Some Features of the Civil War in the Sudan

1. Introduction

Historical hostilities among a culturally diverse people and differential colonial treatment of many components of a territorial entity constitute major obstacles to both horizontal and vertical political integration. At the heart of some of the most dramatic and tragic events in Africa are issues of contested identities.

Sudan is inhabited by two blocks of people: in the North are Arab-Muslims and in the South African-Christians and followers of African Traditional Religions (ATR’s). In this conflict, therefore, each group would want to assert its distinguishing characteristics which derive from a long history. Also each side fights for particular ends, such as the lives of its people and their corporate identity and consciousness.

2. Nationalism

One of the ends the South fights for is Africanism. The value systems of South Sudan negate the possibility of assimilation into the Arab culture. Their religions are indigenous to Africa, while most of the educated elites are Christians. They share the history of devastating slave raids by Arab traders. This has served to deepen a consciousness of African identity among them and brought about a general consensus of accepting and treating their territory as exclusively of African identity.

In the North, Arabism is rooted in a sense of sharing in the Arab heritage: attachment and reference to Arab descent, culture, values and Islamic (Sharia) Law. This heritage is evidenced by the widespread use of the Arabic language by the majority of the population and the general adherence to Islam which permeates the whole society and provides a background to almost every event of daily life. In the North, therefore, being an Arab is an article of faith. Their claim to Arab descent and identification with the Arab world racially, culturally, religiously and ideologically, is an index of distinctiveness and exclusiveness from the Africans further South.

3. Independent Sudan

The first shock of the creation of a united independent Sudan in 1956 wore off and the rejection of the new state by the South collapsed. Southerners disregarded the national issue in favor of issues of development, human rights and religious freedom in which they considered they were discriminated against. The South resented being subjected to northern Arab domination. Both groups feared one another: one [side] because it was marginalized politically and economically, and the other [because] of losing power and influence. This nurtured no confidence in one another’s intentions.

4. Religion

In the Sudan, religion is more than simply a boundary around which the scarce goods of society are competed for—power, prestige and economic gains. It also enters in as a good to be preserved because it enables persons and groups to readily recognize supporters and opponents. Besides, it draws on historical Muslim-Christian divisions to sharpen the edge of the socio-political confrontations. Furthermore, religion enables the Muslim group to avoid deep social mixing.

The Islamic media in Khartoum blame the outbreak of the past and current wars on Christian missionaries who “planted the seeds of hatred in South Sudan against Islam and Arabism.”

5. National Identity

Northern politico-religious leaders are clear about the national character the Sudan should adopt and what its national aspirations and loyalties should be. Sadiq al Mahdi, a two-time ex-Prime Minister in the turbulent Sudan, like most influential politicians in the country, assumed that there exists in South Sudan a “cultural vacuum” to be filled by Arab culture under an Islamic revival. He wrote, among other things:

The dominant feature of our nation is an Islamic one and its overwhelming expression is Arab, and this nation will not have its identity identified and its prestige and pride preserved except under an Islamic revival.

To Bishop Paride Taban of the Catholic Diocese of Torit, South Sudan:

The whole population of Sudan believes in God. The hundred tribes in Sudan all have a name of God. In the history of Sudan, there was never a war over religion. On every Islamic feast day and on every Christian feast day Moslems and Christians go to wish merry feast to each other. The churches and mosques never quarrel among themselves. It is the Sudan Government that has declared religious war against the masses of southern Sudan and the Nuba Mountains. This government is persecuting people for being Christians.

There is, therefore, a clear religious dimension to the conflict in the Sudan. And national and racial divisions correspond closely to differences in religious identity. Many churches have been intentionally demolished and the ubiquitous appeals to religion in official government propaganda and the use of Islamic symbols in torture are some of the ways the conflict has been defined according to the complex relationship between national and religious identity.

6. The Influence of the Church

Since independence, South Sudan’s cultural and national identity have been closely identified with the church. The clearly dominant tradition in recent decades has emphasized church support for an independent South Sudan. This linkage has led some people to conclude that the Christian church bears considerable responsibility for the conflict. Many observers point to the several ways that the Church has contributed to the rise of nationalism in South Sudan. It supported, especially from 1956, the nationalism of Father Saturnino Ohure, General Joseph Lagu and Col. John Garang in the nineties.

7. The Influence of the Mosque

The mosque has contributed to the war by validating its claim of national rights and giving it theological and religious legitimacy. Muslim leaders have therefore failed the most by not condemning the violence and human rights [abuses] committed against Christians and traditionalists.

It takes extraordinary courage during a genocidal conflict to criticize one’s defenders for abusing the rights of those to be liberated. Many Christian leaders in the South feel that the world has ignored or been indifferent to the dramatic suffering of their people and that criticism of human rights abuses by the Sudan People’s Liberating Movement/Army (SPLM/A) would deflect attention from this suffering and play into the hands of the Islamic regime in Khartoum.

Fear and intimidation have also been important factors. In most parts of the Sudan speaking out against violence and human rights abuses takes great courage. As such, most religious bodies in the country have not shown a consistent opposition to violence. They have, therefore, missed an important opportunity to mitigate the hatred and transcend the deep divisions among their respective communities.

8. Conclusion

Throughout the war, there have been many initiatives designed to help the churches play a peace-making role in the South. They arise because of the link between national and religious identity and the respect and influence that some religious leaders enjoy.

It has been stressed, time and again—and I submit—that in politics forgiveness requires a four-step process: first, moral judgment about past injustices; second, forbearance from sweet revenge; third, empathy for the enemy and fourth, a commitment to repair broken social relationships.

Many church leaders have taken positive, even heroic, steps to minimize the conflict, but have remained lonely voices for moderation and tolerance amidst the extremism that surrounds them. Throughout the war, they have, all along, insisted that the average people, freed from war hysteria and violence would return to living together in peace in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society.

The better and more realistic approach would therefore be to find within the rich cultural and religious traditions of the Sudan, the moral norms and basic beliefs that are consistent with, and reinforce a vision of a society in which religious, ethnic and national differences are less a source of conflict than a reason for co-existence. Short of this, the terrorism in the Sudan, launched by the National Islamic Front, will continue, while the world looks on unconcerned. For the South, this is no wonder, because an old Arab proverb says, “When God created the Sudan, He laughed.”

©2000 James Yugu Yangkole - copied with permission