The Government’s Squint
Rashid Abdelr
It is told that a man with a squint once went hunting with a friend. He wanted to shoot a gazelle, but instead of aiming his rifle at the animal, he pointed it at his companion. The friend shouted to warn him, but the man replied, in the colloquial speech of ordinary Sudanese people: “I’m keeping an eye on you!” His companion retorted: “If that’s how you keep an eye on me, then let’s not go hunting. We don’t want any game today
I dedicate this story to Prime Minister Dr Kamil Idris, who recently visited Khartoum’s Arab Market as part of the Environmental Health Campaign. During his tour, he announced his commitment to restoring commercial activity to the marke
The government, led by the Prime Minister who visited the Arab Market, has issued numerous decisions that have plunged markets into severe stagnation and paralysis. The Arab Market is among those affecte
The prosperity of the Arab Market is fundamental to improving its environmental conditions. Such conditions cannot be put right through visits and promises of this kin
The visit intended to clean up and revitalise the market should instead have been directed towards the Ministry of Trade, the Customs Administration and the tax authorities, to put their own houses in order and ease the burdens they impose. Those burdens have drained the markets of life and driven away all profitable commercial activity that could help keep them clean and well maintaine
The government’s squint is also reflected in the appointment of the Minister of Minerals to take responsibility for cleanliness, despite the fact that the minerals portfolio has no connection whatsoever with keeping markets clea
Had the Prime Minister left the minister to concentrate on his actual responsibilities, he might have made progress in gold extraction and increased government revenue from its proceeds. Some of that revenue could then have been allocated to environmental health and cleanlines
The squint in the government’s eye has also prevented it from seeing Japan’s contribution to this project, amounting to millions of dollars, as well as the training grants it provides to support environmental health and the cleanliness of the state. Japan has no objection to continuing its effort
Let us, for once, say something constructive about our government, which seems unable to see what is right or what it ought to do. We should remind it that the multitude of ailments is no reason to abandon work. We would also advise it to read a book by one of the most celebrated Arab scholars, Abu Uthman Amr ibn Bahr al-Jahiz, entitled Al-Bursan wa al-‘Urjan wa al-‘Umyan wa al-Hawlan (The Lepers, the Lame, the Blind and the Cross-Eyed
One of al-Jahiz’s principal aims in writing this book was to dispel the assumption that those he described were incapable or weak, and to demonstrate their abilities and what they could accomplish. As evidence, he cited the example of a governor from the era of the Successors, relating the following accoun
“Aban ibn Uthman ibn Affan was a jurist, a hadith scholar and an eminent figure among the Successors. He was the son of the third Caliph, Uthman ibn Affan. He served as Governor of Medina during the reign of Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan. He was at once cross-eyed, afflicted with leprosy, deaf and lame, yet none of these conditions prevented him from pursuing scholarship or exercising political authority
Our esteemed government, we do not wish to lose hope in you. We expect you to rise above the ranks of those described by Abu Uthman Amr ibn Bahr al-Jahiz, but we do not expect you to become another Aban ibn Uthman ibn Affa
We ask very little of you. At the very least, lift the burdens you have placed on markets, traders and manufacturers. Show some ingenuity in resolving the problems your citizens face or, failing that, at least help them by remaining silent. That alone might ease their burden and enable them to endure some of your shortcomings—shortcomings so numerous that even those who count them have been left baffled. n..”t:).s.s.n.d.d.d.t..”ahim
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