Al-khatim Adlan : A Sudanese fighter of supertition and enlightenment

Al-khatim Adlan : A Sudanese fighter of supertition and enlightenment disseminator.

A l-khatim in a public apperance moment

By: Abdulaziz Ali Omer
Wavelets race towards the shore not because th ose who sit on the verge of sand glade are Republicans or Tories but simply because they love the sea and believe in one God to provide the same care to everybody from any conceivable belief or country. That is my story with Al-khatim Adlan, a Sudanese politician and an appealing patriot. It is a story that adds new color to the sun as it shines at the confluence of White Nile with it is Blue twin.
ose who sit on the verge of sand glade are Republicans or Tories but simply because they love the sea and believe in one God to provide the same care to everybody from any conceivable belief or country. That is my story with Al-khatim Adlan, a Sudanese politician and an appealing patriot. It is a story that adds new color to the sun as it shines at the confluence of White Nile with it is Blue twin.
One can always remember his words in his fifty fifth year, in 2005, the year in which he parted from us, spoken on his death-bed in his exile in the city of London. "…write about me" Alkhatim Adlan said at last"..that I lived all my life fighting superstition and disseminating enlightenment". He resumed a few moments latter “… if I have only two days…or two hours…or two seconds to live, and if I am able within this span of time, I would spread enlightenment..” " . Collin Powell, the ex-American National Security Advisor once arrived in London to address the House of Commons. He wished if his parents-humble subjects of the British colony of Jamaica were alive to see a touch of grandeur. When Al-khatim Adlan left the shores of his home land ,he- like Collin Powell- was also the son of a humble man from another the British colony, however, he arrived in London exiled sick. He wished if he could live not for himself , for his ideal because if he wanted , the luster of power would have never dimmed around that child from Umdaka born in 1948.
It is said that a true Londoner on his death-bed yearns to savor the smoke of an underground train. Al-khatim Adlan in his dwindling time had one thing to think of with nostalgia :spreading enlightenment. That is one face for the coin of a true Khartoumer. It is difficult to describe the emotions of one when one is imprisoned 8 years and twisting of pancreas cancer pains distant from his native place. To contain the feelings of his friends, colleagues, his small family composed of a valiant woman and two handsome children, I share the words of Sayyid Qutub, an Islamic philosopher :" When one lives up to himself , his life-time seems short, but one lives up to an idea, his life-span appears long extending far beyond the bounds of time. Our feeling of life can pulse forward whenever we share others their sentiments.".
Apart of his life had been spent as a member of the communist Central Party Committee and the rest of it as the chairman of executive Committee of the New Democratic Forces as well as one of the founding members. In 2004, he returned to his home country and in his memory, he had a place for the words of Paulo Friere" Men cab built by the word and the work" ,It is word and work for the sake of serving "little man" in Sudan in search of mouthful of food and his burial cloth as he put it , that brought him back binding his wounds.
It is the word that made him bargain with the unrelenting fate"…two days…two two hours…two seconds " thus ended the countdown of his farewell . Al-khatim Adlan Center for enlightenment is dedicated to his memory founded and headed by his friend Dr. Bagir Afif. It was he who introduced his posthumous book under the title " What is Exile and What is Home?" Dr Bagir Afif described him as " an adept in writing a political essay, an intellectual of a heavy caliber…the conscience of people" , he concluded" a deserved bow to him in commemorating his anniversary".
Al-khatim Adlan was an enthusiast of a Sudanese identity free of racial superiority, conforming to the principles of equality, dignity and compatible with the enlightenment Islam, an Islam which is in good term with secularism and preaching love and tolerance.
Excerpts of interviews published in his book revealed that he and his colleagues in the Communist party revered the creed of Sudanese masses. Concerning his propping stance to his Southern Sudan compatriots , he explained that he travelled in a fact-finding tour organized by Khartoum University Students Union(KUSU) to investigate the events of 1956-1966 involving the Malakia massacre that took place in Juba and the wedding massacre that happened in Wau. He also pointed out he travelled to South Sudan with the delegation of the National Culture and Progressive Thought Societies to initiate ever-lasting friendships with Southern Sudan people, to build adult classes to teach literacy.
If Al-khatim were a live, his passion with spreading would take to the country-side to elucidate many of economic spawned by the Sudanese financial crisis in the way of Mario Vargas from Latin America. He once wrote; In a city of Natuba, people gathered in a public square to hear a government directive that had imposed taxes on them. What were taxes? Some townspeople asked. Others answered :"if an inhabitant's hen has 55 chicks, he would give 5 chicks. I can imagine Al-khatim paying the cost of many chicks to residents of Sudanese Natuba from his modest London's savings.

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