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 THE CHOLLO PREDICAMENT
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THE CHOLLO PREDICAMENT
The threat of physical extermination and cultural extinction of a people
By
Peter Adwok Nyaba
Larjour Consultancy
P.O. Box 8731 Nairobi
"…. Ethnic multiplicity is a common feature of most African countries. While such ethnic pluralism is ubiquitous, it is its correlation with class factors which provide potentially explosive mixtures in Africa..." KK Prah
Résumé
The destiny of the Chollo (Shilluk) people, and their tiny Kingdom in Mid-west Upper Nile, hinges now on a precarious balance between physical extermination and cultural extinction under the pressures of the war, modernity (globalization), and the Arabo-Islamic cultural and political hegemony in the Sudan. Caught up in its declining power and torn between extreme forces in the country, this tiny kingdom may not endure for long unless the Chollo political elite and the traditional leadership put their act together to avert the apocalypse. Its ancient military prowess has been greatly undermined and diminished by the occupation in the nineteenth century by the Turks, Egyptian and later the British to the extent that now the Chollo are unable to defend their kingdom and its sovereignty against the encroachment of the Sudanese' state left in place by the condominium powers.
The present war of national liberation waged by the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), and the resolution of the conflict is not likely to restore to the Chollo their past glory when they controlled the Nile from Gweny (Lake No) in the south to about Khartoum in the north. The war has created more problems for the Chollo people. This is because the war itself has ushered into the fore new ethnic forces notably the Jieng (Dinka) and the Nadh (Nuer), who hitherto prior to the Turco-Egyptian and British occupation, did not challenge the Chollo dominance in the area have now risen to position of political dominance since the Addis Ababa Agreement in 1972 and the formation of the Southern Regional government.
The war has caused displacement to north Sudan of tens of thousand Chollo men, women and children, some of who may not return to their homes after the war as a result of cultural and economic factors. Here, they, like other South Sudanese, have faced physical extermination as in Dha'ein (1987) and Jebelien (1989/90) massacres, and forceful assimilation into Islam and Arab culture. Both processes, which constitute serious dilemma for the Chollo, can only be stopped by an early end of the war and the resolution of the conflict, which recognizes the right of the people of south Sudan to self-determination and a possible establishment of a separate and independent state, which will allow the people to return to their homes in South Sudan.
But even within a free South Sudan, the survival of the Chollo as a cultural entity, must be closely linked to the process of the peace and reconciliation between them and their immediate neighbours: the Jieng, the Nadh in the South, and the Arabs in the North on the one hand. and the building of a just and a democratic system on the other hand. in which each ethnic and national group will be able to develop their respective cultures in peace and security.
1. INTRODUCTION
'Chollo', is what the people call themselves, and the word derives from black colour. However, it is here used to connote a Luo speaking people, pieced together into one nation by Nyikango in the thirteenth century. The Chollo are physiologically, cultural- linguistically and due to a common ancestry, related to the Jieng and Nadh, who are their immediate neighbours. They anthropologically, however, are distinct and different from the 'Dhongo' - the dark and short people of the mountains speaking different languages (the Nuba), and the 'Bwonyo' or the red skin people (the Turks, Arabs or the Nubians), with whom they interacted over the centuries. The word 'Shifluk' or 'Schelouk', as reported by the earlier travellers, currently in use, therefore, is probably an ArabO-Turkish distortion of the 'Chollo' and this may be traced to the Hungarians, who made up the bulk of the Turco-Egyptian Mohammed Ali's expedition forces that invaded the Sudan as of 1821.
Until the Turco-Egyptian occupation of the Sudan from 1821, which distorted the balance of forces between the Chollo and their Arabs neighbours, with whom they had developed a form of metastable cohabitation equilibrium, the Chollo country (podhi Chollo) extended along the western bank of the while Nile between Lake No (Gweny) m the south to Bugo (present day Omdurman) a few kilometers north of Kar-atum (Khartoum), the confluence of the while and blue Niles. But their influence and power was felt as far north as the present Shendi. In fact, Khartoum, which in Arabic means the trunk of the elephant, is a distortion of the Chollo word 'kari - tum that describes the meeting of the two rivers Atul-pi (Blue Nile) and Kiir (White Nile), knotted together by 'tutinam' (confluence), where Tuti village is presently situated.
Historical notes and records indicate that in the seventeenth century the Chollo wielded enormous riverian power over the area between Tonga in the South to Eleis (the present day Qawa) as can be discerned from the following passage.
'From the seventeenth century to the nineteenth century the Shilluk were known as river-marauders who dominated the White Nile as far down as Eleis (present day Qawa) and inflicted regular raids upon sedentary Arab people living well north of this point. Even after the Turco-Egyptian penetration of the Southern Sudan, the raids persisted and the Shilluk reputation remained formidable".
The fortunes of the Chollo, however, started to irreversibly decline when the freebooter Mohammed Kheir subjected their territory to a devastating attack in 1861. This reduced Chollo heartland approximately to what it is now, although from 1899 on, and under the pressure of the Angola - Egyptian condominium the territory shrunk considerably due to the deliberate British policy to appease and pacify the riverian Arabs at the expense of the Chollo. The territory shrunk further southwards to the area slightly north of Wadakon (wadakona). The Chollo people were driven away from the White Nile area to give room for the resettlement of the remnants of the Khalifa army and the Ansar of Abdel Rahaman el Mahdi.
'The Shilluk village on Aba Island, which Bayard Taylor visited was inhabited not simply by young warriors, but by old men, women and children as well. This suggests that its population was more permanent than seasonal".
To seal this treachery and betrayal of the Chollo people, the British colonial administration helped erase the relicts of Chollo presence and dominance in the "White Nile area. The Aba Island is today an Ansar town and, it is almost impossible to find any traces of the Chollo culture in the area. In their efforts to economically and politically rehabilitate the Mahdi's family after the re-conquest, the British availed Aba Island to his post humus son, Sayed Abdel Rahaman el Mahdi and his Ansar, forcing away the Chollo people, and this could have been a precursor of the future catastrophes.
The Chollo villages and settlements that used to line the White Nile are now non-existent, and the Arabs occupy the land. That land became the backbone of the Mahdi's agriculturally based economic power in the White Nile region. In retrospect, it would not be surprising if Sumer legend quoted below, did not in fact apply to Chollo people who lived before in the area between Wad Akon arid Shendi, following the invasion of their land by the Arabs, or a possible apocalypse of the Black people of the Sudan in general as a result of extensive Arabization, Islamization and caucasianization.
'What became of the Black People of Sumer?" the traveler asked the old man, 'for ancient records show that the people of Sumer were Black. What happened to them?' 'ah', the old man sighed. They lost their history, so they died."
The Chollo country was devastated by the Turco-Egyptian regime as well as by the Mahdi's state in northern Sudan. Thousands of Chollo people were shipped of as slaves, and tens of thousands recruited into Khahfa's slave army to implement his ambitions for Islamization of the world. This decimated the Chollo population. In 1869, the first census of the Chollo, ever conducted, put the population at about over one million. In less than two hundred years, the number of the Chollo people was reduced to below three hundred thousand in 1983. This underlies the fact that slavery and slave trade was a major disaster in the Chollo history, could have been a precursor of the present or future catastrophes for the Chollo people.
The Chollo people and their tiny kingdom are part and parcel of the South Sudan. They have always considered themselves so, especially in the wake of 'nationalist' struggle, as a result of common history of foreign occupation, subjugation and enslavement. They were drawn into the wars fought by the people of South Sudan against foreign oppression include the Arab north, and many of their sons and daughters participated in that war. Like the rest of South Sudanese, they desire freedom and independence of South Sudan and their destiny has been tied up with it. The present long running war is a major disturbance that seems to seal the Chollo fate. Its large scale has been devastating, and the humanitarian disruption there of very appalling, resulting in large scale displacement and migration of the Chollo people away from their homeland. Many of the people have perished both at home and in the Diaspora.
2. THE PURPOSE OF THIS PAPER
The political developments in the Sudan, since its independence in 1956, have precipitated conflicts and wars between the south and north in the last forty years. This coupled with the political marginalization of the South, economic and social neglect and many other discriminatory practices against the Black people in the Sudan in general, have placed on a precarious balance the fate of the Chollo people and their tiny kingdom in Midwest Upper Nile. The danger posed to the existence of the Chollo and their continuation as an ethnic and cultural peculiarity is, therefore, real. This requires a response on the part of the Chollo civil authority, political leaders and intellectuals if this apocalypse is to be avoided or reversed.
This paper is meant to highlight this danger. It is based on historical and empirical data. The following concepts form the basis of my thesis that unless something is done to reverse this trend, which commenced twelve centuries ago, the Chollo people and their kith in the Sudan may suffer the fate of their ancestors in north Africa, who were progressively blotted out of the face of the earth since the first dynasty in 3100 B.C.
The invisible forces of modernity (globalization) that is engulfing humanity under the leadership of the west tend to disorganize the traditional socio-cultural fabrics upon which the Chollo people depended for centuries for their social and cultural identity and political entity. Economic transformation, conversion to Christianity and Islam threaten the Chollo cultural existence and continuity;
The northern political elite have, since independence, given the Sudanese state an Arab and Islamic orientation, to the cultural, linguistic, and religious exclusion of the African people, the Chollo included, who constitute the majority in the Sudan. Therefore, the tawajat el hadhatia (literally meaning orientation towards Islardc civilizations, being pursued by the NIF regime is an affront to the Chollo existence as a social, cultural and political entity;
The present conflict in the Sudan come in the context of the Afro-Arab conflict that began thirteen centuries ago with the conquest by the Arabs of North Africa and the destruction therein of the African civilization, cultures and languages'. Large parts of Sudan were Arabized through conquest, destroying the African kingdoms that flourished on the Nile for millennia. What fuels the conflict is the claim by northern political elite and their religious thinkers that Africans have no cultures of their own. They assert that there is a cultural vacuum which must therefore be filled by Islam and Arab culture. The Arabs driven by their version of racial superiority complex assumed to be sanctified by divine will, ignore the facts of African history, especially that which upsets their philosophy that rests solidly on religions premises. This makes it even more difficult because their premises may not be falsified scientifically.
Because of the war, the Chollo have also suffered massive displacement, and were forced to migrate to the North for survival. 'there, in the North, they got exposed to a process of cultural extinction, occasioned by the deliberate government policy of Islamization and Arabization which has for the last four decades hem aggressively supported end promoted by the northern Arab political elite and its power establishment. Competition with other marginalized Arab groups over the meagre resources has exposed die Chollo to physical liquidation at the hands of these Arab tribe (Jebelien 1990).
In the South the plight of the Chollo people was exacerbated by the conflict with the Anya-nya 2 (mostly Ninth allied to the Khartoum government), and by the unpredictable politics of the liberation war spearheaded by the SPLWA. The lack of clarity and ambiguity that surrounds the objectives of the war bus pushed into the fore other players, whose respective numerical strengths, and ambition to dominate the political and social life in South Sudan at the expense of the smaller ethnic groups, put the Chollo at a great disadvantage. This means that in a free and independent South Sudan, which is not democratic, it will be difficult for the Chollo to preserve and guarantee the autonomy of their tiny kingdom
The authority of the Rath (king) in the kingdom has been sufficiently undermined by insecurity occasioned by war, and the splits within the rebel movement. The presence in the kingdom of the SPLM/A-United led by Dr. Lam Akol Ajawin - himself a Chollo, as a political-military entity separate end opposed to the mainstream SPLM/A and the liberation struggle, poses a serious danger to the kingdom Indeed it has become a blackmail of the Chollo, following the Fashodo Agreement (1997) between Lam Akol and the NIF government predicated on acquiescence of the Chollo to the Khartoum Agreement between Rick Machar and the government lest they suffer punitive raids by the Nadh.
The presence of the Chollo people in a social environment other than theirs, coupled with the weak base of their written literature, is a situation that prevents the Chollo people in Diaspora to develop their language as the only carrier of their traditions and cultural values. The negative migration of the Chollo from their traditional homeland in search of better opportunities or as a result of forceful displacement by war accentuates their predicament.
The process of Arabization (becoming black Arabs) in the Sudan is many centuries old. In die put it was a survival strategy by the Blacks who could not resist, but also was a strategy for access, through trade and commerce, to resources that were not available locally. Many Black groups in western Sudan have lost then languages and hence, their African roots. It is the Halfa-iween, the Dwagalia, the Mahm in the north who have managed to resist and still retain their languages in tact, although they are not written or taught in Schools.
The process of Arabization of the Abialang section of the Jieng (in Renk area seat of the Nile) is almost complete, and sadly enough the process may not be reversible. The same process has affected the Chollo of Omaro mid on the west bank of the Nile, who now because of the Arab influence swear by the name of a certain Sheikh Musa instead of Nyikango or other Chollo Rath.
The negative attitude of the Egyptian regime towards the concise by the people of South Sudan of their inalienable right to self-determination, and its readiness and determination to buttress oppression and subjugation of Blacks in the Sudan by the minority Arabs, underpinning the intransigence of the past Arab dominated governments and the present NIF regime to hold on the South, not permitting its people to exercise freedom, is not conditioned only by their concern for the Nile waters and their share of it, but also by their long drawn out goal to Arabise Africa south of Sahara. This does not auger well for peaceful coexistence or cohabitation between the blacks and the Arabs in the Sudan. It is further compounded by the SPLM's call for a 'United Secular New Sudan', which not only runs counter to the aspiration of the majority of the people of South Sudan, but with the primeval political methods it uses, the SPLM will never realise this dream.
This paper focuses on the destiny of the Chollo people. Its main objective is to conscientise, and alerts the Chollo intellectuals, political leaders, traditional authority nod opinion leaders in the Kingdom and elsewhere to the need to raise their awareness to their predicament and the impending apocalypse,
However, this also could be a general problem facing all the other smaller ethnic groups in South Sudan. This is because the struggle for power and its resources in South Sudan revolved around, and have since 1972 been resolved on the basis the numerical strengths of the competing ethnic groups and their alliances. The Jieng, for instance, dominated the political process in Southern Region in Juba (1972 - 1982) and in the SPLM/A, since 1983, not on account of providing good leadership in both incidences but only on account of their numbers in the Southern People's Regional Assembly and the SPLA respectively. The call in the early eighties in Juba for a 'Dinka unity' was precisely for the Jieng elite to monopolise the power of the Southern Region and use it to the chagrin of all other groups. No wonder that Nimeri's divisive policies and subsequent project to dismantle the Southern Region found a hearing and 'kokra' became a popular household word among many ethnic groups in Equatoria mid parts of Upper Nile.
The objective of the paper is, therefore, neither to cause unnecessary alarm nor arouse any ethnic animosities among the people of South Sudan and their compatriots in the Nuba Mountains and Southern blue Nile. It, however, should serve m a basis for dialogue and political discourse, to chart the common destiny of these people. It is hoped that the SPLM/A, the main vanguard force of the people of South Sudan, shall in the course of time benefit from the exposition of these weaknesses and enable it to formulate rational policy informed by the concern for democracy, good governance, justice equity in the distribution of social, economic and political resources, such that they become the strong foundation of witty and nationhood m the future South Sudanese state. These can even now enable the SPLM/A to motivate, mobolize and galvanize the people behind it in the war of national liberations.
On the other hand, while the paper focuses on the threat to the Chollo people and their tiny kingdom nevertheless, it is not oblivious to the other ethnic entitles m the South, who are threatened with assimilation by the larger groups. And indeed, even the larger groups themselves, face the same plight as the small ones, considering the possibility of the defeat of the South by the Arabized North, which can be occasioned by their lack of unity.
The people of South Sudan and then compatriots in the Nuba Mountains and Southern Blue Nile stand to lose from any loose and vague articulation of the cause and objectives for which they took up arms. The 'united secular New Sudan', as postulated by the SPLM/A leadership does not really reflect the separation of the people. It is also not feasible given the primeval political methods used by the SPLM/A in mobolizing or organisation the people for this task. They will instead promote Arabization and Islamization of the whole country in the long run given the fact that demographically the Arabs, through hegemonic control of the state and its resources over the five decades after the independence, now form a solid single largest group in the county. It is the secession of South Sudan and the, establishment of an independent and sovereign state therein that will save the Blacks in the Sudan and beyond.
3. THE MAJOR SOURCES OF THE CHOLLO PREDICAMENT
When we speak of Chollo predicament, it was necessary and imperative to identity the main causes of this predicament, as a prelude to appreciating the predicament itself and find means of averting a national catastrophe for the Chollo people.
a. GEOGRAPHIC LOCALNY OF THE KINGDOM: BETWEW THE BONE AND THE MUSCLE
Geographically, the Chollo are the most northerly of the South Sudanese. For the last three centuries or more, the Chollo have acted as the floodgates of resistance to the European, Arab and Islamic penetration from the north through the Nile valley into South Sudan and east Africa. It will be recalled that Islam and the Arabs penetrated east and central Africa, and reached the Congo River basin from the Indian Ocean coast, because of this relentless and stubborn resistance.
This geographic disposition exposed the Chollo to the more technologically advanced Egyptians and Arabs, Turks and the European. Thus their present predicament, which began over three decades ago, could be attributed to this factor of geographical proximity to the north. This is precisely because those groups historically have acted either solitarily or unison to subjugate and enslave the Chollo people.
To the south, the Chollo power and dominance in their area was first challenged during the nineteenth century by the Nadh in the course of their migration to the east of the Nile. These were mainly the Jikany and the Laak sections of eastern Nadh. Their encounter was first peaceful, but later became hostile characterized by mutual raid for cattle. The ensuing wars with the Chollo must have pushed the Jikany further to east, and the Laak further away from the Zeraf valley, where they live today. The Nadh through their unprincipled alliance with the Arab dominated regimes in Khartoum were used by these regimes against the Chollo people.
The Nadh were organized in 1984 by the then Governor of Upper Nile Region, D K Mathews into what was known as 'friendly' forces under the direction of Gaafar Nimeri, exploiting the split which occurred in western Ethiopia between the SPLWA and Anya-nya 2. This rag-tag government militia in 1987 razed to tile ground podhi Chollo from Papwojo in the south to Tholong in the north, which left ugly memories in the minds of the Chollo about the Nadh.
The Chollo villages on the east bank of the Nile between Fam (the mouth of Zeraf river) and the Sobat mouth were forcefully relocated to the west bank of the Nile. This was accompanied by hostilities with enormous loss of human life". The Chollo fell victims to Nimeri's policy that instigated divisions and ethnic conflicts among southerners in the wake of his re-division of the Southern Region.
The other immediate neighbours of the Chollo are the Jieng, who although have had peaceful relations with Chollo for a very long time, marked by cross marriages and other social exchanges, were fitted against the Chollo by the divisive politics of May regime in the early eighties. These relationships reached their lowest level when in 1981, the Thoi and Luach Jieng under the instigation of the Jonglel Provincial authorities agitated for the borders of the Chollo district - Tonga with Fangak to be placed in the middle of the river Nile.
Thus, surrounded by hostility on all sides, the Chollo kingdom has become more vulnerable over the time. The main danger comes from the north as the kingdom has become more accessible, because of communication technology, to its traditional enemies, who are now more powerful and intend to erase it from the face of the earth
b. POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ENGINEERING
The Chollo people and their tiny kingdom was not part of the Turco-Egyptian state in the Sudan. Until the defeat of that state by the Mahdist's revolution, it remained at its periphery, which made it a reserve for slave raiding. The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan incorporated the Chollo kingdom not on any kind of agreement but military occupation, nevertheless it remained peripheral and the colonial authorities left the kingdom alone.
The successive 'national' governments failed to integrate the Chollo people and kingdom into the Sudanese social and political system on the basis of equality. The policy frame adopted by the different Arab dominated regimes was that of assimilation into the Arab culture. Thus the Chollo people have never felt themselves part of the Sudan and thus have not recognised the sovereignty of the Sudanese state over their gm tiny kingdom. They considered themselves an occupied, subjugated and marginalised people. Their participation alongside other South Sudanese has been and continues to be an expression of their rejection of the Arab dominated Sudanese state.
Like other South Sudanese they have resisted manipulation. They fought in the first war (1955-1972), alongside other southerners, a fact that has Tied them more to the South. When Nimeri started to de-stabilise the Southern Region in a manner that was going to precipitate another armed confrontation the Chollo youths also joined their other compatriots in taking arms.
However, because of lack of a committed political leadership to lead the resistance of the people to the political manipulation of the northern political elite, the struggle took on ethnic lines and against themselves. Nimeri tacitly had intended to internalize the divisions among the various ethnic groups in the Southern Region in order to direct their anger and frustration with the general social and economic stagnation in the south, not at the central government but at themselves and their weak Regional Government. This was efficaciously intended to speed up the dismantling of the Addis Ababa Agreement, the division of the Southern Region and the imposition of the Islamic Sharia laws.
It will be recalled that the trafficking in aims and gun running that occurred in Southern Sudan between 1980 and 1983 was in essence a preparation by the tribes for the resolution of their border disputes. Indeed the mutiny in Bor in 1983 and the subsequent formation of the SPLM/A absorbed much of these localized contradictions, and the South was spared bloody tribal wars. The Chollo people were disadvantaged in that, their desire for law and order and their trust that the government would not betray them, they did not engage in gun running or trafficking.
Pulling these facts together in summary, it becomes obvious that, although the Chollo had hitherto controlled their territory in confidence, this geographic disposition and the changed balance of forces to their disadvantage has male untenable their secured existence, underpinning their present predicament. As it turns out now, the danger to this tiny kingdom comes not only from the North but also from the South.
The Chollo kingdom is perhaps the only recognized surviving authentic African traditional system in the Sudan after successive destruction of African kingdoms and civilizations by the Caucasians (Europeans and the Asians), which has stretched for more than five millennia. That it has endured this long could be attributed to the resistance of the Chollo people and partly because it posed no immediate threat neither to the Anglo-Egyptian condominium or the independent Sudanese state.
Since the re-conquest of the Sudan (189 , the Chollo people enjoyed a measure of self-administration but that authority and sovereignty diminished with the growing influence of the Sudanese state and the incorporation of the institution of the Rath in the state. The relationship between the Chollo kingdom and the Sudanese is however, metastable and, depends on the shrewdness of the reigning sovereign and his maintenance of this delicate balance of the mutual interests.
The Chollo kingdom as an entity attracts the envy of the northern Arab governments making it a legitimate target for destruction. This has been partly because for a long time it represented an organized resistance to the process of Arabization and Islamization of the South Sudan and its people. The existence of a stubborn Black culture in the face of a marauding Arab culture presents the Black African people in South Sudan with the hope of their survival. The Arabs had to resort to their ancient tactics of deceptive brotherhood and cooperation as a means of peaceful conquest of the Black African people.
Because of social and political engineering, the destruction of the Chollo people may also be precipitated by some of its own sons and daughters. As it was in the ancient times, the Chollo people like their ancestors provided the occasion for their self-destruction. Learning nothing from even from yesterday, some Chollo elements are now providing the Arabs with the ammunition for the destruction of their tiny kingdom. For instance, hoping to be placed on the throne instead of the notorious Kur Nyidhok, Awejok travelled to Omdurman in1895 and requested Khalifa Abdullah to assist in removing Rath Kur. Khalifa Abdullahi was only happy to exploit this opportunity for subduing the Chollo and conscripting many of its youths into his slave army. It took the shrewdness of Nyirath Akon to prevent Awejok realizing his dreams and instead Rath Padiet was installed in place of Kur Nyidhok in 1902.
Rath Kur Papiti Yor (1953 -1974), in an effort to raise and educate his heirs to the throne away from the jealous eyes of his cousins,. entrusted the upbringing of some of his sons (nyiath) to the custody of a Muslim friend. He committed the gravest mistake of disenfranchising his sons. Because they converted to Islam, have elected themselves out of the race to Pachodo.
Indeed, one of them, Musa Mekh Kur, is a senior NIF cadre, and the regime could out of political expediency impose him on the Chollo nation as their next Rath. This is an invidious scheme of achieving power over the Chollo using a Chollo 'prince', whose conversion to Islam in the first place is affront to Chollo culture. This is akin to a recent attempt by the Salem Arabs to marry one of their daughters to Rath Kwongo. This was rejected by Jagi wipadiwad. The arrogant imposition of a Muslim Rath on the Chollo nation, only on account of state power, is likely to cause serious consternation.
The Khartoum Agreement between the NIF regime and the South Sudan Independence Movement (SSIM) and its Fashodo variation between it and the SPLM-United (1997) gave the Arabs an extra edge over the Blacks in the Sudan, at a time they had wielded enormous military prowess that was enough to break them loose from Arab domination and oppression. Chancellor Williams's description below of Black leadership really fits very well the situation of all those South Sudanese leaders who capitulated to the NIF regime:
" ... the Black leadership paved the way for further Arab advances into their country. The Black leadership's struggle for personal power and, above all, their own personal security and welfare, precluded their concern for the welfare and future of their people. They are quite willing and ready to welcome the Arabs and surrender their people to them in exchange for 'high' office and limited consideration. The days of the Black immortals seemed to have passed forever. Mental pygmies again occupied the throne once held by Menes, Pianki, Shabaka and Kalydosos ...."
Although the split from the SPLM/A and the eventual capitulation to the NIF regime on the parts of Dr. Riek Machar and Dr. Lam Akol was driven by personal considerations for power, it triggered a train of events, each with its own momentum including that which served the Arab strategy for destroying the Chollo kingdom Dr. Lain Akol lost his political space in the liberation process pushing him and his SPLM/A-united into an unprincipled alliance with the enemy of his people. This is the most unlikely alliance a person of Lam's standing can enter into given the fact the NIF is affront to the existence of the Chollo kingdom upon which Lam's legitimacy rested.
On the other hand, this alliance afforded the NIF regime the opportunity to foment and instigate divisions and conflicts within the SPLWA-united to prevent it consolidating into a meaningful force. This fitted Dr. Lain Akol against his deputy Peter Abdalla Sule, his Front commander James Othow and a host of other junior officers leading to splits and bloody encounters to chagrin of the civil population. The period between 1995 and 1997 witnessed heavy fighting among the SPLMIA-united forces with enormous lost of fife and a large number of officers and men deserted their locations.
The schism and in fighting among a splinter group was a recipe for disaster in the Chollo kingdom It repudiated the claim that the SPLA-united was there to protect the Chollo population, as it exposed them to uncertainty and possible reprisals and destruction by the NIF regime and its militia. This became more apparent when the Fashoda and Khartoum agreements started to reveal cracks and lack of commitment on the part of the NIF regime.
It is therefore very likely that the struggle by some Chollo political elite for power, either at the national level in Khartoum regional level in the South or at the Chollo level, may help create conditions that can lead to the destruction of the Chollo kingdom, by providing the NIF regime with the pretext for imposing Musa Mekh Kur or any other collaborator on the Chollo throne, not for anything but to accelerate the destruction of the kingdom.
C. THE EROSION OF CHOLLO TRADITIONAL VALUES AND AUTHORM
The exposure of the Chollo people over a long period to domineering foreign cultures and influences e.g. the Europeans (Christian religion), and the Arabs (Islam and Arabic language and culture) was obviously bound to have serious impact on the Chollo ways of life especially their traditions and cultural values. Being on the receiving end, the social fabrics that knit together the Chollo society are gradually being loosen leading to a breakdown in the social system
The despondency and social decadence observed among the Chollo communities both at home and in Diaspora is closely linked to this phenomenal influence of foreign cultures and practices. These are indicators not only of social decay but also perhaps of bad things yet to come. 1 use the following to illustrate this assertion:
The sharp increase in cases of incest and marriage to blood relative, hitherto a taboo in the Chollo society, reported in towns and villages in the north, is a manifestation of this social disintegration. This comes as a result of acculturation to the European and Asiatic (Arabs) social and religious norms and values.
A strong tendency not to submit to the authority of the Reth has emerged among the Chollo political elite, whose allegiance is more to the Sudanese state and its political system than to Pachodo. As a result they openly defy the authority of Wad Nyikango leading to his demystification in the eyes of his subject. This spells doom for the Chollo social and political system, as Wad Nyikango is the centre of this system.
The institution of Rath's replacement is now contested with the assistance of the state security apparatus, raising high the stakes of who inherits the throne as opposed to the Chollo traditional system. This poses a serious danger to the Chollo people and their kingdom in that it erodes the practice of competition among the Nyirath on the basis of their popularity among the Chollo people. It gives the Sudan government to impose a stooge who can be used negatively against the Chollo people.
The erosion of the tradition values and the sense of eternal brotherhood among the Chollo has been heightened of late by the internal strife among the Chollo themselves as the external pressures and threats to existence increased. More over, due to the forces of modernity, average Chollo women and men have lost their passionate attachment to the nation and the Kingdom.
The progressive destruction of the values that knit together a nation as a result of external influences especially when forces for social regeneration are under strenuous pressure, constitutes a precursor of more serious catastrophe to the Chollo people and their Kingdom A people under pressure can endure and survive if they are able to preserve their language and religious beliefs. This is how the Jews have survived throughout since the seventh century A.D., following the destruction of Jerusalem and their exile to Babylon.
The Chollo people at home and in the Diaspora are starting to lose their language and custom. This means that they have deprived themselves of social regeneration and resistance to foreign cultures and values. A person, even though of Chollo parentage, who cannot speak the language, does not carry Chollo facial marks (scars) or has adopted a different religious faith e.g. Christianity or Islam obviously has nothing intimate to relate self to the Chollo nation. This means that over a period of time, the Chollo may disappear completely from the face of the earth.
4. CONSCIENTISATION RATHER THAAT ETHNIC CHAUVINISM - A DISCUSSION OF THE CONCEPT OF THE CHOLLO PREDICAMENT.
To many of my compatriots, the tone of this paper may appear reactionary, chauvinistic and an attempt to inflame passions. No, this is not the case. It should not also be construed as being driven by racism and Chollo chauvinism. It is, however, an attempt at conscientisation of the Chollo people to the dangers of the present political dispensation of the Sudanese state that stares them contemptuously in the face. But, having said that, it permissible to add that this also could be the fate other ethnic groups, whether in South Sudan or among the marginalised groups in the North, whether large or small, may like the Chollo, suffer the same predicament.
The Chollo land is an occupied land and its people subjugated. They have never been free since the Turks and Egyptians set foot in the middle of the nineteen century. The kingdom or its people were never consented to being part of the Sudan, when its mg present borders were established. It was incorporated by force of arms and remains an appendage of the Sudanese state. The early attempts to Islamise and Arabise have had limited efficacy. This was partly due to the people's resistance and relentlessness to preserve their identity.
It is almost an axiom that history moves in linear progression, sweeping away in its wake systems that have become obsolete and unfit to survive under the new order. Historical selection and survival of societies and peoples is now accentuated and accelerated by technology, wars and weapons of mass destruction. So like biological selection of species, communities and whole ethnic groups are under threat of extinction, whether physically or culturally, from the mindless dominance of powerful nations.
The new world order tends to promote historical selection in a very, subtle manner. On the global level, decisions of economic, social and political nature discriminate against the weak and poor in favour of the wealthy and the powerful. Even, the LIN system is imperceptibly becoming a mechanism for enforcing an order based on western social values dubbed as international principles. However, even that is selectively enforced under consideration of geographical proximity. The war in the former Yugoslavia and the response of the European nations and NATO to end that conflict, or the Gulf war illuminates and confirms this assertion that the European countries, the NATO and the UN were more concern about European blood and fife in a manner that flouts the international humanitarian principles if compared with their respective responses to the conflicts in parts of Africa or elsewhere.
The NIF government has been committing with impunity what could be categorized as crimes against humanity, bombing civilian targets including relief centres run by the international NGOs and LJN agencies, and the international response has been lukewarm token protest. The problem of the government aerial bombardment of innocent civilians could have been resolved by availing to the SPLA Surface to Air Missiles to bring down the Antenovs. But up to this moment, nobody in the international community seem to contemplate this radical measure.
The Arabs, thanks to their petrodollar wealth and the existence in the Arab world of a huge market for western technology and arms, have managed, as a block, to impose themselves on the political map, not only of the Middle East, but also of North and East Africa. The Arabs now pull the shots in Africa, more than anytime before. The Egyptians now dictate terms that deny the people of South Sudan their inalienable right to self-determination. This raises the spectre of historical selection for the weaker ethnic groups like the Chollo and others, as it heightens the NIF regime's intransigence and war mongering attitudes threatening the regional (IGAD) initiative for peaceful resolution of the conflict.
The Chollo and the other African peoples in the Sudan have a right to existence and to develop their cultures. It is criminal to contemplate their physical existence only if they become black Arabs through assimilation and domination, which justifies and drives the present NIF intransigence and war agenda.
Considering the above facts, there is a real threat of physical liquidation and cultural extinction of the Chollo people and their compatriots in South Sudan, Nuba Mountains and Southern Blue Nile. Modernity in the Sudan is being read to mean subjugation, domination, oppression and exploitation of the weak and their being assimilated in the dominant culture and religion, if necessary by force of arms. Social and economic development and growth does not have to mean jettisoning one's cultural values. It rather entails refining the progressive ones to meet the needs and requirements of the time. But the drive to acculturate and assimilate the black Africans is not really to make them Muslims or Arabs but to Facilitate and accelerate their domination and enslavement leading to the expropriation of their natural resources, by submerging them in ignorance.
The scorched earth policy pursued by the NIF regime in northern Bahr el Ghazal and in the oil fields in western Upper Nile is driven more by economic considerations than religious zeal. The process of extermination of the black people in South Sudan, the Nuba Mountains and Southern Blue Nile is paralleled by what the NIF regime prefers to call "armed robbery" in Dar Fur, which is nothing less than a determined campaign by the various Arab tribes to liquidate the African tribes of Fur, Masalit, Zaghawa and drive them away from their land.
The danger to the Chollo and other people in the Sudan, at the hand of the Arab dominated state, is further sealed by the recent NIF diplomatic successes both regionally and internationally. This is in spite of its records of crimes against humanity. The regime has managed to break itself out of regional and international isolation. It has re-established diplomatic relations with Eritrea and Ethiopia. Its relations with Egypt have considerably improved. Over and above that, the regime has started to reap huge sums of petrodollars leading to relative improved economic performance (accord' IMF) will enable it to buy, manufacture and use weapons of mass destruction (it has already used chemical and biological weapons). The impact of all these on the regime's military performance will be enormous, and is likely to escalate the war.
No nation, however weak and lacks an agenda of self-identity, will voluntarily submit to enslavement and domination, without putting up a fight or steep resistance. It can only be conquered and vanquished. The Chollo and 'indeed all the marginalised peoples of South, East and West Sudan are no exception. In fact, the Chollo have resisted the Turks and Arab onslaught with valour and dignity. There are battle morale songs against the Shaigiya Arab tribe and the 'Alamthar' (Dervishes) in the Chollo oral history. The collaborators with the enemies were equally despised indicative of the culture of resistance to foreign aggressors.
The present war of national liberation spearheaded by the SPLIVA is an act of resistance to domination and assimilation. The Chollo are fully aware that without a resort to weapons, the Arabs are cunny and conquer even in time of peace and armistice with their adversaries, through cultural exchanges, brotherhood and wealth ostentations. This is how historically the Arabs have successfully engineered their conquest of North Africa including northern Sudan destroying the Cush Christian kingdoms of Alwa and Maker through deceptive brotherhood myths, which encourages and promotes one sided marriages of black women as a means of changing their black colour.
Economic factors engendered by a cleverly planned and executed policy of marginalisation and pauperization of the Chollo carried out by the regime in Malakal, Kodok, Wad Akon and Renk has led to break of families. The Chollo men have been pushed into a position of inferiority that many had their wives converted to Islam or married to Arab merchant, in order to survive the economic hardships.
All these weigh heavily against the survival of the Chollo nation and gives credence to the assumption that the Chollo are in a serious dilemma. The stakes are made so high by the inertia within the liberation movement. Without the SPLM/A shooting itself to power and takes physical control of South Sudan, it may spell doom for the weaker ethnic groups, the Chollo 'included.
5. STRATEGISING TO AVERT THE APOCALYPSE - AN ABSOLUTE NECESSITY
As mentioned above, the Chollo need not take the Arab onslaught against their physical existence as a people and a culture lying down on their backs. As they have resisted in the past, so are they called upon to resist. The present environment is favourable in that people can now engage in collective struggle for mutual existence and survival. The Chollo now struggle alongside their compatriots from other ethnic and social group. This constitutes their first line of defense against domination and assimilation into the Arab-Islamic culture, at the same time guarantee' their peaceful coexistence with their erstwhile hostile neighbours in the south.
The Chollo intellectuals, political elites and traditional leadership, precisely the institution of 'Pach' are called upon to formulate a transparent strategy that will ensure the continued existence of the Chollo as a social, political and cultural entity. A self-administering entity that does not conflict now or in the future with the Chollo immediate neighbours. This can be achieved within the following context:
PURSUING A LIBERATION AGENDA.
The Chollo people's struggle to existence must of necessity be linked to the liberation agenda being pursued by the rest of the people of South Sudan and their compatriots in the Nuba Mountains and Southern Blue Nile. The liberation agenda that guarantees freedom equality, social justice, dignity and social progress for all.
It becomes imperative for the Chollo intellectuals, political elite, especially those in the SPLM/A-United, who falsely believe they can draw a wedge between the Chollo people and the rest of the South through their unprincipled alliance and collaboration with the NIF regime, to start working for reconciliation and unity among the people of South Sudan. This will enable the Chollo youth, now Tied down to Chollo Midwest, to actively participate alongside their other compatriots in the struggle and war of liberation for realization of the right of the people to self-determination. This is the way they can create a political space for themselves in the South Sudan, which is more honourable and acceptable compared to the political space Dr. Lam Akol created for himself as Minister for Transport and Communication, in the NIF system.
In A free and sovereign South Sudan, which is based on principles and practices of good governance and democracy, the Chollo will have, due to their social, political and administrative system and their uniqueness in the South to win for themselves the right to self- administration. The Chollo kingdom could be a self-administering entity within the united South Sudan. There should not be any contradictions, as the objective is for the people to develop their cultures and traditions. However, for the Chollo to coexist in a peaceful environment with the rest of their compatriots, the kingdom and the institution of the Rath shall have to undergo some progressive transformation without destroying the essence of its cultural significance.
Pursuing the liberation agenda on all fronts, active participation of the Chollo youth and political elite alongside other ethnic groups, and the subsequent exercise of the right of self-administration will guarantee the physical and cultural survival of the Chollo kingdom and people. That is the optimal manner the apocalypse of physical extermination and cultural extinction can be averted.
INSTITUTING SOCIAL AND POLITICAL REFORMS OF THE SYSTEM
The Chollo social and political system is not an island isolated or immuned to the changes taking place around it. Indeed, these changes are so powerful that they could easily sweep away the system if it does not respond in a manner that can ensure its survival. It is imperative that the Chollo people adopt themselves to the changes in the following ways:
The Rath, although sovereign, will have to become accountable to the Chollo people. There is no way the institution of Pach can continue to use old methods in a modem setting. That can trigger serious contradictions between Pach and the subjects.
The political and administrative system will have to be subjected to the exercise of democratic principles of elections, transparency and accountability, eschewing its feudal relations that has so far characterised it. The purpose will be a response and adjusting to modem forces, which WIN accommodate the aspirations and concerns of both the town and rural Chollo communities.
The Chollo kingdom as a self-administering entity could be modernized on the model of the Buganda kingdom in Uganda. The traditional absolute power of the Rath will have to be countered with a people elected 'Lakiko' type parliament or council of clan representatives or elders, etc., which will be the people's power. Since Pach is not a absolute monarchy sense stricto, its secularization will blend well with the Chollo modem forces, who have a vested interest to promote its continued existence.
The significance of these measures cannot be over emphasized. A system can protect itself by developing and adjusting to the demands of time. This is because, even an advanced social and political system as the former Soviet Union collapsed because it operated in a manner not compatible with its continued existence. It selected itself out of existence.
6. SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS
The Chollo people and their tiny kingdom in Midwest Upper Nile have suffered several tragedies of occupation, subjugation, enslavement and marginalisation since the expedition of Mohammed Ah at the head of a Turco-Egyptian invasion in 1821. The Chollo have not considered themselves part and parcel of the Arab dominated Sudanese state. Their loyalty remained with their kingdom and the relation with the Sudanese state considered a temporary arrangement for survival.
However, the Chollo people now find themselves being battered on all sides by the forces much more stronger and powerful than them. The tragedy is being assisted by some of its ablest sons and daughters, who want to create for them a political space within the Sudanese state. This raises the spectre of its destruction physical extermination of its people and their cultural extraction.
The strategy of the Arab political elite is the complete Arabization and Islamization of the Sudan. Whether or not, they will realise it, is beside the point. The fact remains that the Chollo people and their African compatriots in the Sudan are under real threat of losing their identity. The present war, however, is a resistance to this threat. It has entered its eighteenth year with little signs for its ending.
Itself propelled by desperation for political survival, under enormous military pressure from the SPLA and other armed groups, the NIF regime may be tempted to use chemical and biological agents more widely and with impunity. The recent aerial bombardment of UN/OLS relief centres in the South, including the ICRC plane, shows that the regime can commit crimes against humanity without risks of sanctions etc.
This could happen in the Chollo area, should they renounce the Fashoda agreement. The contradictions between the aspirations of the people in South Sudan and vision of the SPLM/A leadership has led to splits and in-fighting in the South, which at a certain stage tilted the strategic balance of forces in favour of the NIF regime. Without unity among the fighting forces, the can be no resolution of the conflict either military or by peaceful negotiations. This in the end could spell doom for the African people in the Sudan, the military victories, usually pyrrhic, notwithstanding.
This is partly because the political practice - which marginalizes the vast majority of the people- and the objectives of the SPLM/A leadership - which emphasizes armed struggle and perpetuation of war- to achieve the 'New Sudan' are becoming questionable by the day. Especially when the perception and reality of this 'New Sudan' is not expressed or manifested in the liberated areas in the form of an established political and administrative systems capable of delivering the necessary social services to the people and create a condition for stability which allow the civil population to recreate their fives and participate actively in managing their affairs.
The Chollo people and their tiny kingdom in Midwest Upper Nile are caught up in the middle of nowhere. They have been cut ol]F from the liberation struggle and neutralized by the 1991 and 1994 splits within the SPLM/A and SPLMIA-United respectively. They are not committed to being with the Arab dominated north, although one of their numbers, who pretends to militarily control Midwest Upper Nile, is a minister in the NIF regime. In fact, the destiny of the Chollo is closely Tied up with that of their compatriots in South Sudan, the Nuba Mountains and Southern Blue Nile. Their survival for physical existence, therefore, lies in their active participation in the war of national liberation alongside these peoples.
This of necessity requires the parameters of the present struggle defined in a manner that all the people be owners of the process. The enemy needs to be defined in clear and uncertain terms, which will allow those disoriented, marginalised or neutralized to correctly orient themselves in the liberation process. On the other hand, the SPLA- United and other armed groups in Upper Nile must indicate readiness to eschew their tribal chauvinist attitudes and join the ranks of the mainstream liberation Movement.
In conclusion, the Chollo predicament is real. The threat to their physical existence and culture is heightened by war. It can only be stopped by force of arms and relentless struggle to reverse the trend of Arabization and Islamization of their kingdom-L This must be preceded by a new thinking, a clearer vision of the struggle that puts the people and their aspiration, not the whims of the leaders, at the centre of the liberation process, and must be coupled with strong and functional organisational structures that will empower the people, unite and enable them participate actively in decision-making on issues that affect their lives. Short of that an apocalypse is inevitable.
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بكرى ابوبكر
Ahlalawad
فيس بوك
تويتر
انستقرام
يوتيوب
بنتيريست