The Wisdom of an Oppressed is Upside-down

July 03, 2009 - “I am not petrified or disturbed by the departure of Dr Lam Akol and his formation of a new party,” said Wanni Igga, the speaker of the Southern Sudan Legislative Assembly in a press conference held in Khartoum, June 12, 2009.

The people’s speaker of the house statement is one of many reactions. Letters of protest and condemnation have been written. Press conferences of support were held. It felt remedial and soothing. Supporters went home fearless, let alone sleeping unbothered.

Within the mainstream, two schools of thought are already jabbing each other. One is calling for single Sudan People Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the other for two SPLMs. The first opinion disregards the split and warrants immediate reconciliation. The second advocates further punishment against Dr Akol and his newly formed party, the Sudan People Liberation Movement for Democratic Change (SPLM-DC). Actions such as lawsuit, guilt by association and dirty politics are already in play. This opinion thinks that the SPLM will be better off without Dr Akol. His departure has been long waited for anyway.

I champion the former: a reconciliatory and solitary SPLM. Do I have compelling rationale to insist reconciliation and not two SPLMs? Yes, but before, let me agree with the fellow party mates where I see them right.

The current overall reaction to the defection events is for sure not a homerun. It is a starter only superior for sentimental therapy. For supporters, it reveals existence of leadership. For leaders, it evidences care and responsibility. The Speaker of the house, Wanni Igga, just did so. He performed his constitutional duty by stepping out to assure and calm down the party base in particular and the people at large.

Similarly, Dr Akol has all rights to form a new party as he wishes and chooses. Freedom of multiparty system is a democratic creed we have been fighting for. The SPLM will be rightfully charged with hypocrisy should it not act upon her promises.

Here is my disagreement. Those who don’t support reconciliation are directly in Dr Akol’s camp and indirectly in the National Congress Party (NCP’s) bloc. Assume that Dr Akol’s intention is to break away from the mainstream and you want him leave anyway, then you are in league with him and vise versa. On the other side of the aisle, if the NCP is inwardly joyous to witness the SPLM not only split but breakdown to its weakest level, then, you, Dr Akol and the NCP are confederacy. Logically speaking, if A=6, B=6 and C=6, it follows that A=B=C. I’m moving to my next point and you do the logic.

In any decision making process, time and timing are primes. Normandy attack by the allies against Germany was postponed to be June 6, 1944 because of the bad weather to avoid heavy casualties among the troops. The time at which Dr Akol forms the SPLM-DC is not favorable. We are at the moment where the comprehensive peace agreement (CPA) is making headways in implementation, even though at a snail’s pace. SPLM ventures to regain its strength after the death of its founder, Dr John Garang. And more importantly the NCP is on the run, given the indictment from the International Criminal Court (ICC). Weakening the SPLM now by means of defection is not only unwise but also an empowerment to the NCP.

Likewise, the SPLM leadership should not allow the defection to occur. It should do whatever in its power to avert and keep Dr Akol up to the referendum in the year 2011. Letting Dr Lam leaves the party now is a flimsy judgment. The conventional wisdom is that you cannot let your own against oneself at the time you need him the most. Yes, Dr Akol is untrustworthy but on the other hand, he is a shrewd politician and an effective contributor. Having an effective contributor on your side makes more sense than having him against you. During the wartime against the SPLA, Arabs kept southern militia by all cost not because they liked them but because they needed them the then.

‘Hit the big tribe with an enemy’ mentality versus ‘small tribes pose no threat’ mentality must have been the common denominator behind the split. If time and timing didn’t matter, what could it be? The invisible hand of divide and rule is at work. Arabs divided the south on tribes and regional lines for the purpose of ruling them. The successive governments in Khartoum have been employing these lines for the last 50 years. Its impact on southerners cannot be denied. Regionalism, for example, was the choice in bringing down the Addis Ababa agreement in 1970s-80s. Too many agreements have been dishonored to borrow uncle Alier’s fashionable statement. The CPA is not any different. All know that the NCP is tirelessly laboring to bury the CPA. The death of Dr Garang was the first step. That is the ‘cut the snake’s head off and the rest of the body would spontaneously come to silence’ type of philosophy. Legs dragging in border delimitation, the Malakal incidents, the Lord Resistant Army (LRA) disturbances in Western Equatoria State, attempts to eliminate Arman’s life, intertribal fights in the south…and the list goes on and on…are diagrams to do away with the CPA. The same line of deceit cannot be used over and over again on a normal mind; only on an oppressed can it be possible. Investing time on small tribes versus big tribes is another form of being in compliance with the divide and rule jinx.

‘Tit for tat’ was a medieval attitude. Practiced even in the 21st century, it is done against opponents and not proponents. Relations within the SPLM leadership tend to base on retaliation as opposed to compromise and reconciliation. In a normal political organization, leadership cooperates for health and existence of the entity. When a member goes wrong, she or he cannot be met with another wrong. Meeting wrong with another is like ‘Pandora opening the box’. Two wrongs do not make it right; they make it worst. Vengeance spirit within establishment’s leadership is a set back or an error. Mistakes when committed do not go away; they hit back to hurt or kill the establishment. Until retribution culture is abandoned within the leadership, the SPLM will continue to wobble.

Instead of marginalization, the SPLM should celebrate diversity. In diversity, there is power. Too often we hear that the American Grand Old Party (GOP), better known as the Republican Party moves far to the right (conservative), moves far to the left (liberal) or moves deep to the center (moderate). There is a value to each and every one of these voices. Conservative voice, for instance, appeals to a segment of the American society on certain issues such as anti-abortion and anti-gay. All these voices are respected in the party because they attract different segments of the society. Remember, a party is in a business of subscribing subscribers to its philosophy and retaining them. It is not in a firing business. Keeping supporters isn’t static; it is dynamic. Thus, it is logical to uphold special voices that talk to dissimilar ears in the society. For the SPLM to avoid more Dr Akols and to compete more effectively in the multi-party systems, she must hug diversity in gender, kiss diversity in nationalities or tribes and marry diversity in opinion. Although more work is needed in opinion diversity, little progress has been made in gender and nationalities diversities.

In a well-established democracy, free media plays a significant role. Its obvious function is to check and balance by unfolding societal issues and shaping up public opinion about the very issues. In the events of the defection, both SPLM’s and SPLM-DC’s surrogates were quick to wear free media attire and play the politics of split. Some equated it to the 1991 defection believing that the SPLM would resurface stronger than ever before. The aim appeared to be shaping up the general opinion in favor of the split. They played the defection as if it was a cure pill for the party. In lieu of reconciliation, they were bashing one another. Politics isn’t solely about winning. It is about conflict and compromise to the end result of satisfying interests of the parties in conflict. Name-calling won’t do the party any good. The time wasted slicing each other open could have been invested in a better planning for the party. Albert Einstein is not needed here to construe. 

In finality, whether you are supporting the SPLM or the SPLM-DC, there is zilch to be supported about the split. So far, nobody knows for sure what the two SPLMs will bring. No accomplishments in the past to be mentioned. In reverse and prior to the split, there was one SPLM. With it, we struggled for 21 years and signed the CPA. Stipulated in the CPA, we will vote in the year 2011 either for an independent South or a better-united Sudan. Simply put, with one SPLM, there abundant achievements we can be proud-of and there work-paradigm we can trail for future triumph. Next, with the 1991 split, there was a sturdy leadership presence on the side of the SPLM. Further, we were afar in the bushes from the enemy. With the current split, the leadership is frail, the enemy is next door and the international community support is not only wearing thin but also does not support the South independence. The wisdom of an oppressed is upside-down.

Ojulu O. Ogala resides in the USA and can be reached at: