Welcome to the New Independence Party
Welcome to the website of the New Independence Party.
This website is not intended simply to explain to people the program of a political party. It is intended to become a place for a much larger national conversation about our country: who we are, how we reached our present condition, what kind of country we want to build, and how we can build it.
The ideas presented here began with a group of Sudanese living abroad who care deeply about the interests of their homeland and are profoundly concerned about its future, particularly in the wake of the catastrophic events that began on 15 April 2023. The war has destroyed lives, homes, institutions and infrastructure, displaced millions of people, and deepened divisions that had existed for decades.
Against this background, the Party presented its Founding Document, which sets out the broad framework of its vision for the future of the homeland. Among the issues addressed in the Document is the absence of a clear and integrated strategic vision for rebuilding the country after the war, and the need to develop such a vision through a broad national dialogue involving the people of the country, both at home and abroad.
But this Party was not established merely todiscuss the war.
The problems confronting our country did not begin with this war, and they will not disappear merely because the fighting eventually stops. We believe that something much deeper must be examined. We must examine the nation itself, and the foundations upon which our understanding of ourselves as a people and as a nation has been built.
We must ask questions that successive generations have too often avoided. Who are we? What is the historical identity of this land and its people? What unites us despite our extraordinary diversity? Why has a country possessing such immense human and natural resources repeatedly failed to transform those resources into prosperity for its people? Why have so many of our young people concluded that their future lies outside their homeland?
And, most importantly, what can we do differently to achieve prosperity for our people?
These questions lie behind the idea of the New Independence.
Independence Was the Beginning, Not the End
Political independence transferred sovereignty from colonial rule to a national state. That was an historic achievement. But political independence alone does not necessarily create a fully independent nation.
A genuinely independent nation must understand itself. It must know its history, recognise the civilisations from which it emerged, understand the land upon which it stands, respect the diversity of its people and possess sufficient confidence to determine its own future.
Our founding proposition is that this process was never completed.
After independence, a narrow conception of national identity came to dominate public life. It did not adequately reflect the extraordinary historical, cultural, ethnic and regional diversity of the people inhabiting this land. The Founding Document argues that this contributed to a divided national consciousness and to the marginalisation of communities and regions.
For generations, questions about our identity, history and place in the world have often been answered through narratives shaped by influences beyond our own land. Parts of our history or may all of it had been neglected, misunderstood or interpreted through the perspectives of others. Over time, this affected not only how others saw us, but how we came to see ourselves.
Many of us became disconnected from the deeper history of the land itself. We learned too little about the civilisations that arose here. We allowed parts of our national memory to fade.
We sometimes looked beyond our borders for definitions of ourselves, looking for someone not from this land to accept and validate us. We took pride in belonging to another place rather than this land and looked down on our brothers and sisters who belonged only to this land.
The consequences were not merely historical or cultural. A people uncertain of its identity can become uncertain of its value among the nations. When citizens begin measuring themselves against identities imposed from outside, rather than understanding themselves through their own history and historical experience, divisions within society can become inevitable.
The Founding Document therefore calls for an honest reassessment of national identity—one capable of embracing everyone through freedom, equality and genuinely equal opportunity.
This is why we speak of a New Independence.
The first independence gave our country political sovereignty. The New Independence must go further. It must begin with an independent understanding of who we are, as the foundation for achieving genuine national sovereignty.
It means rediscovering our history honestly, recognising the civilisations and communities that arose from this land, respecting the diversity of our people, and rebuilding a national identity rooted in this land and its historical experience—an identity that derives its confidence and legitimacy from within, rather than seeking recognition or validation from elsewhere.
This does not mean rejecting the cultures, religions, languages or historical relationships that have enriched our society. Nor does it mean isolating ourselves from our region or the wider world. Our country has always interacted with neighbouring peoples and distant civilisations, and those interactions are part of our history.
But there is a fundamental difference between engaging with the world and allowing the world to define us.
A confident nation can embrace cultural influences while remaining secure in its own identity. It can cooperate with others without surrendering its independence of thought. It can respect every component of its society while building a common national identity grounded first and foremost in this land and the shared historical experience of its people.
New Independence is not independence from another people. It is independence of the national consciousness. It is the freedom to understand ourselves through our own land, history, civilisation and collective experience, while remaining open to the world and respectful of every culture that has contributed to our society.
The New Independence therefore begins with a simple but profound question: Who are we?
We believe the answer must begin here—with this land, its people, its history and its civilisations.
The Homeland Begins With the Land
Our understanding of national identity begins with a simple principle: the homeland begins with the land. From the land come our history, our civilisation, our collective memory and our shared national identity.
The homeland belongs equally to all its people. No tribe owns it. No ethnic group owns it. No region owns it. No religion owns it. No political movement owns it. We all inherit it, and we are all responsible for what we pass to the next generation.
Our country stretches across an extraordinary landscape: the two Niles, the Red Sea, the deserts of the north, the mountains, plains, forests and agricultural lands, and the communities that have lived across them for generations.
Within this land arose ancient civilisations, including Kush and Meroe. They are not merely archaeological remains. They form part of the historical inheritance of the people who inhabit this land today. This reflects the Founding Document’s emphasis on the relationship between land, civilisation, history and national consciousness.
This history belongs to all of us.
One does not need to be Nubian to inherit Nubian civilisation, any more than one must descend directly from every ancient community that lived upon this land in order to regard its achievements as part of the national inheritance.
Civilisations belong ultimately to the land in which they arose, and through that land they become part of the inheritance of succeeding generations.
Our history should therefore unite us, not divide us.
Unity Does Not Require Sameness
Nationalism, as presented in this vision, does not require people to surrender their cultures in order to belong. Quite the opposite. A strong nation should be sufficiently confident to accommodate difference.
The Beja should remain proud of their heritage. The people of Darfur, Kordofan, Blue Nile and the Nuba Mountains should preserve and develop their cultures. Nubian history should be restored to its proper national place. Every community should be able to preserve its language, traditions and memory while participating fully in a common national identity rooted in this land and its shared historical experience.
Our diversity is not an obstacle to nationhood. It is the material from which our nation must be built.
There should be no first-class and second-class citizens. There should be no centre whose children are entitled to a future while children in distant regions are expected merely to wait for development.
The rights of citizenship must follow the citizen wherever he or she lives. The child in a remote village and the child in the capital must belong to the same nation not merely in constitutional language, but in the opportunities available to them.
The principle put forward here is therefore national unity founded upon equal citizenship.
Our Resources Belong to the Nation
National independence also has an economic meaning.
A country cannot exercise meaningful economic sovereignty while its resources are stolen, wasted, inadequately understood or exploited without producing a better life for its people.
Gold beneath our soil, agricultural land, livestock, forests, water, minerals, the Red Sea coastline and the strategic geographical position of the country are not merely commodities. They are national assets entrusted to one generation on behalf of the next.
The Founding Document therefore connects national renewal with securing the country’s resources and directing their proceeds towards education, healthcare, ports, railways and other infrastructure.
National wealth should build national capability.
A child in a distant village should be able to see the country’s wealth reflected in a good school. A farmer should see it in irrigation, transport and access to markets. A patient should see it in a functioning hospital. A young graduate should see it in opportunity. A trader should see it in railways, roads and ports. And every citizen should be able to know where public money comes from and where it goes.
That is the practical meaning of economic sovereignty proposed here.
National Pride Must Be Built Through Achievement
The civilisations that arose upon our land are an important part of our history. But national pride cannot survive indefinitely on memories of the past.
History can give a nation confidence. Achievement must give that confidence a future.
The national ambition set out for discussion is a country known for its universities, engineers, doctors, farmers, scientists, entrepreneurs, teachers, artists and athletes.
It envisages institutions that citizens respect; a public administration in which competence and integrity matter more than tribe, political loyalty, family connection or personal influence; and modern agriculture, industry, technology, transport and infrastructure.
It also envisages a country that is not merely a consumer of what the rest of the world creates, but increasingly a producer, researcher, manufacturer, exporter and innovator.
The Founding Document consequently places youth and education among the country’s foremost national priorities, on the principle that a country is rebuilt through the work of its sons and daughters.
National pride, in this sense, is demonstrated not only through words about the homeland, but through what its people build.
Any discussion of the country’s future must also confront one of the greatest events of its modern history: the separation of South Sudan.
Whatever political arrangements exist today, geography, history, families, trade, culture and human relationships cannot simply be erased by an international border.
The mistakes of the past need not determine the possibilities of the future.
The Founding Document proposes rebuilding relations with the people of South Sudan on a different basis: voluntary cooperation, mutual respect and progressively closer relations determined freely by the peoples concerned.
The future can therefore be discussed in terms of reconciliation, cooperation and common interest rather than the prejudices and failures of the past.
The two Niles do not ask for passports before they meet. There is a lesson in that geography.
We Must Reconstruct More Than Buildings
The present war has demonstrated the catastrophic consequences of weakened national institutions and deep national divisions.
When reconstruction eventually begins, therefore, the country will face a fundamental question: are we simply going to reconstruct what existed before, or will we build something different?
Reconstruction can involve much more than buildings, bridges and roads. It can also involve reconstructing the idea of the homeland itself.
A country in which citizenship stands above tribe; in which no region is treated as peripheral; in which public resources belong to the public; and which knows its history without becoming imprisoned by it.
A country confident enough in its own identity to engage Africa, the Arab world and the wider international community without surrendering its independence of thought.
A country governed through democratic institutions, constitutional limits, equality before the law and the peaceful transfer of power—the principles placed at the heart of the Founding Document.
And above all, a country in which a young person can say, “This is my homeland,” and know that those words carry both rights and responsibilities.
This Is the Meaning of New Independence
New Independence, as proposed here, is not a rejection of the world. It is a rediscovery of ourselves.
It means recovering national confidence without denying diversity; recovering history without living in the past; protecting sovereignty without isolating ourselves; and opening the country to science, technology, investment and the best ideas humanity has developed without assuming that progress requires abandoning its own historical identity.
Before asking whether the country belongs to East or West, Africa or the Arab world, there is a more fundamental proposition to consider:
We belong to this land.
The rivers form part of our inheritance. The pyramids form part of our inheritance. The Red Sea forms part of our geography and future. The mountains, plains and forests form part of our homeland. The ancient civilisations form part of our history. The cultures of all our communities form part of our national story.
And the future remains ours to build together.
The nationalism put forward here for discussion is therefore not nationalism against another people, nor a claim of superiority over others. It is a proposition based on national confidence, shared citizenship, diversity, sovereignty and independence of thought.
The New Independence begins when we understand that our homeland does not need another identity in order to possess value. Its value comes from its own people, its own land, its own history and what its citizens choose to build together.
Our first independence gave us a state.
The New Independence seeks to address the question of how to build a nation.
But How Do We Build That Nation?
One answer begins with perhaps the most powerful instrument available to any country seeking to transform its future: education.
Not education as a slogan. Not simply more schools, more universities or more certificates.
The proposal is for quality education capable of competing with the best educational systems in the world.
And this cannot wait.
Educational reform cannot reasonably be postponed until the economy fully recovers, every institution has been reconstructed or every political disagreement has been resolved. The work must begin immediately, and it can begin with something practical.
One National Syllabus — Available to Everyone
The proposal is to develop one unified national syllabus for all pre-university education, designed to a standard capable of competing internationally. That syllabus should belong to the entire nation, and it should be available to everyone.
Education should no longer be understood as an opportunity that exists only during a particular period of childhood. War, displacement, poverty, regional inequality and decades of deterioration in education have deprived many people of opportunities that should have been theirs.
A child may have missed several years of school. A teenager may have been displaced by war. A young person may have been forced to work instead of studying. An adult may never have had the opportunity to complete primary or secondary education.
None of them should be abandoned by the education system.
Alongside the normal school system, the same national syllabus could therefore be available through an open national education programme accessible to children, adolescents and adults who are outside conventional schooling or whose education was interrupted.
The method of learning may differ. The standard should not.
The syllabus could be available digitally and, where necessary, in printed form. Technology could make lessons accessible throughout the country and, where appropriate, to displaced citizens and communities living abroad.
People could study according to their circumstances and enter the national examination system when they are ready. And when they enter that examination room, there should be no distinction between them: the same syllabus, the same examination, the same marking standard, the same certificate and the same opportunity to proceed.
A sixteen-year-old attending a conventional secondary school and a twenty-five-year-old whose education was interrupted by war should ultimately be judged according to the same academic standard.
What should matter is not where, when or how a person acquired the knowledge. What should matter is whether that person has mastered it.
No Educational Dead End
This system would operate side by side with normal education, not replace it.
Schools would remain the principal educational route for children and young people, providing academic instruction as well as social development, sport, culture, friendship and interaction. But the parallel national programme would provide another door.
And that door should remain open.
The underlying principle is simple: no person should lose his or her future merely because an educational opportunity was missed.
A nation rebuilding after war faces the practical problem of a generation whose education may have been interrupted. A person who lost five years of education has already lost five years. The education system need not turn those lost years into a permanent barrier to that person’s future.
There should therefore be no educational dead end.
A teenager returning to education should have a route forward. An adult wishing to complete secondary education should have a route forward. A displaced person should have a route forward. A worker studying in the evening should have a route forward. A mother or father who left school many years ago and wishes to return should have a route forward.
The door to education should remain open.
Equal Opportunity Must Mean Something
Equality is not achieved merely by writing in a constitution that all citizens are equal. It also depends upon institutions through which people who begin life under very different circumstances can nevertheless compete according to their ability and effort.
Talent exists everywhere. Opportunity does not.
The proposal is therefore that the child born in a remote village should have the same fundamental opportunity to discover and develop his or her abilities as the child born in the capital.
A family’s income, tribe, ethnicity, region or social position should not determine the quality of education available to its children.
A national education system can search for intelligence and ability in every village, town and region and provide pathways through which people can progress according to talent, determination and achievement.
The Founding Document already proposes regional secondary schools operating to common national standards, providing free education and admitting pupils through a unified national examination. It also envisages bringing pupils from different parts of the country together so that education becomes an instrument of both individual advancement and national integration.
Such a system could bring children from Darfur, the East, Nubia, Kordofan, Blue Nile, the Nuba Mountains, the central regions and the national capital into common educational institutions.
They could study, compete academically, play sport and live together. They could encounter one another not merely as distant communities, tribes or stereotypes, but as classmates and fellow citizens.
Education could therefore become not only a means of acquiring knowledge, but one of the institutions through which a shared national identity develops.
Education and National Sovereignty
The standard proposed for education should not be determined solely by comparison within the country.
The more demanding question is: is this education good enough to compete with the world?
Schools should equip young people with science, mathematics, technology, languages, critical thinking, creativity and the skills required to participate in an increasingly technological global economy. The same ambition can extend to universities, vocational institutions, scientific research and professional training.
National wealth is not ultimately measured only by what lies beneath the soil.
Gold can be exhausted. Oil can be depleted. Commodity prices rise and fall.
But an educated population can continuously create new knowledge, productivity and economic value.
Education produces doctors, engineers, teachers, scientists, farmers, entrepreneurs, technicians, researchers, artists and public servants. It builds institutional capability, supports technological development, enables new businesses and industries and increases productivity.
And one educated generation helps educate the generation that follows it.
That is why education occupies such an important place in the concept of New Independence.
The objective is a country in which every human mind is regarded as a national asset whose potential should not be wasted.
We cannot recover the years people have already lost. But we can design an education system in which losing those years does not necessarily mean losing their future.
These Are Ideas for Discussion — Not the End of the Discussion
This brings us to perhaps the most important purpose of this website.
What you have read above represents ideas and proposals for consideration and discussion. The Founding Document itself was presented as a basis for public debate and the further development of the Party’s ideas and institutions.
That is why the New Independence Party does not present its documents as the final word on our country’s future.
They are a beginning.
Our Founding Document, Constitution, Regulations and policy papers are intended to provide a framework for discussion, criticism, development and ultimately collective decision-making. They remain open to examination and improvement as we move towards the Founding Convention.
No political organisation can reasonably claim to possess every answer, and the future of an entire nation cannot be designed by a small group of people.
Teachers possess knowledge about education that policymakers need to hear. Farmers possess practical knowledge about agriculture. Doctors and healthcare workers understand the realities of the health system. Engineers can assess what infrastructure is technically and economically possible.
Economists, lawyers, scientists, academics, businesspeople, artists, writers, technicians and skilled workers all possess knowledge relevant to public policy. Ordinary citizens also possess knowledge derived from daily experience that cannot always be captured in reports and statistics. And young people may identify possibilities that established institutions have overlooked.
We invite academics, professionals, farmers, workers, businesspeople, young people, women and men, those living within the country and those in the diaspora, and especially those whose voices have historically received insufficient attention, to participate in this conversation.
The purpose of opening these ideas to discussion is to expose them to knowledge, criticism and alternative proposals.
We do not ask our fellow citizens simply to agree with us.
Rather, we invite them to think with us, question us, challenge our assumptions, and contribute their knowledge and experience to help develop the idea of the New Independence—the central theme of this website and the ideas presented here.
Discuss the Ideas. Question Them. Bring New Ones.
Readers are invited to examine the Founding Document and the policies and proposals published on this website critically.
Where is the reasoning strong? Where is it weak? What has been overlooked? What practical difficulties would arise? What should be changed? What evidence should be considered? What alternative proposals deserve consideration?
Participation in that discussion does not require agreement with the Party, nor does contributing professional knowledge necessarily require Party membership.
Academics, professionals, specialists, students, young people, members of the diaspora and people with practical experience in every field can all contribute perspectives that may improve the quality of the debate.
The policy documents published here should therefore be understood as developing documents rather than closed books.
Ideas can be tested against evidence. Proposals can be questioned. Weaknesses can be identified. Alternatives can be presented.
And where a better idea emerges, it deserves serious consideration.
A Website for Thinking About the Country’s Future
The purpose of this website is therefore broader than presenting the New Independence Party. It is intended to provide a platform for serious discussion about the future of the homeland.
The questions before us range across every aspect of national life. What should our education system look like? How should national wealth be managed and distributed? How should the regions be governed? How can agriculture become an engine of prosperity? How should the railways be rebuilt? How can the Red Sea become a gateway for regional trade? How should healthcare be organised? How should water and the environment be protected? What industries can realistically be developed? How can technology transform government? How can professional and ethical standards be restored to public institutions? How can relations between communities be rebuilt? What future relationship should develop with South Sudan?
And perhaps the largest question of all:
What kind of nation should the next generation inherit?
These questions are larger than any single political party. They concern the whole country.
Our country possesses extraordinary human and natural resources. It has agricultural land, water, minerals, livestock, strategic geography and, above all, millions of people whose abilities have too often been constrained by conflict, political instability and weak institutions.
The task before us is therefore not simply to rebuild what has been destroyed.
It is to reconsider what should be built.
We have an opportunity to imagine a state founded upon citizenship, equality before the law, accountable institutions, genuine federalism, economic opportunity and respect for the dignity of every citizen.
But before we can build such a state, we must recover something even more fundamental:
confidence in ourselves.
The first independence established political sovereignty. The idea of New Independence asks what must come next: how national identity, knowledge, institutions, equal opportunity and responsible use of the country’s resources can turn sovereignty into a functioning and prosperous nation.
That is how national consciousness can become national achievement. That is how equal citizenship can become a practical reality rather than merely a constitutional promise. That is how resources can become prosperity. That is how diversity can become a source of national strength.
And that is how a state can develop into a nation with a shared sense of its past and confidence in its future.
Political independence was an historic achievement.
The next independence must be an independence of identity, thought, institutions and national purpose.
Our first independence gave us a state.
The New Independence asks how we can build a nation worthy of our land, our history, our people and the generations yet to come.
This website is an invitation to take part in that discussion.