Speakers Bureau

One goal I have after meeting these folks is to build a Speakers Bureau for them. They work and go to school, so I would want to be able to organize it so it is known when they are available. This would also determine what sort of groups they can speak with.

So far, I am just aiming to help the 57 Lost Boys who are in Tucson, but I am willing to help other groups get them launched.

A Modern Sudanese Rogues Gallery

Gaafar Nimeiry

Sadiq al-Mahdi

Omar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir

John Garang

The Lost Boys and Who Are They?

Lost Boys Article in Wikipedia

Lost Boys Film by Megan Mylan and John Shenk



The Lost Boys are what got me into all this. They are from the ethnic groups in the Southern Sudan and were forced to flee the Second Sudanese Civil War in the 1980's. Hundreds of thousands fled. The lucky ones made it to camps and those include the ones I have met here in Tucson.

I guess they are not lost anymore but found. Their story of survival is amazing. The ones I met are intelligent and grounded.

We Americans complain about many things and take much for granted. When you meet these folks, you realize your problems are rather insignificant. Check out the bibliography and you will understand only too well what they went through. Well let me rephrase that. You will understand, but will not have lived through that.

I went to my TV Toastmasters club tonight. One of the members, Fred Esser gave a speech in which he quoted Nietzche. "What does not kill us makes us stronger." Whew.

Ethnic Groups in the Sudan.

I spoke of being one country. Just look at this list from Wikipedia

Now you understand why uniting this country is not a task for the squemish.

Emma's War

This is a book about a British aid worker who married a Southern Sudanese guerrilla fighter. Her name was Emma McCune. The book is by journalist Deborah Scoggins. It is one of the best books I've seen that explains Sudanese history and what is going on today.

When I have met Lost Boys and bring the book with me, it animates them immediately. Emma McCune married a guerrilla leader from the Nuer ethnic group named Riek. She was his second wife. She was later killed in a car accident in Nairobi.

Of course, she could not be an aid worker any longer. She had taken sides in the conflict. The she was swallowed up by a conflict larger than her.

You can see what a messy situation this is. It is nice to help but you cannot just throw yourself into this place. Emma McCune did this and paid the price for her folly.

Slavery and Human Rights

Sudanese Slavery from Wikipedia

Islam and Slavery from Wikipedia

Sudanese Human Rights from Wikipedia

American Anti Slavery Group Sudan Page

Amnesty International on the Sudan

Allegedly, there is still some slave taking going on in Sudan. I am not taking sides here, but only passing on what I have read. I am not there.

Slavery has a history thousands of years old in this region. When European Anti-Slavery crusaders worked to wipe the trade out in the 19th Century, the locals could not fathom it. Slavery had been such a part of existence in that part of the world for so long. (Obviously I am not condoning it, but trying to state a fact of history. It was there and not easily going away).

Samuel Baker, Col. Gordon and others worked to wipe out the trade fresh from the end of the Trans Atlantic slave trade. Baker had a hard time and Gordon had some success. You were just not going to wipe it out completely.

The human rights record still leaves something to be desired. Something tells me that is the case for a good chunk of the world though. I am sure some Sudanese say the same of the United States. (Didn't mean to reduce this to a schoolyard "did not, did too," but by golly that is what it feels like sometimes).

Sharia (and what it means here).

People of the Book from Wikipedia

I only put this in as it relates to the conflict in Sudan. The Wikipedia article will give you the basics and you can see the Koran has mixed feelings about Non Moslems with a special status. What does this mean? The link covers what the Moslems call People of the Book. or Al ha Kitab. This covers Jews and Christians.

Non People of the Book are easy. They are maltreated or greeted with "convert or die."

Many Sudanese Southerners were converted to Christianity. So it meant they were better off than being pagans, but that did not mean all of their problems were solved. Being Christian does not make you equal to someone who believes in Sharia. Well, don't take my word for it...

Can Sudan Really be One Nation?

Sudan is the largest nation in Africa. It shares the difficulty most African nations have in that the borders as far as ethnicity are concerned do not represent reality. I am guessing if it were not for the Egyptian and the British push Southward in the 19th Century, it would not be one nation now.

I am not an economist, but I am curious as to what would be economically realistic borders. Would the rest of the world be willing to help Sudan develop? Again, should it be one nation?

The Northern boundary is roughly at the Tropic of Cancer and Wadi Halfa. Having said that, is that a "natural" border with Egypt?

The West, well Chad has the same type of land as Darfur. The East is more obvious. The Red Sea and Ethiopia. The South, well... again those ethnic groups cross the "national" borders.

I am just asking questions here to make people think. I admit freely I do not have a solution.

North vs. South

Egypt took slaves from the Sudan far back in Antiquity. Greek, then Roman explorers got as for South as the Papyrus swamp known as the Sudd. The annoyed ancestors of the Southern Sudanese helped to keep them out as well.

Then, Islam conquered the North. This is a rather simplistic view, sort of Sudan for Dummies if you will. The two "halves" were even more different now. The North was also divided into different kingdoms. Well, why are we talking about halves then?

It really wasn't until 1820 that you begin to think of the Sudan as an "entity." It was when the Egyptian Khedive sent his army in to keep them busy. The Sudd was penetrated. Areas that had little to do with each other and had nothing in common were brought together.

Post Colonial Civil War

From Global Security

A Site about British Imperial Moves in Sudan

First Sudanese Civil War

Second Sudanese Civil War

The British ran the Sudan from their victory at Omdurman in 1898 until 1956. It was run jointly with Egypt and known as the Anglo Egyptian Sudan.
The British continued to keep the Southern Sudan separate. The North had it's Arab and Islamic tradition and was more literate. In the South, the Dinka started to receive educations from missionaries.

The British unwittingly set the stage for this to be two separate regions. Well, they were in earlier centuries, but now even more so. The moment independence happened, the Southerners felt they would never get a fair shake, so they launched a Civil War. The peace was only signed in 1972, sixteen years later.

The Civil War began anew because the government in Khartoum wanted to impose Sharia on the entire nation. (See other posts on Sharia and can the Sudan be one nation).

The Mahdi

Mahdi from Wikipedia

A Mahdi is a Moslem mystic. For this, we are only concerned with the Sudanese man Mohammed Ahmed, who rose in the 19th Century.

In the movie Khartoum, the Mahdi was played by Sir Laurence Olivier. This was the first time I had ever heard of him. Today, you would consider him a terrorist. His war back then did have legitimacy, however. He was fighting to rid the Sudan of Egyptian officials who were stealing it blind.

In the White Nile, Alan Moorehead states that the desert climate of Northern and Central Sudan is so hot and stultifying, men become torpid and dreamlike. I live in a desert. The Sonoran Desert is not as severe as the Sudan, but you can sit here and be moved in some ways by the heat. The Prophet Mohammed lived in a similar setting just across the Red Sea. Mohammed Ahmed had a good voice and was a skilled preacher, so men rose to join him. He then defeated a 10,000 man army led by a British general named Hicks.

Besides running the Egyptians out, the Mahdi wanted a strict Islamic Government run by Sharia. (Sounds familiar in our times? See separate post on Sharia).

General Gordon was only supposed to get the foreigners out of Khartoum before it was cut off. Gordon disobeyed orders and died for his pains. The British public never forgave Gladstone, who went from being known as the G.O.M. (Grand Old Man) to M.O.G. (Murderer of Gordon).
Mohammed Ahmed's victory was short lived. He died of Typhus six months later, however his chief lieutenant ran Sudan until 1898 and the Battle of Omdurman.

The Mahdist Revolt still colors what goes on in the Sudan now. Mohammed Ahmed's great grandson was running the place recently. The religious fight goes back to those times.

Jan Plonk

You may ask who in the world is he? He is the United Nations Representative charged by Kofi Annan with supervising efforts in Darfur. I took a chance and wrote to him. This is his response:


Dear Michael Charton,
Thank you.
I will try to regularly follow your blog .
With regards,
Jan Pronk

I am highly honored and will make sure this is worthy of this busy and important man's time. If I can be of assistance I will.

General Gordon

Gordon from Wikipedia

From Victoria Web



Ah yes, General Gordon. As I stated in my introduction, I grew up watching the movie Khartoum and now have the DVD.
John Cleese said Gordon was one of many British explorers with what Mr. Cleese called "dodgy sex lives," but I will leave that for another discussion.

Gordon, it seems was highly capable but could be rather irritating. He got his start helping the Qing Dynasty in China defeat the Taiping Rebellion. His first time as Governor General of the Sudan he worked to try and wipe out the slave trade.

He was about to be offered a job under King Leopold of Belgium in Leopold's newly acquired territory, the Congo. He turned it down, for he was called back into British service to go to Sudan. A certain holy man, the Mahdi, (see separate post) was making waves in the Sudan.

Until recently, I asked why would Gladstone send Gordon, knowing Gordon would do his own thing? British popular opinion clamored for it. So Gordon went, Khartoum was cut off and Gordon got himself killed.

Why does this matter today? This led up to something Gladstone did not want. The British Conquest of the Sudan. In future posts, you will learn about the British conquest and how the Sudan was run under them.

Why Sudan?

It is one of the more isolated places in the world. Why Sudan?
As a child my father introduced me to Alan Moreheads' book The White Nile about European exploration of the source of the river. He owned the book by Winston Churchill, The River War. Yes, THAT Winston Churchill! Churchill was a young lieutenant in the last British cavalry charge ever. The Battle of Omdurman.
Then there was the movie Khartoum. I grew up with it and my father and I watched it together. It seems a bit cheesy today as Nicholas Coghlan, Canadian diplomat said in his book, Far in the Waste Sudan. Charlton Heston as General Gordon and Sir Laurence Olivier, covered with shoe polish as the Mahdi. You could do a much better job of casting a remake. At least get a British actor to play Gordon! I'd choose Denzel Washington as the Mahdi, but there are probably others out there who can do that role justice.

My participating on Michael Palin's Website sparked my getting involved with these guys. One of the men there is an aid worker. I found the person who sponsors the Lost Boys in Tucson. Her name is Jill Rich. Anything I can do to help these sharp young men succeed, I will do.

Talk on July 9th, 2006.

I set up a panel discussion with some of the Lost Boys for my Advanced Toastmasters club. The audience was able to ask questions, and I was able to have the four young men on the panel say that they are grateful for the assistance they have received in Tucson. What they would most like in the way of help is education, so they can assist their people. This is important to them.

I did not have to do very much. The best venues for this (to me anyway) are schools, religious groups, youth groups, anti-racism groups. I may think of more or feel free to add more.

Bibliography

I have set up a very basic bibliography for this. I have the books first, then the Movie then the websites: OK, I lied LOL! It WAS basic. It isn't any more!

Books:
Bixler, Mark, The Lost Boys of Sudan. This is written by an Atlanta Constitution reporter about Lost Boys who settled in Atlanta

Deng, Benson and Alephonsion, Ajak Benjamin, and Bernstein, Judy A. They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky. This is written by three Lost Boys in the San Diego area with the woman who sponsors them.

Churchill, Winston, The River War. Yes, that Winston Churchill. He was a 21 Year old Lieutenant in the last British Cavalry charge, the Battle of Omdurman, 1898.

Morehead, Alan The White Nile. This is mainly about the 19th Century European explorations of the source of the Nile.

Palin, Michael. Pole to Pole. The Sudan is not the entire book, however, Mr. Palin spent two weeks traveling through much of it. The book discusses the Civil War and why he could not take the route originally planned. Click on his name to see his website.

Scoggins, Deborah. Emma's War. Emma McClune was a British aid worker who married one of the commanders of the South Sudanese rebels. Ms. Scoggins covers a lot of the history and what led up to what is going on.

Films:

The Lost Boys of Sudan Two independent filmakers did this as a documentary about Lost Boys struggling to survive in an unfamiliar new country (United States).

Websites:
Arizona Daily Star Article

Southern Sudanese Resettlement Program
Tucson based Program.

They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky
The website for the book of the same name mentioned above.

Lost Boys:
The Website for Mark Bixler's Book.

Sudan Tribune
Internet Newspaper.

Sudanwatch

Coalition for Darfur

More Stories and Contacts

From the April 23 2006 Denver Post

From the Jackson Mississippi Clarion Ledger

Joint Sudanese Christian and Moslem Groups Against Violence

Sudan Sunrise

Journey of the Lost Boys

This is a book by Joan Hecht from Jacksonville, Florida

A Story from Michigan

Jan Pronk the Darfur Negotiator

An Article from the Sudan Tribune about a Lost Girl