On Slavery In The Sudan
The effort to portray what is happening in the
Sudan in a convenient Muslim north and Christian south; light-skinned
north and Black-skinned south dichotomy, is being led by Christian
Solidarity International.
The entire debate over what is happening in Sudan is
filled with one of the deepest mixtures of half-truths, misinformation
and religious bias to be found anywhere. This is particularly true in
the United States where the discussion usually boils down to whether
or not slavery exists in the Sudan. The simple answer to that question
is yes. "Slavery" as defined by White conservatives and
Christian fundamentalists in the West and increasingly by a growing
number of Black civil rights activists does exist in the Sudan and it
has for some time. The question is why are these interested parties
only recently interested in "slavery" in the Sudan, and
maybe more importantly, why are they ignoring the practices
when they have and continue to take place among the non-Muslim
opposition group, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army led by
John Garang?
There is no denying it. If one accepts the working
definition of "slavery" as defined by Human Rights
Watch/Africa then the Sudan people's Liberation Movement/Army is
without question tied to the practice of slavery and has been since
the early 1980s, well before the latest coalition of White
conservatives, Christian fundamentalists and Black civil rights
leaders who oppose "slavery" in the Sudan was formed and
showed a united front against the issue.
But "slavery" then and "slavery"
now was not the exclusive domain of any particular religious group or
region.
The West itself provides the evidence that destroys
the myth that "slavery" in the Sudan is a practice whereby
Muslims in the north enslave Blacks in the south. According to the US
State Department's "Country Reports on Human Rights
Practices" published in 1990, " the SPLA/M often forced
southern men to work as laborers or porters or forcibly conscripted
them into SPLA ranks. In disputed territories this practice was
implemented through raids". In the State Department's 1991 report
the SPLA/M is connected with having "forcibly conscripted at
least 10,000 male minors". And in 1994 Human Rights Watch/Africa
documented the SPLA's documented "forced unpaid farm labor on
SPLA-organized farms".
To this date, according to the US State Department and
human rights advocates, the SPLA has forcibly taken thousands of women
and children from areas in Southern Sudan and held them as hostage,
forced them to perform labor and/or join their military force.
The depiction of "slavery" in the Sudan as a
purely Muslim undertaking is erroneous and part of a much larger
agenda.
The fact of the matter is that many of individuals who
believe that they are doing the Lord's work in opposing
"slavery" in the Sudan, especially those who operate from
the US, are woefully misinformed and being used as tools by
individuals, organizations and governments which have a religious and
geopolitical agenda for Africa and which is not in Africa's best
interests. One of the means by which this agenda is being carried out
is the effort to make Blacks in the Western Hemisphere, and otherwise
sincere and progressive Whites in this country believe that Africans
are more different than they really are. This is taking place in the
Sudan with a high level of success. Any one who knows the Sudan or who
is from there can explain that in many cases there is no recognizable
physical differences in terms of skin color between the northern
Muslim and Arab influenced tribes like the Baggara, and the southern
Christian influence tribes like the Dinkas. In fact, many such tribes
operate along the north south border and have been intermarrying and
interacting for years. However, those who are driving the pressure
against the Sudanese government never reveal, reflect or admit this
reality.
The
effort to portray what is happening in the Sudan in a convenient
Muslim north and Christian south; light-skinned north and
Black-skinned south dichotomy, is being led by Christian Solidarity
International, an organization which operates out of England led for
years by Baroness Cox. The organization has raised enormous amounts of
money to heighten awareness on the issue of "slavery" in the
Sudan and has skillfully and consistently depicted the conflict in the
Sudan as one of Muslims attacking Christians. It is the talking points
of Christian Solidarity International (CSI) that many White
Conservatives, Christian fundamentalists and Black civil rights
activists are reading from. It is also Christian Solidarity
International that is financing the trips to Sudan for such groups and
others who seek to purchase slaves in Sudan.
And it is also Christian Solidarity International that
supports the SPLA who are known "slave" traders themselves.
For years CSI has called for international support of the SPLA after
it has been documented by the US State Department and human rights
organizations that the group was abducting young boys and women in the
South and forcing them to labor, among other things.
Why does Christian Solidarity International attack
"slavery" practices in the Sudan when they are said to be
performed by Muslim and Arab influenced groups and looks the other way
when they are documented among a supposedly Christian-influenced
group? Where are the White Conservatives, Christian fundamentalists
and Black civil rights leaders when it comes to condemning
"slavery' among the SPLA? If you are against "slavery"
in the Sudan doesn't that include the slavery practiced by Black
southerners on other Black southerners? Why does the new broad-based
coalition which compromises the "Stop Slavery in the Sudan"
movement, only have eyes for the human rights abuses of Muslims and
Arabs?
And why, if the conflict is an "us" against
"them"; "Arab" vs. "Black";
"Muslim" vs. "Christian" affair, have over 2
million Black southerners fled into the North, into Khartoum, for
refuge from the civil war? Surely 2 million "Black Christian
Southerners" would not willingly run into the arms of the evil
" Arab Muslim Northerners". And lastly why does the
presence of 12,000 to 15,000 Sudanese in forced labor camps trump the
loss of 2,000,000 Sudanese altogether in the civil war? Which is the
larger problem? The war or "slavery"? Which is the cause and
which is the effect? In our estimation, "slavery" can't end
unless the Civil War ends. Why isn't this position being taken by
those who want a spotlight placed on the Sudan now?
With the exception of Rev. Al Sharpton, we have heard
not so much as a peep from anyone in the "Stop Slavery in the
Sudan" movement on the score of Blacks in the Southern Sudan and
part of the SPLA "enslaving" their Brothers and Sisters in
the South. After his recent trip to the Sudan, which was financed by
Christian Solidarity International, Rev. Sharpton revealed that he was
informed of instances of forced labor occurring among rebel groups in
Southern Sudan. Why can't his fellow Black civil rights leaders and
the White Conservatives and Christian fundamentalists and missionaries
match his fairness and balance on the issue?
The reason why we have placed the word slavery in
quotations throughout this editorial is because we recognize what is
happening in the Sudan first and foremost to be a civil war and we
recognize that any "slavery" practices stem first and
foremost from warfare and an economic depression, exacerbated, in
part, by the conditionality imposed by the IMF and health problems,
exacerbated, in part, by the US bombing of a Sudanese pharmaceutical
factory, which by some estimates, took care of 60% of the health needs
of Sudan.
In fact, we recognize that much of what is being
loosely depicted as "slavery" would be more accurately
described as "mutual abductions" taking place on all sides.
And to be more accurate and to look at the situation in the Sudan from
history, we know that many of the tribes in the north and south who
attracted government and opposition groups as benefactors in the 80s
and 90s, have for years been abducting members of each others tribes
and forcing their captives to work for them for free. This is nothing
new. When these tribes became armed militias, so to speak, for the
North and South they continued their activities but with sponsors.
Again, the core activities of kidnapping, raping,
"enslaving" and ransoming are nothing new and preexisted the
Islamic regime in the Sudan by decades.
What is new is the large magnifying glass being
applied exclusively to the mutual abductions that are taking place on
the northern side. Thanks to Christian Solidarity International and
its public relations campaign, what has been taking place across the
country is now being assigned an Arab/Muslim, light-skinned character
while the practices are being ignored when they occur among other
groups. Indeed, CSI has even seen fit to partner with the southern
opposition group, SPLA, which has a documented history in the very
acts that CSI says it wants to stop. And like sheep being herded,
American Black civil rights leaders, cultural conservatives,
fundamentalist Christian groups and missionaries are all made to
believe that the SPLA are "freedom-fighters" fighting for
the cause of Jesus Christ and democracy.
And then that same argument is repackaged and aimed at
Black Americans in a way that is designed to appeal to their wounds
about the slavery that they experienced. And White conservatives who
have fought these same Black Americans, tooth-and-nail for every form
of civil rights advancement and who are foremost in opposition to the
reparations movement today, are now attempting to bully and shame
these same Blacks into supporting the end of "slavery" in
the Sudan.
To say the least, we find their position disingenuous
and hypocritical. The same group that treats ex-slaves in America with
such callousness is now the best friend of "slaves" in the
Sudan? With friends like that, we wonder, who needs enemies?
In one of their more routine exercises this coalition
has the audacity to question Nation Of Islam Leader Minister Louis
Farrakhan's commitment to the Sudanese people or the issue of human
rights violations in the country. Unlike most of the members of the
Sudan "slavery' coalition, Minister Farrakhan has been actively
working for peace in the country for at least 8 years. In fact, in
1994, it is believed by many who were witnesses, that Minister
Farrakhan was only days away from brokering a peace agreement between
those in the southern and northern parts of Sudan. The Minister's work
for peace in that country has been largely unknown because the Muslim
leader wanted it that way. Unlike his Black and White contemporaries
who issue a press release on the Sudan every other day and who have
their trips financed by Christian Solidarity International, and are
accompanied by cameras and microphones, Minister Farrakhan has been
quietly moving in and out of the Sudan and Africa for years,
attempting to unite the Muslims, Christians and animists of the
country of 35 million, and the continent of 700 million people. In
fact, in one such trip in 1996, Minister Farrakhan, as is his custom,
met with all sides of the civil war in the Sudan and in a rare public
comment, revealed that in all of his discussions which included talks
with the SPLA, Minister Farrakhan never heard the issue of slavery
raised. Not once, in negotiations, discussions and meetings with
Minister Farrakhan, as he listened to their grievances, was the issue
of slavery, sponsored by the Sudanese government, raised by the
Sudanese opposition. Remember that this was in 1996 at the height of
the beginning of the argument in the West over "slavery" in
the Sudan.
Could it be that the Sudanese opposition did not raise
the issue with Minister Farrakhan, in public or private, because the
practice depicted by the West as "slavery" is common in the
Sudan war and practiced by all sides?
There is so much more to this issue than meets the
eye.
It is obvious that many of the White Conservatives who
are actively pushing the Sudan "slavery" issue care as much
about political gain in this country, in their war against Black
leaders, in particular, as they do about the suffering people of
Sudan. If they can discredit Minister Farrakhan and the Black left -
civil rights groups, Pan Africanists and grassroots activists - and
even divide them, and slow the movement toward reparations, then
saving a few Blacks in Sudan is just icing on the cake.
Is it not peculiar how White conservatives are
making Sudanese "slavery" a litmus test for reparations
advocates? What is their real motive?
One question, that no one in the mainstream media is
asking, is why is it so easy to purchase a slave in Sudan in the first
place? CSI and other groups who are arranging these slave purchases
are largely bringing people into the Sudan from SPLA-controlled areas.
Where, we ask, are these slaves, then, being purchased - in the north
or the south? If the slaves are being "redeemed" in the
South, in rebel-controlled areas, then what does that reveal?
Furthermore, as the White conservatives in America are so fond of
reminding reparations supporters in this country of the culpability of fellow Blacks in the American slave trade, Blacks in the South
must be selling other Blacks in the South or, Blacks in the South must
be selling other Blacks to slaveholders in the North. According to
the superficial dichotomy constructed by CSI and their anti-slavery
coalition, that would mean that "Black Southern Christians"
are selling other "Black Southern Christians". If we follow
the line of reasoning used by White conservatives in this country to
oppose reparations, then we can no longer see the evils of slavery as
being perpetrated by only the evil " Arab Muslim North".
These same White conservatives who have been
surprisingly successful at winning a few friends from among the Black
civil rights movement aren't telling the whole story.
Are they really for the end of slavery in the Sudan,
or are they for something else, like, perhaps, putting and end to the
spread of Islam throughout Africa, or dividing the Sudan in half -
like England once wanted.
If the coalition for ending "slavery" really
seeks the former and not the latter, then they must begin answering
some hard questions about the SPLA and the manner in which they have
depicted the Sudanese civil war.
Anything short of a full disclosure on that front
reveals the colonialism, imperialism and the Crusades mentality that
many are beginning to suspect is at the root of the movement to end
"slavery" in the Sudan.
(Cedric Muhammad is the Publisher of BlackElectorate.com,
a publication that focuses on the dynamics of Black culture,
economics and politics.)
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