The Common Good: An Agenda For Post-War Reconstruction Of The New Sudan

By: Geoffrey Koma Bin'Achayo, S.J; March 22
 
The post-Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) has become for some Southern Sudanese a period of exercising Epicureanism, the philosophy based on hedonism, thus:- "the victory is won, let us eat, drink and make merry because tomorrow may not come." Some assume that political, social, economic and religious questions for building the Common Good have been answered.

In fact, the ideas of streamlining a strong democratic government with a viable civil society, independent judiciary, strong security forces, good governance and human rights bestowed by common consent to a greater extent is collapsing. Yet, the common consent is the realization of the Common Good - the Good of all.
 
In the Aristotelian domain, “…a good life is oriented to goods shared with others – the common good of the larger society of which one is a part.” But, Aristotle’s view of the Common Good may be immaterial with the modern sense of the Common Good because for him, there is no distinction between the good of the polis (city) and individual good although he admits that the Common Good realized in the community is much nobler and divine. The Common Good as opposed to the common bad can be broadly understood as: “The sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and easily.”

Hitherto, this notion of the Common Good sums up the economic welfare of the individual members of the society into one aggregate sum, that is, the gross national product. However, the general welfare need not be common to all members of society.
 
Hence, if we want to manage a society like the New Sudan pragmatically, then the question of the Common Good should be an imperative agenda is the dissemination of the CPA. Certainly, the post-CPA now is an opportunity for the people of the South to rethink on the debate of the Common Good which recognizes the dignity, rights and duties of the human person as collective and sacred. In that sense, Southern Sudan as a State must not be seen as a private property of only a few individuals, but the State that acknowledges and fulfils social and economic conditions of its every citizen.

In fact, a clear distinction should be made that neither the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) nor any Southern opposition party is the State. Rather, they are there to serve the interests of the State. Explicitly, they are to ensure that Southern Sudan attains its ends: the promotion of civil interests, material and spiritual welfare of all Southerners such as, food, clothing, housing, education, right to life and religious freedom, and securing equal justice. Similarly, the Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS) must protect the individual right to private ownership, and accept human rights as inviolable because no body including the State and the government can override it.

Therefore, it would be a mistake to think that Southern Sudan as a State is the same as the GoSS. Otherwise, any attempt to undermine this principle of the Common Good will breed division and the result will be anarchy and totalitarianism which Sudan had never experienced before.
 
However, the notion of the common good can be established in Southern Sudan only if there is a sphere of justice, freedom, progress and unity. The fundamental questions are: 1. How do we build the Common Good as opposed to the common bad in a society that has been oppressed for decades? 2. Since the Common Good of one individual is different from the other as a result of the materialization of our globalized or pluralistic society, what kind of the Good do we create for all? Alluding to Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, the supplementary question could be: “[…] how can the oppressed, as divided… participate in developing the pedagogy of their liberation? Only as they discover themselves to be “hosts” of the oppressor can they contribute to the midwifery of their liberating pedagogy. As long as they live in duality in which to be is to be like, and to be like is to be like the oppressor, this contribution is impossible.”
 
In Defense for the Common Good:-
Much as the term “Common Good” appears to be problematic, nevertheless, it is possible to construct it both at the national level and across individual nation-states. The discussion requires five things:
 
1. Intellectual solidarity - the constant and open dialogue over the common vision of the good to be achieved. Mere tolerance is not enough because even a dupe under the pretence of having image of a good society can do that.
2. The promotion of social justice; thus: distribute justice, commutative justice and contribute justice.
3. Human rights as a moral content of the Common Good.
4. The formidable agenda of the global Common Good.
5. Accountability, transparency and good governance.
 
However, one would dare to question the validity of these prescriptions as to whether they are enough to defend the notion of the Common Good for a young nation like the New Sudan. Personally, I think it would make sense when we relate them to Thomas S. Kuhn’s theory of scientific revolution. For Kuhn, in a scientific paradigm (a standard example and disciplinary matrix; a shared commitment of scientific community), thus, in a period between crisis and revolution, scientists concentrate on solving anomalies (problems that resist solutions for long).

This problem solving is what we may refer to as the constant and open dialogue over the common vision of the Good to be achieved as the Southerners prepare themselves for a referendum in 2011. But, what are these anomalies in the South today? Aren’t they corruption, tribalism, economic, political and military domination of one tribe over the other tribes? Is everybody in the South getting “national cake” equally?
 
At the moment, the challenge for the GoSS and other opposition parties in the South is to set up a constitutional and democratic government, which is concrete and participatory - the government that recognizes human rights and dignity. These are core issues because a properly established constitutional government is less dangerous than those ones whose powers are not extensively defined by prior law. We must understand this in line with Joseph Raz and Larry Alexander that a constitutionally established government should entail four basic aspects. That is, “1. All laws should be prospective, open, and clear…. 2. Laws should be relatively stable…. 3. The making of particular laws …should be guided by open, stable and clear general rules…. 4. The independence of the judiciary must be guaranteed.”

Therefore, my own conviction is that a system of clearly defined constitutional order and rule of law in the South is central because thinking of autonomy entails both freedom of action and ability of planned actions over a given period of time.
 
We should however understand that leading a transitional government into self-determination is not an easy task. It is like opening a bottle top of a Champagne where the “cork” pops up, followed by a perplexing reverberation like a storm. Therefore, care must be taken against tribalism, corruption and nepotism because they breed conflicts in a multi-cultural and ethnically divided nation like the Sudan.
 
Challenges and Perspectives in the Post-War Sudan:-
The Sudan we are longing for today is the New and free one. But, the biggest challenge for its people in an attempt to build the Common Good is the question of political debate in the post-CPA and what sort of ideology does the SPLM entails in the politics of liberation of the Sudan. According to Nyaba, the SPLM should be seen as an embodiment of ideas, policies and programs articulated to mobilize the people for their own liberation. This then calls for political debate which is a gateway to reach a consensus and build a viable civil society. “It is through dialogue and debate that the people are able to communicate with their leaders. And these debates should not be just a monopoly of the intellectuals, or of the military elite, but should be open to all… when we talk of building a strong civil society…. Any attempt to undermine the notion of political debate is an invitation to bewilderment, fear and the end of SPLM.” A case in point is the emergence of UNITA shortly after the independence of Angola.
 
In Mozambique, when Frente de Libertacion de Moçambique (FRELIMO) secured victory, Resistência Nacional de Moçambique (RENAMO) emerged in protest and destroyed the aspirations of the Angolans. Actually, within the Sudan, a similar incident occurred in 1983 that led to the split of “Anya-nya II” and Nasir in 1991, and those lessons are enough for the SPLM to learn. Otherwise, “there is a danger that internal contradictions within SPLM could be exploited by our political adversaries in the North through the policy of divide and rule, precisely because of that, patience and consistency in the ideas must be exercised,” if a democratic pluralism, a viable society and the common good are to be established. Of course, according to Machiavelli’s theory, “[…] if a prince wants to survive in power, he must keep his subjects not only constantly well-fed, but also ignorant, because many people are more interested in the things of the senses, in what they see and eat, than things of the mind.”
 
In all, what we want today is to transplant SPLM as the last and final seal of liberation struggle in order to restructure the Common Good in South Sudan. The problem however is that “the South Sudanese do not give themselves time to analyze and evaluate issues and things that are taken for granted and done on an ad hoc basis to suit the exigencies of the time. …We do not, or are too timid to, ask our leaders what they mean if we do not understand what they say or do …the leaders are not reproached, criticized or opposed in public, and few accept private or individual criticism and/or advice….”

We need to have a sense of intellectual, political, cultural and economic solidarity for dialogue in building a New Sudan, the Sudan which breeds peace, equality, justice and progress.
 
Geoffrey Anthony Koma Bin’Achayo, S.J. - New Sudan

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