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The Dilemma of the Southern Intellectual: Is It Justified?
Abstract
In this 1971 essay, Joseph Garang, a leading Sudanese Marxist intellectual and activist in the 1960s and early 1970s, makes a case for a united Sudan. He draws from the wealth of Marxist theory to elucidate the political economy of power and marginality that undergirds the ethnic nationalism that plagued the country and silenced the voices of those who attempted to reckon with structural inequality. In addition to their obvious contributions to Sudanese leftist historiography, Garang's views are as relevant today as they were decades ago. Garang scrupulously examines multicultural identities, justice and marginality, and ethnic secessionist politics.
... For Mahgoub (2008), the break from colonialism had to be socialist, otherwise Sudan would remain locked in a dependent position in the shadow of the global capitalist system. Their attention to questions of scale meant an awareness that building a national-popular collective will was not simply a national question; the Sudanese state had been forged from the colonial experience and corresponding anti-colonial struggle, and questions of national unity were inextricably tied to the international (Garang 2010(Garang [1971). ...
... For Mahgoub (2008), the break from colonialism had to be socialist, otherwise Sudan would remain locked in a dependent position in the shadow of the global capitalist system. Their attention to questions of scale meant an awareness that building a national-popular collective will was not simply a national question; the Sudanese state had been forged from the colonial experience and corresponding anti-colonial struggle, and questions of national unity were inextricably tied to the international (Garang 2010(Garang [1971). ...
... This was translated by al-Junid Ali Omar in 1968 and republished in 2003, and includes translations of 'Marxism and modern culture' and 'Some aspects of the southern question'. A possible exception is Joseph Garang's (2010Garang's ( [1971) Dilemma of the southern intellectual, which covers similar themes to 'Some aspects' and could have been influenced by the latter essay. 4. A key difference that Sekyi-Otu notes is the absence of a singular hegemonic class or social group capable of leading in Fanon's (1963) Wretched of the earth as he constructs and deconstructs the revolutionary capacity and limitations of the national bourgeoisie, proletariat, peasantry and lumpenproletariat. ...
This article adopts a Gramscian approach to exploring the political economy behind the rise and fall of the National Islamic Front (NIF) in Sudan. It traces the NIF’s rise from the 1960s, with particular attention to the class character of its hegemonic project and shifting ideology. Reading its reign through the lens of minimal hegemony, it critically explores how neoliberal restructuring produced a narrow but powerful ruling bloc at the expense and marginalisation of different social groups, and how shifts in international relations intertwined with social transformations across Sudan to reproduce new forms of dependency. Paying attention to the uneven nature of capitalist development and resulting antagonisms during this period, it explores why the NIF was unable to forge an integral hegemony, ending with the crisis of authority that overthrew Bashir and the emergence of social forces that continue to contest its cultural, political and economic project.
This paper examines the 1994 Declaration of Principles (DoP) for the resolution of the Sudanese civil war, adopted by the Inter‐Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD). This was the only occasion on which an African inter‐state organization included separation as an option for resolving a civil war. It was the basis for South Sudan's independence in 2011. The DoP was drafted by the Ethiopian government, and imposed on belligerent parties, both of which were, at the time, unionist. The paper identifies two concepts of self‐determination within the DoP— independence for colonial territories and the Marxist‐Leninist idea of self‐determination for national groups. The rationale for including both arose from Ethiopian leadership within IGAD. The paper also examines the diverse Sudanese debates on self‐determination, including several strands of nationalism, Islamism, and the ‘New Sudan’ of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM). There was radical disagreement among Sudanese on national identity and self‐determination, creating ambiguities that ironically facilitated the exercise in southern self‐determination in 2011. Drawing on documentation of Sudanese negotiations, the paper examines how the DoP unlocked the Sudanese debate on the issue, and how the different concepts fared up to the time of the independence of South Sudan.
Scholarship on the impact of Lenin’s thinking and on the Soviet Union’s relationships with Africa has emphasized two dimensions: on the one hand, the ideological imprint on and support provided to nationalist and anti-imperialist movements and, on the other, the emulation of communist techniques of authoritarian rule by many postcolonial governments. This paper highlights the neglected receptions of another major communist idea, namely, the ‘Leninist solution to the national question’, as embodied by the federal political model of the Soviet Union. The paper argues that many actors in different contexts, where the nationalities question had to be tackled with, showed a keen interest in the Leninist solution and in the sui generis federal model of the USSR. These contexts included the post-1945 French Union, as well as postcolonial countries such as Sudan, Nigeria, and Ethiopia. The Leninist alternative to the nation-state and to assimilation assumed a great deal of significance to minority groups. Nevertheless, it was rejected even by Marxist-inspired movements and elites which sought to create a nation-state. The paper uses the approach of cultural transfers to investigate and assess both the appeal and the limits in the reception of the Leninist federalist alternative.
A remarkable feature of the Southern Sudanese liberation movement during the First Sudanese Civil War was its use of anti-colonial discourse and tactics. Soon into their struggle, the Southern Sudanese came to depict their situation as colonisation by the Muslim-Arab elite in Khartoum. As this article argues, this adoption of anti-colonial identity was the outcome of Southern Sudanese interaction with neighbouring Arab and African first-generation liberation movements, through which the future leaders of the Southern Sudanese liberation movement observed and absorbed the practices used against European colonialism. When the Southern Sudanese launched their liberation struggle, these practices shaped their struggle.
South Sudan obtained independence in July 2011 as a kleptocracy – a militarized, corrupt neo-patrimonial system of governance.
By the time of independence, the South Sudanese “political marketplace” was so expensive that the country's comparatively
copious revenue was consumed by the military-political patronage system, with almost nothing left for public services, development
or institution building. The efforts of national technocrats and foreign donors produced bubbles of institutional integrity
but the system as a whole was entirely resistant to reform. The January 2012 shutdown of oil production bankrupted the system.
Even an experienced and talented political business manager would have struggled, and President Salva Kiir did not display
the required skills. No sooner had shots been fired than the compact holding the SPLA together fell apart and civil war ensued.
Drawing upon long-term observation of elite politics in South Sudan, this article explains both the roots of kleptocratic
government and its dire consequences.
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