Sudan: history, politics, and contemporary issues

Sudan Nation at War With Itself: The Sudan

Sociology 300

To some extent, what we call the nation of the Sudan is a fiction. It is a product of colonialization, or rather the drawing of artificial boundaries that occurred after European colonialization in Africa. It is a polymorphous conglomerate of many different tribes, nations, and regions sewn together by a national government that strives to govern and manage the many inherent tensions and conflicts within the official Sudanese borders. Throughout the nation's history the government has often acted in a highly partisan fashion. A cynic or simply an honest observer might say that Sudan is not so much a nation as a war zone.

Religion and politics

Sudan negotiated its independence from Great Britain in 1956. However, the Sudanese Constitution had no provisions defining the religious character of the state and if the new Sudan was to operate under federal or unitary system of government. Southerners wanted a non-Arab, secular, loose confederation of states while Northerners wanted an Islamic state. A seventeen-year civil war ensued, and ever since then, the Sudan has been at war more than it has been at peace. This is partly responsible for the relative lack of development of the Sudan, even in comparison to its neighbors. Although it is difficult to measure the exact rate of poverty because of the government's instability, by most measures poverty rates are quite high, hovering around 40% by a 2004 estimate, and the nation's GDP is only a paltry 9.6% ("Sudan," 2007, World Fact Book).

Life expectancy of the average Sudanese is only 49.11 years at birth and adult literacy is low, only 61.1% ("Sudan," 2007, World Fact Book). Of the population, in terms of its religious composition the nation is squarely divided between the official religion of Islam, which is most common in the Northern-dominated regions, in contrast to the indigenous beliefs that dominate the Southern Sudan, along with some pockets of Christianity in some areas. The statistical estimations of the composition of the state as a whole is that it is 70% Sunni Muslim, 5% Christian mainly in urban locations such as Khartoum, and indigenous beliefs dominate the Southern Sudan, and believers make up around 25% of the population ("Sudan," 2007, World Fact Book).

People living with AIDS as a percent of the population was estimated to be 2.3%, but the actual figure may be higher given that this percentage relies upon unreliably reported data and dates from 2001 ("Sudan," 2007, World Fact Book). The nation's fertility rate is high. It was recorded that 4.69 children were born to every woman in 2007 ("Sudan," 2007, World Fact Book). The nation only has a Provisional Government established by the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement and national elections are scheduled for July 2009. ("Background Note: Sudan," 2007, Bureau of African Affairs).

Ethnic-cultural divisions

Because it is such a patchwork of faiths and tribal alliances, it is even difficult to truly pinpoint when what we think of as the modern Sudan ever began. The nation's birth is usually traced to around the year of 1820, when Egypt began conquering the tribes and fiefdoms of the area, unifying the North Sudan, but not the South. In 1881 the Western and Central Sudanese tribes were united under the leadership of Muhammad ibn Abdalla, the "Mahdi" (expected one) whose followers, the Ansars, still lead the largest political party of the nation, the Umma. The Umma is headed by one of descendant of the first Mahdi. Egypt, under the direction of Great Britain overtook the Sudan in 1898, a reign that lasted until Sudanese independence ("Background Note: Sudan," 2007, Bureau of African Affairs).

The Sudan was dominated by pro-Islamic, pro-Arab Northern governments until 1969, when the socialist Colonel Gaafar Muhammad Nimeiri came to power. Nimeiri alternately alienated communists and religious groups in his attempts to hold onto power. Then he abandoned federalism and put the entire Sudanese South under control of the state government. This spurred the nation to dissolve into a civil war in 1983. Nimeiri also made Islamic law part of the penal code, which included public beatings for consuming alcohol and cutting off hands of people convicted of stealing. All Sudanese nationals, even non-Muslims were subject to this law. Nimeiri was eventually overthrown in a coup, but the Southern-Northern tensions remained, as the government continued to be dominated by Islamic supporters.

Full-fledged civil conflict erupted again, and did not end until July 2002, when the Northern and Islamic-dominated government and the rebel confederation of Southern Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army SPLM/a reached a historic agreement on the role of state and religion and the right of Southern Sudanese tribes to self-determination in a federal system ("Background Note: Sudan," 2007, Bureau of African Affairs).

Women and Development

Because of the violence and war in Sudanese society, coupled with highly traditional fundamentalist and indigenous beliefs about the role of women in society, humiliating women is often used as psychological tool of warfare. The toll upon Sudanese women's bodies and collective psyche has been incalculable. The recent conflict in Darfur, a region located in Western Sudan between rebel groups unofficially supported by the Sudanese government and local tribal forces, has existed since 2003 and in 2004 the United States officially labeled the actions of the government-backed Janjawid rebel forces as genocide (Alvy, 2004). The government officially denies the existence of the use of sexual violence against women as a weapon of warfare. However, both the United Nations and Amnesty International have reported accounts of widespread rape and torture of women, including acts that take place front of the women's own families, while relatives are forced to watch the women's humiliation. Women have also been sold into sexual slavery during the conflict.

Theoretically, according to the Sudanese Constitution, since 1956 women have enjoyed equal rights under the law. But in practice, these words have rung hollow, given the predominance of Islamic law in governing behavior, legally and according to local custom. Women are not legally permitted to work in public, for example, which often makes them financially dependant upon men. The frequent wars and violence have widowed many women, rendering their families economically reliant upon their support, but women have been denied the educational or vocational tools to earn their own livelihoods. Female fertility rates are high because of poor access to birth control, but so is infant mortality and maternal death rates. 590 women died during every 100,000 live births last year. (Sudan Fact Sheet: Status of women," 2007, WomenforWomen International).Women have low literacy rates because they often are encouraged by family members to drop out of school as soon as possible, and the frequent civil conflicts have disrupted the education of all Sudanese.