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The Power of Creative Reasoning

iUniverse, Inc.

Contents

Acknowledgments....................................................................viiChapter One: Introduction..........................................................1Chapter Two: The Ten Powerful Ideas of John Garang.................................6Chapter Three: The Vision of New Sudan.............................................70Chapter Four: Brief Shining Moments of the Sudanese Presidency.....................174Bibliography.......................................................................195Index..............................................................................201

Chapter One

One of my favorite stories of possessing vision is about Walt Disney. Because Walt had passed away before the Grand Opening of Walt Disney World, Mrs. Disney was asked to appear on the stage at the opening ceremony. When she was introduced to come to the podium and greet the crowd, the master of ceremonies said to her, "Mrs. Disney—I just wish Walt could have seen this!" Mrs. Disney simply responded, "He did!" —John C. Maxwell (2001, 137)

This is not a biography of John Garang. It is about only one characteristic of his entire life cycle: creative reasoning. John Garang was an economist, a soldier, a revolutionary, a political thinker, and, above all, a family man. The above quotation caught my imagination when I started contemplating the process of writing this book in December 2005. I was then leading the wealth-sharing team of the Government of National Unity (GONU) at the Darfur Peace Talks in Abuja, Nigeria. I had not been, however, successful in completing the writing before the end of the interim period due to many intervening factors beyond my control. But I would not have told the full story about the ideas and vision of John Garang had I published it at that time. The invisible hand of providence must have been behind these intervening factors.

But why write a book anyway? I set out to write this book with the main purpose of providing critical tools of analysis to the young generation of Sudanese (in the now two new Sudans) in their search for self-identity on the one hand and in understanding their historical heritage/legacy (commonwealth) on the other. I have decided to call the body of knowledge based on these critical tools of analysis "Garangism," which I define as the pursuit of Sudanese commonality with conviction, courage, and consistency. I would like the young generation in the North (now Sudan) to know that the cumulative policies of successive regimes in Khartoum have finally broken the back of the Sudanese "golden camel," thereby splitting the country into two independent states. This young generation can, if it internalizes the vision of John Garang, avoid further disintegration of Sudan into smaller states of Darfur, Nuba Mountains, Funj, Beja, and Kush.

Seventy-two percent of the population of South Sudan is under thirty years of age. It is this young generation that must utilize Dr. John's power of creative reasoning underpinning his ideas and vision in creating a new South Sudanese identity that is inclusive of all its nationalities. This calls for a nation-building project that looks beyond our tribes and geographical locations on the map of South Sudan. They must focus on the unifying factors of the people of South Sudan, not on what divides them. William Gumede of South Africa, as if offering some guidelines to the young people of the South in their quest for a new South Sudanese national identity, states,

South African identities are not "gated communities" with fixed borders; more often than not, they overlap meaningfully, beyond the occasional shared word or value. Our modern South Africanness therefore cannot be but a "layered," plural and inclusive one, and one based on acceptance of our "interconnected differences." (2012, 144)

If you replaced South African with South Sudanese in the above quotation, you would essentially be talking about our situation in South Sudan. I do not want our youth, who constitute more than two-thirds of the South Sudanese population, to let my generation get away with pervasive corruption, "service delivery failure, autocratic behaviour, and wrongdoing in the name of advancing the liberation or independence project" (Gumede 2012, 11). This book is therefore a powerful tool to utilize in advancing the ideals of freedom, liberty, and human dignity, for which Dr. John (as our people call him) gave the ultimate. He formulated the New Sudan Project as a way of achieving these ideals of the liberation struggle, utilizing the illustrious history of the Kush kingdom as a guide in his creative reasoning.

Dr. John brought down the walls of injustice and marginalization by securing our mental liberation from the self-imprisonment we suffered in the jails of ignorance, hatred, and jealousy. This mental liberation came through knowing the truth about our rich historical heritage that the thousand-year empire of the Kushites bequeathed to us (Welsby 1996). John 8:32 informs us, "The truth shall make you free."

Kush (or Cush) in the Nilotic languages means "unknown," and it is a name normally given to a child who is born after his (for Kush) or her (for Akush) mother has repeatedly lost children in infancy. So the newborn after such misfortunes is named Kush or Akush, meaning it is not known if he or she will live.

Historians and archeologists are still discovering the ancient kingdom of Kush. They have managed to establish that it was the center of culture and military might in Africa, but they are still attempting to decipher its language. Dr. John, a "true Kushite," used this rich historical heritage to reposition Southern Sudanese at the center of Sudanese politics instead of a minority clique in Khartoum marginalizing it.

Although Dr. John left us before the completion of the New Sudan Project, he saw it all through his vision of New Sudan. His analysis of the New Sudan through Venn diagrams constitutes clear evidence in support of my statement that Dr. John saw the New Sudan. He was always ahead of us by several steps. He was a pioneer in the real sense of the word, a visionary who revolutionized the way we think and the manner in which we behave individually as well as collectively. Dr. John lived a life worth living, for he has impacted, more than any other South Sudanese leader, the way of life of the current and future Sudanese generations.

Let us look at how he could have seen the New Sudan by walking through a strategic route (Venn diagrams or models of Sudan) of path-goal approach to the Sudanese crisis of state and identity.

I first provide the intellectual foundation (in the form of his ideas) of the vision of the New Sudan Project in chapter 2. The central message of this chapter is that the might and glory of the ancient kingdom of Kush could be restored to the present Sudans through the power of ideas of a courageous and visionary leader, such as John Garang, with a sense of mission to serve his people by rescuing them from a vicious circle of ignorance and injustice. He made some of us understand our history of who we are by showing where we came from. Knowing where we came from evaded many Southern Sudanese leaders who came before John Garang. Why is this? I would argue that, because his point of departure was the Sudanese commonality, which places the Kushites...