you know very well that our traditional minds set towards the north is so negative that even blinds and deaf can see and hear. What happened to Dr. Akol can be compared to adding table salt to acid as a solution to stomach ulcers and sitting back expecting your patient to cope with the treatment. 

Because of the North, Sudan Africa Closed District Union (SACDU), Sudan African National Union SANU, Nile Provincial Government NPG, and SPLM/A, and many other splinter groups that did not work were formed. Of cause, the Nasir group, SPLM United, SSIM and so many others are living examples of war against the north. 

Children were orphaned and widows plus many malfunctioning incidences have occurred in between the Arab North-South political relationship and that’s why somebody like me can have a lot to say. Any outcast politician in the South is the one that is affiliated with the north whereas; the best politician is the one who stood pressuring their ground while advocating for the South in the South despite his intellect. 

If Dr. Lam had done that, disgruntled masses in the SPLM like the Independents, plus many others who felt rigged off in the recent Political Bureau nominations including me would have flocked to the SPLM-DC camp for a political settlement.