Term Paper on "Sudan Nation at War With Itself"

Term Paper 4 pages (1335 words) Sources: 4 Style: APA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

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… READ MORE

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