Mahgoub El-Tigani

December 21, 2004

Although the State-controlled media is predominantly based on Islamic fundamentalism, two trends seem to compete in the Sudan T.V. programs nowadays. A major trend is apparently composed of the elite preaching on Islamic Shari’a in almost every aspect of the social life even reading, eating, drinking, singing, and dancing. Women or men, Shari’a speakers, including sheikhs, ministers or singers struggle to portray the Shari’a teachings as ‘purely’ Arab as well. In this trend, the insensitivity to the issues of Islam as a religion of ‘all races’ and the national demand to provide fair representation of the multi-religious multi-ethnic composition of the Nation in the State media is clearly ignored.

The other trend is slightly processing the programs that adopt the popular folklore of the marginal regions, including Sufi hymns, love songs, and village dances. Away from the rigidity and sometimes artificiality of the State-oriented religiosity, it was delightful to watch many Sudanese participants spontaneously revealing the ethnic and religious diversity of the country with a strong emphasis on the indigenous cultures of which many influenced since old times the Sudanese popular Islam or Sufi sects in terms of communal behavior, as well as other artistic styles and daily activities.

The ‘shy’ competition between the two trends reveals, furthermore, a deeper conflict between the secular speakers or performers who criticize the government’s policies and plans, and the government officials who are not necessarily fundamentalist supporters of the ruling party; but they do propagate the economic and political objectives and policies of the ruling elite.

Most recently, a partial merging of the two trends in the Sudan T.V. suggests a slow turn in the State media programs from a fundamentalist monopoly to a slightly liberal show via a gradual incorporation of a few opposition views and criticisms. Interestingly, the minister of guidance and religious endowments, Dr. Isam Ahmed al-Bashir, exposed a flexible viewpoint on the possibilities of Shari’a interpretation with respect to governance issues (Sudan T.V.: December 20, 2004). Dr. Bashir seem to accept the accommodation of modern systems of parliamentary representation and other contemporary politics instead of a rigid mechanical adherence to the ‘shura’ [popular consultation] or the ‘baiya’ [political allegiance], as experienced by the early Muslims in Medina.

“These are changeable transactions,” asserted the Awqaf minister. “Still, Shari’a fixations, such as ‘hudud’ penalties, are unchangeable,” Dr. Isam further emphasized. It was expected, however, the Islamist scholar might have elaborated on the ‘ijtihad mechanism’ to adjust application of all physical penalties to the most preferred humanitarian meanings and worshipping objectives of Islam. At least theoretically, these meanings might reasonably address the need to ensure the suitability of punishment to both economic and social conditions of a criminogenic environment. The meanings of penalty in Islam also recognizes the psychological willingness of a condemned Muslim to accept hudud as a reformative penalty in the first place, as the authenticated experiences of early Islam reveals in the days of the Prophet.

In other words, if a certain community is not yet prepared to exercise specific penalties in accordance with the wisdom they are meant for, the criminal justice system must not inflict them on a guilty citizen. The State must go for alternative penalties such as compensating the victim, pardoning a guilty person, and reforming a sinful soul - as is highly praised by both international norms and religious sources. It goes without saying: State legislation should guarantee constitutional rights to all citizens to abide-by non-discriminatory statutory laws, irrespective of religion, race, political stand, or any other criteria.

Still, there is a long way for the State to open up all media programs to the popular movement that alone is capable of a real actualization of peace and national participation at full length. Related to the opposition–government debate, the Sudan T.V. budget discussion (December 15) between the opposition economist Professor Farouq Kadoda and Dr. Babiker Mohamed al-Tom, Chair of the National Council’s Economic Committee, indicated several points in this direction.

The two economists did not refer directly to the Islamic Shari’a principles that nominally govern State performance with respect to the national economy. It was Mohamed Hashim ‘Awad, a dedicated professor to Islamic economics, however, who correctly alerted the audience in another T.V. interview to the principles of Islam in economic investment: “Islam is not against the private sector provided that the investing sector will not be allowed to monopolize the fundamental resources of life such as water, energy, and pasture,” affirmed ‘Awad.

Since the early days of the Triple Economic Program (1989-1992) of the ‘Inqaz Government’ of the National Salvation Revolution restructured the national economy to favor private objectives of the ruling junta of the National Islamic Front. These objectives included privatization of the public sector in the key export and import areas among other plans at expense of the public sector’s protection policies of the farming and working forces and the poor consumer population at large.

Apart from the growth of the ruling Islamists’ commercial and professional strata, the negative results of these policies embraced a high rate of pauperization among the farming and working classes of the population, high brain drain, and unproductive migration from the agricultural areas of the war-torn marginal regions to a number of towns without services around the cities.

Professor ‘Awad, an Islamic socialist economist, has been consistently criticizing the liberalization policies of the government, which had been seriously considered by the elected government (1986-89) then fully implemented by the Inqaz ‘Islamist’ regime. Earlier since the discovery of oil in Sudan in the mid 1980s, Hashim advised the ruling regime to insist on a fair share of oil returns on the assumption that the investing companies would pursue by all means the largest share of oil returns at expense of the national economy. Professor ‘Awad’s viewpoint came true by the disastrous dealings of the Salvation Revolution with ‘socialist’ China and the other ‘capitalist’ oil exploiting groups.

In the early 1990s, Professor Hashim protested the government’s plan to dismiss thousands of the working force “to reduce expenditure of the general budget.” As he explained top the press at the time: “the massive dismissals would strip the machinery of State from its well-trained or experienced elements whose substitution would cost massive expenditure in the upcoming decades. Moreover, the public sector could be successfully reformed by a number of workable measures (including active participation of the labor force in reform programs) to contribute lucratively to the welfare of the working personnel and the general society.”

Interestingly, Professor Kadoda, a communist leader, reiterated some of the Hashim’s criticisms in his discussion of the proposed Peace Budget of the government (December 2004). “The budget is simply traditional because it is placed within the frame of the ongoing liberalization policies. It was expected that after 15 years of failure, the new budget would clearly identify the problems of implementing these policies in the whole country.”

Criticizing the budget because “it proposed 60 percent of its total expenditure to security and defense,” the opposition economist exclaimed: “it would have been appropriate to propose that much to boost agriculture and the other key production sectors. Recently, the Sudanese Union of Industries complained from the stoppage of production in a number of industries due to the high cost of electricity and the other necessary inputs. Has the budget considered concerns of the farmers whose union in Gedarif predicted failure of the new season most recently?”

Equally importantly, Kadoda voiced his doubts about the budget’s lacking of real sources to spend in the regions: “true, the proposed budget would increase the regions’ share of the total budget by billions of pounds. These enlarged figures, however, are due to the increased expected expenditure of the police, the judiciary, and high education. What about the new agricultural season? How much difference would the proposed increases of the budget make in the life of the ordinary citizens in the regions?”

The opposition leader concluded in further criticisms of unprecedented increases of financial corruption in State money, as the Auditor-General report recently revealed: “year after year, there have been a great number of embezzlements side by side with a growing collapse in the financial accountability of the State,” emphasized Kadoda.

The National Council’s chief economist Dr. Babiker al-Tom admitted the occurrence of financial corruption in the government agencies. “But it took place only in the chaotic companies, not in the federal ministries where tight controls have been exercised over the public money.”

Still, the question lingers for most of the State budget was executed by tens of key government agencies, banks, and departments in addition to the provincial administrations where hundreds of ministers, governors, and other leaderships dictated the ruling party’s monopolies over the national and regional finances. This situation might also be linked to the erupting crisis of DarFur and Eastern Sudan, as well as the new rebellion in the Northern provinces, whose rebels claimed serious occurrence of financial and administrative corruption by government officials.

Dr. Babiker assured the audience that the high proposed expenditure of the security and police “is due to the State plan to strengthen the peace process and be prepared for all changes.” Babiker also mentioned that “the new budget will be operated with real resources. The liberalization policy of the State has successfully depressed the inflation rate, increased the revenue, and is now generating investments and sufficient loans. Liberalization is a global fact and we are determined in the government to run its programs with good controls and efficient organization.”

Back in 1988, Mohamed Ibrahim Nugud, then leader of the Democratic Opposition of the elected Constituent Assembly, raised similar criticisms against the liberalization policy of Sadiq al-Mahdi’s coalition government that embodied the same Islamists of the June coup. “The budget was not expressive of the needs of the vast majority of the population,” asserted Nugud who suggested before the Assembly many alternatives to strike a better balance between the State needs to capital formation and the producer/consumer economic and social rights.

After 15 years’ of liberating the under-developed heavily-indebted finances of Sudan at expense of education, health, and the development agricultural and industrial programs, the ruling Islamists allowed themselves to privatize most of the State’s infrastructural establishments and key production units, including tanneries, textile factories, and railways. The ruling junta equally monopolized the import and the export sectors dismissing thousands of the skilled workers and professionals and escalating the troubles of the economy with high security and defense extra-spending for renewable wars and emergency state.

Whose judgment then really counts assessing whether the liberalization policy reformed the country or that it has simply added to the Nation’s disaster? Would the proposed Peace Budget address the urgent needs of the South and DarFur to settle the displaced population, establish democratic regional and central structures, and boost productivity in the agricultural and industrial sectors?

How would a peace budget be provided with 60 percent of the total expenditures proposed for tools of violence under a renewable emergency law of a sole dictator?