Reconstruction 8.4 (2008)
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History, Ethnicity and Religion and the Sudanese North-South Conflict / N'Mah Yilla
Abstract: Identity formation or rather the Arab-Muslim Northerner vs. the African-Christian/animist Southerner identities are at the crux of the Sudanese North-South conflict. Thus, in order to understand the root causes of the violent war in Sudan, this paper seeks to chart Sudanese history in order to uncover when and why Sudanese identities developed. By examining three distinct and important eras of Sudanese modern history, the Turco-Egyptian regime (or Turkiyya) from 1820-1893, the Mahdiyya from 1893-1898, and the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium from 1898-1956, it becomes clear that there is long legacy of government preference and economic development in Northern Sudan while largely neglecting southern Sudan and using it as a prime region for abstracting slaves. This legacy in turn, helped solidify the Northern, Arab Muslim identity and political dominance in southern African Christian/animist rebellion against northern hegemony: The root cause of the Sudanese North-South Civil War.
In the Sudanese case, the peoples have written different histories about their interaction, especially in the nineteenth century and during British colonial rule. Moreover, over time ethnic identities that were relatively fluid hardened and became politicized; contrasting perspectives became entrenched.
Anne Mosley Lesch
<1> The Republic of Sudan is a country in East Africa south of Egypt and north of Uganda and Kenya. To its east are Ethiopia and Eritrea and to its south west are the Central African Republic and Democratic Republic of the Congo. It shares its Western Border with Chad and Libya. Sudan's peoples are divided into 19 different major groups and over 100 languages (Wenger, 3). Around 40-60 percent of Sudanese peoples identify themselves as African and mainly live in the Western region of Darfur [1] and Southern Sudan (3). Those who identify themselves as Arab, are estimated to be somewhere between 50-60 percent of the population and are mainly concentrated in the North and west. Sudanese Arabs are actually Arabic-speaking Muslims from a variety of ethnic heritages who have adopted Sudan's river-rain valley language and culture as their own. Thus, Arabs are not an ethnic group in Sudan, but rather or cultural-linguistic group (3): An identity rather than an ethnic or genetic heritage.
<2>Identity is a complex, sometimes contradictory concept. Nonetheless it is a useful framework for understanding social processes. For the purposes of this paper, identity is defined as the quintessential quality of sameness among members of a particular group (Brubaker and Cooper 7). It is the fundamental way in which collective self-definition is formed and points to characteristics and themes viewed as the foundational core of a group or category (7) and the result of gradual social and political processes that lead to group or collective action. In essence, identity can be described as self-definition that involves accentuating certain characteristics, traits and activities over others. It is also a collective self-definition that develops to highlight the contrasts between different groups and categories: A process of naming oneself, naming others and being named by others (Brenner 59). Identity is constantly influx, forming and reforming as a function of different social, political and economic situations. It is constructed and deconstructed by both those within a group and those outside of it. In this way, identity reflects the collective self-perception of social, political and economic reality and not necessarily the true reality (59).
<3> Identity formation or rather the Arab-Muslim Northerner vs. the African-Christian/animist Southerner identities are at the crux of the Sudanese North-South conflict. Thus, in order to understand the root causes of the violent war in Sudan, this paper seeks to chart Sudanese history in order to uncover when and why Sudanese identities developed. By examining three distinct and important eras of Sudanese modern history, the Turco-Egyptian regime (or Turkiyya) from 1820- 1893, the Mahdiyya from 1893-1898, and the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium from 1898-1956, it becomes clear that there is long legacy of government preference and economic development in Northern Sudan while largely neglecting southern Sudan and using it as a prime region for abstracting slaves. This legacy in turn, helped solidify the Northern, Arab Muslim identity and political dominance in southern African Christian/animist rebellion against northern hegemony: The root cause of the Sudanese North-South Civil War.
<4> In his book, When Victims become Killers, Mahmood Mamdani, discusses the genocide or organized mass killings of the Tutsi ethnic group in 1996 Rwanda. Claiming that many modern-day genocides have their roots in colonial policies that favored particular religious/ethnic groups over others, Mamdani argues that in the minds of those committing murders, the act was not one of fratricide. Instead, Mamdani claims it was an act of revenge against the colonial legacy, or rather the political developments that took hold as a result of the colonial legacy. In short, sharp distinctions between Rwanda's ethnic groups developed as function of colonialism. These distinct identities and the disproportionate power dynamics behind them were established and reinforced by various colonial regimes. As a result, the Hutus who participated in the genocide saw the Tutsis not as fellow Rwandans or compatriots but as foreigners: accomplices to their colonial oppression. Mamdani's argument has some implications for the Sudanese context. The Sudan experienced several different eruptions of civil war, particularly between the North and the South. To the outsider, these religio-ethnic entanglements may seem to be simply cases of compatriots warring against one another. Yet the reality is that they are far more complex. The North-South conflict, like in the Rwandan case, is the result of defining and favoring certain identities while neglecting and exploiting others. These processes resulted in the dichotomizing of the Sudanese national consciousness: Arab, African, Muslim, Christian, Southern, Northern, Islamist, Mahdist and Sufi. The Sudanese North-South conflict represents a struggle to wrangle power from those who have historically monopolized it since the colonial period.
<5> In essence, the causes of Sudanese civil strife are the political, religious and economic stigma associated with different facets of the Sudanese identity. The culprit in Sudan's ongoing crises is not a particular ethnic group or religious ideology. Rather it is the political, religious and economic stigma associated with different historical forms of the Sudanese identity that has caused clashes. How each categorization relates to the overall power framework is an important theme behind fighting in Sudan. Thus, in order to understand the problems facing modern and contemporary Sudan it is important as Mamdani says, to understand the historical links between identity, power and conflict. Dissecting this historical legacy is the key to full comprehension of the experiences that have shaped the ideologies connected to the Arab-Muslim, African-Christian identities.
<6> Colonization changed the course of history for both those subjugated to it and those who wielded power. The Sudan was no exception. The policies pursued by its colonial masters established and reinforced the segregation, unequal development and monopolization of power that now affect Sudanese politics. Colonization in Sudan however, differs from the common characterization of imperialism as a mostly Western European prerogative because Sudan was first conquered by non-western powers: The Turco-Egyptian regime (Turkiyya). The regime was so named because although Sudan was officially colonized by Egypt, Egypt was ruled by the Turkish, Ottoman Empire. The Turco-Egyptians took over in 1820.
II. The Beginnings of Arab identity and the African identity
<7> Turco-Egyptian rule transformed the Sudanese economy. Under this regime, the economy in the Northern Nile Valley region, the lands surrounding and in between the Blue and White Niles, evolved from one based on communal land sharing and ownership to one that was more capitalist, based on individual ownership of land. The accumulation of large plots of land by individual people became easier because the government levied taxes on land in Northern Sudan, particularly the Northern Nile Valley region. It would then sell that land not at its market value, but rather at the price of the debt owed to the state (Spaulding 7). Additionally, the Turco-Egyptian government promoted individual land claims by instating law statutes that favored private land ownership (7). This made it possible for individuals to privately own land that they could not have laid claim to under the pre-colonial system. In effect, as Spaulding concludes "the Turks, through their land-tax policy, encouraged institutions that facilitated the transfer of rights over the land out of the traditional system of tenure [where patterns of kinship dictated how land was distributed] and into the bourgeoisie marketplace" (7). Spaulding further declares that under the Turco-Egyptians, "rights to the fruits of the land gave way to rights to the land itself" (4). The Turkiyya's land policies affected the way that individual Sudanese viewed the concepts of landownership and communal responsibility. An example of this can be seen with the Saqiya lands, lands irrigated by a water wheel. Saqiya land was at one time public property, but by end of the 19th century many of the Saqiya holdings were classified as maqsuma, or divided into discrete plots of land with individual owners(4).
<8> In addition to changing land ownership, the Northern Sudanese, particularly those in the Northern Nile Valley, were subject to heavy taxation by the Turco-Egyptian state. These taxes were to be paid in the form of coins, produce or slaves. As the taxes grew, so did the pressure and necessity to get the slaves with which to pay them (4). When discussing the interplay between taxation and slavery policies initiated by the Turco-Egyptians Holt writes:
It has been said that this taxation appears 'almost unbelievably onerous' and to amount to something approaching confiscation. Confiscation rather than revenue was indeed probably the real intent. Specie was rare in the Sudan and the taxes could be paid in strong male slaves instead of cash (Holt 43).
Heavy taxation caused many Sudanese peasants to abandon their property. These peasants then moved further west into the regions of Darfur, the Nuba Mountains and Bahr el-Ghazal (Warburg 9). As migrants, they became the jellaba, traveling merchants (Sikainga 9) who dealt mostly in the capture and trade of slaves (Holt 79). As more displaced peasants became jellaba, slave raiding and trading became activities engaged in by even the lowliest members of Northern Sudanese society. Slave prices dropped dramatically, making it possible to own shares in a single slave (Spaulding 11). According to Spaulding, by the end of 19th century slaves made up 1/3 of northern Sudanese population and performed most of the agricultural work (11).
<9> The Turco-Egyptians also made concerted efforts to recruit slaves to serve the state. Before Turco-Egyptian conquest slaves were very few, serving only the elite of society and very rarely ever sold (8). They were traded or given as gifts to important economic or financial figures. After the Turco-Egyptian conquest Spaulding says,
Turco-Egyptian rule, however, altered the manifestations of slavery in Sudanese societies. The colonial regime needed bodies to serve as soldiers in its armies and other forms of laborers to serve throughout the Turkish Empire. To this end, a two-pronged policy was launched The Sudan [was divided] by a line of demarcation. All the peoples North of this line were considered Muslim and ruled directly by the state, while all those south of it were considered savages and legal targets for slave raids (2).
This separation would become important in the later development of Sudanese economics, politics and society. It marked the beginning of the polarization of identities. Through the line of demarcation the Turkiyya defined the South as innately inferior, and therefore not important enough for political development. The North in contrast, was both Muslim and civil, worthy of the state's attention. These differences would continue to appear throughout Sudanese pre-colonial and postcolonial histories. The line of division, however, was not the only slave-trade encouraging initiative implemented by the Turco-Egyptians. The government also led periodical slave raids. As a result, many slaves were brought in from the South as property of the government (10). In effect, the Turco-Egyptian regime, because of its need for manpower for its armies became a great impetus behind the Sudanese slave trade. These government-sponsored practices continued for about 20 years until around 1840. After this the demand grew so high among the Sudanese themselves that direct government involvement in the trade was no longer necessary (10).
<10> The Turkiyya's tax, landownership, and slavery policies transformed the Sudanese socio-economic landscape. The initiatives put the Northern Sudanese peasants in an economic chokehold. The peasant's search for the means to pay the Turco-Egyptian taxes, in turn, was the catalysts behind the viability of the Sudanese slave trade. This in turn, caused evolution of the North-South line of demarcation. At first only an imaginary line, it became a real wall between these peoples; one that truly existed in the minds of individual Sudanese. More specifically, the line represents enslavement to a political and economic divide that haunts Sudan's socio-political developments.
<11> A plausible claim can be made that Sudanese slavery paralleled the slave trade in the Middle East, more narrowly defined. It is possible that slavery in Sudan involved the integration of slaves into northern Sudanese society through children of mixed slave-master heritage. However, according to Spaulding, primary documentation of the era does not support this claim: Assimilation was not always easy or encouraged. Slaves were classified with other livestock and given names such as "Sea of Lusts" (a woman), "patience is a blessing" or "Increase in Wealth" (12). Spaulding further avers that these names were meant to distinguish slaves and the children of slaves from members of the larger community. In addition to this, because of uprooting of individual slaves from their home communities, assimilation into Northern Sudanese society was a difficult process. Some were sold outside of their master/father's households while many others were taken by the Turco-Egyptian state to serve in the army (12). Finally, Makris explains that even the complete arabisation of a slave in the North i.e. a slave's adoption of Arabic as a mode of communication, Islam as a religion and the appropriation of Arab customs, only meant limited improvement in that slaves status, not social equality (162).
<12> In light of these issues, it is plausible to infer that the master-slave relationship in Sudan was one in which each side played specific roles and held a specific rank within the social hierarchy. In this way, slavery reinforced the North-South differences established by the Turkiyya's line of demarcation. Generally speaking, slaves, as Southerners and "savage beings" did not have autonomy over their own selves. As a result, they could not participate in Sudanese society as the equals of free men. It would be naïve to claim that the Northern peasants as colonial subjects possessed great political prowess. However, it would still be safe to say that their political and economic status was better than those of their slaves. In short, the Turco-Egyptians created a gap between slave and free that did not close. Instead, that gap grew larger because of the initiatives pursued by the various government regimes that followed it.
III. The Sudan, Sufism and the Mahdiyya
<13> In addition to the changes in economic patterns and encouraging slavery, the Turkiyya pursued a hostile policy towards native Sudanese Islam. Before the advent of the Turco-Egyptians, Sudanese Islam was a complex network of several Sufi orders and prominent Holy families. The two most prominent were the Khatmiyya and the Sammaniyya brotherhoods. Turco-Egyptian policy from the outset was to undermine the Sudanese religious model and implant one more friendly to the regime. As Warburg states, "The Sudanese elite at the time of the invasion consisted of two groups: tribal sheikhs and heads of holy families and Sufi orders. The Turco-Egyptians viewed neither of these groups as fully trustworthy, since both were naturally loyal to their local adherents and in the case of the Sufis and fikis, their mysticism- tainted with local superstitions- was abhorrent to the new rulers"(Warburg 7). As a result, Sudanese Sufism was treated as an inferior ideology, but not for purely religious reasons. From both a political and religious perspective, Sudanese Islamic mysticism was in direct conflict with both Turco-Egyptian Islam and more importantly the Turco-Egyptian governmental administration. It had the potential to create confusion among the Sudanese as to which leaders they should follow: Their religious figures or the Turco-Egyptian regime. This is why indigenous Sudanese Sufism was not supported but rather discriminated against by the state.
<14> The Khatmiyya was an important exception to Turco-Egyptian hostility towards Sudanese Sufism. It was the only large-scale Sufi order that cooperated with the Turco-Egyptians. In exchange for their collaboration with the state, Khatmiyya mosques, schools and sheikhs enjoyed government subsidies as well as tax exemptions (9). Its version of Sufism became viewed as more centralized and closer in relation to mainstream Islam than any of the other orders (8).
<15> However, the government's ill-treatment of other sectors of Sudanese society, both religious and social, eventually lead to rebellion against the regime. While the Khatmiyya successfully carved out a niche for its movement, the Turco-Egyptian administrative system had no place for the other Sufi orders and old holy families. Warburg claims that, as a result "within the traditional Islamic elite there consequently emerged a feeling of hostility, leading to an identity of solidarity transcending both tribes and villages, against the Turkiyya as the common enemy (8). Because of the regime's economic and administrative policies, discontent with Turco-Egyptian rule was established among all sectors of Sudanese society. The displaced peasants from the Northern Nile Valley resented being pushed off their land and subjected to the regime's corrupt taxation system. The former religious elite resented their loss of influence in the Sudanese religious and social spheres. Lastly, Southerners were weary of slave trading and the instability that it brought to their communities. As a result, the Mahdiyya, an indigenous Sudanese religious movement, appealed to their common desire of freedom from Turco-Egyptian rule. The Mahdiyya ruled Sudan from 1893 until 1898.
<16> The Mahdiyya's formation was aided by the Sammaniyya and Khatmiyya Sufi orders. While dissatisfaction with Turco-Egyptian rule grew, the Khatmiyya and Sammaniyya Sufi orders created new organizational structures. These structures made it easier to gain support in the wider Sudanese Muslim community (3). According to Warburg the Khatmiyya and Sammaniyya unified with older religious centers to form larger Sufi networks. For example, earlier Sufi orders such as the Ya'qubab and Qadiriyya joined the Sammaniyya (4). This process allowed for further growth and diversity in the respective brotherhoods and promoted solidarity that transcended ethnic backgrounds. The Sammaniyya however, suffered from a lack of centralization which allowed the rise of the Mahdi from among its ranks. Warburg solidifies this point when he says that "the Mahdi [leader of the Mahdiyya movement] inadvertently benefited from the fragmentation of the Sammaniyya since in a centralized order under one shaykh recognized by all followers, he would hardly have succeeded in his claim to be the expected Mahdi (11). In effect, the Sammaniyya's relative fragmentation indirectly aided the Mahdist movement by allowing for the rise of the Mahdi from among its ranks. However, it was not the only impetus behind the Mahdiyya's success. The Khatmiyya movement also aided the rise of the Mahdi. According to Warburg, "unlike the Khatmiyya, Mahdist revivalism was intertwined with the social and economic transformation of the state, which made cooperation with the rulers impossible (11). In effect, religious purification as a means of ridding Sudan of its oppressors was at the core of the Mahdist movement. This was starkly different from the Khatmiyya's policy of cooperation with the state. Thus, the Mahdiyya, as a native movement with its origins in the Sammaniyya and priorities that countered those of the colonial regime, was the physical embodiment of the answer to Sudanese cries against colonial oppression.
<17> However, the Southerner's cries against slave trading were not answered by the Mahdiyya. Although on a smaller scale, the basic tenets of slavery continued under the Mahdists (Sikainga 31). Many Mahdists came from merchant families whose wealth depended upon the slave trade (Lesch 28). Not surprisingly, the Mahdist state itself, or rather the ruling elite and their family members, were among the trade's main benefactors (Sikainga 31). The Mahdists state needed slaves for its army, agricultural projects, and domestic work (30, 31). As a result, the regime devised methods for making runaway slaves property of the state. For example, males who ran away were quickly sent to Omdurman (the Mahdist capital city) and drafted into the army (30). Slaves were also obtained by leading "campaigns" against rebellious groups (30). Finally, the Mahdists army absorbed the soldier-slaves that were formally part of the Turco-Egyptian forces (Warburg 10). Thus, the Mahdiyya policy with regards to slavery was resembled a continuance of the status quo rather than revolutionary changes. In this way, the Mahdiyya contributed to the further crystallization of the North-South, slave-Master distinctions established under the Turco-Egyptians.
IV. Understanding the Significance of these Historical Processes: The Remembering and Reassembling of a Painful Past
<18> The line of demarcation drawn by the Turco-Egyptians to separate the North from the South was an imaginary one. However, much like the physical wall forged between East and West Berlin, it had negative ramifications for Sudanese development throughout modern and contemporary history. Today, people discuss conflict in Sudan they often do so in terms of a Muslim North vs. the Christian-animist South, the Arab North vs. the African South or some variation thereof. These labels, entrenched deeply into the national and international understanding of the Sudanese consciousness have roots in the colonial legacy. The regions north of the line of demarcation came to be associated with being Arab and the regions south of it with being African.
<19> In this way, religious and ethnic associations connected to the areas on either side of the line were the beginning of the master-slave, power wielder-power yielder relationship. They engendered the concept of viewing entire regions not as another different, but equal in terms of their humanity, but rather as the other: Inferiorly different. Thus Mamdani's theory about the importance of the power dynamic behind a group's identity is applicable in the Sudanese context. While it would not be fair to claim that the Northerners and Southerners do not consider each other to be Sudanese, there is a general difference in each side's definition of what a Sudanese is. Each side's image of the ideal or authentic national is a mirror image of itself. Because of this, Northerners and Southerners are not fighting their compatriots, but rather the other the less authentic, and the foil to the ideal. Makris, solidifies this claim in his charting of Sudanese history in regards to slavery. He notes that Arabs in Sudan are not Arab in a genetic sense. Instead their identity refers to an ideology that connects the Northern Sudanese with Arabs in the Arabian Peninsula: Islam (161). In Sudan, the concept of Muslim became intrinsically joined to the idea of Arab for communities in the North. Thus, the political power dynamic developed into the free, Muslim, Arabs of the north vs. the community of enslavable Africans in the South (162).
<20> The different Sudanese perspectives on the Mahdiyya are prime examples of the interplay between power dynamic and history. In the contemporary consciousness of northern Sudanese nationalists, the Mahdiyya was the key "'national liberation movement' that unified the Sudanese under one purpose (Lesch 28). Daly claims that "the Mahdiyya assumed the quality of a nationalist myth, its chief actors the mantles of patriotic heroism and its ideology of xenophobia and Islamic rectitude became an exclusive heritage of the North" (Broken Bridge, 4). The Mahdiyya is seen as the golden age in Sudan, the point in history when the Sudanese demonstrated that they could defeat a mighty empire. It was also the period in which all Sudanese stood united as brothers against a common enemy. This movement is proof that Sudan was on its way to becoming a fully Islamic nation. In short, from a Northern nationalist point of view, had it not been for the Turco-Egyptian demarcation of Sudan, and subsequent European colonialism, the South would have united with the North, creating a nation whose identity was completely arabized: Characterized by being at its core both Arab and Muslim. This view of the past is not totally without validity. It is quite plausible that Islam and the Arab identity would have spread to the South. However the Northern Nationalist view, by exclusively blaming colonialism for the differences among Sudanese, also absolves the North of its role as a culprit in the South's relative economic and political depression. In this manner, the North becomes the victim: the twin robbed of his brother and his soul mate.
<21> Not surprisingly, the southern view of the Mahdiyya period strikes a glaring contrast. The Mahdists, like the Turco-Egyptians never had full control of over the entire south. When addressing the Southerners who were under the Turco-Egyptian state, Lesch says that "although some peoples of the South cooperated with the Mahdi in order to expel Turkish garrisons, they did so to free themselves form foreign control and from predatory raids. They therefore turned against the Mahdist groups when they imposed centralized rule, collected taxes, and resumed slave raids" (Lesch 28). In essence, from the Southern perspective, cooperation with the North during the Mahdist revolts was more an alliance of enemies than one of brothers. Once the Mahdist government imposed some of the oppressive policies that caused the deposing of the Turco-Egyptians, the South revolted against it as well. When addressing the Southern perspective on the Mahdist movement, M.W. Daly says that
In the South, however, the Mahdist regime, like its predecessor, failed to consolidate its authority and establish a government; it ruled by raid. Insecurity was perhaps more profound than during the Turkiyya, when at least the slave-raiding merchant-princes maintained a semblance of order in their own [regions of authority]. When European imperialism arrived in the Upper Nile, its peoples wearily awaited the passing of new wave of bandits, not the establishment of law and order (Broken Bridge 4).
For the southern Sudanese, the Mahdiyya meant the end of Turco-Egyptian rule, but not the end of governmental tyranny. This region's recollection of the Mahdiyya regime lacks the glamour and legend quality conjured in the Northern nationalist memory of the same movement. Daly further suggests this when he says the following: "Although some Southerners had risen up with the Mahdi to destroy the Turco--Egyptian regime, overall the Mahdiyya reinforced the master-slave dichotomy with which 'North-South' relations had been endowed (4). In effect, the Mahdiyya was revolutionary because it was a successful indigenous Sudanese movement. Nonetheless, its policies towards the South were not novel; they were a continuation of the Turco-Egyptian legacy. They were a continuation of a preference for the civilized North, especially the Northern Nile Valley, and exploitation of the savage South.
V. Anglo-Egyptian Condominium
<22> The Mahdiyya's existence as an independent state was short-lived. In 1898, after a bloody battle in Omdurman, a new chapter in colonial rule began in Sudan: the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium. The Condominium was Britain's way of asserting power over Sudan under the guise of restoring Turco-Egyptian rule. In reality the British imposed their governmental system and pursued their own interests in Sudan (Lesch 29). In order to suppress the threat of Mahdism's resurgence in the North, the British allied with and subsidized the Khatmiyya brotherhood, which had always opposed the Mahdiyya (Johnson 9). The Condominium undermined support for popular Islam, while supporting a version of the faith that was ideologically compatible with the Anglo-Egyptian regime, a more "Orthodox Islam." This was primarily established in the North, especially the northern Nile Valley region, via the appointment of an official board of ulama, Islamic religious authorities. The Condominium policy towards Islam in the North also involved the reinstating of tribal leaders that had been deposed by the Mahdi, and maintaining its status as a benevolent overlord of Muslims by funding mosques and observing Islamic holy days (Daly, Empire on the Nile 123).
<23> Northern Anglo-Egyptian policy focused on strengthening what the regime saw as Orthodox Islam (non-Mahdist), economic growth and monitoring the type of education Northerners received. To this end, the Anglo-Egyptian government established a fairly strong primary education system in Northern Sudan and even founded Gordon College (243-249). Gordon College was created as a training ground for a colonial middle class and bureaucracy. Its alumnae became the pulse of the nationalist movement. In light of this, it is important to note that young men from Arabic-speaking, Muslim families were the type of students recruited to Gordon (Sharkey 8). Graduates of the school later founded the Graduates General Congress (GGC) in the 1920s. This organization's aim was to promote Northern Sudanese in governance of Sudan (Lesch, 30-31) and functioned as a precursor to Sudan's National Assembly (Sharkey 54). The GGC was torn apart by internal tensions and split into two political parties: the Ashiqqa and the Umma Party (Lesch 30-31). Thus, Gordon College helped shape the nature of the Sudanese ruling elite. In contrast to the Arab elite that attended Gordon, Condominium policy prohibited young men from the South from attending the school (8). Sharkey notes that "by selecting students along the lines of language, ethnicity, religion, class and gender, British authorities at Gordon College reinforced rather than reshuffled social power structures of the preconquest period (Sharkey 8). Through the establishment of Gordon College, the Condominium created a new middle class that did not reflect the ethnicities and identities of Sudan as a whole. Instead, this middle class created what Sharkey calls an "ethnically specific nationalist elite" (9) because this elite did not represent Sudan's plurality it was unable to represent the Sudanese people as a whole. As a result they defined and executed their own agendas, both before and after independence. In essence, the Arab-Muslim identity by the time of the Condominium was the one that possessed social and political power. Its monopoly on political access and articulation of political needs was created and bolstered by the Anglo-Egyptians and their predecessors.
<24> Not surprisingly, the regime later realized that its education system not only created an educated elite but an educational elite with nationalist tendencies. It subsequently modified its policies in the North and restricted higher education in order to prevent an educated class from emerging that would be discontented with the Condominium (Lesch 30).
<25> Northern Nile Valley society was especially affected by Anglo-Egyptian economic policy, particularly the development of the Gezira Scheme: The most important economic initiative sponsored by the Condominium. This project's purpose was to create cotton for export, the profits of which were mainly to be enjoyed by the colonizers. In order to achieve this aim the state dammed the Blue Nile and created a canal system that irrigated millions of acres of land between the Blue and White Niles. Another important aspect of the Scheme was that it functioned within the framework of a tenant farmer system (Bernal 97; Yamba 68). The Gezira project was touted by the British as a means of improving the Sudanese quality of life. However, according to Bernal, "the Scheme did not so much bring services to poor farmers as they did create a population of farmers dependent upon the irrigation system, credit arrangements, and technology that the schemes imposed" (Bernal 99). In effect, the Gezira Scheme did increase the wealth of the northern Nile Valley Sudanese middle class that developed since the Turkiyya. However, the entire program, especially the tenant system that was its backbone, did not promote Sudanese financial enterprise. Instead, it encouraged dependency on the life style supported by the Scheme. When discussing the lives and backgrounds of the people who worked on the Gezira Scheme Bernal says:
Tenant households in the Gezira Scheme areas differed in ethnicity, political affiliation, and allegiance to religious figures and brotherhoods within Islam, and they participated in a diverse range of networks that crossed scheme borders. Many maintained close ties with relatives off the scheme. This variety of activities and affiliations diversified the tenant population as well as linked tenants to different segments of the population outside the schemes (99).
The scheme was first and foremost a colonial enterprise focused on yielding profits that could be used to further the regime's aims. Nevertheless, it also functioned as mixing bowl for a detribalized Northern Sudanese middle class. The different individuals, families and communities living in this area, in turn contributed to the concept and reality of the "Northern Sudan."
<26> As yet another manifestation of a colonial policy biased towards the Northern Nile Valley region, the Gezira project aided the North in further establishing economic stability and development. Long after independence cotton, wheat and groundnuts produced in the Gezira area were still important fixtures in the Northern Sudanese economic sphere. For example, in the 1990s, the Gezira was the source of 10 percent of Sudanese exports (Yamba 69). The inhabitants of the Gezira also had more electricity, piped water and medical clinics than any where else in Sudan (69). Gezira as an initiative was not a complete economic success nor were its effects on Sudanese society all positive. However, it can not be denied that the Gezira Scheme was an important aspect of Condominium economic and social policy in the North. The Scheme, along with the fact that many Northern Sudanese benefited from increased prospects for trade under the Anglo-Egyptian rule, aided the North in gaining the economic and internal development necessary for independence.
<27> Condominium policy in the South, however differed greatly. Not unlike the earlier colonial regimes, the Anglo-Egyptian government had great trouble ruling the South. It took thirty years of fighting before the regime was able to even gain some hegemony over or "pacify" the region (Warburg 10). This was because many societies in the South were small and the region's geography made it difficult for colonial forces to penetrate and take it over. Much like in the Mahdiyya and Turkiyya, protests against the Condominium occurred in what seemed to be spontaneous uprisings. Thus it is not surprising that the idea of the Southerners as primitive and wild would be the inspiration behind Condominium religious policy (58). The Condominium viewed many Southern Sudanese tribes as savage (58). Because of this, the state encouraged missionary activity, even carving out certain parts of the South for certain missionary societies. In contrast, it prohibited Islamization in the area (58). Because the language policy in the South excluded Arabic, Muslim schools were banned, while Catholic and Protestant missionary schools flourished. Not surprisingly, there would be no government-sponsored secondary schools in the South until after WWII (Lesch 32).
<28>In addition to forced religious segregation, the Anglo-Egyptians physically separated Southerners from Northerners. In this way, the Condominium's separate but unequal policies sustained the idea of a superior North and inferior South. During the first two decades of Anglo-Egyptian rule, the South was mainly used as a "reservoir" for conscripts for the Anglo Egyptian army. These soldiers were part of a segregated battalion which formed Sudan's permanent garrison (Johnson 11). Because of their slave origins, they were socially separate from the northern Sudanese. Interestingly, the Sudanese garrison was "restocked" in areas that were old slave raiding zones: The Nuba Mountains and southern Sudan (11). In this way, although on a smaller scale, the Condominium continued the exploitive pattern of the Turco-Egyptians and further entrenched racial attitudes (11). Condominium policy changed slightly, later supporting the idea of protecting the South. However, Condominium policy continued the tradition of keeping the Northern and Southern regions separate. One such example of this was the Closed District Ordinance of 1922. It was created to stop the internal slave trade and the spread of Islam into non-Muslim Districts (17). Although the barrier created by this law was not absolute, the Closed District Ordinance did nothing to stimulate a southern Sudanese commercial class to balance the influence of trading companies based in the Northern Sudan (17). As parts of the South became "pacified" or less hostile to Anglo-Egyptian rule, these communities were expected to pay taxes and tribute. However, the monies collected from the Southerners mainly supported the central rather than provincial governments. Thus, Johnson concludes that "from the very foundation of the Condominium, the central government not only sanctioned but participated in the exploitation of its southern periphery, in an adaptation of the old Sudanic pattern" (16).
<29> Also important within the South were governmentally instituted policies that differentiated between the peoples of the South. According to Johnson, the "agricultural peoples of the South were among the first to be 'pacified' by virtue of their accessibility and their limited ability to avoid government patrols (18). As the first to be conquered, these communities were among the few to receive a solid education despite southern Sudan's unequal distribution of educational facilities. This meant that there were few Southern Sudanese who were educationally equipped to join the Civil Service, were recruited into the colonial security system and later participated in the nationalist movement. However, the few who were capable of these tasks represented only a fraction of Southern Sudanese society. Pastoralist Southerners, on the other hand, were largely left out of these processes and thus largely underrepresented in colonial and post colonial governments. The disparities among the Southern communities were explained by the Anglo-Egyptian government in terms of differences in mentality among Southern peoples. For example, the government portrayed the Nilotic (people who speak languages from the Nilotic group of languages) Nuer and Dinka as conservative and backwards. Meanwhile it characterized the people in the Western Equatoria district, also in the South, as progressive and advanced (18).
V. The True Meaning of the Condominium: Contemporary and Historical Perspectives
<30>In many ways, the Condominium revolutionized the Sudanese economic and educational systems. Nonetheless, it also reinforced some key trends of ethnic and religious divisions established by the earlier Turco-Egyptian and Mahdiyya regimes. Once again, because of colonialist policy, the North was separated from the South. Although Northern society was also exploited by the regime, it received a support of Islamic values and economic development denied the South. Once again, the colonial regime gave preferential treatment to the Northern-Arab-Muslims as compared to its Southern-African-Christian counterparts. Continuation of this tradition would be disastrous for any of the South's political ambitions in the post-independence era. This is further solidified by Johnson when he says that
By the time the Sudan was set on its path to independence, there were far greater disparities between the development of the northern and southern parts of the country as a whole than there had been at the end of the Mahdiyya. The Southern Sudanese lagged far behind many of the northern Sudanese in education, economic development, and involvement in the government and administration of the country. In consequence, they lacked any real or potential voice in the direction of the country's affairs (17).
The South's lack of development is due in part to its resistance to pacification. However, this deficiency has been the crux of modern discourses about the nature of religious and ethnic divisions in Sudan. As Sudan moved from colonial governance to independence, the homogeneity of the northern Nile Valley middle class allowed this region's economic hegemony to evolve into overall Northern political dominance. The South, on the other hand, was not prepared to carve out its place in the post-independence political scene. As a result, the voice of the nationalist movement and post-independence Sudan was mainly from the men of the Graduate Congress.
<31> When addressing the role of Graduate Congress in the nationalist movement, Johnson says:
But the nationalists in the Congress were never able to develop a truly national political movement and reliance on religious patrons and sectarians voting have dominated Sudanese electoral politics up to the present day. Effectively, this curtailed any real nationalist debate and any real attempt to define a broad Sudanese national identity. The politics of the centre were once again dominated by affiliations forged in the nineteenth century. Those who had not been part of those original affiliations were largely denied a voice in international affairs (24).
In the late 1940s a Legislative Council was established in the North as precursor to a national parliament. The few Southerners who were qualified to join this council and the later Legislative assembly that formed from it, served to further drain the South of its capable provincial leaders (26): It was an indirect brain-drain. The Legislative Assembly passed the Self-government Statute of 1952. It was a document that provided for the codification of post-independence Sudan's election process with special safe guards for Southern political inclusion (26). Also in 1952, a Free Officer's coup forced Egypt to relinquish its claims to Sudan. Soon after this, Egypt and Sudan subsequently brokered several deals. The South, however, was almost entirely left out of this process because Egypt only made agreements with established political parties. Thus, one of the crucial consequences of the South's isolation was that the Umma party was able to have the safe guards established for the South established by the Self-government Statute removed (26).
<32> Southern exclusion continued to be a theme within Sudanese politics as the nation neared independence. Not surprisingly, when Sudan had elections in 1953, Northerners were appointed to all the senior positions in the South (27). This left many of the politically active Southerners suspicious of Northern intentions in the South. In 1955, Southerners, mostly from the Equatoria region staged a mutiny, killing many Northern political and administrative officials. This event was important because although not the result of a unified effort, it would later be regarded as the beginning of southern resistance to Northern oppression (29). The mutiny also revealed the political divisions along ethnic lines among Southern Sudanese. The Equatorians resented other communities such as the Nuer and Dinka because of their unwillingness to participate in the mutiny (28-29). Finally, the mutiny served to hasten Sudanese independence. It caused the British to realize that it no longer wanted to be in state of conundrum: having vague responsibilities in Sudan, but none of the power to control the events occurring in it (29). Britain pushed to hasten its formal granting of Sudanese independence before many of Sudan's basic problems had been addressed. These issues, including whether Sudan would be a secular or Islamic state and a federalist or a unitary state, would be the driving forces behind later civil strife (30). However unprepared, on January 1, 1956, Sudan became and independent state, a nation state.
II. Conclusions: The Ghosts of Colonial Pasts Haunt Contemporary Sudan
<33> Gaining full understanding of the history between Sudan's North and South is a complex and tedious a process. Because different factors come together to form the impetus behind a single event, direct links between cause and effect are not always easy to decipher. However, the Sudanese context suggests a strong link between the initiatives of the Turkiyya, Mahdiyya and Anglo-Egyptians and the political and economic stratification present in contemporary Sudan. The Turco-Egyptians drew a line of demarcation and justified it by describing Sudanese ethnicity and religion in terms defined by the regime. They established and supported a system that valued Northerner over the Southerner because the Southerner was supposedly non-Muslim and therefore savage. The Turkiyya also introduced an economic policy that insensated these differences by driving Northern Nile Valley peasants off their lands into slave trading and raiding. Once this precedent of dividing, defining and disproportionately treating different religious and ethnic groups was established, later regimes reinforced them. Like Mamdani and the Rwandan example, initiatives pursued by the colonial forces in the 19th century onward engendered the development of distinct identities in Sudan. These identities and the disproportionate power dynamics behind them were then reinforced by subsequent regimes. This power disparity then became the spark that started Sudan's Civil Wars in the post-independence era.
<34> Making the connections between historical developments and their relation to Sudanese identities sheds light on the complexity of Sudanese conflict. By understanding Sudanese history, it becomes apparent that the ethnic and religious identities that are now deeply entrenched in the region were not always so stolid. They were increasingly politicized by various regimes, colonial and indigenous. In this light, the Sudanese North-South conflict, like Mamdani's Rwandan example, is a struggle against a history of disproportional power sharing in the political and economic spheres: In short, Southern rebel forces fighting against the Northern dominated government are committing acts of revenge against the political developments that took hold as a result of the colonial legacy. The aim of this perspective is not to condone or condemn the violence committed on either side.
<35> Instead, charting the historical development of race and ethnicity in Sudan suggests that solutions to this nation's conflicts must break free of dichotomous categories and simple characterizations. Understanding the socio-historical significance of how Arab Northerner vs. African Christian (or even now in the case of Darfur, African Muslim vs. Arab Muslim [2]) came into being (as well as when and why these groups have clashed) gives thorough background and clues about how to resolve those conflicts. In short, it allows for the stepping into the future, by learning from the past.
Acknowledgment
The author would like to thank Professors Lidwien Kapteijns and Wilfrid Rollman of Wellesley College whose guidance and feedback were invaluable for this paper.
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Notes
[1] Darfur was an independent region until the period of 1918-1923 thus this region which makes up present-day western Sudan is not included in the discussions in this paper. For more information about the Darfur region of Sudan specifically, please see De Waal's "Who are the Darfurians?" especially page 192. [^]
[2] Darfur's history does have some parallels with South in terms of its relationship with the Northern Nile Valley hegemony. See De Waal's "Counter-insurgency on the Cheap" and Islamism and its Enemies in the Horn, and "Briefing: Dar fur" which both give a useful synopsis of the history behind the Darfur conflict and the prospects for peace in that region. [^]
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