رسالة إلى مؤتمري الشيوعي والحركة…وحدة مهمشي الريف والمدن هي المخرج الوحيد

El Bagir

Thanks .. I was not referring to daily or the mundane. I took into account the outcome from the long and dismal years of the NDA and now under the CPA, all of which leads me to conclude that there is little chance the two can manage to forge a sincere working relationship let alone an alliance as long as nationalist aspirations are pursued to the exclusion of democracy

A working relationship and/or a potential alliance do require clear terms of reference, open communication, as well as working together. I am not sure any of the aforementioned exists in the present relationship between the SPLM and the SCP

Democracy as I referred to it is a requirement for sustainable change. The Struggle to democratize the Sudanese State as well as our cultures is an impetus for enduring change because it involves an enterprise that is designed to liberate as well as forge a common destiny for all the masses

By contrast, working, deliberately, toward other political outcomes dictates that the issue of democracy be deferred; making any attempts to empower the Sudanese masses an exercise in futility due disjointed action, extemporization, and at times sheer malice tinged with unwarranted arrogance

Change has occurred in all social formations within the Sudan, I am unsure if any political player has taken it all onboard and is working from reality rather than some bias for precipitated by dogma. I do, however, try to view the struggle in the margin as two-tiered process: the first involves empowering the masses of the margins; while the second has more to do with empowering their elites to govern them without much focus on a verifiable popular mandate beyond the obvious instruments of coercion. It is here that the nexus between meeting nationalist aspirations (at any cost) and democracy (empowerment) is either severed or weakened. This tenuous situation is a function of framing the whole struggle as an enterprise against the Center .. as if the elites in the margin are assumed to be more beneficent when it comes to entitlements than their counterparts at the Center who have also sabotaged the process of empowering the masses after independence

In theory the upcoming elections offer us a great chance to move forward, but the mere lack of political coordination and SPLM indifference (NCP compared to any other) along with the legacy of undemocratic laws and fiasco over the census and election law all point to a decidedly poor outcome or at least more of the status quo