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A Shrewd Man with a Great Vision!
By Dengdit Ayok, SUDAN
Ladies and
Gentlemen: The 30th of July has come again.
It is a
special day for us, it is a National Martyrs’ Day here in Southern
Sudan, it is a day for us to honor and commemorate all our heroes,
heroines and martyrs who have laid down their lives for the sake of
freedom, equality, justice and human progress in Southern Sudan in
particular and in the Sudan at large.
It is a day
in which we pause and look back into the history of our long struggle
and our long quest for emancipation. It is a day to honor war veterans
of our nation.
It is a day
in which we come together to light candles as symbols of our love for
them, as symbols of our appreciation for what they have done to us and
as symbols of our honor to them for their great love for this land and
its wonderful people and their great courage that led them to sacrificed
their precious lives like what the Son of God did more than two thousand
years ago, when he died on the cross for the spiritual emancipation of
mankind.
It is a day
to remember William Nyuon Bany Machar, Francis Ngor Makiec, Nyacigak
Nyacilluk, Kerubino Kuanyin Bol, Joseph Oduho, Arok Thon Arok, Manyiel
Ayuel, Martin Majier, Rev. Saturrnino Lahur, George Kuwac, Yusuf Kuwa
Makki, Ali Gbutala, William Deng Nhial, Anyaar Mayol, Bagat Aguek,
Marhom Dut Kat, Athian Deng Garang, Deng Dau, Deng Ajwong, Ajongo Mawut
Unguech, Aggery Jaden, Dominic Dim Deng, Samuel Gai Tut, Justin Yac Arop,
Abdalla Chol, Akuot Atem Aruai, and all our beloved and our precious
martyrs who died while defending our just cause in the last 50-years,
since 1955 up to 2005.
We are today
commemorating a great shrewd man and martyr of all our martyrs who was
born as a special gift for our nation. We are today honoring Dr. John
Garang de Mabior who has spent his life span in the struggle against the
forces of oppression and repression in the Sudan, first in Anyanya one
or Southern Sudan Liberation Movement (SSLM) under the leadership of
Joseph Lagu Yanga in 1962 until the signing of Addis Ababa Peace
Agreement (AAPA) in March 1972 and again in May 1983 until 2005 when he
signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) with the present Ingaz
government of Omar Al-Bashir.
Garang would
be remembered throughout the Sudanese history as a political savior who
was born to save his people from the yoke of injustice. His legacy would
remain in the minds of the present generation and the generations to
come like Samson the Israeli hero who was born to fight for his people
and save them from the Palestinian brutality. He would be remembered
like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who stood up and fought against
oppression and racial discrimination exercised against his people in
America. He would be remembered like Mahatma Gandhi who had struggled
against British colonization in India and like Jomo Kenyatta who freed
his people from British slavery in Kenya.
Garang would
be remembered as a shrewd man who came up with a humanitarian and
political vision aimed at serving his people in the Sudan, in Africa and
in the world at large. He was our second Jesus in the Sudan. He was a
political doctor who was able to diagnose the real political ailments of
the Sudanese nation and prescribed a curing drug for them. The curing
drug was his vision of New Sudan in which all the Sudanese people are
equally stakeholders in governance regardless of their race, tribe,
language or color.
He was a man
who was solving a problem of “people with the turbans and people with
ostrich feathers.”
His vision
of New Sudan was a humanitarian vision in the first place before it
becomes a political vision because it calls for human dignity in Sudan
and beyond. It calls for the preservation of all the ancient and modern
Sudanese cultural heritages in contrary to the vision of the northern
elite that calls for an Arab Islamic state in which the Sudanese people
should become Arabs and in which the Arab culture should remain
dominant.
His vision
has called for a unified democratic Sudan in which the Sudanese people
should elect their political leaders regardless of their creeds or
religions. It is a vision that gives opportunity to non-Muslim to rule
the Sudan in contrary to the northern elite’s vision that calls for a
Muslim president and Islamic rule in the Sudan. It is a vision that
calls for unity on new basis in a new Sudan. It is a vision that
accommodates all the Sudanese without distinction.
Sadly, the
northern elite have rejected this great vision. They have segregated the
Sudanese people on religious grounds; they don’t want a non-Muslim to
rule the Sudan; they only want Muslims to continue to rule the Sudan
until the end of the age. This has caused great tribulations in Sudan
and it has been the core of all conflicts between the South and the
North.
Long
horrendous civil wars have been fought against this religious apartheid
and against the Islamic call for disunity with non-Muslims in the Sudan,
Islamic discrimination on ethnic grounds, and against Islamic political
disenfranchisements; so that the Sudan becomes a country for all its
sons and daughters equally; but it is obviously today that the
Northerners have not yet given up these pseudo discriminative Islamic
ideas towards non-Muslims in the Sudan, and for this reason, Southern
Sudan, a part of Sudan which has suffered the woes of the Islamic
religious and political disenfranchisements for so long; will likely
secede in January 2011 to form an independent, sovereign, viable and
vibrant country in that geographical spot that is in the southern part
of our country that constitutes the present Southern Sudan.
Dr. John
Garang de Mabior Atem Aruai would be remembered as one of those who laid
the foundation of South Sudan Nation throughout history. He would also
be remembered as an outstanding thinker who appeared in the end of the
20th century in the whole world. My sincere tributes go to
him on this glorious day and also to all the martyrs of our nation who
have accepted to die for our sake and for the sake of those who are
still far away. Long live the struggles of our people, long live the
memory of South Sudan Nation martyrs.
Dengdit Ayok
is a concerned South Sudanese residing in Khartoum. He is reachable at
dengdit_a@yahoo.com
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