Prayers for Sudan
On 9 July 2011, Sudan became two separate States as South Sudan was created six months after the 8 January referendum in which the voters of southern Sudan voted overwhelmingly to create a separate State. The creation of South Sudan is a cause of neither joy nor sorrow but needs to be accompanied by our prayers as the history of Sudan since its independence from England in 1956 has been one of violence and of missed opportunities for reconciliation and cooperation. The rare occasions when there was no massive fighting going on — basically the 10 years from the Addis Agreement of 1972 to 1982 when the North-South civil war started again, and the 2005-2010 period after the most recent peace accord — were not used to develop cooperative structures nor to develop a socio-economic system that would facilitate integration. The conflict in Darfur, western Sudan, which started in 2003 continues and was not an example that showed the government’s willingness to compromise or to meet the socio-economic demands of marginalized groups for a fair share of the national resources.
However, Sudan is not a country that smoothly divides into two. There are no ‘natural dividing lines’. During the colonial period, much of southern Sudan was administered by the British from Uganda as road communication was easier than from the capital Khartoum in the north. But ‘administered’ is an overstatement. Southern Sudan was of little interest to the British colonial administration. There were few crops to export and no minerals to mine. Education and health services were largely given over to Christian missionaries, primarily Church of England and Roman Catholic. Thus much of the south has been ‘Christianized’ — people have gone to church-run schools and have been treated in Christian clinics. However, traditional religious practices have continued because they were part of tribal life and were not considered as a separate ‘religion’. The oft-used term of animist for African tribal rites can confuse reality, but no other term became current. Thus in considering Sudan — people speak of ‘Muslims’, ‘Christians’ and ‘Animists’ — short-hand terms for complex realities. South Sudan with its multitude of separate ethnic groups, many with distinctive life styles, has been a fovored area for British anthropologists.(1).
On the eve of Independence, the administration of southern Sudan was moved from Uganda to Khartoum, just as the North-South Civil War broke out. The reasons for the war are complex but the formation of a national army was the spark that set off the fire. There have been two phases to the Sudanese Civil War. The first phase (1954-1972) had ended with negotiations facilitated by the All-African Conference of Churches with back up help from the World Council of Churches in Geneva. The 1972-1982 decade was one of relative peace, but it was not used to heal the divisions or to work out forms of government, administration, and legal systems that would be acceptable to all segments of Sudanese society. International attention on Sudan had diminished once the 1972 peace agreement was signed, and warning signals that all was not well were ignored internationally. Thus, in 1982 southern soldiers who had been integrated into the national army revolted, and a second phase of the Civil War continued from 1983 until the end of 2004.
As negotiations for a North-South agreement were nearly completed, groups in Darfur, western Sudan, which had not been directly involved in the North-South Civil War, feeling that armed violence was the only way to get attention and ‘a piece of the pie’, started what they hoped would be a short war followed by their participation in the North-South negotiations. Thus in 2003 began the fighting in Darfur which is still going on. It was not a short war nor have the Darfur parties been invited into the North-South agreement. Darfur will remain part of North Sudan, but a settlement to the Darfur issues has not yet started. The level of suffering in Darfur — people killed and displaced, and agricultural infrastructure destroyed — has been high. The reconciliation and reconstruction of Darfur will be difficult. We must be on the lookout for possibilities to help
The North-South Civil War has often been presented in a simplified way — the Muslim North against the Christian South. However there are no natural dividing lines. There are non-Muslim peoples living traditionally in the North as well as southerners who have gone North to work or for the relative safety in the cities. There are possibilities of continued conflict in the northern non-Muslim areas such as the Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan provinces . There is also a mixed population on the frontier between North and South, in Abyei. It is less the fact that the population is mixed than that the area is oil-rich that has attracted international attention The UN Security Council in resolution 1990, 29 June 2011 decided to establish the UN Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA). The role of oil and oil exportation in the Sudan would require a separate essay. However one oil-related point is worth noting as it is the background to one of two recommendations for FOR members which follows.
The oil company which exploits the oil in Sudan is Chinese and most of the oil goes mainly to China. Chinese companies have built the pipelines, roads and housing. During the time of fighting, Chinese soldiers protected the pipelines and oil installations. Thus China is the key player on the Sudan scene. The recent visit of the Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to China underlines this fact.
Turning to my two recommendations:
1) Christian churches will continue to play important roles in South Sudan. The Sudanese churches have been relatively conservative in continuing the missionary pattern of an emphasis on education and health, along with relief during the fighting and displacement of persons. There continue to be real needs in these sectors, but an analysis of unmet needs would be helpful. There is a need to develop adult education and especially a need to develop new forms of civil society organizations which can be multi-tribal. In the south, there have been civil society efforts to lessen the Nuer-Dinka conflicts between two major southern ethnic groups in competition for political power and wealth. There have also been efforts which must continue to lessen tensions between the Dinka and the Baggara Arab groups. The Baggara Arabs had been used as government militias and slave raiders against the Dinka. However many of the Baggara Arabs are natives to the South and massive population transfers should be avoided if possible.
US-based concern must not be limited to South Sudan. In the North, there has been the growth of women and student associations working for peace as well as some relatively independent publications. These civil society actors started being key catalysts for reform and change in Sudan. Though brutalized early on by the regime, they have been slowly reorganizing and building their capacity to participate meaningfully in the future. FOR members can see which church groups and development organizations are already at work in the two Sudans and see what cooperation can be worked out.
2) The second recommendation falls for Americans into the “Do as I say but don’t do what I do” category. It is a long term effort, but, I think, key. As I noted, China is the key country for the future of Sudan. China’s influence and activities are growing in a number of African countries, but Sudan is the country where China plays the largest economic (and thus potentially, political) role. Up until now, Chinese policy has been to limit itself to economic issues and building some visible buildings and sports stadiums. ‘Human rights’ is a term never mentioned in polite company.
However “nation-building” as a term became popular in US academic circles in the early 1960s. It is in Chinese interest to help in such “nation-building” as ethnic divisions could lead to violence and undermine economic investments. Therefore, without saying so, the Chinese need to be involved in African nation building. However, it has not been a topic of study as such in Chinese universities or the Chinese government-related “think tanks”. Thus, in order not “to reinvent the wheel” the Chinese need to draw on US scholarship, again without saying so. Intellectually, US professors in the 1960s led in this field, basically at Harvard, M.I.T. Yale and Princeton (2) Their writings seem to have been neglected by Americans currently working in Afghanistan and Iraq and for some in the US government, “nation-building” is something they do not want to get involved in.
Yet, given the large number of Chinese students in US universities and increased involvement of Americans in Chinese institutions, some seeds might be planted. Perhaps an FOR seminar could be organized around the theme “African Nation-Building: A Chinese Contribution”. There will certainly be a time gap between the period when students return to China and when they start to influence Chinese foreign policy on African topics — but one never knows how fast things will grow. In the meantime, we can offer prayers for the two Sudans.
Rene Wadlow, a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, is representative to the United Nations, Geneva, of the Association of World Citizens. He lives in Gravieres, France.
(1) See the classic E.E. Evans-Pritchard The Nuer (1940) and the earlier overview C.G. Seligman Pagan Tribes of the Nioltic Sudan (1932)
(2) See: Rupert Emerson From Empire to Nation (1960)
Karl Deutsch and William Foltz (Eds) Nation-Building (1963)
Clifford Geertz(Ed). Old Societies and New States (1963)
Leonard Doob Patriotism and Nationalism (1964)
For a very structured if someone abstract analysis see. M.J. Levy Modernization and the Structure of Societies, in two volumes (1966). Levy was my sociology professor at Princeton in the mid-1950s.
For an insightful but generalized view from a former FOR president which gives a certain legitimacy for an FOR initiative on this topic see Reinhold Niebuhr’s The Structure of Nations and Empires (1959).
For a much later reflection on nation-building approaches, see David Apter Rethinking Development (1987). Apter was also a student of M.J. Levy.
