Opposition.

Opposition hits headline in every person’ own mind than support
Is Dictatorship a natural tendency or that of peoples’ making?
By: Ateny Wek Ateny
As Christians, Lord Jesus Christ asked us to ‘love one another’ – he also went extreme by asking his disciples to love their enemies and to pray for them’(Matthew 5:44). As humans, commons sense dictate ‘ we loves those who loves us’ and abhor those who despise us. A Sudanese renowned Artist Saleh Ibin El Badiya composed a song that urges people not to be ‘too lenient to loves those who don’t love them’. In politics – ‘no permanent friend or permanent enemy’ which means ‘no permanent love or permanent abhorrence entertains in politics. You could be friends when your interests identifies together and be enemies when they fall-off – what a terrible field! Theoretically, churches embraces equality before God, and so as the politics embraces equality before the law. However, realities in each of the two may be different. Whether the Priest is equal to ordinary worshiper or the politician with the lay man in God and in the law, remain a very interesting story.
The most relevant loves here is political love. As complicated as it is, politics is a very interesting filed all together. The author would like to share his view about politics with as many penitential readers as possible. To be popular leader in politics you need as many supporters as possible. Most supporters may gives you their supports simply because they think you are representing their aspirations, others supports you for ‘shared interests’ or because of the notion of ‘the devil you know is better than the angel you don’t know’, or that you are better than nothing. Others and the few, gives their supports because you had had unequivocal recognition for them, or because you comes from their clan at the worse etc. But the most important part of these scenarios is – how do a given leader react to the support given to him/her? Does the leader have to give a reward to a given supporter/s for supporting him/her? If the leader had to give rewards for the support accorded to him/her by a given individual/groups, then how do he/she deals with his/her detractors or those who opposes him/her? As politicians or political leaders for that matter, do we have to alienate our detractors or to appease them is the best way? If we had to appease our detractors by providing them with inter alia, political positions or money so to relive them from money worries, should that appeasements be on the expenses of our supporters? Can we take our supporters for granted simply because they only support, and can’t oppose?
The above questions are not expected to be answered by a given leader – as this piece of writing is not meant to be personal against a given leader. Rather, my intention is to alert those who takes support for granted, or employing methods of appeasement to silent their detractors that the public knew what it takes to support or opposes them. However, principles should be the key in one’s own destiny. The world might be ‘interests-infested’, but there is a need not to move with the weather. Weather-moving politicians do not work for public good and so the Dictators wherever they may be.
In Sudan for instance, dictators had come and gone, some are on the way, or on the making. Dictatorship is define as ‘an autocratic form of government in which the government is ruled by an individual, the dictator, without hereditary ascension’. There are two main types of dictatorship; military dictatorship and secretarial Dictatorship. Notwithstanding, there are two causes of dictatorship; natural dictatorship, and this is found in natural tendency in a given person that embraces dictatorship. And the most dangerous dictatorship is what people makes. A given leader may not have necessary natural tendencies of a dictator, but opportunists politicians can make him/her to become one. During Pharaoh era in Ancient Egypt in the First Dynastic Period, some 3050 to 2890 BC the people of Egypt had thought Pharaoh Naqada III was not only King, but he was also the creator of mankind. This was done in an attempt to spare the lives of the people he was so merciless in killing them ‘ that a creator do not kill and you are the creator’. This kind of glorification went on time and again, until the Pharaoh conceived the idea and begun to address people as if he had in fact created them. He (the Pharaoh King) was once reported to have said in his speech to the people of Egypt “my people, when I created you I didn’t give you the same minds”. In fact God did not give people the same minds, but God was not Pharaoh Naqada III of Egypt, but shared fear or shared opportunism made the people of Egypt to have thought that way. Sudan had lived under both military and secretarial dictatorships since its independence from Anglo-Egyptian Condominium in 1956 – both of which did not benefit Sudan. Support was in fact the key to a given dictator, but opposition was either killed or given top reward. Turabi was rewarded by decreeing Sharia Laws in September 1983 by then President Jaafer Numeri.
Apart from devastating civil wars, Sudan had achieved nothing. However, this is because Sudan had never had any stable governments. Bad governance and discrimination had become the norms in Sudan – hence its produces ‘bad politicians’. Bad politics only produces bad politicians. No matter how long a given successive Khartoum’s regime had stayed in power, the style had been always similar – bad governance and glorifying of a leader. Of course, a leader in Islam is at the same time the Imam and no sensible Muslim dare to take the risk of opposing the Imam. The republican leader Mahmud Mohammed Taha lost his life because his teachings were opposed to the then Imam Ja’afer Numeri’s September laws. The list is long.
Southern Sudan is innocence until proven guilty. We had never saw good governance, we had no clue of what good governance is all about, we grew under bad governments, we had gained nothing under those bad regimes other than how to acquire wealth by all means. Southern Sudan is the victim of Sudan’s Imams. As dictators comes and go, they often identifies their cronies in Southern Sudan (who are not aware of Southernism) . The regimes in Khartoum taught us how to appeases our detractors (sometimes on expenses of our own supporters) if we had no mechanism to silent them. Albeit, we had the CPA (the mother of GoSS) – the most autonomous government to come to Southern Sudan since independence, Khartoum had continued to imposed itself as our ‘Invigilator’. We cannot fire or detain corrupt government official because Khartoum may use them against us, we cannot given Anti Corruption Commission full power to investigate and persecute corrupt officials for the same reason. We have to appease anyone because we are waiting for 2011. We need to be independent first before we begin to persecute ‘corrupt officials’. We do not need to know how much money does one earn monthly so as to build mansions, simply because Khartoum will intervene and use such person against us; we do not need to know how many cars a given official should own, and from which source! Simply because of the same reason. The more our President confirms his ‘Zero Tolerance on Corruption’, the more we see new millionaires officials emerging; the more the Inquiry Committees are formed to probe on matters related to corruption, the more we see the corrupt officials celebrating their innocents. All these matters ends in appeasement on the expense of an innocents Southern Sudanese simply because we fear exposing corrupt officials being exposed for the same reasons above – Khartoum may use the exposed corrupt official. Good things happens and we say well-done to the given leader; and bad things also happens and because we had no power to question, or we are opportunist – we can also say – well-done for good things. Always in the third world politics everything is good so long as the doer is someone with some powers in his hands. Third politics does not entertain the fact that powers are drawn from peoples.
In conclusion, given the above facts, the bigger problem does not lies with our leaders, rather it is our ignorant of what as people are our rights. We are divided between those who betray for living, and those who support to live, and those who in pursuit of their principles can only support what is right in a given situation and condemn what is wrong in another. Like law, politics is too dynamic. What is seen to be right today in politic, can tomorrow be false. Situation is the master of politic and so in the law . Lawmakers can legislate on given behaviour to become criminal, and can (after sometimes the same behaviour may revert to no crime. So as human, we need to support as an appreciation for the job well-done, but must oppose as we are dissatisfied in things that do not meet our expectation. However, opposition is seriously taken than support. As we get more frustrated when we hear our detractors talking badly about us, we often had a nice sleep when someone is said to be praising us. And when the time comes for us to see whether we can give reward in return, we can simply say ‘so-and-so loves me and he/she talks good things about me’ – so how what can I do to him/her! The thinking on how to reward do not live for long before the one who the privileges of being supported start to sleep with nothing about the supporter. In Contrast, opposition however it may be can quickly get to the mind of someone being opposed and often do not allow him/her to have good sleep. In our lives, we think how to rid ourselves of detractors by all means, but when those means do not materialised, we better appease our detractors to keep quite – leaving our supporters to rot in hell. God loves those who worships him and abhor Satan, but the opposite is true with political gurus.
The author is Southern Sudanese Citizen living in Juba, and a delegate to SPLM 2nd National Convention, he could be reach by either of the two e-mails addresses; atenywek@hotmail. com and atenywekateny@ yahoo.co. uk or by the following phones; 0911212517, or 0477111508