A Comment on El-Affendi’s Article, "Mahmoud Taha: Heresy and Martyrdom"

The Republicans Support and Attack of May Regime

El-affendi wrote, (It was a poignant irony, therefore, that when Nimeri took power in a bloodless military coup in May 1969, Taha offered enthusiastic support to the new regime, even though it was supported by Nasser and the SCP. Even when Nimeri engaged in massacres against the Mahadists and later against his own Communist allies, Taha maintained his support. Nimeri banned all political parties, so Taha’s movement changed its name to the Republican Brothers and continued to operate with tacit regime approval. This remains one of the most controversial positions of the Republicans, given their principled support for freedom and their blanket condemnations of dictatorship elsewhere. The justification offered for this position tends to compound the problem, since it reiterates the unprincipled claim that the ‘reactionary’ sectarian parties and Islamists were a worse alternative.).
Many Sudanese intellectuals have misunderstood the position of the Republican with May regime so it is normal that El-affendi considers it as contradictory to the essence of Taha’s idea, which calls for democracy. However, what undermines the integrity of El-affendi is the grave-silence he has been indulging with regard to the position of his party- the National Islamic Front (NIF)- from the same regime. As El-affendi and all the Sudanese know, the NIF was the active part of the National Front (NF), which was driven far by its spite against May regime to the extent of invading Sudan with an army funded and armed by foreigners in 1976. Some of El-affendi’s friends and colleagues were killed during that futile intrusion. In 1977 the NF made a reconciliation with May regime and accordingly Dr. Turabi, the leader of the NIF of which El-affendi was a member, got a position in the Sudanese Socialist (SSU), the sole party of May government after he swore the oath of loyalty to the ‘victorious May Revolution’. The irony was not clear just in fighting a war in -which many died– this year, and making reconciliation next year. It is rather in declaring Nimeri as a wanton dictator who committed the crime of banning the multi-party system and establishing instead the SSU this year, and describing him as a patriot leader and join the same one-party system next year.
Later in 1983, when Nimeri announced September laws and considered them Islamic laws, Turabi flattery asked him to be the Caliphate of Muslims and tailed for him a proposed constitution that gives him the right of rule for life, and identification of his successor. During all this period El-affendi was one of Turabi’s loyal followers.
The Republicans did not support the discourse of May regime; it is the other way round. The Republican Party (RP) was established in 1945 and since its inception it was against sectarianism. May regime leaders were children at that time. The RP used to fiercely attack the sectarian parties in public lectures and with circulars and pamphlets. What the RP was worried about even before independence and emergence of the MBs, was the success of the sectarian parties to reach power and combine religious and political authorities. May regime stopped that and thus walked on the old route of the Republicans.
Since their establishment, the MBs were helping the sectarians to achieve that dream. They were a cat’s claw for sectarianism. Before May they allied with them to compel the technocrat government formed after October Revolution 1964 to step down. In 1965 they allied again to ban the SCP. Ustadh Mahmoud opposed this undemocratic action as I mentioned before so the allies planned to ban the RP too. They used and abused sheikhs and shari’a judges to hold an apostasy trial for Ustadh Mahmoud in 1968. Although they announced him as an apostate they couldn’t kill him or ban his party as the state was not governed by shari’a laws at that time. The campaign of the Republicans against the ‘apostasy trial’ criticized the court, the witnesses, and the Islamic –sheikhs severely. In public lectures conducted all over Sudan, Ustadh Mahmoud revealed the conspiracy behind the trial. What he called reactionary forces (MBs, sectarians, and Islamic-sheikhs) turned the democratic system into civilian dictatorship, and to paralyze any opposition, they started cooking what they called the “Islamic Constitution” and Ustadh Mahmoud called “pseudo Islamic Constitution”. The proposed constitution was faced by a strong protest from the southern Sudanese and representatives of Nuba mountains and failed to pass in the first round of election in the Constituent Assembly (CA). According to the procedures it should be presented for election in a second round, but before that sectarians threatened to enact it by force if it failed again. The country was hastily approaching an ocean of darkness when Numeri conducted his coup and assumed power in 25th of May 1969. May regime came as a rescue when it stopped the conspiracy of the alliance of sectarians and Islamists through the ‘pseudo-Islamic Constitution’. When it announced solving the problem of the south through negotiation and stopped the war that was also part of the Republican discourse since the independence.
In their support to May regime, the Republicans did not dissolve their party or became members of the SSU like the leaders of the MBs and sectarian parties. Even when Numeri announced appointment of two of them in the People’s Council, they refused to comply.
May regime retreated from its principles when it held the National Reconciliation 1977 with sectarian and MBs parties. When they joined the SSU, the MBs started to sabotage the system from within. At that time, the Republican wrote many pamphlet disclosing the conspiracy against the country such as: ‘Alhawas Aldeeni utheer al fitna lyasal illa al sulta’ and ‘ Almua’mara min Jadeed?!’ But the regime was not listening. Then it turned on itself starting to adopt Islamic ideas. It banned Addis Ababa agreement in 1982 and the war between the north and south was resumed. Due to the war, the development was curtailed and the economic situation deteriorated dramatically. In September 1983, Numeri declared the Islamic laws and with that, May regime completed a full circle of backwardness and alliance with the sectarians and MBs. At that time, Ustadh Mahmoud started his opposition not against the principle of May regime but against the deviation of Numeri and his colleagues from these principles. If the Republicans opposed May from day one because it was not a democratic regime the alternative ready at that time was undemocratic too. Moreover it had the weapon of religion by which many would be misguided. The rule of the MBs under the name of Ingaz which is torturing the Sudanese people now-to an extent that a product of the institution such as El-affendi condemned it-would have started since 1969. When May retreated until it adopted the same ideas of the MBs and the sectarians, Ustadh Mahmoud declared his opposition and carried it seriously to the end.