Sudan (1956- ) is the country south of Egypt. It is the cruellest place on earth. Unlike, say, Rwanda and Cambodia, the violence never seems to stop. It goes on and on. Just when the long war in the south was coming to an end – a war in which millions were killed or made into slaves – war broke out in Darfur in the west.
The north and the south are like two different countries:
- The north is Arab in language and Muslim by religion, like neighbouring Egypt, but few are Arab by blood.
- In the south English and Christianity are more common, as in neighbouring Uganda. Few are Muslim, some are Christians, most worship spirits. This is the beginning of black Africa.
Even though you barely heard about it in the West, Sudan is where the greatest jihad of our time has been fought. It ended in a draw in 2005.
Just as that war was winding down, another broke out in Darfur in 2003. The people in Darfur are Muslims but are black, not Arab. Feeling the government had not been fair to them, they took up arms. This led to war which continues to this day In 2006 it spread to neighbouring Chad and the Central African Republic.
Unlike the war against the south, Darfur has become a fashionable cause in America and Britain.
Two of the men responsible for the blood of Darfur will likely be brought up on charges before the ICC, the World Court. Sudan says it will not turn them over. The United Nations in turn threatens to cut off trade to Sudan.
The African Union has a force in Darfur, but it is too small to do any good. The United Nations talks of sending a much larger force, but so far it is just talk.
Not only the people, but the land also changes from north to south:
- The north is like Egypt: mostly dry land with towns and farms along the Nile. At Khartoum, the seat of government, the Nile divides into the Blue Nile and the White Nile.
- In the middle of the country, the dry land turns to grassland.
- In the south the grass gives way to trees, to woodland and wetland. Everyone is black. Now you are in the tropics.
Sudan has bad roads and few schools. Most are farmers or herders.
Sudan has oil, most of it in the south. France, India, Malaysia and especially China have sunk money into oil wells in Sudan. China needs the oil badly.
Some of the oil money pays for Russian arms, some goes into putting up tall, glass buildings in Khartoum. Little of it goes to the south, where most children do not even go to school.
As part of the 2005 peace deal, the south will vote in 2011 on whether to become independent. With so much oil there, it is seems unlikely the north will let it go without a fight.
See also:
- genocide
- people:
- Alek Wek
- Kola Boof – was born there and lived there as a girl
- Osama bin Laden – lived there once
- South Sudan
- Arab world
- Muslim
- jihad
This post is accurate except you are wrong to say there are not many schools, there are many schools in (northern and eastern) Sudan which are in someways better than American schools because in Sudan you study the history of Sudan, Ethiopia, and Egypt most heavily, whilst in America, the only black history one studies is that of oppresion.
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Wait, nevermind, I disagree with a lot of this post!
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Most of what I know about Sudan comes from The Economist.
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Interesting.
You warn us to be careful about relying solely on news reported by white males in the English language press, yet you get most of your information about a region of sub-Saharan Africa from exactly such a source.
But, I suppose, maybe you have evolved in your thinking after a few years of doing this blog.
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Interesting post, but falls into the dilemma of an Arab/Black Africa dichotomy. Is South Sudan really where ‘Black Africa’ begins? Can one be Arab and Black? Arab Sudanese immigrants and Black Egyptian immigrants (Nubians, for example) don’t always distance themselves from blackness in the US.
I know this doesn’t mean much because it’s only one family, but I know a Sudanese family of ‘Arab’ origins in the northern part of Sudan who identify as ‘Black’ here in the US. I think, though this family speaks Arabic as their primary language, they identify with the history of northern Sudan and Nubia.
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