Guest editor’s introduction:

I first met Stella Gaitano back in 2008 or 2009 when I was in Khartoum researching my book, A Line in the River. I was struck by the imaginative quality of her writing which seemed to me more interesting than that of many of her journalist colleagues. She was also quite unique in being a woman of South Sudanese heritage living in Khartoum during the difficult period leading up to secession in 2011. I felt this offered her a unique perspective, and one which reflected the complexities facing Sudan. —Jamal Mahjoub

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When the war broke out in Khartoum, I panicked, even though I had been expecting this war for some time. When it began, it forced us all to face a painful reality.

If we talk about its political role, Khartoum was not just the city from which all the tragedies of Sudan had always been managed, it was a city that belonged to everyone. Some of us were born in Khartoum, and some of us came to it from every direction. It became the city we loved as every person loves their home city. The war broke out in Khartoum and quickly spread. There were regions, like Darfur, that had been living their own wars for a long time, and this war poured fuel onto the flames to increase them.

In my panic, I retreated into myself, as if into a shell, the way an animal does when danger threatens it. I began to repeat to myself: This war did not break out as something sudden that we could never have expected. It is simply happening again, as one of the many bouts of war this country has seen. And to ease my suffering, I delved into my memory and began to count the wars we had gone through, like a child whose mother teaches her to count the stars in order to distract her from the imaginary monsters of darkness.

It is one war, but every time it comes back it wears a new dress with new soldiers and new warlords. It chooses different victims and places, and moves freely and greedily from the south to the west and now the center. It devours our cities and burns our streets. Strange soldiers occupy homes and public facilities. It burns our schools, universities and libraries. It kills and rapes our loved ones and acquaintances. It tears children from their mothers’ arms to die of hunger even as its hateful laughter fills its cheeks. All this happens in front of the world, which is already busy with other, even more important wars!

That last sentence is nothing but a parenthetical statement expressing jealousy: the jealousy of one victim for another who has found her share of the spotlight. The jealousy that burns in my heart stems from the fact that what is happening in Sudan does not receive the same attention. And what if it did receive the attention it deserves! Would that have reduced the level of violence? Or would it have simply soothed my suffering soul by allowing me to feel some kind of parity with other victims? Regardless of this, the stark truth here is that we are all victims. These last years have been filled with violence and blood that today’s world leaders are trying to turn a blind eye to. They turn a deaf ear to the cries of bereaved mothers and the wounded who do not receive the necessary care. The only difference is that the bodies of other victims are displayed on the open streets while ours are not. Would my anger have subsided if the name “Sudan” and what is happening there were repeated on the morning news bulletins as much as news of other wars is? 

How did we get to this point? How did we come to compare human pain and decide which version of it is more deserving of our attention? How was this reality created and how did we become so comfortable with it? As though an issue simply appearing in the media means that it deserves some of our consideration! This eases the burden of war for us. Instead of actually resisting what is happening, and trying to fill the world with demands to bring an end to the war, are we now simply calling for a fair balance between media appearances? Are we all victims during this difficult time when politicians do not think twice about supporting wars—prolonging them and expanding them instead of extinguishing them? Are the benefits of continuing a war more important than the efforts to establish peace?

But none of this is strange to me. I have lived through it all before!

I was three years old when the Second Civil War started in my country. My mother says we were visiting her family at the time, lying on the ground under a dark sky lit up by bombardment, but I don’t really remember. Childhood saved me, and I forgot… or maybe it was the kind of amnesia granted by the mercy of trauma. But did the war forget me? Wars are loyal and just; they never forget you, no matter how hard you try to escape, or how much innocence shields you—for a while.

Yes—I forgot how the war began, but its presence lingered with me. If only I could recall the thoughts racing through my mind as it erupted! What did I see at that moment? Perhaps I thought the gunfire was nothing more than stars crashing down 

from the sky, and maybe I imagined catching one to hide under my blanket,
marveling at its glow between my fingers. Or did I see them as scorching embers,
too hot to touch, and flinch? I can’t remember.

I used to think that my mother must have faced every imaginable horror as she shielded us that night. But now, I know that is a lie. Parents cannot shield their children from war. I realized this bitter truth when war tested my own motherhood during yet another conflict; then, I wished I could have swallowed my children whole. Our wars are relentless; they pursue us without mercy, at every stage of life.

One might erupt while you’re still a fetus in your mother’s womb. Perhaps you
sensed it, felt her racing around while the frantic beating of her heart thudded
desperately to keep you safe. Then another war breaks out during your childhood,
but innocence distracts you, allowing you to play with the remnants of projectiles
and exchange fake shots with your playmates. You survive purely by luck, for
another child in the neighborhood now wanders about with severed limbs. The war
sticks its tongue out at you, reminding you of its mark on your friend’s body,
taunting, “You didn’t survive.” Then it strikes again, this time when you’re a
young adult. You throw yourself into the war with every part of you, fighting with
your hands, your voice, your thoughts, fully aware that death could claim you at
any moment. If fate lets you escape this one, another war will ignite when you’re a
parent. That’s when your soul splits apart, as you realize that you can’t shield your
little ones. I doubt I ever managed to shield my children when they faced the
horrors of their first war. As for me, I have long lost track of how many there have been!

I recently learned from last year’s teacher that my son, who was in seventh grade at the time, gave a presentation about Sudan. My son spoke of everything beautiful but ended with the war that devoured it all… and he cried.

Didn’t I say that war forgets no one?

What if the Second Civil War had never erupted between us? Would we have stopped counting? 

Could it have been avoided? How many chances for peace were
squandered through stubbornness that destroyed every opportunity for
negotiations? Would we have stopped counting at two?

I was, and still am, most preoccupied with that second war; it was the one I grew up with, our fates entwined. By the time I turned ten the war had entered its seventh year, relentless and savage, devouring the South—my homeland—slowly. My mother wore mourning colors, not just for her loved ones who perished, but for an entire life devoured by the war. We inherited her grief and made it our own. Like the war, sorrow became a companion to our childhood. Even television cartoons or children’s songs on the radio might have nullified this state of mourning, but we were deprived of them. It became embedded in our consciousness that war was a state of deprivation. 

As I grew, the war grew with me, extending to create a blazing wall between North and South. It was at this wall that my consciousness exploded; I found myself entangled in the war, forced to take a side. I chose my mother’s sorrow and fears, which eventually became my own. I had no choice but to become an enemy of war. I fought it through writing—and by writing, I seek to survive.

In recounting my experience with war, I strive to rise above the dichotomy of
aggressors and defenders, victors and vanquished, drawing attention instead to the
profound human tragedy that lives in the eyes of the victims, a tragedy that
declares, with stark clarity, the defeat of humanity.
Every war has one last chance to be prevented, but we squander it time and again.
Which war are we in now? The eighth? The tenth? I’ve lost count.
War also breeds and nurtures other wars, granting a fresh conflict to each
generation. Didn’t I say it was just?
Individuals or groups may ignite a war, but only the solidarity of humanity, united
in its shared fate, can put an end to it.
For whom amongst us hasn’t held a bullet in their memory?

Postscript

Some of these lines were first written for an event at the German History Museum in Berlin. I read them alongside several other writers. There was a historical exhibition being shown there entitled “Roads Not Taken”—the implication being that if we had taken other roads instead of wars, we might be living different outcomes. The event was organized by Weiter Schreiben and this text was first published in German.