We – the ‘Sudanese’ – have not been Liberated Yet

The Sudanese, who are experienced in leading successful uprisings and civil disobedience movements against dictatorial rule (which they did in 1964 and again in 1985), are certainly able to do it for a third time to finally liberate themselves from the tyranny and totalitarianism of the inherited state and its current and similar regimes. Then, perhaps, there would be a new opportunity for building a new Sudan out of the Sudanese collective order and its emerging good society. By that time, surely, the Sudanese “habits of the heart” that ameliorated and molded the Sudanese character and its deeper sense of civility (not the state or its regimes) would help them examine themselves, create new political communities, produce a new social contract and thus ultimately support and maintain conditions of democracy, freedom, equality and human dignity. Then, the gentler side of the Sudanese life, and the people’s propensity for it, would, should and maybe will, as Alexis de Tocqueville describes, “spontaneously [help create] the bonds of friendship, trust and cooperation that lie at the heart of civil society.” The dominant impulse by that time, I would say, will be that a change for the State of South Sudan will also be a change for the new Sudanese Sudan.