“If Trump Says It, Believe Him!!”
Mahjoub Fadl Badri
What makes me inclined to believe President Trump’s remarks about our country at the US–Saudi Economic Forum — when he said that he did not know there was a place called Sudan with a history, a culture, and a legitimate government, and that he had thought it was merely free land with no government, no this, no that — and that he had only learned otherwise from His Royal Highness the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and that the most horrific war in the world is taking place in Sudan today:
“There’s a place on earth called Sudan… I viewed it just sort of as freelance — no government, no this, no that.”
What makes me believe Trump is something I heard long ago from President George W. Bush’s envoy, the Reverend John C. Danforth. It was during the height of the Naivasha negotiations, and the man was a guest at a dinner hosted by Ustaz Ali Osman Mohamed Taha, then First Vice-President of the Republic and head of the government delegation in the talks with the SPLA/SPLM, sponsored by IGAD and its friends in the Naivasha resort.
John C. Danforth, criticising the Sudan Peace Act passed by the US Congress — the same law that granted the SPLA sixty million dollars if the negotiations failed, while imposing sanctions on the Sudanese government — exclaimed: “Who gives a reward for failure?” He described the law as stupid, using the word stupid, and called the members of Congress ignorant. He said they drew their information from foreign graduate students working as staffers, who wrote memos for them, which the Congressman would carry to his colleagues during a break in the cafeteria, and then present as a draft bill which would promptly pass!
Danforth went on to criticise the legislators, saying that the vast majority of them did not even hold passports and had never left America — and that many of them knew nothing about the world and very little even about the United States itself beyond the state they came from.
This truth — still Danforth speaking — became even clearer when Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, appointed a number of members of Congress to UN committees in order to win them over so the UN could recover some of the debts owed by the US government, the largest debtor of the United Nations. Danforth concluded his remarks by warning Sudan that it must establish a lobby group in the United States so that Sudan’s voice could reach the administration and legislators. End of Danforth’s words.
The accuracy of what he said became all the more apparent after Trump’s statements. It is no wonder, then, that Trump was unaware of Sudan’s existence altogether, and no surprise that he heard of it for the first time from the Crown Prince. After all, we have no one there conveying our voice — except the agents and the malicious!
Dr al-Sadiq Omar Khalafallah — Sudanese by origin, American by nationality, a professor in American universities and an adviser at the Bahraini Royal Court — explained in a long article titled “Sudan’s Crisis, the Role of the Trump Administration, and False Promises.”
He began with a pressing question: Does Sudan — its government and its people — really believe that America, its administration and its legislature, genuinely cares about their plight?
His answer: in most cases, a resounding no.
Dr al-Sadiq elaborated: it is likely that the American president receives daily, detailed reports about the severity of the conflict in Sudan, making him one of the most informed leaders about global events. But the current administration’s priorities lie in cooperating with countries that can contribute positively to the US economy — not with countries facing humanitarian crises like Sudan. America’s foreign policy is driven by economic relationships, not by a commitment to defending international peace and security.
Between the utter ignorance in which most members of Congress live regarding what happens outside America, and the selectivity practised by the administration in its foreign policy, lies a grey zone — a space in which crisis-merchants flourish: American envoys, advisers, and agents from here and there.
Given this situation, nothing remains for us — after placing our trust in Allah the Almighty — except to stand firm, tighten our belts, support our army, cultivate our land, and express our thanks to His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman, saying: You have done your part, and you have not failed us.
As for Trump — we hope he fulfils his dream of winning the Nobel Peace Prize, but we ourselves have long despaired of any good coming from him. Let us tell him the anecdote of the praise-singers who stayed as guests with a man who failed to honour them. That man had a billy goat roaming before the hungry praise-singers who’d hoped to eat its meat. One of them addressed the animal:
“Thank you — you’ve done what you could. But don’t worry — your neck won’t be slaughtered!”
O people of Sudan: no one scratches your skin like your own fingernail. Trump is beholden to his interests, which lie with the oil-rich states. And if he is forced to choose between us and the state of MBZ, his choice is obvious. There is no harm in offering some responsiveness to Prince Mohammed bin Salman, but without any firm commitment to resolving our problem in Sudan.
So if he says he did not know — believe him. Politics is a dirty game.
And victory comes from none but God.
Shortlink: https://sudanhorizon.com/?p=8996