No to Politicizing Tribes
Osman Mirghani
In our heritage when you want to praise someone you say “he is a tribe’s son” or “she is a tribe’s daughter”. This means that the tribe in our social mentality is an ethical value as it promotes pride, and courage and represents a support system for the weak.
In the last few days shocking bloody tribal clashes took place in the Blue Nile State claiming the lives of more than hundreds of people despite the fact that the area is considered a model of peaceful coexistence.
The incident was preceded by a massacre in West Darfur, claiming the lives of more than two hundred people. Similar incidents took place in South Kordofan, and Eastern Sudan states. The link between all those massacres is the exploitation of tribalism to serve a political agenda.
Unfortunately, the politicians and elites in our country are working hard to escalate the tribal conflicts into a ticking bomb. It goes without saying that all the rebel movements in Sudan, Darfur, and South Sudan (before its secession), the two areas, and the Blue Nile (the areas included in the Juba Peace Agreement) were raising the banners of marginalization and injustice; but unfortunately throughout our modern political history, all the confrontations between the rebel movements and the government end by a power-share in the central government and the people remain in their sufferings without change within the heated political confrontations amid the leading figures in the country.
The political Parties send representatives to the rural areas to get the support of the tribal chieftains against giving them incentives. Such practice indicates clearly the ugliness of the political tool used in mobilizing support without considering the interests of the citizens and improving their harsh reality.
However, I believe that the radical solution is the disengagement between the citizen and the tribe in the representation of interests. The tribe will keep its dignified ethical position, but at the same time, it should withdraw from representing the interests of the citizen since the politicians utilize tribalism in serving their personal interests.
It is the time to close the tribalism market and open the window for citizens to get their rights afar from their belonging to any tribe.
