From: payco@googlegroups.com [mailto:pa...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of
Sbusiso Xaba
Sent: Thursday, January 21, 2010 4:09 PM
To: PAYCO Members
Subject: [PAYCO] Fw: [GlobalAfricanPresence] Sudan and the hereafter
We will soon not have claim on name Azania for this goegraphic piece of our
Africa, because there new state called Azania (current South Sudan).
----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Kenneth King <nnamd...@yahoo.com>
To: globalafricanprese...@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sat, 2 January, 2010 21:30:42
Subject: [GlobalAfricanPresence] Sudan and the hereafter
some years ago in the bulletin, Africanist, there was an article written by the
late Peter Raboroko, titled the origin of the name Azania. Its unfortunate that
I cant have that article. But, I was written in an intelligible manner.
http://weekly. ahram.org. eg/2010/979/ sc271.htm
<http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2010/979/sc271.htm>
Sudan and the hereafter
According to Gamal Nkrumah, though the scenario of a divided Sudan looms large
over 2020, the call for unity will not be forgotten
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- -
Not long ago, Sudan was one country; today it is four -- the Caliphate of
Khartoum, Azania or Southern Sudan, Darfur and Napata (Nubia). The Beja people
of eastern Sudan also want to form their own independent political entity. By
most accounts, the summer of 2020 has been blistering for all governments,
elected or otherwise, of the Nile Valley states.
As the international community hesitates to interfere in the domestic affairs
of the states that once constituted Sudan, the rulers of the Nile Valley
nations also drag their feet. There is little political incentive in changing
the status quo. When Sudan was one country, the Sudanese had many problems.
There were problems of freedoms or the lack of them, of democracy or the dearth
of it.
Today, the Caliphate of Khartoum is a bastion of militant Islam in Africa.
Islamist clerics manipulate the levers of power from behind the scenes.
Turbaned fanatics run the economically ruined country. The once prosperous
capital Khartoum has fallen on hard times. Per capita income is one of the
lowest in Africa; economic growth has grounded to an abrupt halt. The ruling
religious clique, evidently, has failed miserably to end the unconscionable
poverty of their subjects.
Secularist Azania, in sharp contrast, has managed to keep oil wealth in the
resource-rich country and to improve the standards of living of the people of
what used to be called southern Sudan.
Napata, or Nubia, is a secular nation, and only 10 per cent of the population
describe themselves as religious. Some Nubians have reverted to the
Christianity of their forefathers. Others, demanding that their country be
officially renamed Kush, have abandoned monotheistic religions altogether in
favour of the worship of the gods of ancient Egypt, in particular Amon-Re and
Isis, even though Hathor in a recent poll is said to have a considerable
following.
Temples dedicated to the ancient gods are being erected at lightning speed,
much to the chagrin of the clerics of Khartoum. The hurried jumble is partly
due to the determination by Nubians to attract foreign visitors -- tourists and
investors.
Azania is an officially secular state. However, Christianity and traditional
African religions vie for supremacy among the economic and political elite of
the new, multi-ethnic nation. As a major oil exporter, land-locked Azania is
poised to become one of Africa's fastest growing economies with double digit
growth rate figures. Massive irrigation schemes, including the Jongolei Canal,
promise to make the country the breadbasket of the African continent. Many
northern Sudanese are claiming Azanian nationality, abandoning the arid
wastelands of the north for greener pastures in the south.
Does this matter? Of course, it does. With desertification taking its deadly
toll on development in the north, the people of the Caliphate of Khartoum are
hard pressed to believe in the hereafter.
The caliph of Khartoum, a descendant of Al-Mahdi, has publicly stated that he
has designs on Hejaz, across the Red Sea. So far, arguments over the caliph's
bid have been strictly commercial. Khartoum is proposing exporting Nile water
to its ideological allies in the Arabian Peninsula in exchange for oil. The
caliph of Khartoum has also proffered some kind of union with Arabia. But
details on this plan are worryingly vague. How he reached this position is a
mystery many Sudanese are trying to unravel.
This may be a politically astute plan by the caliph of Khartoum in a part of
the world lured by sirens of religious nationalism. Tribal chieftains claiming
descent from the Prophet Mohamed hurried to pay obeisance to the caliph and
acclaimed him as their overlord.
How surprising, then, that there have been so few howls of disapproval from the
virulently anti-Islamist regimes in Napata and Azania. On the other hand,
Darfur, which is overwhelmingly Muslim, is toying with the idea of
reunification with Khartoum. The disputed sprawling the Province of Kordofan is
as yet undecided as to its political future. Arab tribes in Kordofan favour
unification with Khartoum, the people of the Nuba Mountains wish to join
Azania.
The strategically located Darfur in the heart of the African continent; life in
this nascent democracy is not exactly luxurious in spite of the discovery of
oil. The country, run by the Democratic Party, an amalgamation of the old
Justice and Equality Movement of a decade ago and democracy-oriented refugees
fleeing from totalitarian Khartoum, is reputed to be under the spell of the
wizened nonagenarian Al-Sheikh Hassan Al-Turabi, who fled from Khartoum in
mysterious circumstances and sought refuge among his followers in Darfur. He
advocates a type of Islamic democracy and has renounced his Sudanese
citizenship. The Democrats of Darfur are determined to export their brand of
Islam to Khartoum. Whatever the exact truth of this story, it is based on the
most widely quoted version of this hypothesis by eminent religious scholars and
clerics in Khartoum who wish to topple the Caliphate and institute a more
benign Islamic system of government modelled on the
Darfur example. The real protagonist of the Darfur democratic model is none
other than the ingenious nonagenarian. His loyal subjects speculate that their
aged sage has lost his touch.
Candice, the democratically elected ruler of Napata, has declared that she
would in due course be betrothed to her commander-in- chief, Taharqa. Together,
they have plotted to overrun Egypt and reinstate the religion of the ancients.
Copts and Muslims strongly object to such an outrage. The Napatans, forswearing
allegiance to the ancient gods of Egypt, are winning supporters throughout the
Nile Valley. They argue that the credibility of the ancient gods is at stake.
Curiously enough, Taharqa and his prospective Queen Candice claim that their
real motive is to further the cause of democracy throughout the Nile Valley
rather than reinstate the religion of the ancients. Against this backdrop the
Napatans have installed Thoth, the patron of scribes, as the champion of the
secularist Napatan model of democracy.
Cairo is increasingly sceptical of Candice's motives. The Napatans have moved
their capital from the sacred Gebel Barkal to Meroe, further south and a
stone's throw away from Khartoum. The white-clad high priests of Napata believe
that they can eventually overrun the Caliphate of Khartoum. Cairo, having to
contend with two militant Islamist emirates in its neighbourhoods -- Gaza to
the northeast and Khartoum to the south -- is suspected by its sister Nile
Valley states to be somewhat priggish on the question of religion. Napata is
regarded as a buffer state, but Cairo looks aghast at the heathen stelae
erected by the democratically elected Napatan rulers. Failure to reach
agreement on the reunification of the Nile Valley has poisoned the process and
widened the ideological gap between Cairo, Khartoum and Napata.
With the Napatans insisting that their pyramids are greater and better
proportioned than those of Giza, there is little incentive for the Egyptians to
negotiate integration in good faith. Meanwhile, the Napatans complain about
worrying signs of anti-democratic behaviour in Egypt, citing racist attitudes
by the Egyptians as a major stumbling block to unification. The two
neighbouring states are caught in a vicious cycle of mutual disenchantment.
There are rampant rumours in Cairo that the Napatans are inciting the Nubians
of southern Egypt to secede and that Napata is intent on annexing Lower Nubia,
thereby infringing on Egyptian territorial integrity. Officials in Meroe, the
Napatan capital, have denied the charges as preposterous.
Sometimes the obvious answer to ex-Sudan is the correct one. The constituent
states of the former Sudan may be ill, but they can be treated. Ex-Sudan may be
dead, but it can be resurrected. The clerics of Khartoum might strongly object
to the use of the term resurrection, but the Azanians and the Napatans will
surely applaud such a vision from a religious perspective. So can Sudan
actually become a reality again? When does "no" mean "yes", or "maybe"? Only
the ex-Sudanese can answer that tricky political question accurately. Under the
scorching Sudanese sun, the hearth black people call home, or the hereafter,
the notion of Sudan lives on.
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