Event Transcript
Religion, Nationalism, and Peace in Sudan

U.S. Institute of Peace Conference
Tuesday, September 16, 1997

Panel One: Islam and Islamization in Sudan

Speaker: Mohammed Mahmoud, Tufts University
Speaker: Abdelwahab El-Affendi, University of Westminster
Respondent: Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban, Rhode Island College

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Thank you very much, indeed, Francis. We appreciate those remarks deeply. The situation is this. I had hoped to give us a little break here because we have a long morning, but Mr. Mahmoud, Mohammed Mahmoud, who is our first speaker in the first panel, has got to leave by 11:10; is that correct?

MR. MAHMOUD: Or even before.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Or even before. So we need to move quickly into his remarks, give him a chance to say what he wishes, and at a certain later point I'll make sure that we all get a chance to stand up and stretch. So without further ado, let me now introduce the first panel, Islam and Islamization in Sudan, in which obviously we're trying to begin to get clear on the so-called Islamic agenda in Sudan, what it means, what its parts are, where it is going, and to enable us to begin to get some clarity on this, we've asked Mr. Mohammed Mahmoud and Mr. El-Affendi to lead off our discussion. I'm not going to introduce these people at length. There are biographies printed for your perusal, and you can find out about these people on your own time. Mr. Mahmoud.

MR. MAHMOUD: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. David Little. I would like to thank the U.S. Institute for Peace for holding this conference on religion, nationalism, and peace in Sudan. I'm sure this conference means a lot for Sudanese in Sudan and for Sudanese in exile, for whom the issue of peace means a lot.

Since the topic of this session, Islam and Islamization in Sudan, is an enormous and ramified one, I propose to focus on it through the example of the Islamic National Front in Sudan to which I refer by the more widely used acronym, NIF, rather than the more accurate INF, or simply as "the movement."

The focus of the NIF or the INF -- sorry -- the focus on the NIF is warranted by the fact that it has been the most vociferous body since the mid-1960s in propagating the cause of what has come to be labeled as Islamism. I will use the term "Islamism" in a set of Islamic fundamentalism, and I will refer to the adherents of the NIF as Islamists. Islamism and Islamization are inextricably bound up in a relationship where Islamism is an ideological cause, and Islamization is an adoption of practices and symbols that are perceived to embody the imperatives of ideology.

The political achievement of the Sudanese Islamists in the past two and a half decades is certainly impressive. The achievement resulted from an interplay of a subjective factor pertaining to the movement's nature and an objective factor relating to the overall context within which it operated. On the subjective level, the movement succeeded in virtually appropriating the discourse of Islamic revival, while adopting a position of unscrupulous pragmatism. On the objective level, the movement made maximum use of the intrinsic weakness of the country's institutions that were further undermined by the pernicious role played by the military regimes of Abraham Abboud from 1958 to 1964 and Jacques Nimieri from 1969 to 1985. The nature of the movement's discourse in its formative period was decisively shaped by its student origins. As a student activist engaged in endless ideological disputes against the student left, the Islamist vision came to be highly influenced by their adversaries. They were bound to share that vehement hostility suppressed by the educated class, and in particular the left against "thoafia" (phonetic), or the sectarian division between the Khattmiya and the Ansar, who have been the major players in the country's political life since independence.

Another important force against which the Islams had to contend was that of popular Islam, particularly in Sufi Brotherhood's manifestation. As such, the Islamists were keen to project themselves as representatives and guardians of authentic Islam, on one hand, and as proponents of an Islamic dynamism, Harake Islamia (phonetic), that was fully compatible with the forced independence, aspirational drive for change and progress, on the other hand. Historically, the Sudanese Islamist movement started as an integral part of the ideological space created by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. The Sudanese movement did not produce its own thinkers' formulations and relied entirely on the Egyptian movement.

It was Hassan Al-Turabi who almost single handedly changed the movement's nature and its course of action. On the even of Jacques Nimieri's coup d'etat of May 1969, the movement was on the bring of a major split between a trend that wanted to stress its religious and educational nature, and a trend led by Turabi who wished to lay more emphasis on its political and activist nature.

Official Islam (inaudible) of the history of this period overstress the victimization of the movement at the hands of Nimieri's regime, but it is important to bear in mind the overall complex context within which the Islamist movement played a significantly indirect role in generating a chain of reactions that led to the 1969 coup.

The Islamist aggressive drive leading to the dissolution of the Sudanese Communist Party in 1965 and the expulsion of its representatives from the Consistent (phonetic) Assembly and their relentless pressures on the traditional parties to adopt an Islamic constitution helped create the ferment that led to Nimieri's coup.

Neither the left nor the Islamists were committed to democracy and pluralism, but the new and alarming development in the period 1964-1969 was that the commitment of traditional parties to democracy was breaking down under the pressure of the exclusivist vision and program of the Islamists. They allowed themselves to be pulled into the welter of Islamism and Islamization. Because of the essentially anti-democratic nature of the Islamist movement, it didn't have the slightest (inaudible) about making its peace with the Nimieri regime in the late 1970s and aligning itself with its institutions and policies.

By this time the struggle for the soul of the Islamist movement was resolved in favor of Turabi's line. Indeed, the entire movement came to be molded in his image, assuming a pragmatic, calculating, and ruthless character. However, it is important to bear in mind that the reconciliation, the movement forward with Nimieri's regime didn't mean that it renounced its independent Islamist agenda. The calculation was simple: to (inaudible) the regimes and institutions and to push it toward more and more Islamization.

Another crucial aspect of this invasive and gradualist strategy was the development of a formidable economic foundation based on the Islamist formula of Islamic banking and investment. Thus, the movement was gradually laying the foundations of breaking through the confines of its hitherto "illitist" (phonetic) confines, the goal toward which its work was to acquire a broader social base. The most conspicuous symbols of Islamism in Nimieri's mid-1970s were the ever increasing branches of the (inaudible) Bank and the growing numbers of young men putting on the hijab or the Islamist discourse.

The Islamist gradualist strategy of infiltration paid off, and the culminating point came in September 1983 when Nimieri's regime adopted the most salient feature of the Islamist program, i.e., the promulgation and immediate implementation of Sharia.

Public and private spaces were taken over literally overnight and whipped into a frenzied state of Sharia hysteria. The only thing is that the whipping was not metaphorical in this case, but agonizingly literal. Scores of citizens, mostly from the underclasses and the marginalized groups who lived in an abject state of urban destitution, lost their limbs and were reduced to lifelong disability and stigmatization.

Hundreds were subjected to the cruel humiliation of public flogging, and one citizen, Mahmoud Ahmed Taha was to be publicly executed, accused of apostasy. His disciples were to be subjected in the threat of death to a most humiliating ritual of public recounting.

This Sharia frenzy reached its crescendo with the imposition of emergency and the execution of Mahmoud Ahmed Taha symbolized the drive's ultimate bankruptcy. The memories of Sudanese citizens of this period are very traumatic and bleak. Since then the word "Sharia" does no long conjure emotive Islamist images of a political community living in the bosom of divine order and favor, but rather generates images of extreme brutality and humiliation.

When Nimieri realized that the implementation of Sharia couldn't provide his regime with a new lease on life and that, on the contrary, it led to adverse unpopularity at home and abroad, he decisively embarked on distancing himself from Sharia and paving the way toward its abolition. He accused the Islamists of conspiring to topple his regime and locked them up before his fateful trip to Washington, of all places, in March 1985.

The period from 1985 to 1989 was dominated by the escalation of the civil war, on one hand, and the debate on Sharia, on the other hand. Sharia (inaudible) for penal suppression became the most divisive issue. The Islamists in the new NIF incarnation staked their political fortunes on the defense of Sharia as an irreversible gain.

This was a time when Mahdi's mandate provided him with a golden opportunity to repeal Sharia. He didn't. This is commonly attributed to what has been perceived as Mahade's typical indecisiveness, but I don't think this applies in this particular case. Mahade was, is equally committed to an Islamist program, Islamization, and the implementation of Sharia on its (inaudible). What Mahade promised his electorate were what we describe as alternative laws. These alternative laws were eventually drafted by Turabi, a joint venture between the UMA Party and the NIF, offering a version that was imbedded in a more conservative interpretation of Sharia.

It is important to note that the two major achievements in the development of the Islamist movement, namely, the creation of an economic base and the imposition of Sharia, were realized under Nimieri's undemocratic regime. The subsequent democratic context of 1985-1989 poses a potentially (inaudible) to both achievements.

The coup d'etat of June 1989 was the NIF's response to the challenge of democracy. According to the regime's official position, the seizure of power marks the end of democracy in Sudan and may surely be read as the end of history in Sudan and the rest of the world as far as the Islamist region is concerned, for Islamism has got its own version of the end of history. Islamism sees history in salvation terms, in terms of a position between the sacred and the anti-sacred, in terms of a ceaseless battle between God and Satan.

This has to be taken immensely seriously for it is at the direct root of very serious acts, such as the genocidal war waged by Sudan's Islamists or the hideous crimes perpetrated by Algerian Islamists or the banishing away of women from public space declared by Afghanistan's Islamists. The June 1989 coup was a turning point for the Islamists. When they took power by force, the Islamists didn't just institute a regime lacking in legitimacy, but they also committed themselves to continued use of force that kept intensifying and expanding.

This led to a radical change in the nature of the movement from a civilian movement to a militarized movement. When Turabi states that the NIF has been dissolved after the coup, the statement is on level accurate for the NIF has vanished as a civilian political party, to be reconstituted as the Popular Defense Forces, the regime's permanent army and (inaudible). But it would, of course, have been naive to accept the first Turabi claim that the Islamists are not the half of the current regime determining its orientation and shaping its policies.

As the various aspects of Islamization of the current regime, I would like to focus on two key ones, the position vis-a-vis the south and Sharia. In justifying its existence and trying to invest itself with legitimacy, the regime made the conflict in the south its rallying point. The conflict was immediately Islamized and thrust upon northern public imagination as jihad. Of the Islamic images, this is the one that has to be taken more seriously for it can lead to devastating results. In the case of the post-1989 Sudan, this image has actually led to the most tragic trail of suffering and misery.

Jihad, whether in its classical or modern forms, is not only a self-defense, is not only a war of self-defense, but it can also be an aggression against others for the cause of expanding the realm of Islam. In its aggressive form, jihad is a negation of the other, a negation that can lead to annihilation, at best subjugation.

This jihad, this projection of the regime's confrontation generated its corollary image of the shahid martyr. Those who die in the south on the regime side attain instant martyrdom. The regime went on and constructed its own brand of it scatology. These martyrs go straight into paradise, and their weddings to (inaudible) to each martyr are formally announced and celebrated by Islamists in the center of the modest family and overwhelm them with acceptance.

But this scatology aside, let me concentrate on the more immediate and pressing issue of prisoners of war in a jihad war. According to the classical formulations of Sharia and to Islamic practice, prisoners of war were either released unconditionally or ransomed or enslaved or killed. The particular course of action to be taken is entirely left to the discretion of those in charge. Islamic sources tell us that within a batch of prisoners of war, different measures could be applied.

As we know, the war in the south has, on the whole, be a war without prisoners as far as successive governments were concerned. The army has selectively committed gross human rights violations against civilians and prisoners of war.

The legal implications of proclaiming this war as jihad are very serious indeed for the government can enslave its prisoners of war or kill them as Sharia sanctioned options, and needless to say, these are aspects of Sharia that run counter to international human rights norms and not even mentioned, they're allowed to revive them.

It is true that the current regime has not gone on record as condoning these aspects of Sharia, but it is equally true that it has not disassociated itself from them.

It is in the light of jihad and legal implications that I try to (inaudible). It is in the light of jihad and its legal implications that one has to take the reports about the (inaudible) practices that is the issue.

When we think of Sharia we know that the current March 1991 penal code is based on a former code drafted by Turabi in 1988 in his capacity as a (inaudible). The main features of the 1991 penal code are, number one, placing limitations on the status of women, who are treated as legal minors, such as in the case of giving evidence in court. Number two, placing limitations on the status of non-Muslims who are reduced to second class citizens.

Number three, the implementation of cruel penalties, such as stoning for adultery, amputation, of course, amputation for certain types of theft, and flogging for a wide variety of offenses.

Number four, the institution of apostasy as a capital offense. And five, the institution of the principle of retaliation, an eye for an eye. Islamists have defended the implementation of Sharia as a matter of religious or cultural self-determination. Two points may be raised in connection with this. The first point is that religious or cultural self-determination should not bind the self-determination of others, such as women or non-Muslims. The second point is Sharia as a penal code has been imposed in 1983 and reimposed in 1991 by unrepresentative military regimes, and there is no evidence that the majority of Muslims in the north are attached to its stipulations more than the secular code that had prevailed before.

It is important to note in this connection that the power of Sharia which had been in place before the penal code, namely, the personal status law, was increasingly coming under pressure to be reformed in a manner that was less discriminatory against Sudanese.

What should further be underlined is that the store of Sharia since September 1983 has not been a success story. Social ills have not disappeared because Sharia is in place, and the utopian Islamist conviction that the notion of Sharia would shower the Sudanese with divine favor and turn the country into a modern paradise has not been borne out. The failure of Sharia is part of the broader failure, namely, the failure of the Islamist model as of an Islamic revival. Whether in power or out of power, Islamism is going through a tremendously acute crisis. When Islamists are in power, the crisis is more evident, but unfortunately, the cost the nations have to pay is immensely horrendous.

The end of the current regime would most likely be followed by the separation of the south. If that event takes place, it would be the most saddening and tormenting symbol of the failure of the Sudanese to live up to the challenge of their nation. Whether Sudan remains a united country or divides or even fragments, it would be unrealistic to assume that the end of the current regime would automatically mean the end of Islamism as a political or social force in northern Sudan. Islamism is likely to be around for some time, and Sudanese democracy has to find peaceful ways of negotiating its presence. The most potent forces within northern Sudan which can effectively come to Islamism and liberate other Muslims from its exclusivist discourse are the vibrancy of pluralism and the inherent tolerance of Sudanese Islam.

Social changes within Sudan, the spread of education, and the impact of the perversive forces of secularization and globalization are among the most powerful dynamics that are likely to shrink Islamic space. Some Islamists who were realistic enough to realize that this regime is bound to go have suggested an Islamist alternative whereby Sharia is recognized as a matter of national consensus and whereby all political forces operate within an Islamic framework.

This model hasn't worked in Iran, and it's unlikely to work in Sudan. Sharia cannot be at the heart of national consensus because of the discredited measures it establishes and because it is subject to conflicting interpretations by citizens who claim to be equally committed to Islam. The only conceivable point of national consensus is democracy. Democracy can provide the framework within which Sudanese citizens, irrespective of their religions or gender or social or even backgrounds, can engage in peaceful and meaningful negotiation. Islamists have always insisted that Islam is the solution. This hasn't worked, and the Islamist adventure had led the country into its most frightful disasters since independence. I believe that for the vast majority of citizens in the north and the south, the solution lies in the direction of democracy. I thank you very much. (Applause.)

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Thank you very much, Mr. Mahmoud. You have got to leave what, right now or do you have --

MR. MAHMOUD: Right now because my taxi is waiting outside.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: You don't have five minutes even. Right. Well, I was going to open the floor for questions and comments, but --

MR. MAHMOUD: I would love to, but my plane is leaving.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: I understand, yes. You are under certain constraints. Well, thank you very much, indeed, for participating, and we appreciate your contribution.
Well, then let us proceed to call upon Mr. El-Affendi from the University of Westminster in England to provide some other, slightly different perspective on the NIF situation and the Islamic program in Sudan.

MR. EL-AFFENDI: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and my thanks to the Peace Institute for organizing this meeting, and we appreciate very much that the audience has taken the trouble to come here, and I hope they will be rewarded, but I am not sure.

A few months back it was really the (inaudible) to the north, and was particularly attracted by a conversation, the first conversation between the protagonists, Mr. Said and Inerika (phonetic). Said came to the village after studying in England and specialized in agriculture, said to him, "We don't need agriculturalists here. We need doctors," and this is not what caused resentment then. What caused the resentment was the use of the "we" by Mr. Al Fah Said because he was a stranger to the village, but he was some stranger who assimilated himself in the village and became one citizen in a way which the narrator could no longer be because the person was being educated abroad. It is difficult for him to reintegrate into the community.

And I think this passage probably sums up the central theme of that novel as the impossible dream or impossible fantasy of trying to reintegrate the modern educated man into the village traditional life as if nothing has happened before, as if he has not tested the forbidden truth of knowledge and been checked out from this paradise.
And the relevance of this point to things are twofold. First, social analysts who try to look at the way the inclined tradition in modern societies took place, some of them also tried to look at the progress of secularization in terms of what they call change from community to society, with community being the traditional, close knit kind of kin related community or society, and society being the more broad oriented type.

And if we look at Sudan, we find that it is of the kind where community -- one of the few countries in the world where community life is very strong, indeed, and if we look at Khartoum, we find that is a very large village as it has been since its inception.

The second, that the dilemma of the modernized elite in the face of this reality has been intense and has expressed itself sometimes into fantasies of reintegration like the one Sali tries to portray and vindictive vandalism directed against the traditional communal life.

Now, the modern Islamist, and in the elite I include the modern Islamist because they are no different from other modern educated elite in that they have tasted, as I said, the forbidden knowledge, fruit of truth, of knowledge, and they are also alienated from the traditional society.

And in this regard I'd like to revise John Voll's topology where he tries to characterize Islamic revivalism in two types. One is called message oriented where the emphasis on the text or on the message as a permanently existing entity, as he said, which he looks -- uses (inaudible) as an epitomogy (phonetic), and the man oriented revivalism of which Mahadism is a type, and I'm going to suggest a new type which, for want of a better term, I'd call the secular Islamism movement, and I discussed this earlier with someone, but the essence of it is that modern Islamism (inaudible) has been concerned mainly with the decline of forces of Muslim communities rather than deviation from religious teachings.
For Haman Abdu Mahati, for example, it doesn't matter Sudan or the Muslim world at that time was prosperous or was strong in relation to Europe. This was not a problem for him. The problem for him was that there was deviation from religion, and he actually said to his followers in one of his statements that, "I came to preach the ruin of this world and the reestablishment of the second." There was no promises of any worldly advance.

For Sergio Madil and Haman Abdu and the Islamists, this was not the problem. The problem was that the Muslim communities had declined and they have to be revived.

And the Muslim Brotherhood led by Hassan Al-Bama was ambivalent about this because Al-Bama himself was also intensely religious and of a Sufi orientation, but the movement he has created was objectively conditioned by its own organization as economic ventures and as a secret military link which has its own logic and actually went out of control very soon.

Now, the secularization for religious movement itself is not unique. I mean if you look, for example, at the way the judge (phonetic) of England operates, for example, we find that some aspects of activities are not related to religion like the investments which they use, and if you are investing, if you have lands and you could rent it to or sell it to a Muslim or, God forbid, to a Catholic and earn the money from that, and then it doesn't matter who rents your property.
And sometimes this also leads to conflict, like when the judge of England invested in Apartheid in South Africa. So not only were the values divorced from the practice. Sometimes they competed with the practice.
Now, the Nomen (phonetic) Muslim looking at the (inaudible) is different, slightly different, and one of its examples in Sudan is the transformation of the Mahadis movement at the same of Seda Machman Mahade because the Mahadis movement, as I said, was quite other worldly interest and orientation and also emphasized jahid and had no way of compromising with the powers that be.

But after the disastrous defeat, Seda Machman Mahade successful transformed the movement ideologically and also politically and assured not only survival, but its actually flourishing, and this was built on very delicate compromises which tried to allow this ideology to be in the background. It did not renounce ideologic Mahadism, but delicately moved it to the background as what in Marxist parlance would be determination in the last instance, which to quote Abdu Sersais, this last instance may never come.

But there was a tension in the movement remaining, as you know. There was some outbreaks of violence religiously motivated several times in 1961 and '70 and '54 and '76, but as a movement the successful transformation meant that its survival was not dependent on this ideology, but on other things like its alliances with the British, its financial situation, its organizational capabilities.

Now, the modern Islam movement, about which Mohammed Mahmoud has spoken in a lot of detail, was move in this line. In fairness, it was fragmentist, but it did not go as far as create this divorce between value and practice until 1977. That is when the alliance which was made was declared. At that time there was an agreement which allowed the movement to subscribe to secular constitution, the one-party state, but the ideology was not revised to accommodate this fact.

Actually there was a pretense that the collaboration did not exist, and ideology went as it was. The situation has put its imprint on the Islamization program which Nimieri announced in 1983, and although Nimieri at that time was in a Mahadist type mood and the influence of Sufi advisors, he was also sober enough to say quite explicitly that when Islamic values conflicted with the survival of the regime, he would unequivocally put the survival of the regime first, and he actually said in one of his speeches that Islam counsels that people should not look into people's houses, but we will look into people's houses if we have to.

Now, the situation also reached its climax with the advent of the current government the following 1989 because if the military government had premeditated this program at the beginning, then it had then it's best to keep it a secret. It was no benefit, and the communiques and actually they treated all statements that was an Islamist regime as an accusation which is denied.

The only language which has been used was the language of Tangst and Gunst (phonetic) and the crisp language of literary decrees.

This situation, as I said, does not mean that the government did not have an Islamist program. It just meant that it divorced the methods of implementing this program from the program itself. The way of controls had nothing to do and were not directly related to Islam. It was a military coup; it was a military regime, and then it had a program of the verities (phonetic).

Now, this model has nothing like it in previous Islam history, but if we like to look at the ideological justification for it, we could look at the Ayotola Khomenii's doctrine of the absolute jurisdiction of the jurist, which he enunciated in early 1988. That doctrine said that if the survival of the Islamic state was at risk or that the survival of the Islamic state if such were to come into existence, the absolute value to which all other values, including specific religious teachings, must be subordinated.

According to this doctrine then Nimieri had been right all along. If God and his prophet advised against peeking into people's homes, but such an act to save God's favored regime, then the Almighty would understand if his advice was ignored in this particular instance.

There is a logic to this position, but it soon turns into a paradox because the question is: supposing that there was a Muslim community or the only Muslim community or the only religious community in existence and it has to be safeguarded by emergency measures which conflicted with Islamic values. Then to what extent does this community remain Islamic and remain worth preserving when it deviates from all Islamic values or from certain Islamic values? In other words, when do we draw the line? When does the last instance ever come?

And what kind of community can present itself and still be worth preserving? The situation throw general dilemmas and problems I do not pretend to resolve or even to go into here. There are two sides to this question.

First of all, if this pragmatism endows the Islamic program with flexibility which could allow for compromise, as happened in the Mahadist case and is happening actually now with this government, the alliance, for example, they are entering into with southern groups, with groups from outside other countries show great flexibility.

On the other hand, there is a problem and limit to this because if you go back to Voll's topology I gave, you find that these secular Islamization movements have to be man oriented rather than message oriented, and in this regard even the existing other examples of this, if you look at Saudi Arabia or Moroccan kingdom where you have a religiously mated monarchy but which is, in essence, more or less secular in its orientation, it tends to be challenged from below by people who are accusing it of deviating from the message or the legitimization of its faith, and this has happened in Sudan at the moment.

There are many groups who have emerged as a result of the Islamization who are challenging the regime.
On the other hand, the central problem with regard to this issue is that there is a real danger that the elasticity of principles implied in the conduct and thought of these movements could drag people into an area of moral vacuum with debilitating consequences. The knowledge of communistic experience suggests itself to the mind at this juncture, and the help presented by capitalism and the paradise promised by communism some people succeed in carving for themselves, and this way everything was permissible.

We know enough about that transitional zone to recommend alternative routes of travel.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Thank you very much, indeed.
(Applause.)

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: And now by way of response I'll call upon Professor Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban to make a few remarks.

PROFESSOR FLUEHR-LOBBAN: Good morning. Can you hear me? It doesn't sound as though I can be heard.
-- U.S. Institute of Peace and the forum that this provides for the necessary dialogue which must take place for the creation of a new Sudanese politics, and I respect very much both gentlemen who have presented this morning. They are both highly regarded scholars, and I hope you will take my commentary in the spirit of the dialogue for which the stage has been set this morning.

I am not Sudanese, as you might be able to tell by both my accent and my appearance, but I have a deep attachment to the country and a deep love for its people, all of its people.
Let me begin by saying -- in the Sudan and to this era in an enlightened and very specific interpretation about the institution of slavery. Up until this moment Islam most unfortunately has been associated from the time of the British suppression of the slave trade in the Sudan, and I would argue probably up until this moment, as somehow sanctioning slavery.

Many in this audience know that is not correct, nor any religious tradition could sanction the institution of slavery. However, that image is there. It persists. This could be a very appropriate moment for Sudan's enlightened Belima (phonetic) to make a very precise statement, a fatwa, dealing with the institution of slavery and the uncompromising position that Islam takes with respect to slavery in this day and age. That is something that could be discussed further.
Professor El-Affendi bows to those reformers, those in the line which is highly recognized as a sort of neoconservative or revivalist or Islam.

Al-Bani, Hassad Al-Banna were making a case and have been making a case in this century for the restoration of Islam after its denial and its mistreatment, frankly, under colonialism, but that point of view can increasingly represent a kind of relativism, making of Islam and its institutions a special case, an exceptional case that is not subject to international human rights standards, an exceptional case that would be immune from any sort of criticism from within and without, as being potentially anti-Islamic.

I believe we are moving into an era, and Francis Deng has helped us and many others who are writing international human rights standards, where an enlightened and engaged dialogue by Muslims and non-Muslims and those who are concerned about all forms of discrimination can engage with one another and speak about issues that are relevant to this international discourse and those which should be set aside.

The often mentioned position about apostasy can be argued that it's a violation of the universal declaration of human rights, Article 18 on the freedom of religious thought. That is something that needs to be discussed. That is something that needs to become part of a discourse for this time.

I have to make a certain confession because I'm an anthropologist, and anthropologists have had as their stock and trade
cultural relativism, and I want to speak here and I want to speak about some specifics with respect to Islamic institutions, that we're increasingly retreating from a kind of relativism that makes it every case out of every nation a special case that is only upheld or only subject to its own circumstances.

Another kind of relativistic view, however, that I would endorse is that a Western secular model for the modern era is not necessarily what is the only model which can exist. Modernism and nation building can take other forms than that which has been set, the standards which have been set by Western democracy with multi-parties and all the institutions which we associate with Western democracy.

The new Sudanese politics could engage in a new kind of democratic nation building that could build upon its own indigenous institutions. Its deeply democratic, deeply egalitarian, profoundly egalitarian in its social institutions nation could engage in this dialogue which Francis Deng has mentioned between Arabs and non-Arabs or between Muslims and non-Muslims, probing their deep democratic traditions that existed before colonialism, even pre-Islamic as well as after Islamic. Remember Islam was in Sudan only for the last five centuries.

The new politics is one which could be decidedly different from the old politics, and some of the names and the notables that have been mentioned this morning perhaps really are part of the old paradigms that need to be shed and that need, of course, to participate in the current discourse, but where Sudan needs really to move beyond this.
And in this light I would like to make another exhortation, and that is a voice which is rarely mentioned and which should be, and it's because I'm thinking about the Sudan in a profoundly international arena, and that is the voice of women, which is often neglected.

And I think of the case of Northern Ireland. I think of the case of the Arab-Israeli conflict. I think of Chechnya. I think of Argentina and the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, how in so many hopeless cases, hopeless causes like so many people have come to view the Sudan, it's the voice of women who have stood up and said, "Stop the killing. Stop the insanity. Bring about peace."

So although unfortunately we don't have as many representatives of the voices of women, north and south, east and west, represented here, I would like to exhort all of the men and all of the people who love the Sudan who know women to think about such a voice for peace from a pan Sudanic woman's voice because they certainly can't do any worse than what the men have done up to this point. So --

(Applause.)

PROFESSOR FLUEHR-LOBBAN: So these comments are really meant to stimulate and evoke your responses, and I do appreciate very much what has been said this morning. I respect these voices, as we should respect every voice that we hear today and tomorrow.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Thank you very much, indeed.
(Applause.)

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: I think since we have a long morning, it might be a wise idea just to take a stand-in-place break, that is to say just for about five minutes, but I would urge you not to stray too far because we'll want to pull ourselves back to the schedule, which now involves open discussion fairly quickly.

A five-minute break.

(Whereupon, the foregoing matter went off the record at 11:41 a.m. and went back on the record at 11:53 a.m.)

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: As you are all aware, we do lack time. So perhaps we had better convene and begin the open discussion.

We have now about 40 minutes, 45 minutes or so in which to conduct a discussion, and as I promised the general audience, I want to allow some time for you all to get a chance to participate.

But at this point I will invite -- before I do that though I should make an announcement about lunch. The situation is as follows. We have unfortunately a closed lunch for the people around the table, and there is no lunch provided for the general audience. You're on your own. There are several restaurants in the near neighborhood. There's one in this hotel just across the hall, as I understand. That's available. There are other restaurants on Vermont Avenue in a southerly direction beyond Thomas Circle. So that those are available within relatively near walking distance.

Well, with that I now would like to open the floor for comments and questions on the part of the discussants who are surrounding this table near me, and we have, I think, a good deal to discuss. I'm afraid that the floor is not open yet for general discussion. That will happen soon.

So are there comments or questions from participants here?

Oh, yes, sir.

MR. EL-BESHIR: My name is El-Beshir.

I have checked with some friends during the break, and all of us came to the conclusion that if El-Affendi would kindly summarize his thesis so that we'll know because I know that it's a very difficult subject, and he was trying to do his best, but I just want something that we can specifically handle.

MR. EL-AFFENDI: Well, that's interesting, speaking over the heads of some people. That's a problem.
I think I was trying to describe the practicalities and the dynamics of the Islamic movement or the Islamization program as it has been in Sudan for the last 20 years or so, and I was saying that there was a significant what I call secular basis for it in that there was a divorce between the values which were supposed to promote and the methods are used to promote it, and that this has two sides to it.

One, the feeling that it could be useful in furthering pragmatism and allow accommodation with other groups, and the other
danger, which has also been quite present, is that it could create a moral vacuum because when you say Islamization tomorrow and at the moment I'm working for it or this is how I'm going to do or this is the exigencies of the time decide that I should not stick to the values of Islam, then the question is: what values are you sticking to?
And this could lead to a moral vacuum which could open the room for abuses. So this is one problem; one plus, one minus.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Thank you.
Ann Mayer.

MS. MAYER: Is this on? Is it on now?

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: I think it is.

MS. MAYER: I wasn't quite sure about the analogy with Khomenii's Iran that you were drawing. Khomenii's statement in 1988 was made on the assumption that Iran was an Islamic state. Certainly Khomenii himself believed that Iran was an Islamic state, and you were drawing an analogy between that and what Nimieri was doing.
Was that on the assumption that the Sudan is an Islamic state, should be an Islamic state, and tying in with what you were just saying about a moral vacuum, are you putting forward the proposition that in order to have moral values, the state itself has to have an Islamic character, that it is not sufficient for the adherents of Islam, who are citizens of the state, to follow their religion?

I just wasn't sure what you were saying in terms of whether the Sudan was an Islamic state and whether it had to be an Islamic state to avoid this moral vacuum.

MR. EL-AFFENDI: I think what I said was that Nimieri was claiming to have an Islamic state, but was also, like Khomenii, claiming the right to suspend Islamic teachings.

This causes the moral vacuum I'm speaking about because when you have a decided Islamic ethos, then you will be accountable to that ethos, but if you say, "But this ethos also I don't adhere to," and you are also already rejecting other value systems, then you are in a moral vacuum where there is no value system at all which is being adhered to, except
your whims.

This is a problem.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Do you have a --

MS. MAYER: Well, I don't think that answered the question I was raising though. Are you making an argument on behalf of the proposition that the state itself has to have an Islamic character in order for society to uphold the kind of values of Islam that you think are necessary in order to avoid falling into moral chaos?

MR. EL-AFFENDI: No, the state has to have a value system, whether it's Islamic or whatever, but this value system is determined by the people or the will of the people of that state, but it has to have a value system. It cannot have a state of suspension where it is in between two systems. It's neither Islamic nor secular. This is the situation I'm describing at the moment.

PARTICIPANT: Hello.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Sorry. Not just yet.
Are there further comments from members of the panel around the table? Yes. Mr. El-Tinay.

MR. EL-TINAY: Hashim El-Tinay. Salam, Sudan.
As a matter of fact, with regard to the question and the last exchange between Affendi and Mayer, I just would like to say that the issue that we are, I think, trying to be enlightened about today is what kind of Islamic project, because it's a fact that in political terms Islamic societies are trying and, I think, Carolyn has mentioned and touched on that, there is a legitimate yearning in Muslim societies for renewal, and also it enters within certain logic of indigenous legitimate efforts to propose, to think, and to act on values, ideas that makes sense to the people who embrace Islam. This is just a fact, I think, that we all recognize today.

But turning to the leaders and politicians who try to think that the project intellectually, philosophically, ideologically, theoretically, and then try to put it to practice, this is what the real problem is all about now. This is the problem that is facing Muslim societies, and it's a problem, of course, that interests the whole world.
And although we see the legitimacy, the theoretical legitimacy, and we see that this is natural and healthy, in fact, what we challenge is precisely what project, what modernist renewal project from Islamic perspective we need today at the end of the 20th century and at the dawn of the 21st century.

These are the issues, and it is a debate which needs liberty and freedom, and of course, it's linked to the process and
detailing of democratization, respect of human rights, et cetera, et cetera.

So I just limit myself to here for the time being. Thank you.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Could I just try to sharpen the issue? It seems to me that we had two rather different presentations. Mr. Mahmoud was assuming, I think, that there is a fairly self-conscious agenda on the part of the present government, very much informed by the National Islamic Front, and it's moving in a certain direction.
You seem to be saying, if I understand you, that there is a certain uncertainty on the part of the present government as to what its objectives are and what its goals are and what the role of Islam is in its present policies and course of action.
Is that a fair statement of difference between you or is it not?

MR. EL-AFFENDI: It's not.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: All right.

MR. EL-AFFENDI: I think what I was trying to say is that I differ with Mahmoud in the way he characterized. I mean I agree with the overall historical outline. It's right to quote, but, of course, he had given positions on Sharia and Islamization which I do not agree with, and I think the majority of Sudanese mostly do not agree with.
But the issue I'm describing is the fact that the regime consciously chose not to make Islamization its open legitimization, let us say.

There are two levels of legitimization, the legitimization which came on the communique of the coup which cited broad national issues, no mention of Islamization in that, and the real legitimization which is behind the program.
So I was describing this divorce between the legitimization as presented and the legitimization as implied or as kept in reserve for the last instance, as I said.

So you have a situation where on this level of overt policy and also on the level of actual policy where there is a selection, selectivity of policies without reference to any actual program. I mean now at the moment they are working on a constitution which we haven't seen yet. We'll have to see it when it comes out, and then this constitution will be the reference to which the government will be accountable.

At the moment, they can do virtually anything they like and justify it without anybody having any actual document or statement to make them accountable to.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Yes. Let me welcome Mr. Taisier Mohamed Ahmed Ali, who has just arrived and has, I think, a question.

MR. MOHAMED AHMED ALI: Well, I haven't arrived from overseas really. Otherwise I would be suffering from jet lag, but I am not suffering from a jet lag. I'm really confused as to what my colleague here, Mr. El-Affendi is claiming.
The fact that I know, as many of those of you present here know, that almost every statement in Sudan since 1989 has been made with general reference of Islamizing the country. Unless Mr. El-Affendi has new news, he's breaking the news to us, I would really like him to refer to that evidence because every step that was taken in Sudan, whether it is in education, conducting the war, in the economy, it was all under the guise of Islam.
Now all of a sudden we are told this is not the case. Am I correct in understanding something?
(Applause.)

MR. EL-AFFENDI: I think there seems to be a problem of understanding what I am saying. I think Mohammed Mahmoud has put it probably more eloquently than I did when he said that the pragmatism of the Islamic Muslim in Sudan, and he put it in a very critical way, has meant that at various levels they have been choosing to move the ideology to the circumstances, and I mentioned the alliance with Nimieri, which was a situation where the Islamization came later, but the agreement of the national reconciliation was that all the political parties will accept this all to themselves, joining the Socialist Union and accept the constitution and accept the system as it was.

Now, this situation I am saying is not an isolated situation. It is what I call the ethos of the modern Islamism, what I call secular Islamism, an Islamism which postpones the actual program or the actual content of the program in transition and accept a transitional situation where this program will unfold gradually.

Now, I am looking at this transitional situation, and I'm saying that in the case of the Mahadist movement, for example, which also I described as accepting a transitional situation awaiting the unfolding of the histological movements or the messianic awaiting, which the Mahadist will lead to, have accepted also a transitional period where suspends implementation of -- certain Islamic values was suspended, and this justification, which Ayotola Khomenii gave an ideological justification to was to say that the Islamic state as a state is a value in itself. You can suspend all Islamic teachings in order to have it.

Now, I'm looking at this situation and saying that this situation creates a value vacuum because it doesn't tell us what the Islamic state is if you can suspend all Islamic teaching in order to implement it.

I think you cannot make this point clearer.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Any further responses?

MR. MOHAMED AHMED ALI: Well, I would like to remind Mr. El-Affendi of a statement that was made by Buckingham El-Sadi, Brigadier Buckingham El-Sadi, who was a member of the Command Council, the Salvation Command Council on the anniversary, on the first anniversary of the coup in 1990, where he explicitly stated over the radio and it was quoted in the newspapers. His statement indicated that the timing of the coup was designed to stop the betrayal of the Islamic Sharia, and they had to stage this coup in order to implement and go ahead with the creation of the Islamic state.
I think this was a very clear statement of intention, of policy, of orientation. I cannot reconcile those statements that we have all heard in the Sudan at the time with what you are saying now.
MR. EL-AFFENDI: One more response?

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Oh, yes, could she comment and then you --

PROFESSOR FLUEHR-LOBBAN: If I could just add and then you can comment to the both of us.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Right.

MS. GADDY: Since Mohammed Mahmoud is not here, to me one of the most central points and most salient points of his paper was that the Sharia cannot be used as an instrument for nation building; that Sharia does not constitute any sort of basis for nationality or for the creation of a state. Sharia is manmade. It is created by humans. It is based, of course, on the holy sources, but it is something that once it's understood as a human institution, subject to human manipulation and to human foibles, is not something that constitutes a sufficient case for national building, and that is something that irrespective of how the dialogue continues, that religion needs to be a part of the picture. Sharia as a basis for that constitution has got to be eliminated as a principle.
(Applause.)

MR. EL-AFFENDI: Yes, I think that to reply to Taisier, I think he confused two levels of analyses I made. The first level which I mentioned, the coup and how it was taken and the understanding that by a military coup which uses tanks and guns and nothing else, no statements, you could implement an Islamic program. This means that you have divorced the Islamic program from the instrument of implementation. This is the thrust of my argument.
The second, when I mentioned Khomenii, of course, you cannot get more explicit about the Islamic state than Khomenii, but if Khomenii's statement that you can subordinate the Islamic principle or the Islamic teachings of the existence of the Islamic state is the ideology and the ethos I am describing which characterizes the activities of most Islamic movements, and I am pointing attention to this point and to the contradictions in it.

The issue of Sharia as a nation building, I think there is truth. If you want to include the non-Muslims, you cannot use Sharia as a basis of nation building. This is an issue for the Sudanese to resolve, as Francis, I think, and as Mahmoud said, in discussion. Do they want a state which is based on Sharia and, therefore, exclusive to some people or do they want other concession based measures for a larger state?
I think this is a question which is being hotly debated at the moment.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Yes.

MR. DUANY: Yes. Just a comment. The point at Sharia as a basis of law or legislation, I remember, and a number of Sudanese who are on the high table here, in 1973 there was a debate on that, and there was a compromise that Sharia and customs becomes the basis of law, of legislation in the Sudan because it is difficult to say people or the value system of an individual are not derived from his faith.

The problem comes when that law is used against another person who has a different basis of legislative system. So there was a compromise that Sharia and customs, and customs here means the traditional religious ways of life, were accepted, and it doesn't mean imposing the systems of Sharia on other people who do not -- who believe on customs for their basis of legislation.

Thank you.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: One further refinement of this investigation occurs to me. Is this the kind of thing you have in mind? I have read and actually encountered Hassan Al-Turabi on several occasions, and he has told me that he does not believe Sharia should be the basis for at least life in the south; that there should be accommodations to non-Muslim groups within Sudan, and yet one reads contrary to that that there are apparent practices by the Islamic government in the south which do impose a form of Sharia.

Is it that kind of ambivalence that you are pointing to, that is, the government says one thing and does another, or what? Would that be an example of it?

MR. EL-AFFENDI: I think the example of it would be what I have given. I mean, this is a different issue. The issue of Sharia in the south has been a bone of contention, but the issue has been also raised by thousands generally that if you have Sharia or Islam as the overarching legitimization of the system, then even if it is not implemented in the south, by derivation it will have an impact on things in the south.

Now, there have been some moves, especially after the recent peace agreement, to pass some laws which would restrict the implementation of Sharia in the south, but the issue as Francis has pointed to goes beyond this to Arabism itself, to Islam itself as a legitimization.

So it's not -- and this leads me to, I think, the central issue to which we should have returned a little bit, which is the human rights and their implementation and democracy. How do they contribute?
And I think if there has been an agreement on the basis of a democratic order, then the problems certainly have been resolved. The problem at the moment is that although in the past democratic interlude there was reasonable respect for rights and a reasonable democratic ethos, this did not yet respond to the aspirations of the southern movement generally, and the war continued.

So there has to be something more, some kind of agreement on the basis of community before you can set up a democratic system because if you have a free-for-all and the southerners are the minority, will lose certainly.
But if you want an example, I think I have given an example of Nimieri's system and the way human rights were disregarded even though they were enshrined in Islamic law. This was an important example of the variance I'm speaking about.

But the thing I'm concentrating on is the idea itself that you could have a suspended -- a transitional period where no value system yet raises, where you get yourself the right to decide the values which govern you as you go along.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: We now have 15 minutes left, and I think it's fair to open the floor for general comments, I hope brief comments and especially questions would be of interest.

Yes, ma'am.

PARTICIPANT: Asalam Allekum. My name is Ziba Sur Ishamli (phonetic). I am the Chair of Women's Alliance for Peace and Human Rights in Afghanistan. Also I am a native anthropologist.

Also I have one comment and two questions. The comment is that I want to also bring the voice of the Afghan women to the world, that they are suffering under the so-called brand of Taliban Islam.

My question is we're talking about Islam and democracy. Many scholars have argued that Islam is compatible with democracy, and we are talking as though Islam is undemocratic or it is not compatible with democracy. That is to any of the panel.

Second, Mr. El-Affendi is talking of Islam and modernism. I seem to be confused as to what does he mean with Islam and modern. Are we talking of modernism in the sense of Moslavar Kamal or what type of Islamic modernism are we talking about?

Thank you.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Maybe we should get a number of questions and then we can respond seriatim. Let me see. Yes, sir, in the back there. Oh, sorry. Right behind you, yes. Yes, you.

MR. BENJAMIN: Ruben Madel Benjamin, one of the victims of the regime which Mr. El-Affendi presented in embassy in London, and now a refugee in Virginia with five children and sister and brother.
I want to ask Mr. El-Affendi there's a term that he used that Nimieri was claimed -- claim the Islamic law. That statement was not true. Nimieri was not claiming to implement Islamic Sharia laws. Nimieri was backed and supported by Turabi and NIF, and Mr. El-Affendi is one of the active members who supported Nimieri at that time to implement the Sharia laws, and the victims were southern Sudanese and not Muslims, and not Muslims in the northern Sudan.
And we in southern Sudan, we don't know the signal (phonetic) of Islam. We are different people with different culture, and then our problem with our brothers in northern Sudan, especially the fundamentalist Muslim like Bruhaba Affendi, is their ideas, not because they are Arabs or Muslim, but the ideas are not agreeing with us.

Thank you very much.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Thank you.

Kalid Duram.

It might be a good practice as you gentlemen are doing to line up if you have questions and then we can proceed and I can recognize you much more readily, and we'll come to you next.

MR. DURAM: Thank you.

Well, I have to correct you when you say that the victims were only southerners and not Muslims. When Usted Mahmoud Taha was executed in 1985, there were also an outcry put all over the world, but there were also a few who justified that criminal act. The most sophisticated and most vicious article in justification of this division murder was written by Abdelwahab El-Affendi, and that's why I would like to actually know --
(Applause.)

MR. DURAM: -- the reaction. It was also a masterpiece of disinformation, an article of faith with the Islamists today which Mohammed Mahmoud forgot to mention when he enumerated some of the specialties of Islamic policies these days.
So that's what I would have liked, you know, to have a reaction to. When we talk here about values and the kind of Islam that Sudanese would like to see in the future, could you at least, I mean, publicly take a stand and say, "Well, I disassociate myself from that position in those days"?

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Yes, sir.

MR. SMITH: Mr. Chairman, I'm Stanley H. Smith of the American Friends for Sudan. I'm responding to statements that you had made and also the statement Mr. Deng had made because I think they are of tremendous significance, and I'd appreciate the comments of both of you with respect to this particular statement.
We are wondering how cognizant all of us are, and particularly both of you, with respect to the significance of the peace agreement of April of '97.

Mr. Chairman, you made passing remarks about the statement only by title and name, did not comment, and I can understand that. Mr. Deng, on the other hand, proposed some solutions to the existing problem in Sudan.
I am, therefore, suggesting to Mr. Deng very strongly that those solutions, Mr. Deng, are embodied in the peace agreement.

You spoke about the crying need either for a unified Sudan, and I was pleased that that was one of your preferences, or failing that, of course, a recognition of the autonomy of the south. I'm suggesting, therefore, that the peace agreement deals with that. It sets up a transition committee, four years, at the end of which there will be a referendum by the south, at which time the south will decide whether they want to go along with Sudan as a unified nation or whether they would want to have their own autonomy.

This agreement, as both of you know, has been supported in statements made by our embassy in Khartoum. This statement has been agreed upon and discussed with the IGADD, which is this regional body in the Horn of Africa. This statement has been discussed with President Zambia, and recently it has been taken up by the Organization of African Unity.

I'm saying here that we have some fundamental issues, and we're not getting into motivation. We're saying that these are the things on the table which would, Mr. Deng, address some of your concerns, and we would certainly appreciate whatever comments you deem necessary dealing with this particular issue.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Thank you.

Francis, why don't you go ahead? You're more knowledgeable than I on these matters.

PARTICIPANT: Yes, Mr. Chairman.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Oh, pardon me.

PARTICIPANT: It is my turn.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Oh, I see. Oh, yes, that's true.
(Laughter.)

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: We were going to -- I'm sorry. You're right. Go ahead. We'll come back.

PARTICIPANT: Yes, Mr. Chairman. I thank you for giving us this opportunity to discuss about our problem in our country, and I thank the United States Institute of Peace of giving their effort of organizing the Sudanese and other people to work, to struggle to get a peace in that country.

In fact, I just want to give a little comment about Francis Deng. What he speaks out is the truth, and that is what exactly that people can reach into compromise or people can achieve that country and people can be free from all that has been happening, and at least he mentioned almost all the things that have been a problem, and it is the problem that is letting the country down. I'm sure he didn't left any stone unturned. He turned almost all the stones, and I appreciate what he, in fact, told the people about.

And my question is to Abdelwahab. In fact, according to Turabi's speech and in more speeches that he was being interviewed, he says that he wants to reform Islamic economy, and also for those people who claim that they want to stop the Islamic movement in Sudan, let them not try it because there is a whole movement in Sudan, whole Islamic movement in Sudan which will include the other countries.

A lot of evidence saw when they keeping up the 21 gulls (phonetic) from Uganda and 20 Semnitans (phonetic) from Uganda. That is what insulted the police dogs which he was talking about. Musabin could not attend it because there's a terrorism that they keep enough people from Uganda (inaudible).

So probably by himself, don't know, but he's the head of Islam organization, and he's telling a lot of his interviews, and I have them in videotapes when he was questioned and he was telling the people that this whole movement of Islam in Sudan, including your own, whether you are in Europe, whether you are in Africa, in Asian, wherever you are. He is coming to you, to Islamize you, and he's going to reform the world of Islam and Islamic economic that exists in the world.

Thank you, sir.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Thank you.

Yes, sir.

PARTICIPANT: I come from northern Sudan, as you can see.
(Laughter.)

PARTICIPANT: But I'm not claiming that I am speaking for all people in northern Sudan, nor am I speaking for the government,a nd I think that no one also has the right to speak for the south, for all people in the south, because there are many Muslims in the south. There are non-Muslims who are with the government. There are non-Muslims who are against the government.

So after this I would like to say that the issue is, as you said in your introduction, how to solve the problem of religion and the state, whether it is in the Sudan or in other parts of the world. Religion, and especially Islam.
One solution is suggested by my friend, Mr. Deng, is to have a secular state. Now, this Western solution is not accepted to Muslims, and I think that any honest person who looks at things from an Islamic perspective, whether he be a Muslim or not, can see that for a Muslim secularism is not something neutral. It is not neutral. It is a system of beliefs which contains much or which contradicts with Islam. So secularism is not a solution.

The second solution suggested by the second speaker is democracy. Yes, I accept that, but is that realistic? If you cannot have any democracy where you stifle the voice of the Islamists, so if you want to have real democracy, you should allow the Islamists to make their own parties, organizations, and so on.

But you cannot have democracy and secularism in the Muslim world, and that is why you don't have democracy in the Arab world, because all of these governments want to stifle the voice of the Islamists.

And the case of Turkey, which is not an Arab country, is very clear.

So what is the solution? Now, people in the Sudan, and I contributed to this; I made suggestions in the newspaper there; we want everyone to keep their religion. We don't want to adopt the Western solution, and we are aware of may of the
problems of secularism in the West, and we are not impressed by that.

We want the Christians to be Christians, the Muslims to be Muslims, but in spite of this, we want to live together. How can we do this?

My suggestion was that we have the different kinds of states, just like here you have United States. We have Muslim states, non-Muslim states, and each one can have its own parliament, and then we have a national parliament to which representatives from both these regional parliaments come, and I am open to solutions like this.
I am not here to be told how to reinterpret my religion or to abandon or compromise some parts of my religion. I want the solutions to be realistic solutions, to help people who are Islamists who are honest and who are open minded, and I hope I am one of the.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Thank you. Thank you.
We have about ten minutes left, and could I say let's cut off the questions now with the gentlemen that are standing, and could you please be quite brief and pointed, and then we'll give a chance to Mr. Affendi and others to respond?

PARTICIPANT: Thank you very much, Mr. --

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Perhaps we should go -- excuse me. We should go here just for fairness sake please.
No, no, you may go ahead if you wish.

MR. DENG: Oh, okay. Thank you.

My name is John Jacques Deng. I'm a victim of Sudan government. I've been out of Sudan for 33 years, and I'm coming from wilderness where I have been exiled to, and this case, it is very good that you call it religion and peace, but I don't see any man here who can answer for Islam or any bishop here who can answer for Christians who are suffering or any religious body that you have invited.

It could have been good to bring those religious people to come and say their grievances, what they dislike from that religion and from the other religion.

We speak of Islam. Now you people, most of you, you don't know what Islam is doing in Sudan. This Sharia which is said to be in Sudan, it devalues human beings or non-Muslims, and if you are a man, you are half of a Muslim man, and if you are a woman, you are a quarter. Especially in the court if there are witnesses wanted, two Christian men will equal to one man, and if they want three witnesses, there will be six, and if there are women, four for one man.
How can you live in a country of that religion? That humiliates you not to be a citizen of that country. This is one thing that we have to ask the Muslim brothers, that this is wrong. We are human beings. We should have equality.
And if that doesn't come, then let us divide the country. Let there be a part for the Christians and a part for the Muslims.
But the thing is that those who are holding the government have been holding the government for now quite a long time, since 1956, and these elements claim themselves to be Arabs, and when they saw that Arabs cannot take them to be citizens of Sudan, then they said, "Let us say we are Muslims," so that they can get more power to get the country.
Okay. If --

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Could you conclude?

MR. DENG: Okay.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Yes, thank you.

MR. DENG: If the Muslims cannot bring peace in Sudan, why don't they bring a Christian leader?
So anyway, I have to make it short, but the problem of the south cannot be -- I cannot tell you in ten minutes. It is really a big problem, and it has to be attended to.

Thank you.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Thank you very much.

We will be struggling for two days with some of these questions. So we will have a bit more time on that.

Yes, sir, and could you please be brief? We are running short of time.

PARTICIPANT: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Apparently there are two conflicting positions as to the issue of religion, but this issue was already addressed in the Asmara declaration, unanimously by all political forces with the exception of the NIF.

Those forces were looking for a common denominator to reconcile the clashing positions between the aspiration of those who are looking for accommodating the religious position and those who are afraid of religion to be exploited for political reason.

The Asmara declaration held in 1995 adopted citizenship as the basis for rights and obligations. So the only problem right now is the intransigence of the regime which wants to impose its own interpretation of Islam, which is not even compatible with the majority position of Muslims in the country.

I would love to see this congress or this conference, since it is anticipating a report and recommendations, to state very clear that only through democracy, only through a minimum level of agreement, which include rather than exclude on any basis, be that religious or be that ethnic or be otherwise.

So the point is that unless this regime is unseated through the ongoing effort of the opposition forces which prefer a peaceful solution, though now they are forced by the regime to rise up in arms. That is my simple request.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Thank you very much.
I am afraid with all regret that maybe we'll have to call a halt to the comments and questions at this point. I refer you to the fact that we will be entertaining more chance for the public to participate, and I'm sorry about this, but I think we had better give Mr. El-Affendi a chance to say something by way of responding to these comments and also Francis Deng who's been called upon to say something.
Go ahead.

MR. EL-AFFENDI: Well, I think anybody who had any doubts if Sudan has a problem must be disabused of them now. It looks like a very serious problem.
There were two types of questions which were directed. One of them --

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: The mic. They can't hear very well.

MR. EL-AFFENDI: The two types of questions that were directed to me. One of them, one type was directed to my personal, requesting me to justify myself personally to certain opinions, which I think I will not go into. I will refer people who want to know my views to my books and articles which are available to the public.

Suffice it to say for the purpose of this conference and the resolution of the situation in Sudan, the part which is relevant here is that in my comments, my written comments about the situation in Sudan, I think that there is no way forward without democratization and acceptance of respect for human rights.

The question for us is how to reach this position, how to achieve a situation of stable democratization, and how to get the parties in question, given that we do not have guns, how do we get the parties to agree to this situation.
The brother that mentioned the Asmara declaration, which is a good step forward, and someone else mentioned the agreement between the government and the factions of the SPLA which have agreed with it, and a third person earlier mentioned the declaration of principles of IGADD and the IGADD process. I think at the moment the IGADD process represents for us the best hope for the way forward.

I must also say that I do not speak for the government here, and probably this is an omission on the side of the organizers of the conference. They should have brought somebody from the government to respond to the accusations against it. I am not competent to do that because I am myself critical of the government, but I think fairness would have entailed that someone should be here to respond to these accusations.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Francis.

MR. DENG: Well, I guess the most specific question that was directed to us has to do with the agreement between the government and certain elements in the southern opposition groups. I think it is fair to say that if, indeed, the agreement seriously intended to give the south the right of self-determination and after four years that right would be exercised, and during the interim the south would have control of the south, then, of course, this would have been the same conditions that the SPLM/SPLA has been calling for. This would have been exactly the same conditions that the DUP called for.
The fact that the war continues must tell the person who was asking the question that something fishy must be going on in this agreement. And what is fishy in the agreement?

Number one, you have a people whose very name is Southern Sudan Independence Movement agreeing with the government, number one, to preserve the unit of the country against internal and external enemies. This is a movement that is committed to independence.

Number two, conditions would be created where there would be stability, peace, and a reasonable level of development before the right of self-determination is exercised.

There's flexibility in changing the dates, according to the conditions. The body that would be supervising this is more or less appointed or chosen with the approval of the central government.

Above all, if we want to end the war, you do not enter a peace agreement with someone you are already at peace with. There is no conflict; there is no war between the government and the people with whom they have agreed. They were already in agreement.

When the former Prime Minister, Sadi El-Mahade was here, he made a comment which I repeat without shouldering full responsibility for his choice of words, but he said this is an agreement that is between a husband and a wife, and he said it is good there is an agreement in the family, but that is not an agreement to end the war.
Now, he didn't elaborate as to who was the wife and who was the husband.
(Laughter.)

MR. DENG: Having said that, I think we have to also acknowledge that the fact that the government was able to agree on the principle of self-determination, agree on a timetable, whatever the calculations, whatever the technical reasons for doing so I think is an admission and, therefore, it is a contribution to the cause of people as Abdelwahab said, that the declaration of principles and the Asmara agreement all amount to telling us that maybe there is recognition that a solution must be found.

But certainly to hold that agreement as the solution to the problem unfortunately is to allow the cleverness of Sudanese to find all kinds of ways of presenting very glossy pictures in a messy situation to mislead people into thinking a solution has been found.

Dr. Jeckel (inaudible) proposed something that I thought was very interesting, if indeed it would be acceptable to the regime in those terms. That is to say you have a state in which each of the states can choose what it wants, and then you have a national framework that would be neutral.

Now, this is where the conflict is. The national framework is not going to be religiously neutral. It is going in the view of the dominant elements in the regime today; it is going to be a framework of Islam, but others in their states would be allowed to opt out of it.

If, indeed, what he's saying is intended by the regime, I think it will be a big step forward, that we have states to determine whether they want to be governed by Sharia and the national framework would be religiously neutral. The state would be neutral on religious issues.

It was also interesting to see Jasper express some apprehension about democracy marginalizing the Muslims or the Islamics. The interesting thing is in the Sudan democracy -- and this is one of the reasons why I use the concept of democracy in the Sudan with qualification -- if by democracy we mean the will of the majority, we have had democracy in which the majority has automatically chosen a way that was imposed on the south.

It is true that with time maybe people get enlightened. Maybe alliances can be created between the south and certain regions in the north, and maybe democracy might break down the solid block of one kind.

We have in Nigeria a balance where regions can make a difference, and Nigerians, despite the fact that you have very strong religious in the north, they have made the federal character a very important principle, and there are checks and balances among the regions.

The trouble in the Sudan is you have one uniform system which is to the disadvantage of the south in terms of numbers, in terms of level of development, and whatever you may think of. So that elections have generally meant that the majority who are Muslims, who are northern will dictate their will on the minority.
I, therefore, think that when we speak of democracy, it is not the Muslims who should fear democracy. It is the minorities who should fear democracy because we marginalize them.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: I'm afraid I'm going to have to call a halt now.

PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.)

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Oh, all right. Could you be brief?

PARTICIPANTS: Microphone.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Microphone, please.

PARTICIPANT: I thank the Chairman for the time he has given to me to respond to words of Dr. Francis.
Dr. Francis said that agreement we signed in Khartoum between Sudan and some elements in southern Sudan opposition is described by Mr. Mahade by the agreement between husband and wife. There were no war between southern Sudan or the parties. We signed the agreement with the government.
Okay. Let us go back to the background of the --

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: And you will be brief, please.

PARTICIPANT: -- conflict. It is good that everybody knows there is Asmara agreement which is between Mr. Mahade and Mr. -- with the group which Mr. Deng is a party to that party.
(Laughter.)

PARTICIPANT: There is no war -- there is no war between Mahade and SPLA or between SPLA and -- there is no war, but they have signed Asmara agreement. Is it an agreement between husband and wife or is it a secular one? If it is a secular one, what are the causes or what are the reasons behind that?
What I need to say, the agreement signed in Khartoum between southern Sudan and the development movement and other southern Sudan and position parties, actually now they are called United Democratic (inaudible) for Southern Sudan.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Could I interrupt and say perhaps we really ought to reserve this discussion for tomorrow when we will be talking about peace solutions? The subject of this session is, I think, being lost sight of since we were attempting to now analyze the situation regarding the Islamic agenda in the north.
I don't mean to cut you off, sir, and I would give you time at a more appropriate point, but there are two reasons for reserving till later this discussion. One is I think it's more appropriate, and two is we're under the strains of time.
Is that agreeable to you?

MR. DENG: Can I just say, Mr. Chairman --

PARTICIPANT: Yeah.

MR. DENG: Can I just say that the point is well taken? Let me just agree with you.
Excuse me. May I just agree with you that your point is well taken, that the Asmara agreement is among people who are not warring. I think that's a good point. You're quite right.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: So he concedes that point, and that's good.

MR. DENG: I concede that point.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: That's right.

MR. DENG: But what I don't concede is I don't belong to any party.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: That's a good peaceful way upon which to resolve this.
Now, let us adjourn until -- let me see -- two o'clock, I believe; is that correct? Yes, two o'clock we'll resume our conference here.

Thank you.

(Whereupon, at 12:56 p.m., the meeting was recessed for lunch, to reconvene at 2:00 p.m., the same day.)

The views expressed above do not necessarily reflect views of the United States Institute of Peace, which does not advocate specific policy positions.

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