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- H. M., MCC Country Representative in Sudan
There is an African proverb which says: "Even if a log lies in the water for a long time, it does not become a crocodile." Despite long exposure to Sudan and much reading of its history, I have not become a Sudanese, nor can I claim to fully understand the complexities of Africa's largest country. In this brief summation, cursory impressions on Sudan will be shared with special focus on Darfur, cited by the United Nations as the most dire and the most urgent humanitarian situation in the world today.
More than one million people have been displaced within Darfur
Within the Darfur area of western Sudan, it is estimated that more than one million people have been displaced while more 100,000 people from Darfur have spilled over into neighboring Chad as refugees. Having crossed an international border, these refugees qualify for recognition and aid from United Nations agencies. 'Internally Displaced People' or IDPs, on the other hand, are not recognized nor catered for by internationally recognized conventions. Thus are the camps for displaced within Sudan 'governed' by officials appointed by the Sudanese Government. This fact by itself reflects a cynical reality, given that the Sudanese Government is widely accused of being party to the deliberate displacement of the African population of Darfur.
Darfur comprises a large geographic area along the west-northwest border of Sudan with Chad. Currently the area is divided into three provinces known as North Darfur with El Fasher as the capital, South Darfur with Nyala as the capital and West Darfur with El Geneina as its capital. But it was not always so. In 1650, Darfur was established as a Sultanate and persisted as such until British times (i.e. 1890s) when the area became more closely associated with the larger Sudan. Subsequently, the independent Government of Sudan continued the policy of integrating Darfur with the country at large, but only with the reluctant support of the people of Darfur.
For well over 1000 years, pastoral Arab peoples have been moving slowly from the north of the country toward the southwest. An agreement known as the "baqt" (pact) contracted between the incoming Arabs and the indigenous Nubian peoples of northern Sudan provided the 'rules of engagement' governing trade and migration, among other things, between the two peoples for more that 600 years. The latent tensions which had been more or less controlled by the baqt broke into the open with the spectacular rise in 1881 of the Mahdi ('the sent one'), a Muslim revivalist who emerged from the Darfur region and successfully ousted the Turko-Egyptian (Ottoman) rulers who had controlled Sudan since 1821.
The 'Mahdeyyia' or the reign of the Mahdi, survived for nearly a decade until it was brought to an abrupt end by the coming of the British to Sudan who then ruled the country from 1898 to 1956 in a governance arrangement known as the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium. Sudan gained independence from the British in 1956. The Arab pastoral peoples of Northern Darfur have long been in a steady and growing competition for land with the settled African farmers of southern Darfur. This competition has been exacerbated by the southward expansion of the Sahara Desert and by the perceived dictates of the 'civilizing' mission of pastoral Arabs. Within Sudanese Islam (and to some degree in African Islam generally), higher social and spiritual status is accorded to Arabs who take seriously their mandate to civilize African peoples considered to be of lower status.
Within the past three years, these historic dynamics have become even more intense. African people of Darfur, long under latent pressure from their Arab neighbors, have meanwhile organized themselves into two political (and armed) movements respectively known as the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Joint Equality Movement (JEM). In response this development, the Government of Sudan is alleged to have armed and supported Arab pastoralist militia groups known as the "Janjaweed" (armed horsemen), thus leading to the conflagration which has given rise to the current humanitarian crisis in Darfur.
Idris, Amir H., Conflict and politics of identity in Sudan / Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York, NY : Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
Johnson, Douglas Hamilton, The root causes of Sudan's civil wars / Oxford : International Institute in association with J. Currey ; Bloomington : Indiana University Press ; Kampala : Fountain Publishers, 2003.