“Africanism, Arabanism, Christianity and Islam cannot unite us but Sudanism can”. This statement made by Dr.John Garang, the founder of the Sudanese People Liberation Movement (SPLM) at one of his speech to explain what he then called “the fundamental problem of the Sudan”. The reason I am writing this blog due to number of concerns. To be honest, I could count myself as one of those who view Dr.John Garang as a true Sudanese scholar. I had wished that he could have led the country and get rid of the authoritarian government which is still holding as strong as it can on the power. When I have such argument criticizing the National Congress Party (NCP), some of whom are taking advantage from the NCP, they don’t like it. In 2005, Dr.John Garang was talking of implementing the so called “The New Sudan”. And by that he means a “country that belongs to all of us so that it remains united”. However, we might ask that why he wanted to get a new Sudan? What about the old Sudan? The thing is that we cannot come into a new thing unless we have past ones. And that was exactly what Dr.John Garang said “we Sudanese have concrete anchor in history” in reference to the wealth of historical evidence related to ancient civilizations as such Kush civilization. What lead me to quote all of this is to express in my own humble judgment, as many did, why we cannot remain united as Sudanese. If you do not know Sudan, you better know that it is the number one culturally, ethnically and linguistically diverse country in Africa and probably in the world. A country with more than 500 ethnics groups before the separation of the South Sudan in 2011. This ethnic and linguistic identity has been violated by the implementation and adoption of certain ethnicity and language ideology by the National Congress Party, ‘Arabanism and Arabic’. Linguistically speaking, to show a language preference over other languages and announce it as the official or dominant language is a linguistic rights violation. That is as a matter of fact has facilitated the way into the death and the lost of hundreds of indigenous Sudanese languages. I hate to say this but it supports the language ideology strategy adopted by the ruling party to pave the way to claim that the Sudan is not African country. What I like in Dr.John Garang is that he was always asking “why we insist on this Arabic identity? Even God will not accept this”. This is because the government wants to exclude the African origin of the country and prove it to be of Arab origin. In fact, I still don’t get it why?
However, as long as injustice found somewhere there will certainly be some people to speak out and bring justice to marginalize groups. South Sudan is no longer part of the Sudan. Though, they won the political fight against the north Sudan government back in 2011, but the issue still remained the same.
Speaking of Darfur region in the west part of the Sudan, the international community may get the message wrongly about the source of the conflict in the region. Again, when I say this fact some people don’t like it. The war going on in Darfur is no doubt a ‘civil war’. But who created this war? It is indeed the government. It is very simple. The military concept “government counterinsurgency” explained by Dr.John Garang in one of his speech is very much support my viewpoint in this regard. The government counterinsurgency is the “process where the government recruits individuals to direct and assist the regular military force”. However, in Darfur the government uses “counterinsurgency strategy” by recruiting tribes to attack other tribes for the sake of remaining on power for ever. This could possibly mean that the war in Darfur is not literary between the Arab tribes against the African tribes. Those Arab tribes, not all Arab tribes, fighting for the government side are just tools to achieve something for tomorrow. This might not be comprehended by many people who never been to Darfur but watching the news on T.V rather than the ones who lived and talked to Darfurians or basically they are Darfurians themselves.