Sudan

SUDAN

A country in northeast Africa located south of Egypt on the Nile.

Known in the past as bilad al-sudan (the land of the black people), Sudan is the largest country in Africa, covering one million square miles. Its nearly thirty million residents, who live scattered across the wide expanse, differ along lines of ethnicity, language, and religion. The country's political instability is, in part, a result of this diversity. Moreover, given its geostrategic location astride the Nile, it has been vulnerable to foreign pressure.

Peoples

Sudan contains more than fifty ethnic groups, which are subdivided into at least 570 tribes. The principal groups in the north are Arab, Beja, Nuba, Nubian, and Fur. Nearly half the population identifies itself as Arab, generally meaning peoples who speak Arabic and reflect its cultural heritage. The Arabs along the northern and central Nile valley tend to dominate Sudanese political and economic life. The Beja, who comprise 6 to 7 percent of the population, are concentrated in the east along the Red Sea and coastal mountain ranges; they are Muslim but speak a distinct language. The Nuba, residing in the Nuba mountains of southern Kordofan, are 5 percent of the population and also speak their own languages, not Arabic; some are Muslim, others Christian or adherents of traditional African religious beliefs. About 3 percent are Nubians, who traditionally lived along the northern reaches of the Nile, merging into Egypt. In the early 1960s, many Nubians were relocated to Khashm al-Ghirba in central Sudan when the construction of the Aswan High Dam flooded their homes. They speak their own ancient languages; they were early converts to Christianity but converted to Islam several centuries ago. The Fur, 2 percent of the population, live in the far west; like the Nubians, they have a tradition of independent kingdoms. The Sultanate of Fur lasted from the fifteenth century until the early 1890s. Many other non-Arab peoples live in villages in the west, notably the Berti, Zaghawa, Borgu, and Massalit.

In the southern third of Sudan, the Dinka are 40 percent of the population, or 12 percent of the Sudanese as a whole. The Nuer are 5 percent of the whole Sudanese people, and the Shilluk are 1 percent. None of those groups are homogeneous, and they compete for territory, cattle, and trade routes. The numerous groups that live in Equatoria, the southernmost area, differ in language, customs, and religion. Overall, the ethnic fragmentation in the south is greater than in the north.

In addition to those indigenous groups, 6 percent of the Sudanese are migrants from West Africa who settled in western and central Sudan in search of employment or on their way to or from Mecca, the most important site for Muslim pilgrims. Known by the pejorative term fellata, they lack many of the legal and economic protections accorded to full Sudanese citizens.

Language overlaps with ethnicity as a basic distinguishing trait among the Sudanese. Half the population speaks Arabic as its native tongue. At most, half the adults are literate (far fewer than that in the wartorn south and Nuba Mountains), and indigenous languages remain important. Arabic serves as the lingua franca among the educated classes in the north. Although residents of the south resisted learning Arabic and were taught English in the missionary schools, Arabic has made inroads there in recent decades.

Religion also divides the population—65 to 70 percent are Muslim, 20 to 25 percent follow traditional beliefs, and 5 to 10 percent are Christian. The north is overwhelmingly Muslim, with pockets of Christians in the Nuba Mountains and in urban areas. Many Muslims belong to the networks of Sufi tariqas (brotherhoods) that formed around holy men and serve economic, social, and political as well as religious functions. The brotherhoods cut across tribal and ethnic allegiances: For example, many Beja belong to the Khatmiyya order, which is led by the Arab riverain Mirghani family. Otherwise, most of the divisions reinforce cleavages, particularly the Arab/Muslim separation from the African/non-Muslim.

Geography and Economy

Sudan is predominantly rural, with a third of the population living in urban areas. (That share is growing as people flee famine in the outlying provinces.) Two-thirds of the labor force works in agriculture or herding, and a third of the gross national product was derived from agriculture until the advent of oil exports in 1999. Northern Sudan is largely flat savannah and desert where cattle, camels, and sheep are raised, sorghum and sesame are grown, and gum arabic is harvested. Meat and grains are sold in large amounts to oil-rich states in Arabia, and gum arabic is exported to Europe and the United States for use in soft drinks. Along the Blue and White Nile, south of Khartoum, cotton and peanuts are grown for export on large-scale agricultural holdings called schemes. Rains are heavier in the tropical south than in the north, but development in the south has been hampered by civil war and difficult conditions, such as the vast swamp known as the Sudd (barrier). The north suffers from severe deforestation: The forest cover diminished annually by one percent in the 1980s and 1990s due to overgrazing, charcoal burning, and drought.

Industry is based on agriculture, and its products are consumed within the country. Manufactures include sugar refining, flour milling, vegetable oil processing, canning, and textiles. Cement, tire, and cigarette production is also important for the domestic market.

There are substantial untapped deposits of copper and other minerals in Sudan. Chinese and French joint ventures export gold from the Red Sea Hills. Oil has now become the most important resource.

In 1979 the Chevron Oil Company discovered oil in Bentiu (Upper Nile) and Muglad (southern Kordofan). Extraction was blocked by the civil war that resumed in 1983. Chevron sold out its share to the Sudanese government in 1984. In the mid-1990s the government resumed exploration, utilizing the skills of a consortium of Canadian, European, Chinese, and Malaysian oil companies. Export began in August 1999, when the pipeline to Port Sudan was completed. Since then Sudan has become self-sufficient in oil. It exports increasing amounts of crude and refined oil, particularly to East Africa and Asia. The Canadian Talisman company sold its share to the Indian state oil company in 2002 after widespread protests by human-rights groups against the government's expulsion of Nuer from Upper Nile in order to ensure central control over this vital resource.

Oil exports have enabled Sudan to have a positive balance of trade for the first time in decades and to start to reduce its heavy debt burden. That burden is estimated at $23 billion, most of which is long in arrears. U.S. government sanctions, imposed in November 1997, ban U.S. companies from conducting transactions in Sudan, with the exception of those for gum Arabic.

Urban Areas

The urban population is centered in the Three Towns—Khartoum, Omdurman, and Khartoum North—which serve as the political and economic capital and together house at least 1.2 million people. Port Sudan (pop. 300,000), built by the British in 1910, remains the only port on the Red Sea, although efforts have been made to revive the historic port at Sawakin. Kassala (pop. 235,000) and Qadarif (pop. 190,000) are the main towns in the grain-growing east, and Wad Madani (pop. 220,000) is the capital of the cotton-growing Gezira area. In the west, al-Ubayyad (pop. 230,000) serves as the capital of Kordofan, and al-Fashir—on the border with Chad—is the capital of Darfur; both are important trading centers. Juba (pop. 115,000), the capital of Equatoria, was the capital of the south when it was unified from 1972 to 1983; it has been isolated from the surrounding countryside by the rebel forces of the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA) since 1985.

History since 1821

The territory that now comprises Sudan was not unified until the Turco-Egyptian invasion of 1821, which imposed centralized control over most of the north relatively quickly. The Turco-Egyptian forces did not conquer Darfur until 1874 and never subdued the southern tribes. Their raiders seized gold, ivory, and slaves from the south, deeply alienating those African peoples.

The indigenous politico-religious movement called the Mahdiyya overthew the Turco-Egyptian government in 1885 and ruled until 1898. Muhammad Ahmad ibn Abdullah called himself the mahdi (messiah) in 1881, gathering his followers on Aba Island (White Nile) and later in Kordofan, from which he launched attacks against the Turco-Egyptian army. The mahdi died shortly afterward. His successor (khalifa) Abdullahi al-Taʿisha consolidated control over northern Sudan and attempted to seize territory from Ethiopia and Egypt. He established a religious-based government that continued to raid into the southern areas, seizing slaves and promoting Islam.

British forces, marching south from Egypt, overran the country in 1898 to 1899 and imposed the Anglo-Egyptian condominium. Messianic anti-colonial revolts broke out in the west and center, and were finally subdued in 1912. Sultan Ali Dinar was not defeated in Darfur until 1916. In the early 1920s nationalist outbreaks called for Sudan's independence, or for its linking with Egypt: Those two strands persisted in the northern nationalist movement until Egypt renounced its claim to Sudan in the 1950s. One enduring legacy of British rule was the virtual separation of the south from the north; from 1922 to 1946 the southern provinces and Nuba Mountains were isolated from the rest of the country. Meanwhile, considerable economic and educational development took place in the north, centered on the Gezira agricultural scheme (opened in 1925) and Gordon Memorial College (opened in 1903). In 1938 the graduates formed the Graduates Congress, which lobbied for independence during World War II. By then, several northern political parties also competed for influence. Britain established a legislative assembly in 1948; this led to self-government in 1952 and the election of the first parliament in the next year. Sudanization of the army and administration began in 1954. Those measures primarily benefited the north; the south was compelled to accept a subordinate position at the Juba Conference (1947) and hardly benefited from Sudanization.

When Sudan gained independence on 1 January 1956, parliamentary rule was established. The two leading religious orders—the Ansar and the Khatmiyya—predominated in the new governments, although secular nationalists, communists, and southerners gained token positions in the parliament. The democratic institutions had not had taken root by the time General Ibrahim Abbud instituted military rule on 17 November 1958. His rule lasted until November 1964, when a popular uprising led to a renewed democracy. That, too, proved unstable as the traditional politicians jockeyed for power, were challenged from the religious right by Hasan alTurabi's Islamist Party, and failed to deal with the rebellion that had accelerated in the south during Abbud's era.

Young officers led by Muhammad Jaʿfar Numeiri launched a coup d'état on 25 May 1969 and crushed the traditional political groups. Numeiri turned against his left-wing allies in 1971 but mollified the south by granting regional autonomy in 1972. He instituted major economic development programs in the mid-1970s, backed by the party, the Sudan Socialist Union. Economic development remained hampered by poor planning, high-level corruption, and skyrocketing oil prices. In 1977 to 1978 Numeiri sought to widen his base of support by reconciling with the traditional and fundamentalist religious forces. That led to the gradual Islamization of the political system. Numeiri instituted Islamic criminal punishments in September 1983, which he enforced against widespread opposition by draconian emergency measures. By spring 1985 Numeiri's support was confined to Turabi's Islamic movement—northern secularists, the banned political forces, and the southerners (who resumed their civil war in 1983 under the banner of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement) actively sought to overthrow him.

In April 1985 a popular uprising led to a bloodless coup and the installation of a one-year Transitional Military Council. Elections were held in April 1986, and northern religious-oriented political movements won 85 percent of the seats. Turabi's National Islamic Front (NIF) won 20 percent of those seats. African (southern and Nuba) and northern secularist (communist) parties controlled only 15 percent of the parliamentary seats. Al-Sadiq al-Mahdi, leader of the Umma Party and the Ansar religious order, became prime minister. Despite his pledges to institute a liberal government and to negotiate an end to the fighting, he failed to cancel Numeiri's Islamic laws. Instead, he announced that he would not enforce them in the south, a move that alienated the southerners as well as northern secularists. Mahdi's rival Muhammad Uthman alMirghani, leader of the Khatmiyya Sufi order and head of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), won acclaim for reaching an agreement with the SPLM to freeze the Islamic laws pending the convening of a constitutional conference. Mahdi and Turabi joined to force the DUP out of the government, but the senior army officers then compelled Mahdi to endorse Mirghani's agreement and negotiate with the SPLM.

On 30 June 1989, hours before the government could finalize the freezing of Islamic law, Brigadier Umar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir overthrew the government. The coup d'état was orchestrated by Turabi's NIF, which vehemently opposed the annulment of Islamic law. Once again, constitutional institutions were banned: Bashir closed the parliament, banned political parties and trade unions, and shut down independent newspapers. The government accelerated the fighting in the south and in the Nuba mountains. The civil war was redefined as a jihad (holy war) against infidels and apostates. The regime instituted Islamic legal codes in 1991 and an Islamic constitution in 1999. In the late 1990s it reintroduced carefully controlled parliamentary elections and a direct presidential election, which Bashir won handily. In late 1999 Bashir and Turabi had a major falling-out after Turabi sought to sideline Bashir. Bashir, using his power as president and commander of the military and security services, decreed emergency rule and closed down the parliament. From early 2001 until late 2003, Bashir kept Turabi either in jail or under house arrest.

The political and trade union groups that had benefited from the short-lived parliamentary system formed the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in October 1989. NDA members inside Sudan attempted to mount protests and petitions, which were crushed by the military regime. Most of the leaders fled into exile, from which they continued to try to overthrow the government and rein-stitute democracy. The NDA attempted to mount military operations in eastern Sudan, but it lacked the strength to bring down the regime either militarily or politically. The government even attracted Mahdi back to Khartoum in 2000, but it failed to provide him with a significant political position.

Sudan Today

The geostrategic location of Sudan contributes to its sociopolitical instability. Located astride the Nile River, which flows north from Ethiopia and Uganda into Sudan and through Egypt to the Mediterranean Sea, Sudan has been the object of contention by those neighbors as well as external powers. Egypt cannot tolerate the presence of a hostile government in Khartoum, because the Egyptian economy depends on the Nile waters. Sudan and Egypt worry that Ethiopia might dam the Blue Nile and deprive them both of water. Sudan also borders the Red Sea, a major artery of international trade, and adjoins nine countries (Egypt, Libya, Chad, Central African Republic, Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Eritrea). Lacking the capacity to police its remote desert borders and its lengthy coast along the Red Sea, Sudan is vulnerable to incursion. Refugees from neighboring civil wars and famines find haven in Sudan, and hostile governments support rebellious Sudanese groups. Sudanese governments have meddled in the politics of such neighbors as Ethiopia, Chad, and Uganda, although those countries can easily undertake reprisals.

Some view Sudan as a terra media, lying between and linking Africa and the Arab world; others see it as lying on the fault line between the two peoples, torn between them and unable to unite. Nearly fifteen years after achieving independence, Sudan's national identity and political system are still violently contested.

see also abbud, ibrahim; ansar, al-; beja; dinka; khartoum; kordofan; nubians; nuer; numeiri, muhammad jaʿfar; omdurman; shilluk; sudanese civil wars; turabi, hasan al-; umma party.

Bibliography

Abdel Rahim, Muddathir. Imperialism and Nationalism in the Sudan. Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1969.

Bechtold, Peter K. Politics in the Sudan: Parliamentary and Military Rule in an Emerging African Nation. New York: Praeger, 1976.

Beshir, Mohamed Omer. Revolution and Nationalism in the Sudan. London: Rex Collings, 1974.

Khalid, Mansour. The Government They Deserve: The Role of the Elite in Sudan's Political Evolution. London: Kegan Paul, 1990.

Lesch, Ann M. The Sudan: Contested National Identities. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998.

Lobban, Richard A., Jr.; Kramer, Robert S.; and Fluehr-Lobban, Carolyn. Historical Dictionary of the Sudan, 3d edition. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2002.

Mahmoud, Fatima Babiker. The Sudanese Bourgeoisie: Vanguard of Development? London: Zed Books, 1984.

Voll, John Obert, and Voll, Sarah Potts. The Sudan: Unity and Diversity in a Multicultural State. Boulder, CO: West-view Press, 1985.

Woodward, Peter. Sudan, 1898–1989: The Unstable State. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990.

ann m. lesch