Inclusive Dialogue Among Sudanese: What’s Blocking It?
Dr. Hassan Saeed al-Majmer
Logic demands that Sudanese of all ethnic and regional backgrounds—especially the political and academic elites—take stock and consider how to transfer the long-held traits of human solidarity and social tolerance they inherited from generation to generation into the fraught political arena, an arena now clouded by storms that briefly hide the sun and then move on to pour rain elsewhere where crops flourish — leaving only the destructive flash floods behind.
This war has stripped away the veils that would never have been lifted in our country, which is rich in diversity, resources and shared hopes, and whose elder statesmen — as ancient as fallen palm trees — have been toppled, leaving the land barren in their wake.
Sudanese urgently need to shut the doors of their homes, recall their generous values—noble patriotism, courage, hospitality, forgiveness, the ability to rise above wounds—and reject division and partisanship before others force them into talking to one another on outsiders’ terms.
Today no one from Geneina to Kassala, from Wadi Halfa to Kadugli, is immune from a comprehensive catastrophe caused by one brother’s refusal to accept another. Therefore we must call for a homeland that embraces everyone without discrimination based on race, color, sex, language, religion, political view or lack of it, national or social origin, wealth, lineage, or any other reason.
Anyone who follows public discourse—especially among our political elites—finds that the loudest voices brazenly deny the basic minimums of human rights and public freedoms: non-discrimination, democracy, good governance, accountability and the rule of law—principles on which states rise and peoples enjoy their human dignity when they are respected.
Some invoke divisive political and cultural slogans that have torn social peace between sects and tribes in many countries across the region and the world, sowing those seeds into Sudan’s open wounds, believing that their act will win them a round that carries them to power — forgetting that ordinary Sudanese have long been schooled in refusing subjugation and defending their freedoms, heritage and faith, which nothing can place between them and the sky.
The pure blood that has watered the soil in al-Jazeera, Darfur, Khartoum, Kordofan and elsewhere will make this people even more fertile: they will plant, produce, learn, innovate, resist and cling to their right to a future determined by their children.
A people who have endured forced displacement, looting of property, destruction of infrastructure, internal displacement, exile, killing, arbitrary detention, torture and the rape of free women, and yet have returned to their homes as soon as rebels were driven out, deserve to learn the lesson and take the necessary lesson: security from fear and relief from hunger are absolute priorities, and a state of law is paramount. Choosing who governs them and the form of government is their exclusive prerogative, to be expressed through a free popular will.
Sudan and its people have not been led by the great empires in their pomp, nor have they yielded to values that oppose their cultural environment. Sudan is master of itself and loves freedom for itself and others; it does not assault anyone but has been known to come to the aid of its brethren in times of hardship.
Didn’t Wardi — may God rest his soul — express these meanings when he sang:
You who are at ease, how gentle your conduct,
You are master of yourself… who are your masters?
They are your children.
O people whose revolution set you ablaze,
May you attain your aim and fulfill your intention,
And may the depth of your feeling for freedom remain
A trait in your offspring.
Caravans of peace, tolerance and justice will return to our land, brimming with beauty.
Children in schools and young people at universities will sing the national hymn:
We are God’s soldiers, the soldiers of the homeland;
If the call for sacrifice comes, we will not betray — we defy death in trials.
We buy glory at the highest price … this land is ours … long live our Sudan, a flag among nations.
We keep Sudan in these hearts…
We will defend it from north or south…
With bitter struggle and firm resolve…
Hearts of iron that do not bend…
We defeat evil and clear out the usurpers…
We are the pillars of the heavens and lions of the den…
