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Dancing for Southern Sudan 30 May 04 The Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, has opposed UN intervention in the Sudan’s region of Darfur, saying the UN Security Council should not intervene in a tribal affair. In his logic, the conflict between Arab Sudan and African Sudan is tribal. True, indeed. It is an irreconcilable tribal divide—between Arab slave hunters of decades past and Bantu Africans forced to live with them under one bitter political union as ordained and dictated by British colonialism. The pains of being discriminated against because of one’s skin or thoughts can only be felt by the victim, and Col. Gaddafi is hardly in the position to feel the pains of Southern Sudanese who fought the continent’s longest war to be free of primitive Arab racism. That they are slowly on their way to freedom, in self-governance, through which they will determine their own fate and not live as under dogs is cause for all true Africans to dance for the approaching freedom and dignity of Southern Sudan. Pictures of Arab militiamen on horsebacks in Darfur hunting down frightened and unprotected Africans like animals, rekindled memories of how Africans were bundled by Arab hunters and shipped into slavery. The Sudan is made up of two countries, and the sooner they go their separate ways the better. That the abused and trampled upon people of Southern Sudanese have finally received promises from their Arab tormentors of an independent state of their own, is cause for great celebration of what many say is the beginning of the end of Africa’s longest running war. The nightmare of Sudan began in part with British colonialism. Had logic and compassion being the rule of colonial expansion of European powers, Southern Sudan should have been dumped with a country like Uganda that shares the same cultural attributes with the Sudan’s Bantu population. But this was not the case. The British mortgaged the Africans to the Arabs, their second in command when they ruled the Sudan. By this, as elsewhere on the continent, they sowed the seeds of conflict that have taken millions of lives and caused misery for the African. Anyone who has experienced Arab racism would dance for the people of Southern Sudan as they march slowly and perilously towards self-rule and self-respect. But all is not yet Uhuru. The peace agreement signed this month talked about a referendum through which the decision will be made for the Southern Sudanese to finally say goodbye to Arab racism. This is an uncertain road with some predictions that one should hope must not come through. Arab Sudan, anxious to reap the benefits of oil and other resources nature has placed in Bantu Sudan, is likely to employ intrigues in making the referendum impossible or laughable. Where commonsense and truth apply, the results of the referendum would be evident—the Africans want to be left alone, in self-respect, to determine their own future and decide which God they would like to ask for blessings. Then there are the prospects of artificial divisions within the Southern Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A). If Africans decide that internal squabbles, often sponsored by outsiders, in this case the Arabs, are more rewarding than their collective objective of independence, they may only justify that accepted notion that Africans are incapable ruling themselves, just as we were told in southern Africa. In unity, Southern Sudan will emerge free and join the rest of the continent as an integral member of the same house. Whatever the anticipated setbacks, this is a union that cannot hold and the decades of war should have settled that. ---Tom Kamara ____________________________
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