Charles Elias Chartouni/Sudan, Darfur and the prospects of Stabilization and Democratization/شارل الياس شرتوني: السودان ودارفور واحتمالات الإستقرار والديموقراطية

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Sudan, Darfur and the prospects of Stabilization and Democratization
Charles Elias Chartouni/July 31/2020
شارل الياس شرتوني: السودان ودارفور واحتمالات الإستقرار والديموقراطية

The downfall of Omar Hassan al Bachir the genocidal autocrat, and the eclipse of the Islamist narrative featured by Hassan al Turabi ( 1932-2016 ), does not seem to usher an era of stability and cumulative Democratic reforms in Sudan.

The genocide pattern seems to perpetuate in Darfur, and the scorched earth politics against non Arabs pursues its unimpeded course ( plunder, rape, massacres … ).

Aside from the program of reforms unreeled by the democratic government which relayed the Islamist dictatorship ( abrogation of apostasy, flogging for lawbreakers, female genital mutilation, gay sex death penalty, and alcohol consumption for non Muslims… ), it does not seem that racial discrimination against non-Arabs is to abate soon, give way to a status of self governance in Darfur, and put an end to the ongoing genocide which has cost the life to 300.000 inhabitants, since 2003.

One wonders whether there are any chances to oversee a change besides a secession, and the formation of separate Statehood alike the one that took place in the South, since there are no chances for democratization within the actual political framework and its hegemonic pillars.

The regional State system built on the premisses of a discriminatory, racist and authoritarian Arab narrative has proven to be a deadly fallacy which gave way to decades of genocides, demographic engineering, institutional inequities, and systemic political irrelevance which led to a consolidated state of existential helplessness.

Southern Sudanese and Darfur ethnic groups had to cope with decades of cyclical massacres, massive displacement and structural helplessness, until the first ones were able to access independence and build separate statehood, whereas Darfur ethnicities are still eligible to discretionary violence and deliberate scapegoating.

The unitary framework of governance didn’t yield, so far, a democratic treatment of the inter-ethnic cleavages, and doesn’t seem to dim the violent connotations of weighted ideological prejudices. Darfur has no other chance to escape the doom of systemic racialism and hard wired exploitative power relationships, unless it recovers self determination rights and achieves national independence.

The implosion of the Arab inter-System and its underlying ideological narrative and power equations, is unlikely to be tackled, unless the relaying scenarios concede to a conflict resolution scenario based on self determination, consensual ethno-national political arrangements, federal schemes of governance and Human Rights provisions ( 1948 ).

Arab-Islamic political culture is wedded to a notion of power politics that can hardly reconcile with the mandates of a constitutional democracy based on basic Human Rights, reconnaissance and consociational regimes and their intellectual predicates.

It takes genuine intellectual and political reforms and restructured power relationships, to finish off with the burdens of a stifling legacy and initiate a new dynamic, the Darfur tragedy should be no exception if this region were to oversee a transition to stability and steady reforms. The curtailment of the UN peace keep mission is an all advised move, and the thrust of US power should revitalize, if this state of macabre bloodletting is to stop and its dynamics terminated.