Situation Report: Sudan: Eighteen Months After the CPA, Mariam Jooma

When it comes to post-colonial narratives of Africa it is difficult to equate the crisis of cohesion experienced in the Sudan to that in any of its continental counterparts. As seasoned analysts of the region will explain, anyone who considers himself an expert on the Sudanese affairs should be regarded with caution. This is particularly because the multiple causality involved in the regional and national conflicts in Sudan require us constantly to adjust our macro-level frameworks of analysis to accommodate changing alliances and loyalties at the level of micro-polities.

As the largest country on the continent, bordering some seven other conflict-prone states, Sudan demonstrates most acutely the challenge of building a state in the absence of a “nation”. Indeed it may also be argued that the crisis of identity as manifested in the return to, or creation of, ethnic, tribal and religious affiliations is a significant consequence of economic exclusion and powerlessness that resonate at community, regional and national levels. The influence of neighbouring discontent has been both a source of diversion for the central government and a tangible contributor to the protraction of Sudan’s internal tensions. The influence of the Darfurian conflict on Chad, as well as the Eritrean connection to Sudan’s eastern region clearly illustrates this point. Much of the recent literature on Sudan has focused on the ongoing violence in the western state of Darfur, which has often been explained using the Arab-African dichotomy. One of the major weaknesses of this narrative is the effect it has on solidifying identities that historically speaking have been fluid and are thus inadequate to explain the preoccupations of the principal role players. By confining themselves to such narrow dichotomies observers find themselves unable to accommodate or understand the changing political landscape as events unfold.