Richard
10-22-2009, 06:54
Something to think about. :confused:
Richard
What if the President of Sudan is Arrested?
Glen Segell, CCC, Aug 2009
Part 1 of 2
The President of Sudan Omar Hassan El-Bashir faces an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on March 4, 2009. The author resided in Sudan from September 2007 until recently and during this period he interviewed both the President and the Leader of the Opposition. This viewpoint considers if Sudan under a leader subsequent to President of Sudan Omar Hassan El-Bashir will be substantially different should the current President be ousted from rule. Putting together this complex answer is like a jigsaw puzzle and requires a deep understanding of Sudanese history, religion and its position in the region as well as considering the role of individuals.
Firstly, the President is a dictator in the same style of other dictators in Africa and in the Middle East. Namely the President is a person who seeks power without a limited term of office, a person who seeks to hold absolute authority within a sovereign state and a person who seeks to change the world around him to reflect his power. Leaving a personal legacy is all important for such dictators. Legacy leaving activities of dictators, for example in Europe, shows an intense desire to leave a legacy of rule through grandiose architectural construction or through images (monuments and statues). In the case of North Africa and the Middle East, where Islam is the dominant religion frowning on images and where materialism is less prevalent than in Europe, there is less of a tendency for such a material legacy. In the case of Sudan, Islamization of the state and its population has been pursued by subsequent rulers as legacy leaving, some more ardent that others.
This fits well with the Islamic religion as it is a missionary religion. It also fits well in a perception that Sudan and indeed its leader will grow in status amongst other Islamic states (such as Saudi Arabia), that the President will have a legacy on earth being respected by not only its own population as a popular leader but by Muslims around the world and that he will be well received after death as being a righteous person. So the introduction of Sharia Law in 1983 by the previous President Gaafar Nimeiry and then the 1989 revolution by the current President that created an Islamist Republic in the Sudan (the first in the Sunni Muslim world) were both in this grain. So the path of Islamization as a policy and as a legacy was already set for Bashir.
This was furthered ingrained by his co-revolutionary (and relative) and the ideologue of the national Islamic Front party Dr. Hassan el-Turabi, who is now the leader of the opposition. Dr. Hassan el-Turabi as the leader of the opposition is seen locally as following the same Islamic path as the President and is likely to continue the same activities that have given cause for the ICC arrest warrant against the President. These activities in the decade after the 1989 revolution, were severe repression, including purges and executions in the upper ranks of the army, the banning of associations, political parties, and independent newspapers and the imprisonment of leading political figures and journalists. Torture became widespread, especially in the south where non-Muslim women were raped, and their children taken from them. There was also an ongoing civil war between the predominately Muslim north and the predominately Christian south, and on-off conflicts with neighboring state of Chad, Libya, Congo, and Uganda and even an alleged attempt to assassinate the President of Egypt.
By 2003 the Islamization of Sudan entered a new phase that involved the three states consisting the province of Darfur. The President has been accused of directly or indirectly through the use of militia of using violence against the population of Darfur. This has led the Darfur population to leave their homes, become refugees by crossing into neighboring countries, or become Internally Displaced People (IDP). The President and the Leader of the Opposition both see this as part of their duties as a Muslim while the President sees this as part of his lasting legacy. The President's understanding, from the reading of the Koran, is that Islam offers non-Muslims a choice: convert to being a Muslim which in its literal translation is offering yourself to a single god—known as Allah, paying a sum not to convert and therefore being permitted to believe in and to follow what you want or thirdly to face the consequences that are not described in any particular manner. The President also quotes writings of Mohammed that state that Islam will rise as the dominant world religion but not from the historical center (today Saudi Arabia) but rather from the periphery.
Combined such understandings of Islamic writings, that could be interpreted otherwise, have led the President to believe that Sudan under his rule is the base for the rise of a new and great world Islam where the people of Darfur must consent. The President believes that his actions in general and specifically in Darfur will offer Sudan a legacy of fulfilling the agenic dignity of global missionary Islam. Because such activities in Darfur are done so in the name of Islam other leaders in the region and the Islamic world at large have chosen not to challenge him. The Leader of the Opposition, Turabi has also chosen not to challenge the President about Darfur, mainly because he was the ideologue responsible and also because he is a relative.
Such closeness in authorities of those in power and those in opposition is no different from other states in North Africa and the Middle East and offers the question if anything will change should the President leave office due to the ICC arrest warrant. In a sense it is actually no different from the Royal families of Europe where succession is guaranteed through a family blood line. Following the Islamic tradition of four wives and an extended family of three generations given that the President has been in power for twenty years, his direct supporters and indeed the country's bureaucratic system is controlled by close family ties approximating 4,000 people. The President has also expanded this system by granting favors to other families within his own tribe and those of tribes who follow him.
Richard
What if the President of Sudan is Arrested?
Glen Segell, CCC, Aug 2009
Part 1 of 2
The President of Sudan Omar Hassan El-Bashir faces an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on March 4, 2009. The author resided in Sudan from September 2007 until recently and during this period he interviewed both the President and the Leader of the Opposition. This viewpoint considers if Sudan under a leader subsequent to President of Sudan Omar Hassan El-Bashir will be substantially different should the current President be ousted from rule. Putting together this complex answer is like a jigsaw puzzle and requires a deep understanding of Sudanese history, religion and its position in the region as well as considering the role of individuals.
Firstly, the President is a dictator in the same style of other dictators in Africa and in the Middle East. Namely the President is a person who seeks power without a limited term of office, a person who seeks to hold absolute authority within a sovereign state and a person who seeks to change the world around him to reflect his power. Leaving a personal legacy is all important for such dictators. Legacy leaving activities of dictators, for example in Europe, shows an intense desire to leave a legacy of rule through grandiose architectural construction or through images (monuments and statues). In the case of North Africa and the Middle East, where Islam is the dominant religion frowning on images and where materialism is less prevalent than in Europe, there is less of a tendency for such a material legacy. In the case of Sudan, Islamization of the state and its population has been pursued by subsequent rulers as legacy leaving, some more ardent that others.
This fits well with the Islamic religion as it is a missionary religion. It also fits well in a perception that Sudan and indeed its leader will grow in status amongst other Islamic states (such as Saudi Arabia), that the President will have a legacy on earth being respected by not only its own population as a popular leader but by Muslims around the world and that he will be well received after death as being a righteous person. So the introduction of Sharia Law in 1983 by the previous President Gaafar Nimeiry and then the 1989 revolution by the current President that created an Islamist Republic in the Sudan (the first in the Sunni Muslim world) were both in this grain. So the path of Islamization as a policy and as a legacy was already set for Bashir.
This was furthered ingrained by his co-revolutionary (and relative) and the ideologue of the national Islamic Front party Dr. Hassan el-Turabi, who is now the leader of the opposition. Dr. Hassan el-Turabi as the leader of the opposition is seen locally as following the same Islamic path as the President and is likely to continue the same activities that have given cause for the ICC arrest warrant against the President. These activities in the decade after the 1989 revolution, were severe repression, including purges and executions in the upper ranks of the army, the banning of associations, political parties, and independent newspapers and the imprisonment of leading political figures and journalists. Torture became widespread, especially in the south where non-Muslim women were raped, and their children taken from them. There was also an ongoing civil war between the predominately Muslim north and the predominately Christian south, and on-off conflicts with neighboring state of Chad, Libya, Congo, and Uganda and even an alleged attempt to assassinate the President of Egypt.
By 2003 the Islamization of Sudan entered a new phase that involved the three states consisting the province of Darfur. The President has been accused of directly or indirectly through the use of militia of using violence against the population of Darfur. This has led the Darfur population to leave their homes, become refugees by crossing into neighboring countries, or become Internally Displaced People (IDP). The President and the Leader of the Opposition both see this as part of their duties as a Muslim while the President sees this as part of his lasting legacy. The President's understanding, from the reading of the Koran, is that Islam offers non-Muslims a choice: convert to being a Muslim which in its literal translation is offering yourself to a single god—known as Allah, paying a sum not to convert and therefore being permitted to believe in and to follow what you want or thirdly to face the consequences that are not described in any particular manner. The President also quotes writings of Mohammed that state that Islam will rise as the dominant world religion but not from the historical center (today Saudi Arabia) but rather from the periphery.
Combined such understandings of Islamic writings, that could be interpreted otherwise, have led the President to believe that Sudan under his rule is the base for the rise of a new and great world Islam where the people of Darfur must consent. The President believes that his actions in general and specifically in Darfur will offer Sudan a legacy of fulfilling the agenic dignity of global missionary Islam. Because such activities in Darfur are done so in the name of Islam other leaders in the region and the Islamic world at large have chosen not to challenge him. The Leader of the Opposition, Turabi has also chosen not to challenge the President about Darfur, mainly because he was the ideologue responsible and also because he is a relative.
Such closeness in authorities of those in power and those in opposition is no different from other states in North Africa and the Middle East and offers the question if anything will change should the President leave office due to the ICC arrest warrant. In a sense it is actually no different from the Royal families of Europe where succession is guaranteed through a family blood line. Following the Islamic tradition of four wives and an extended family of three generations given that the President has been in power for twenty years, his direct supporters and indeed the country's bureaucratic system is controlled by close family ties approximating 4,000 people. The President has also expanded this system by granting favors to other families within his own tribe and those of tribes who follow him.