Canada in Sudan, Sudan in Canada: Immigration, Conflict, and Reconstruction 9780773597211

Table of contents :
Cover
CANADA IN SUDAN, SUDAN IN CANADA
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Tables
Abbreviations
Acknowledgments
Preface
1 Introduction
2 Factors of Secession: The Case of South Sudan
3 Islamic Fundamentalism in Sudan and the Islamic State Envisioned by Hasan Turabi
4 There’s No Place like Home(s): South Sudanese–Canadian Return Migration
5 To Cross the River: Refugee-Physicians and Their Mission to Return to Post-Conflict Sudan
6 Competence, Confidence, and Conflict: The Sudanese Physician Reintegration Program
7 Canada’s Contribution to the Resolution of the Darfur Conflict
8 Conclusion
References
Contributors
Index

Citation preview

canada in sudan, sudan in canada

Canada in Sudan, Sudan in Canada Immigration, Conflict, and Reconstruction

Edited by

amal madibbo

McGill-Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Ithaca

© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2015 ISBN ISBN ISBN ISBN

978-0-7735-4514-4 (cloth) 978-0-7735-4515-1 (paper) 978-0-7735-9721-1 (ePDF) 978-0-7735-9722-8 (ePUB)

Legal deposit second quarter 2015 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free McGill-Queen’s University Press acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication   Canada in Sudan, Sudan in Canada : immigration, conflict, and reconstruction / edited by Amal Madibbo. Includes bibliographical references and index. Issued in print and electronic formats. ISBN 978-0-7735-4514-4 (bound). – ISBN 978-0-7735-4515-1 (pbk.). – ISBN 978-0-7735-9721-1 (ePDF). – ISBN 978-0-7735-9722-8 (ePUB)   1. Sudan – History – Darfur Conflict, 2003–  – Causes.  2. Sudan – Emigration and immigration – Social aspects. 3. Canada – Emigration and immigration – Social aspects.4. Peace-building, Canadian – Sudan – Darfur. I. Madibbo, Amal, 1968–, author, editor DT159.6.D27C35 2015   962.404'3

C2014-908470-6 C2014-908471-4

Typeset by Jay Tee Graphics Ltd. in 10.5/13 Sabon

To the children of Sudan and South Sudan. Your dreams live on, echoing all the possibilities that lie ahead.

Contents

Tables ix Abbreviations xi Acknowledgments xiii Preface, by Susan McGrath  xvii 1 Introduction  3 Amal Madibbo 2 Factors of Secession: The Case of South Sudan  27 Dalal Daoud 3 Islamic Fundamentalism in Sudan and the Islamic State Envisioned by Hasan Turabi  52 Ali Kamal 4 There’s No Place like Home(s): South Sudanese–Canadian Return Migration 76 M a r t h a F a n joy 5 To Cross the River: Refugee-Physicians and Their Mission to Return to Post-Conflict Sudan  100 J u l i F i n l ay 6 Competence, Confidence, and Conflict: The Sudanese Physician Reintegration Program  125 R o d n e y C r u t c h e r , D a n i e l M a d i t T h o n D u o p, J o h n C l ay t o n , R u t h P a r e n t, A l l i s o n D e n n i s , S c o t t Shannon, and Shelley Ross

viii Contents

7 Canada’s Contribution to the Resolution of the Darfur Conflict 152 Ashley Soleski and Amal Madibbo 8 Conclusion  169 Amal Madibbo References 181 Contributors 197 Index 201

Tables

1 13–23 December 2000 National Assembly election  34 2 13–23 December 2000 presidential election  34 3 11–15 April 2010 presidential election  42 4 11–15 April 2010 National Assembly election  43 5 The Southern Sudan Healthcare Accessibility, Rehabilitation, and Education program (sshare) Medical Camps  137

Abbreviations

This following list of abbreviations used in this volume provides an easy reference. amis cida cpa eplf gnu GoS GoSS idp igad inc lra ncp ngo nup olf plp rhd rss ssla spc spla splm spla/m splm–n

African Union Mission in Sudan Canadian International Development Agency Comprehensive Peace Agreement Eritrean People’s Liberation Front Government of National Unity Government of Sudan Government of South Sudan internally displaced person Intergovernmental Authority on Development Interim National Constitution Lord’s Resistance Army National Congress Party non-governmental organization National Unionist Party Oromo Liberation Front Popular Congress Party Racialized Hierarchy of Desirability Republic of South Sudan South Sudan Legislative Assembly Samaritan’s Purse Canada Sudanese People’s Liberation Army Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement Sudanese People’s Liberation Army/Movement Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement–North

xii Abbreviations

sprp sshare

Sudanese Physician Reintegration Program Southern Sudan Healthcare Accessibility, Rehabilitation, and Education tplf Tigrinya People’s Liberation Front undp United Nations Development Program unamid African Union / United Nations unhcr United Nations High Commission for Refugees unocha United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

Acknowledgments

I am deeply indebted to the authors and research assistants and participants without whom this volume would not have been possible. Sincere acknowledgments are also extended to J­acqueline Mason, my editor at McGill-Queen’s University Press, for the professionalism and kindness she graciously provided throughout. Utmost gratitude is also owed to the anonymous reviewers of the manuscript for their time and helpful comments. I am also grateful for numerous communities and universities, including the University of Calgary, as well as funding agencies, notably the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Metropolis Centres, whose generous support helped make my immigration from Sudan to Canada truly fruitful and engaging. The Sudanese and Canadians in Canada and Sudan deserve special thanks, for they are working hard to achieve the goals of peace, prosperity, and successful integration.

Beautiful children in Darfur, Sudan. Photo by Amal Madibbo.

Preface s u s a n m c g r at h

Amal Madibbo and her colleagues have set out an ambitious plan for their book, and readers will not be disappointed. The publication is noteworthy for its relevance, timeliness, the breadth of topics and research methodologies and its utility for academics, policy actors, humanitarian practitioners, settlement workers, and anyone wanting to better understand Sudan and the 2011 secession of South Sudan, including the role of fundamentalist Islam. In his keynote address to a recent symposium on Sudan and South Sudan at the Centre for Refugee Studies at York University, Frances Deng, eminent scholar and South Sudan’s ambassador to the United Nations, described the two Sudans as caught in a spider’s web. The image well represents the complexity of the current situation and the ties that continue to bind the two countries. This collection of articles helps us to understand the crisis in both Sudan and South Sudan and how Canadians, particularly Sudanese Canadians, contribute to the resolution of the conflicts and reconstruction in Sudan and South Sudan. During my tenure as director of the Centre for Refugee Studies (crs) at York University from 2004 to 2012, clusters of researchers worked on issues related to Sudan with a focus on the development of South Sudan. With academic, ngo, and government colleagues in Sudan, we organized a forum in Khartoum in April 2007 on sustainable enterprise and development. In 2008, a research report Examining Enterprise Capacity: A Participatory Social Assessment in Darfur and Southern Sudan was published in collaboration with several Sudanese universities, including Ahfad University for Women. In partnership with the ngo Plan International in Canada and South

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Sudan, another study was published in 2009. Technical, Vocational, and Entrepreneurial Capacities in Southern Sudan: Assessment and Opportunities was intended to contribute to youth employment creation in South Sudan. Both studies are available at the crs website. In July 2013, crs hosted a successful symposium on Sudan / South Sudan with a focus on the humanitarian crisis. All of these initiatives have benefited from the contributions of Sudanese-Canadian academics, and it is significant that this book is led by an accomplished Sudanese-Canadian academic. Our colleagues are working transnationally to inform the scholarship of both countries and to contribute to the rebuilding of Sudan. A major contribution of this book is the historical analysis of the country of Sudan, of the secession of South Sudan, and of the development of fundamentalist Islam. These chapters provide valuable insights into the deep roots of the persistent conflicts within and between Sudan and South Sudan, the factors that led to the decision of the South to secede, including the failure to address the needs of peripheral states and marginalized ethnic groups, the impact of fundamentalist Islam and the imposition of sharia law. Dr Madibbo provides a detailed history of Sudan from the early kingdoms of 1700 bce, through the colonizations, first by a Turkish regime in the 1800s and then by the British and Egyptians in the first half of the 1900s, to independence in 1956 and the subsequent shifting of state control between brief democratic regimes and prolonged military rule. The devastating impacts of colonization and the subsequent persistent conflicts on the social and economic well-being of minority ethnic groups in particular and the whole region of South Sudan are made clear. The rich diversity of Sudan (600 ethnic groups speaking 143 languages) is presented as an opportunity that repeated colonial and independent governments have failed to recognize. The Arab-Islamic hegemony continues to fuel dissent. In her chapter drawing on interviews with key informants and analysis of major texts, Dalal Daoud synthesizes a framework of five factors, including the role of international actors that well explain why South Sudanese voted for secession. Her view that further successions are possible is disturbing but reflects the depth of local conflicts both in Sudan and South Sudan. Ali Kamal’s chapter explains Islamic fundamentalism and extremism, and through an analysis of the work of Allama Hasan Turabi, a Sudanese politician and Islamic scholar, identifies the causes of



Preface xix

the rise of fundamental Islam in contemporary Sudan. Dr Turabi was also persecuted by the current government for his more liberal views on women and more personal interpretation of the meaning of jihad. Under sharia law as practised in Sudan, women have suffered greatly, being confined to the domestic sphere and subjected to public humiliations, beatings, and imprisonments, with no consequences for their perpetrators. The book counters the bleak picture of contemporary Sudan and South Sudan with chapters on the transnational experiences of Sudanese Canadians, particularly a group of medical doctors. Martha Fanjoy follows the search for home by several South-­ ­ Sudanese Canadians who return to Juba, South Sudan, drawn by experiences of loss, kinship obligations, and identity struggles over what it means to be South Sudanese, a resettled refugee, and Canadian. Their stories provide valuable insights into the difficulties of negotiating transnational ties by all refugees and migrants and will inform the practices of settlement workers in Canada who support newcomers, particularly those fleeing civil conflicts. Juli Finlay’s chapter documents the history and commitment of fifteen Sudanese young people who were trained as medical doctors in Cuba, settled as refugees in Canada because it was unsafe to return when they completed their studies, and now practise medicine in South Sudan. They were never recognized as medical doctors in Canada. Finlay traces their journey and sense of mission as ­“Garang’s seeds” after the late leader of South Sudan, John G ­ arang. Their return was made possible by major commitments by two organizations: the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Calgary and the Christian ngo Samaritan’s Purse who provided the upgrading and clinical training needed for the doctors to practise in South Sudan. Rod Crutcher and his colleagues present the details of the needs-based curriculum development and student-focused training provided by the Sudanese Physician Reintegration Program and the personal history of one member of the program in particular, Madit Thon Duop. It is an inspiring story of personal commitment and sacrifice by the doctors and of the contributions of Canadians to the rebuilding of South Sudan, a country with some of the worst health indicators in the world. In the final chapter, Ashley Soleski and Dr Madibbo identify the contributions that the Canadian government and Canadian ngos have made in attempting to resolve the conflict in Darfur. Canada

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promoted the doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) at the United Nations, building on the work of Frances Deng and colleagues at the Brookings Institute with their 1996 work Sovereignty as Responsibility. The argument is that state sovereignty is not just a protection against interference by other states but a responsibility to be accountable for the protection of both domestic and external constituencies when needed. While Canada supported the 2006 Darfur Peace Process and has provided aid, diplomacy, and security, the conflict in Darfur continues. The Sudanese-Canadian and Canadian participants in the study by Soleski and Madibbo all support a greater role for Canada as a pluralistic, multicultural state in the resolution of the conflict in Darfur; however, there is no evidence that the current government is prepared to take up this call. Canada and Canadian universities have benefitted from the presence of those who have fled Sudan and South Sudan and made their home here – or at least a home here. The transnational relationships mean that Sudanese/South-Sudanese Canadians continue to negotiate their identities and their “homes.” This book not only documents these efforts but is an important product of them. It is in the engagement of the diaspora in generating knowledge about Sudan and South Sudan and in providing direct practical assistance, whether in remittances, economic development, or health care, that inspires hope for a future peaceful association of the two diverse and culturally rich countries.

canada in sudan, sudan in canada

1 Introduction amal madibbo

This volume is the first Canadian book about Sudan1 that draws on field work. It features research conducted by fourteen Canadian and Sudanese-born Canadian researchers between 2003 and 2011 in the Sudanese city of Juba and in the Darfur and Khartoum Regions, as well as in the Canadian cities of Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, and Montreal. The chapters that make up this volume explore key social and political issues concerning Sudan and Canada. Sudanese immigration to Canada and the transnational ties between Canada and Sudan are explored as well. Social and political conflict are examined through the recent secession of South Sudan, the Darfur conflict, and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism. The concept of reconstruction is investigated broadly in educational and health initiatives, and Canada’s contributions to the resolution of conflict in Sudan. The data analyzed here were gathered using qualitative and quantitative research methods, which include interviews, surveys, participant observations, discourse analyses, and document analyses. A wide range of disciplinary approaches ground the research presented, among them sociology, anthropology, political sciences, health studies, and social work. This diversity spurs the development of important conceptual and empirical perspectives about inclusion and exclusion at the heart of the text. At a time when the Sudanese diaspora in Canada is growing and the conflict in Sudan has become a preoccupation for Sudanese and Canadian citizens as well as for the international community, this volume will help readers to understand the root causes of conflict in Sudan and identify measures that could foster peace, stability, development, and cooperation.

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In this era of globalization and voluntary and forced movements around the world, many states have become common points of origin and arrival for immigrants. Arguably, Canada is a country that has embraced immigration, enabling immigrants to take up the rights and responsibilities of citizenship in order to enhance the growth of the nation’s population and economic prosperity. For about a century, Canada’s colonial heritage exemplified overtly exclusionary immigration policies that welcomed particular racial and ethnic groups while alienating others. Canada’s first Immigration Act, adopted just two years after the establishment of the Canadian Confederation in 1869, defined the criteria for the selection of immigrants based on a Racialized Hierarchy of Desirability (rhd) (Satzewich and Liodakis 2013). Racial classification, hostility, and exclusion were embedded in the discourse and enactment of immigration within the emerging Canadian nation. Entry to the country was determined by each applicant’s nationality, ethnicity, culture and habits, geographical background, and perceived ability to cope with the weather. Some groups, such as the British, white Americans, and Western Europeans, were considered desirable future citizens and were placed at the top of the rhd. Eastern and Southern Europeans were seen as “in-between peoples,” thought to cause minor problems but were allowed to enter Canada as a last resort. Non-European, non-white groups were perceived as culturally and racially unsuitable permanent settlers; relegated to the bottom of the rhd, they were not welcome in Canada. The human rights and liberation movements that formed around the world in the aftermath of the Second World War had positive implications for Canadian racial politics. Canadians became increasingly committed to building a nation based on justice and equity, and discriminatory immigration laws gave way to more inclusive policies. In particular, in 1962 the Canadian government began to eliminate racist assumptions and practices from the admission criteria for new immigrants. The points system of 1967 enacted objective criteria, such as educational background, knowledge of English and French, and job skills as the basis of immigrant selection. Additionally, Canada’s previous assimilationist policies, which forced Aboriginal peoples and some immigrants to adhere to the white Canadian mainstream culture, were replaced by pro-diversity initiatives. Canada championed the promotion of cultural, ethnic, linguistic, and religious pluralism in 1971 when it became the first country in the



Introduction 5

world to endorse multiculturalism. With its four areas of concentration – developing cross-cultural understanding, reflecting Canadian diversity in Canadian institutions, promoting shared citizenship, and combating racism and discrimination (Fleras and Elliott 2002) – the policy institutionalized the value and validity of diversity and provided a model for immigrant integration. These initiatives opened the doors for immigrants from the Global South to enter Canada, and their arrival spurred a shift in the country’s demographics, making Canada’s population of 35,295,770 one of the most ethnically diverse in the world, with more than 200 different origin ethnicities (Statistics Canada 2011). Currently, Canada admits 240,000–265,000 immigrants per year under three categories: economic immigrants, family class, and humanitarian (people accepted as immigrants for compassionate or humanitarian purposes). The major source areas of these immigrants are Asia and the Pacific (50.3 per cent), Europe (19.7 per cent), Africa and the Middle East (19.1 per cent), and South and Central America (8.3 per cent). Most, if not all, African countries are represented in Canada, including 35,000–40,000 Sudanese (Mosaic Institute and Gordon Foundation 2011). When they arrive in Canada, immigrants embark on settlement and integration, participating in the social, economic, and political life of their host society, and in so doing, they encounter challenges, such as exclusion from the labour market, but also benefit from the opportunities that the country offers. They study and work, create associations and organizations, and establish diasporic communities. Diaspora, a national, ethnic, or religious community living far from its native land or its place of origin (Dufoix 2008), dispersed by trauma and/or socio-economic conditions in a homeland and in search of refuge, usually develops what Cohen (2008) terms “a diasporic consciousness.” Feeling loyalty and a strong attachment to their source country, members of diasporas forge economic, political, and socio-cultural ties with groups and communities in order to help enhance the prosperity of their homeland. However, because diasporas tend to value their relationships with both source and receiving countries, immigrants increasingly engage the host society in initiatives intended for the source country. These practices have all contributed to the emergence of transnationalism. Transnationalism, the process of developing and retaining connections among states, communities, and individuals around the

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world (Portes 2001), is facilitated by global transportation and telecommunication technologies, as well as the relative loosening of boundaries between countries (Man 2007). In the Canadian context, transnationalism from above (cross-border activities conducted by governments, embassies, and consulates abroad) along with transnationalism from below (cross-border initiatives of nongovernmental bodies such as immigrant associations, civil society, grassroots, and individual actors) enhance diplomacy and social and economic development as well as the flow of ideas, goods, and information in local and global arenas. As such, transnationalism also concerns itself with reconstruction aimed at solving conflict and enhancing peace and democratization. Reconstruction follows conflict management and conflict resolution. Conflict management, defined as “the limitation, mitigation and/or containment of a conflict without necessarily solving it” (Tanner 2000, cited in Swanström and Weissmann 2005, 23), occurs during conflict. It consist of measures, such as the provision of humanitarian assistance in the form of food, shelter, and medical services; sets of rules agreed upon by conflicting groups; and models of power-sharing that aim to reduce the intensity of conflict and pave the way for conflict resolution. This latter stage is “the resolution of the underlying incompatibilities in a conflict and mutual acceptance of each party’s existence” (ibid., 25) and employs mechanisms such as negotiation, mediation, peace-keeping, or the signing of peace agreements in order to eliminate conflict. The official end of conflict signals the beginning of reconstruction, which the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (2005) defines as a “longterm process of rebuilding the political security, social and economic dimensions of a society emerging from conflict” (iii). Reconstruction methods, such as good governance, disarmament, reintegration of uprooted populations, and the reparation of educational, medical, and financial infrastructure (Barakat 2002), seek to prevent the escalation of disputes and guarantee long-term social and economic development. As it stands, Sudan is experiencing phases of ongoing conflict (e.g., Darfur conflict) and post-conflict (e.g., post–civil war) punctuated by very short periods of stability after which conflict has resumed. Sudan therefore needs to transition away from war to peace, from emergency relief to sustainable development, and from short-term to long-term stability. In this complex process, conflict management



Introduction 7

could be the starting point for conflict resolution, which further facilitates reconstruction. The three processes of peace-building  – conflict management, conflict resolution, and reconstruction – are usually carried out by the actors of transnationalism from above and of transnationalism from below. This makes bodies such the Canadian International Development Agency (cida) and the Sudanese diaspora in Canada key partners in the reconstruction of Sudan. Studies that have explored the contribution of the disaporas in Canada to reconstruction in their source countries have focused on European, Asian, and Middle Eastern communities such as the Croatians, Irish, Tamils, Kurds, and Jews (Satzewich and Wong 2006; Wayland 2004). As a result of the relatively recent arrival of Africans in Canada, the relationship between the African diasporas in Canada and communities and states on the African continent has been overlooked. Scarce but significant scholarship has documented some aspects of the Sudanese diaspora in Canada along with the connections developed with Sudan. Abusharaf’s (2002) ethnography sheds light on the trajectories of Sudanese immigrants and exiles in Canada and the United State. She posits cultural and structural barriers to which these immigrants are subjected, but she also explores the recent immigration of Sudanese independent women, as well as coping strategies for all immigrants. Abusharaf concludes that negotiating, maintaining, and reinterpreting pre-migration socio-cultural dynamics such as marriage and kinship networks facilitate adaption and settlement in the host society. Moreover, a report prepared for the Sudan Task Force of the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade identifies the foreign policy priorities of seventy-seven Sudanese from across Canada concerning Sudan (Mosaic Institute 2009). Even though the report showcases socio-economic barriers encountered in Canada, it teases out the deep knowledge that members of the Sudanese diaspora have of their source county as well as its peacebuilding and development needs. Another report based on the experiences of 220 Sudanese newcomer refugees and immigrants in Ontario (Culture, Community and Health Studies Program et al. 2004) shows that the initial settlement needs of newcomers consist of finding housing and employment, continuing education and evaluating educational and professional credentials, family reunification, and orientation to life in Canada. Even though newcomers seek and receive formal assistance from

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reception houses and settlement agencies, families and friends constitute a significance source of assistance. While some newcomers do adapt to their new lives in Canada within a reasonable time, many do not, and that delay increases mental distress and negatively affects their general health and well-being. A study carried out in partnership between Canadian and Sudanese institutions, respectively – York University and Ahfad University for Women – examined pre- and post-conflict livelihood strategies of internally displaced persons (idps) in South Sudan and Darfur (Abdelnour et al. 2008). It reveals that they can no longer effectively carry out their traditional livelihood strategies, usually centred on farming, herding, animal husbandry, and trade. Their situation is triggered by the influences of the conflict, including the degradation of the environment in conflict areas, the marginalization of female idps and the lack of mobility for idp men, a lack of security and safety, and difficulties surrounding land tenure and access. The study points to the availability of natural resources in some areas, as well as the desire for the return of displaced populations by all national and international stakeholders, and enterprise capacities among idps as assets for sustainable development. Therefore, this book fills gaps in the literature on the African diaspora in Canada in general and the Sudanese diaspora in particular. It illuminates the complexity of the immigration and integration of the Sudanese in Canada, explores conflict in Sudan, and traces the transnational involvement of the Sudanese and Canadians in reconstruction in Sudan. What follows is an overview of the socio-­ demographics and history of Sudan, analysis of the interplay between ethnicity and identity politics, and discussion of the Sudanese diaspora in Canada. This will provide the broader context for the book.

A Socio-Demographic and Historical O v e rv i e w o f S u da n At 2,505,813 km², Sudan was, prior to the secession of South Sudan on 9 July 2011, the largest country in Africa and the nineteenth largest state in the world. Present-day Sudan (named the Republic of the Sudan, or North Sudan) covers 1,886,068 km² and has a population of 34,206,710, while South Sudan’s size is 619,745 km² and hosts 8,260,490 people (Central Intelligence Agency 2012a, 2012b). Present-day Sudan and South Sudan, whose respective capital cities



Introduction 9

are Khartoum and Juba, are bordered by seven African states and two Arab states. Sudan’s rich natural resources include the Nile, which bisects the nation from south to north and provides it with substantial quantities of water. Other resources include petroleum, gold, iron, and zinc. The country has the second-largest livestock in Africa, next to Ethiopia, and about one-third of its land is suitable for agriculture (Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations 2005). Cotton assumes a leading role as a cash crop. In addition, most of the world’s gum arabic comes from Sudan. Oil production and export has been rising since 2000. Until the second half of 2008, Sudan’s economy grew impressively with increased oil production and foreign investment. Its gdp growth reached more than 10 per cent per year in 2006 and 2007. However, the conflicts that erupted in spite (and partially because) of the country’s resources jeopardized its economic growth. For example, cotton production was reduced to nearly half the rates of the 1990s. In addition, north Sudan lost 75 per cent of its oil reserves after the secession of the South. The country’s production of 500,000 barrels dropped to 115 barrels per day, which resulted in the loss of billions of dollars (“Sudanese Economy Is Facing Daunting Challenges: imf” 2012). As a result of its economic challenges, 46.5 per cent of the population now lives below the poverty line (Central Intelligence Agency 2012b). Sudan’s history dates back to antiquity when kingdoms demonstrated rich culture and systems of governance, as well as sophisticated architecture, such as pyramids and temples. The ancient Kingdoms of Nubia in North Sudan consisted of the states of Kush, Napata, and Meroe. Kush flourished between 1700 and 1500 bce, Napata reached its peak in the middle of the seventh century bce, while Meroe was a religious and administrative centre in the second half of the fourth century bce (Alnour 2006). These states, also known as the Kingdoms of the Black Pharaohs, maintained a pharaonic tradition and developed Meroitic – a distinct Nubian language. Greek and Egyptian Coptic languages were also used in Nubia. Christianity reached Nubia in the end of the first century ce, became its official religion by 580 ce and remained as such until the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. Meanwhile, Arabs from the Arabian Peninsula conquered Egypt and introduced Islam in the 640s, then pushed into Nubia around 651 ce but were met with strong resistance from the Nubians, prompting both parties

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to sign an agreement called the Baqt. The Baqt stated that “the Nubians should deliver annually four hundred slaves to the Muslims in exchange for food stuff and clothing, and that Muslims were allowed to enter Nubia as traders, but not as settlers, and the same privilege was conferred on Nubian traders in Egypt” (Hasan 1967, 16). Even though the Baqt regulated Muslim-Nubian relations for six centuries, it did not prevent the gradual spread of the trends of Arabization (predominance of the Arabic language, customs, and culture) and Islamization (expansion of Islam in society) in the area. These influences started in the ninth century when the Arabs began entering Sudan in small numbers, from the north through Egypt and from the east through the Beja land. Arab immigration and intermarriages with the natives gradually introduced Islamization and Arabization into north and east Sudan. The Arabs then infiltrated into central Sudan and from there moved on westwards to Kordofan and Darfur. Eventually, the Fung Kingdom (1505–1821), also known as the Black Sultanate, emerged in central Sudan and spread northwards. Christianity gave way to Islam and the Fung Kingdom became a successor-state of Christian Nubia (Sidahmed and Sidahmed 2005). The Fung Kingdom declined in the eighteenth century and was annexed in 1821 by Egypt, then a part of the Turkish Empire. In the history of western Sudan, the Daju are believed to have been the dominant group in Darfur, although historians remain uncertain about the precise period of their rule. The Daju Kingdom, whose people were pagan and spoke Daju languages, was conquered in the fourteenth century by the Tunjur, who entered Darfur from the west. Tunjur became a powerful kingdom in the sixteenth century, gradually extended Islam throughout the region, and adopted Arabic as the administrative language, to be overcome by the Fur Empire in the seventeenth century. The resulting Fur-dominated Darfur Sultanate, which was founded by the devoted Muslim Suleiman Solon (1603–37), lasted until 1916, when the British incorporated Darfur into Sudan (O’Fahey 2008). South Sudan was home to Nilotic peoples such as the Dinka, Nuer, Shilluk, and Azande, who entered the region before the tenth century. Azande, the South’s largest state, was established in the sixteenth century. In the eighteenth century, the Avungara sib became powerful and dominated Azande society until the nineteenth century (Petterson 2003).



Introduction 11

Among other factors, this snapshot of Sudan’s ancient history tells us that Sudan has been multi-ethnic and multicultural for a very long time. Even though neither Christianity nor Islam is indigenous to Sudan, both religions shaped the country’s social history and contemporary society in profound ways, notably in identity and social and political relations. But the expansion of these religions and their cultures in the country did not obliterate indigenous cultures and identities. For example, many Nubians, Beja, and Darfurians have retained their cultures and still claim the revival and development of their unique identities, cultures, and languages (Beja Congress n.d.). Moreover, the ancient civilizations of Sudan have become a source of pride from which many Sudanese continue to draw their racial, ethnic, and linguistic identities. The modern history of Sudan started when a Turkish force invaded the north of the country in 1820–21 in search of slaves, new markets, and natural resources (Collins 2008). That force instituted the Turkish regime (also called Turkiya) (1821–85) during which Sudan was governed by an Egyptian administration. Turkiya claimed control of present-day Sudan and South Sudan during most of the nineteenth century. It also opened doors for European explorers and businessmen to enter the country, which enabled the British to introduce Christianity to southern Sudan. In addition, the Turkish regime conducted a slave trade until its prohibition in the 1860s. Turkiya exploited the Sudanese people, treated them brutally, and imposed heavy taxes on them. As a result, the Sudanese resented the colonial regime and, by the 1880s, were ready to rise up to overthrow it. Meanwhile, Muhammad Ahmad (1845–1885), a Muslim religious leader, declared himself to be Al Mahdi Al Muntazar2 (the awaited guide in the right path), implying that he was the messenger of God and representative of the Prophet Muhammad. Al Mahdi and his followers established Al Mahdiya, which, as with other nineteenth-­ century Mahdist movements in West Africa, sought liberation from the military, cultural, and economic dominance of colonialism and occupation. Nationalist anti-colonial sentiments consolidated the Sudanese support for Al Mahdiya, allowing it to become a strong movement known as the Al Mahdiya Revolution (1881–85), which built a strong army and led victorious military campaigns first against Turkiya and later against the British forces. While Al Mahdiya continued to gain strength, the Egyptian government passed largely into British control. Prime Minister G ­ ladstone

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did not want to intervene in Sudan and therefore put General Charles Gordon (who had already worked in Sudan as the governor-general of the country from 1876 to 1879) in charge of an expedition to evacuate the Egyptian and British troops from Sudan. Gordon, however, had differing views. Upon his arrival in Khartoum on 18 February 1884, he became aware of the power of Al Mahdiya and decided to eradicate it by staying in Sudan. G ­ ordon was a devout Christian who sought to stop the spread of Islam. In addition, since Sudan was under the protection of both Britain and Egypt, he planned to exclude Egyptians from the governance of Sudan and instead extend Britain’s control over both Sudan and Egypt. ­Gordon was ordered to return to Britain, but he refused. Meanwhile, Al ­Mahdiya’s military put Khartoum under siege for 313 days. When the siege began, Gladstone did not send an expedition to Khartoum to protect ­Gordon and his army, spurring significant concern in Britain and even prompting Queen Victoria to intervene on Gordon’s behalf. When the siege of Khartoum was prolonged, Gladstone sent out an expedition, but it arrived after the city fell on 25 January 1885, and Gordon and his garrison were massacred. These events temporarily ended British and Egyptian involvement in Sudan, which passed completely under the control of Al Mahdiya. Al Madhi died shortly after the conquest of Khartoum and was succeeded by Khalifa Abdallahi. In the midst of the scramble for Africa, Britain sought to establish control over the Nile and so decided to reassert its claim on Sudan. An Anglo-Egyptian army led by Field Marshal Horatio ­Herbert Kitchener was sent to Sudan in early 1898, launching a series of military campaigns against Al Mahdiya. In September 1898, a final battle in Omdurman culminated in the defeat of the Mahdist army, which ended Al Mahdiya and gave Britain control of Sudan. It is important to note that during this time the Mahdist state had remained independent and sovereign between 1885 and 1898, and that this state and the Al Mahdiya Revolution shaped the Sudanese identity in many ways. The Mahdist state is notably “the first African nation to be created by its own efforts” and “one of the greatest states in the nineteenth century” (Mirak-Weissbach 1995). In addition, Al Mahdiya’s followers, descendants, and supporters continue to play crucial roles in Sudan’s political and social issues. Since the defeat of Al Mahdiya was orchestrated by both British and Egyptian armies, it was agreed that Sudan would be governed



Introduction 13

by a condominium government, in which two countries typically maintain equal rights over a given territory. But in the Anglo-­ Egyptian Sudan (1898–1956), the British were, in reality, the actual decision-makers and holders of power, so the era is termed one of “British colonialism.” The condominium government administered all of present-day Sudan and South Sudan while making northern and southern Sudan separate provinces governed by separate administrations. To protect their political and financial interests, Turkiya, and especially British colonialism, implemented divide-and-conquer policies and practices that contributed to conflict and divisiveness among the Sudanese. Nationalist sentiments against the Anglo-Egyptian regime developed after the First World War (for more details about such nationalism see Collins 2008, and Fadlalla 2004). This growing call for independence within Sudan was answered on 1 January 1956, and Ismail Al Azhari became the premier of Sudan. Since independence, the country has been ravaged by political upheaval, with intermittent periods of stability lasting scarcely more than a decade. Three military dictatorships – Ibrahim Abboud’s (1958–64), Jafaar Nimeiry’s (1969–85), and Omar Hasan Al Bashir’s (1989–present) have impeded human rights and suppressed and tortured opponents. Nevertheless, the struggle of Sudanese social movements for justice and democracy, specifically student and grassroots efforts, a strong feminist movement, and some liberation groups, culminated in epochs of positive change. The revolution of 24 October 1964, and the Intifada of 6 April 1985 respectively overthrew Abboud’s and Nimeiry’s regimes. The elected governments that replaced them, however, could not cope with the corruption, party factionalism, and economic difficulties. In those contexts of instability, conflicts surfaced and intensified for lack of democracy, socio-economic marginalization, and ethnic and identity divides.

Ethnicity and the Politics of Identity Sudan encompasses significant ethnic, linguistic, and religious pluralism. Some 600 ethnic groups inhabit the country. The largest groups include the Nubians, Shaygiyah, and Ja’aliyin who are found in the northern areas, as well as the Beja who inhabit the eastern part of the country. Meanwhile the Baggara, Kababish, Nuba, and Fur are in western Sudan in the provinces of Kordofan and Darfur.

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The Dinka, Nuer, Shillouk, Anuak, and Azande are in the southern regions. Additionally, the country is host to refugees and immigrants from neighbouring countries such as Ethiopia, Chad, and Egypt – notably the Copts, as well as communities from afar, such as Greeks, Indians, and Chinese. Sudan is also linguistically diverse, with 143 spoken languages. Arabic and English are the official languages of present-day north Sudan, and English is the official language of South Sudan. Arabic, a Semitic language of the Afro-Asian linguistic family, is spoken by 51 per cent of the population of Sudan and is the most widely used language in the country, consisting of two varieties, classic and Sudanese Arabic. The latter is unique to Sudan and has borrowed from local languages. English is employed as a lingua franca, particularly among the South Sudanese. Other important languages include Beja, a Cushitic language of the Afro-Asian family, which is spoken by 5 per cent of the population; the Nubian languages, which originated from the Nuba Mountains and belong to the Niger-­Kordofanian family of dialects; Fur, a separate branch of the Nilo-Saharan family; and Dinka, Nuer, and Shulluk, which are Nilo-Saharan languages, as well as Azande, which is a part of the Adamawa-Eastern linguistic group (Hurriez 1968). In religious affiliation, Muslims constitute 97 per cent of the population of present-day north Sudan. The remaining 3 per cent adhere to Christianity or indigenous beliefs. In South Sudan, 60.5 per cent of the population are Christian, 32.9 per cent embrace indigenous beliefs, 6.2 per cent are Muslim, while fewer than 1 per cent identify with other religions (US Department of State 2010). Islam is predominant in the north, while Christianity is notably found in the south. As will be explained in a succeeding chapter, Muslims in Sudan include diverse denominations such as the Shias, and Sunni Muslims  – orthodox and numerous Sufi orders. Christian subcategories include adherents to the Roman Catholic Church, the Africa Inland Church, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Anglicans, as well as Coptic, Greek, and Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox. This diversity was demonstrated in a study I conducted recently in Sudan,3 in Western Darfur and the Khartoum region, on the relationship between conflict and the conceptualization of identities (Madibbo 2010, 2012). Participant discourses about belonging described several types of affiliations, which included primordial perspectives on Arabism and Africanism, subjective viewpoints on



Introduction 15

Arabism and Africanism, a hybrid Afro-Arab identity, a civic Sudanese allegiance, and multifaceted forms of identification. The primordial construction of Arabism and Africanism portrays ethnic identity as a matter of genealogical inheritance and as being ascribed, fixed, permanent, and unchanging (Isajiw 1993). As such, identification with Arabism exhibits criteria that have traditionally been utilized in Sudan to legitimize this allegiance, such as belonging to an ethnic group known to be Arab (the Juhayna), tracing ancestry to the Prophet Mohammed, and identifying the Arabian Peninsula as a place of origin. Islam and Arabic culture are posited as immutable and the core culture into which members of all other ethnic groups should assimilate. Similarly, common thinking about Africanism asserts blood ties and associates this identity with Christianity or indigenous beliefs, with linguistic references to languages perceived as African (other than Arabic). It conceptualizes Sudan as an African state and seeks the country’s assimilation into Africanism. From a subjective point of view, the Arabic identity is not portrayed as intrinsic and inherent but rather as being socially constructed, flexible, and negotiated in everyday life (Korostelina 2007). It involves an attachment to cultural aspects of identity, such as Arabic music and poetry, and social ties developed with Arab or Arabized groups, in Sudan and abroad. Adherents to this identity embrace Islam but reject any kind of religious imposition. In that sense, they espouse a flexible version of Arabism as a culture that tolerates and coexists with other forms of belonging. Similarly, the subjective perception of Africanism acknowledges the influence of social factors on the construction of ethnicity and identity, which include the surrounding local and regional social environment, notably Sudan’s proximity to other African countries. Established and recent African groups who have moved or been displaced to Sudan, along with the intermarriages and social, economic, and cultural connections that have been developed within these groups, are thought of as forces that have reinforced the African identity. Moreover, the struggle of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army/Movement (spla/m) has promulgated Africanism across the country. However, the attachment to Africanism is also boosted by global phenomena. The Sudanese involvement in global migration in Europe and North America familiarizes them with the African diasporic social and political issues. It raises their awareness about African struggles against slavery and ­colonialism,

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and pan-African slogans of liberation and emancipation. When these immigrants return to Sudan, they too help to foster Africanism in the country. It is important to note that generally those who take the subjective stance on Africanism do not long for conformity with this allegiance but rather reiterate others’ right to adopt the identities they wish to associate themselves with. The hybrid Afro-Arab allegiance pinpoints fusion between Arabism and Africanism. It is based on the recognition of historical and social intermarriages and interactions between the two ethnic groups, and on geographic and social connections developed between Sudan and the Arab and African worlds. Within the Afro-Arab identity, the lines between Arabism and Africanism are interconnected, not clear-cut. These two affiliations are considered complementary, as their proponents do not dwell on differences (nor do they consider difference a problem) but instead emphasize commonalities. The civic Sudanese identity is articulated as an amalgam of historical, cultural, and social influences. In ethnicity, this identity is perceived as comprising an array of ethnic groups that have given and received from each other to produce a new social form. In culture, the civic identity melds traces of cultures and religions into a harmonious blend. Participant discourse about this identity illustrates a collective sense of belongingness that draws upon people’s common interests, values, experiences, and aspirations. Furthermore, it denounces ethnic particularism and instead calls for a pan-­Sudanese identity that encompasses all the cultures and social groups that have been an integral part of the historical and social fabric of the country. It asserts fundamental human rights alongside the obligations and rights of citizenship that should be attributed to all Sudanese, regardless of social background. In that sense, Sudanese-ness is a broad and elastic identity that extends to groups such as the Nubians, who were in Sudan for millennia prior to the expansion of Islam and Christianity in the country. It acknowledges the input of immigrants from other countries, such as the Eritreans, the Greeks, and the Indians, into the formation of Sudanese identity and society. These immigrants are regarded as Sudanese who should benefit fully from the rights of citizenship. As such, this Sudanese identity mirrors the concept of a melting pot, a fusion of large numbers of people into a whole with a common culture. Within this unity, no aspects of a single culture, whether Arab, African, or another, can be distinguished from others.



Introduction 17

The multiple identity reconciles ethnic (Arabic, African, AfroArab) or regional (Darfurian, Nubian) identity with the civic Sudanese sense of belonging. The rationale behind this affiliation is that ethno-regional attachment does not necessarily jeopardize civic identity. This contention is congruent with perceptions that portray the simultaneous endorsement of national and particular (ethnic and regional) identities as a venue of balance for social actors (Berbrier 2004). In this sense, ethnic or regional belonging provides internal cohesion and solidarity, while national adherence offers economic and social security. Participants who embrace this multiple identification stress the value, validity, and benefit of the ethnic diversity of Sudan, while simultaneously emphasizing the need for a common identity that brings the Sudanese together. This discussion invites us to deconstruct dominant conceptions about the Sudanese identities. In general, Sudanese ethnicities and identities are perceived as falling into two dichotomous affiliations: “Arabism,” associated with Islam, Arabic descent, and Arabic culture, and “Africanism,” linked to Christianity, blackness, and African culture. These binaries are also characterized by a geographic NorthSouth divide that constructs the north of the country as Arabic and the South as African (Assal 2009). On the contrary, we observe that Sudan is plural, diverse, multiracial, and multi-ethnic; the ethnic fabric of society and the resultant identity discourses illustrate numerous forms of belongingness. In addition, we note heterogeneity among those who embrace Arabism. While the primordial viewpoint on this identity asserts ethnocentrism, specifically an Arab-Islamic supremacy, the subjective perspective showcases aspects of positive ethnicity (Hameso 1997) such as peaceful coexistence. In this sense, ethnic belongingness to Arabism is not a venue of dispute and conflict but an expression of cultural pride that offers a shared sense of identity and peaceful alliance-building, despite perceived differences. Moreover, among those who express an African affinity are Muslim, Arabic-speaking northern Sudanese. Therefore, Africanism is not confined to the South but is also present in the north of the country. Islam and Arabic are not unique markers of an Arabism identity but can also be signifiers of African allegiance. Furthermore, while some project Arabism and Africanism as conflicting identities that cannot be reconciled, others portray them as complementary, alluding to the possibility of peaceful coexistence between those who embrace these two identities.

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As such, ethnicity in Sudan is perceived as continuing to unfold, shaped by historical and contemporary social processes (Kenny 2004), and local and global social structures, such as globalization and population movement. This understanding of ethnicity opens up possibilities for downplaying conflict. Nevertheless, ethnicity is also considered fixed and static in a way that polarizes identity and motivates antagonism.

What Caused Conflict amidst This Diversity? By contending that “virtually every African conflict has some ethnoregional dimension to it,” Deng (1997) rightfully reminds us that, as with many countries in Africa, conflict in Sudan is associated with ethnicity. However, ethnicity does not inherently pose a problem, as it becomes divisive only when it is mobilized to fuel antagonism, fear, or aggression. This perspective speaks to the politicization of ethnicity (Opondo n.d.), suggesting that social actors manipulate ethnicity to promote interests, gain power, or compete for resources through violence. In Sudan, the politicization of ethnicity is notably illustrated in the social, economic, and political dominance of an Arab(ized) elite of the central region of northern Sudan, which has imposed Arabization and Islamization as the basis of the national identity framework (see Deng 1995). The Arab-Islamic hegemony in the country consolidated over centuries, first with the infiltration of Arabs into Christian Nubia, then colonial self-serving policies and practices, and finally by arbitrary post-colonial initiatives. Turkiya (1821–85) supported mosque-building in northern Sudan and provided Muslim religious schools and courts with teachers and judges from Egypt. In addition, it focused modernization and economic development in northern Sudan, making Khartoum the seat of the governor general and developing administrative centres in cities in that region. Seemingly, as A/Salam (2008) puts it, the British colonial administration concentrated most of “the socio-economic activities in the central region [of Sudan]” (118). They extended the rail lines from Egypt to northern Sudan to transport their armies and link key points in the north. The British also developed the Gezira Scheme, one of the largest irrigation projects in the world, in central Sudan to secure highquality cotton for the British textile industry. Port Sudan opened



Introduction 19

in 1906, becoming the country’s principal outlet to the sea and enabling cotton to be shipped abroad expediently. Additionally, educational, communication, and health services were abundantly available there. The subsequent post-colonial governments followed the colonial patterns of modernization that favoured the central region, culminating in the current socio-economic and development disparities between this region and the rest of the country. The south, west, east, and some regions in the north have remained disadvantaged peripheries. It is worthwhile to state that this socio-economic marginalization is not only enforced along geographic lines but can also be traced along racial and ethnic axes. The central region of the country, which possesses the most developed infrastructure, is significantly populated by the northern Arab–dominant elite, such as the S­ haygiyah and the Ja’aliyin, who have traditionally been the power-holders and beneficiaries of the country’s resources. This elite has exerted the Arab-Islamic hegemony through the use of Arabic as a medium of education and public communication, heavily Arabized curriculums, and the portrayal of Islam as a state ideology. This primordial rationale on ethnicity, along with socio-economic inequalities, has contributed to turning identity issues into conflict. On the one hand, as Lawry (2008) contends, dominant groups’ narrow conceptualization of racial, religious, and national identities “place[s] them in a very distinctive place in the world, and at considerable distance from the cosmologies of other groups.” Dominant groups construct minority identity groups as “the other” and demonize them “in ways that diminish their [minority groups’] humanity and ennoble efforts to defeat, subjugate or destroy them.” In many instances, minority groups contest the imposition of the narrowly defined identities. On the other hand, socio-economic dominance sharpens identity divides in that it “generates discontent among those who go without [minority groups]” (Regan and Norton, as cited in Nordas 2008, 25). Such minority groups might then mobilize their shared identities to denounce uneven development and ethnic and regional nepotism. If the state does not address minority concerns fairly and democratically, parties may use violent means to respond to one another, resulting in rebellion and political violence. As such, the dominant Arab Muslim elite of central Sudan favoured their identity and excluded all other identity groups socially and economically, including those who embrace moderate

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Arabism and Africanism, Afro-Arabism, civic identification, and multiple forms of belongingness. Consequently, disenfranchised groups mobilized their ethno-regional identities against the predominantly Arab-­Muslim governments to challenge marginalization and demand equitable distribution of resources. The ensuing conflicts, notably the bloody first (1955–72) and second (1983–2005) civil war between the North and the South of Sudan, the ongoing conflict that erupted in 2003 between Darfur revolutionary groups and the Sudanese government (De Waal and Flint 2008; Hagan and Rymond-Richmond 2008), cleavages involving the Eastern Front – a coalition of revolutionary groups operating in Eastern Sudan – as well as numerous tribal and ethnic conflicts, have imposed killing, exile, and large-scale displacement of millions of Sudanese. Nevertheless, the intensity and longevity of conflict in Sudan should not overshadow numerous spaces of inclusion  – intermarriages and social, political, and economic relationships – that have been developed among diverse ethnic and religious groups since ancient history. Those ties continue to be forged and can be observed among the mundane  – in neighbourhoods and local markets  – as well as the macro levels of politics, as exemplified in the traditional system of governance that has implemented successful coexistence and conflict resolution in the country. This situation can be perceived as “ranked ethnicity,” whereby some groups are able to coexist side by side in spite of “coinciding cleavages along lines of social inequality” (Bekker and Leildé 2003, 120). This thinking about ethnicity reminds us that peaceful coexistence in Sudan has been achieved to some extent but needs to be harnessed and institutionalized more broadly. It is hoped that this goal will be achieved through the efforts of international actors and the Sudanese in both Sudan and the diaspora.

Immigration and Diaspora The first substantial wave of Sudanese migration began in the 1970s and 1980s as Sudanese citizens travelled to neighbouring oil-rich countries such as Libya, Iraq, and the Gulf states in search of better employment. This was later followed by movements to Europe and North America. The Sudanese immigration to Canada took two distinct trajectories. A small proportion of immigrants arrived in Canada between the 1960s and the early 1980s in search of education



Introduction 21

and professional opportunities, while a larger number entered the country from the 1980s onwards, their travel triggered by conflict and suppression in Sudan. Immigrants either came to Canada directly from Sudan or moved in stages, first residing in Sudan’s neighbouring countries, such as the Gulf states, or more distant nations, including the United States. Many had been displaced both in and outside Sudan prior to arrival in Canada. The Sudanese who reside in Canada (and the United States) are “refugees, asylum seekers … tourist-visa overstayers and students” (Abusharaf 2002, 12), as well as economic immigrants and family-class immigrants. The province of Ontario hosts the largest number of Sudanese, followed by Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan. The Sudanese population in Canada is relatively young and moderately educated. Statistics Canada shows that a substantial number of these individuals have acquired their post-secondary education, some including graduate degrees in Canada, while about threequarters have obtained their post-secondary education outside of Canada. In general, those from central Sudan have higher levels of education than the Sudanese from the rest of the country. Some Sudanese in Canada have successfully integrated economically, having gained employment that corresponds to their academic and professional qualifications. There are Sudanese employed by governments, as university lecturers, engineers, and physicians, and some have pursued small businesses in fields such as translation, information technology, and consulting. However, many are un- and under-employed; such as former lawyers and teachers who are working as taxi drivers. As with many new immigrant groups, the Sudanese exclusion from the labour market is triggered by non-­ recognition of international credentials, communication problems due to lack of proficiency in the English language, and racism and discrimination (Mosaic Institute 2009). Being largely first-generation immigrants, members of the Sudanese diaspora in Canada seek to accomplish a two-fold goal: to enhance their adaptation, settlement, and integration in Canada, and to contribute to reconstruction and peace-building within Sudan. To materialize the first goal, the Sudanese across Canada have, since the late 1990s, started to establish community organizations to provide settlement and integration services and to strengthen community cohesion. For instance, the Toronto-based Sudanese Community Association of Ontario (http://scaon.ca/) offers basic services such

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as counselling and housing searches. While the Sudanese-Canadian Association of Ottawa (http://www.scao.ca/) organizes cultural events, others still, such as the Hamilton-based radio show Tanweate Sudania focus on Sudanese-specific news and programs. Additionally, there are a number of ethno-specific associations, such as the Sudanese Nuer Community Association of Edmonton, the Beja Organization of Canada (http://albeja.org/), and the Darfur Association of Canada. These associations raise awareness about and seek to advance interests of particular ethnic groups. Nevertheless, organizations such as the Winnipeg-based Sudanese Association of Manitoba are multi-ethnic and serve the entire local Sudanese community, which consists of northerners, southerners, Darfurians, Nubians, and others. Though all of these organizations enhance community settlement to some extent, insufficient funding and physical infrastructure prevent them from achieving their goals fully. When considering the contributions made by the Sudanese diaspora in Canada to reconstruction in Sudan, it is worth mentioning that the Sudanese generally remain connected to their source country and maintain close relationships with families and friends there. Communication is carried out by email, phone, letters, and trips to Sudan. The Sudanese also inform themselves about the news of Sudan via websites such as SudaneseOnline.Com or Sudanese television channels accessed through the Internet. The reconstruction efforts of the Sudanese diaspora in Canada are exemplified in numerous transnational economic, political, and socio-cultural activities. They send remittances regularly to families and friends in Sudan. Diasporas make significant transfers to their source countries. The US$406 billion remitted by immigrants to the developing world in 2012 exceeds the amount offered through international aid (World Bank 2012). In this sense, the global Sudanese diaspora is no exception; with transfers reaching US$1.5 billion in 2011, Sudan is among the top remittance-receiving countries in Africa. In Sudan, remittances secure individual families’ basic needs for education, health care, food, and housing. In addition, funds raised in Canada by Sudanese and fellow Canadians benefit collectivities in Sudan, which build schools and clinics in marginalized and war-affected areas. As such, the remittances help to enhance socioeconomic development in Sudan, albeit on a small scale. The Sudanese in Canada are actively involved in the politics of their source country. They have created chapters of major political



Introduction 23

parties and organizations, such as the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement or the Democratic Union Party, in a number of Canadian cities. These groups organize activities such as rallies and conferences to raise awareness about the political situation in Sudan. In addition, Sudanese and fellow Canadians have established advocacy groups, such as Save Darfur Canada, an umbrella organization whose aim is to boost Canadians’ participation in peace-building in Sudan, and stand, a Canadian youth anti-genocide group. Through speeches, petitions, postcard campaigns, and meetings with parliamentarians, these groups inform schools, humanitarian and human right organizations, the public, and politicians of the current affairs in Sudan, encouraging them to contest the injustices committed there. Foreign policy goals that encourage Canada’s investment in Sudan are also on the agenda. Put together, these activities support the political process in Sudan by helping to maintain contact between pro-­democracy movements in Canada and Sudan, raising Canadian awareness about Sudan, and mobilizing efforts to contest oppression. In so doing, they strengthen connections between the host and source countries, making peace-building in Sudan increasingly a Sudanese-Canadian transnational phenomenon. Furthermore, we observe a handful of socio-cultural practices, ranging from cultural tours for artists from Sudan to Canada, to educational training in Sudan, and research/studies about Sudan, which are supplemented with health programs that enhance the skills of Sudanese-Canadian physicians to allow them to reintegrate in Sudan. Members of the Sudanese diaspora in Canada conduct these activities in spite of financial and structural strains encountered in their host society. But difficulties notwithstanding, families and friends in Sudan provide the diaspora with emotional support, along with assistance that facilitates immigrants’ return to Sudan and the implementation of the diaspora’s many projects and initiatives, demonstrating a collective desire to maintain relationships among the Sudanese that defy geography and strengthen the well-being of Sudan. In general, such activities are integral components of development and democratization (Osaghae 2005). In particular, similar efforts undertaken by others, such as the Eritrean or the Croatian diaspora (Al-Ali, Black, and Koser 2001), proved crucial to positive political and social change and reforms in their respective source countries. It is hoped that this will be the case for Sudan.

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This discussion has outlined the historical and socio-cultural context for immigration, conflict, and reconstruction as they pertain to Sudan and the relationships between Canada and Sudan. In the remainder of this book, six case studies posit how these social forces shape and are shaped by groups, states, and individuals who negotiate identity and place, exert dominance or oppose it, and initiate and implement peace-related programs and policies. These studies will enable us to depict challenges and opportunities that arise and identify ways to make immigration more viable for Canada, Sudan, and the Sudanese and Canadians.

The Content of the Book4 In chapter 2, Dalal Daoud sheds light on the factors that contributed to the recent secession of South Sudan. Through analysis of the triggers of secessionist movements worldwide, the author demonstrates that the conflict that led to the secession of South Sudan is caused by a complex combination of historical, political, and socio-economic factors related to Sudan and other regional and international actors. Daoud’s contention about the need for political reforms and decentralization in Sudan affirms the necessity of democratization to prevent further fragmentation in Sudan. Chapter 3 offers Ali Kamal’s take on the emergence of Islamic fundamentalism in Sudan. By noting conflicts surrounding Islamic ­fundamentalism in the country, Kamal draws attention to the diversity within Islamic denominations in Sudan, along with the presence of orthodox and moderate believers. As religious leaders play a significant role in the rise of this phenomenon, Kamal’s analysis of the discourse of Hasan Turabi, a leading Islamic and political figure in Sudan, allows for a better understanding of Islamization in the country. Exploring the transnational feature of the lives of Sudanese refugees and immigrants in Canada, in chapter 4 Martha Fanjoy investigates the experiences of individuals who repatriated to South Sudan after living in Canada as a third resettlement country for several years. Documenting transnational activities carried out from and between Canada and Sudan, Fanjoy teases out the complex nature of return and problematizes the categories of resettlement and repatriation, home, and identity, such as South Sudanese and Canadian sense of belonging.



Introduction 25

When the second civil war erupted in Sudan in 1983, thousands of South Sudanese children fled to refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya and were eventually named the Lost Boys and Girls of Sudan. The Sudanese People’s Liberation Army/Movement sent many of them from Ethiopia to Cuba to give them an education. In Cuba many studied medicine, then later moved to Canada. Two chapters in the book examine different but complementary aspects of the trajectories of fifteen of these physicians who took medical training upgrading in Calgary, Alberta. The training, which was carried out by the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Calgary, and the Samaritan’s Purse Canada, prepared the physicians to return to and work in South Sudan. Chapter 5 conveys Juli Finlay’s account of the physicians’ exile in Cuba and settlement in Canada, and the way they portray their relationship with South Sudan. Finlay demonstrates that transnational identities affect and are affected by a strong desire to return to the source country to assist with post-­ conflict reconstruction. In chapter 6, Crutcher et al. highlight the upgrading medical skills program that was offered to the physicians in Calgary, and showcase the physicians’ successful journeys from Canada to Kenya, then finally on to South Sudan. The authors demonstrate the physicians’ positive impacts on health care in South Sudan, despite the difficult conditions in which they practise. In chapter 7, Soleski and Madibbo assess the contributions that the Canadian government, non-governmental organizations, and grassroots groups are making to resolution of the Darfur conflict. After exploring initiatives implemented in diplomacy, aid, security, education, and advocacy, the authors argue that these efforts are largely beneficial, yet additional regulations need to be mandated to help overcome conflicts such as Darfur’s more effectively. Chapter 8 is devoted to the conclusion. It synthesizes the content of the book and makes recommendations for specific actions and future research to better understand and address immigration, conflict, and reconstruction concerning Canada and Sudan. This book is itself within the realm of diaspora and transnationalism. It is a socio-cultural initiative that brings together host and firstgeneration Sudanese immigrants in Canada to pose key questions and offer insights into individual and collective trajectories between Sudan and Canada. It shows that progress has been made in policy and transnational initiatives concerning Sudan but that some gaps

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are yet to be filled. It invites us to take action to ensure durable peace and a successful future.

Notes 1 In this chapter Sudan refers to both the Republic of Sudan and the Republic of South Sudan. 2 The idea of the appearance of a Mahdi has roots in Sunni Islamic traditions, which imply that a Mahdi will be sent to pave the way for the second coming of the Prophet Isa (Jesus) and the impending end of the world. 3 The project Race, Ethnicity, Immigration and Identity in the Sudan, which was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (2009–13), examines the relationship between conflict and the conceptions of identities in Sudan as well as the ways in which Canadians and Sudanese are responding to the conflict. Its principal investigator, Amal Madibbo, and research assistants Mohamad Hamdan and Lobna Musa (Sudan), and Kate O’Neill, Ashley Soleski, Ahmed Bashir, and Mariama Zaami (Canada), collected data in Sudan and Canada through the use of qualitative research methods of semi-structured interviews (150), participant observations in Sudan (sixty-five sessions), and document analysis (about 300 documents). 4 Unless otherwise indicated, the names of all participants mentioned in the book have been changed in order to protect their privacy.

2 Factors of Secession: The Case of South Sudan dalal daoud

Introduction This chapter examines the most recent secession that transpired in July 2011 when South Sudan seceded from Sudan, forming a new nation. The civil wars between North and South Sudan ended in 2005 with the ratification of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (cpa) that also concluded with the secession of the South through a referendum held from 9 to 15 January 2011 on whether the South desired to separate from Sudan. The following month, the election results declared that 96 per cent of South Sudanese had voted decisively for secession. This chapter draws on the conceptual framework relevant to secessionist movements to analyze the factors that led to the secession of South Sudan and finally suggests that a political reform directed towards democratization and decentralization is needed to preclude the rise of further secessionist movements in both the North and South Sudan. The rise of secessionist movements and secessionist demands indicates civil cacophony. The twentieth century has witnessed the birth of many secessionist movements. While some of them have attained secession, some still participate in what they believe is a consecrated struggle. The Latin roots of the term secede are se, meaning “apart,” and cedere, meaning “to go” (Pavkovic and Radan 2007). In contemporary theoretical literature, secession refers to “the creation of a new state by the withdrawal of a territory and its population, where that territory was previously part of an existing state” (5). John R. Wood (1981) was the first to build a comprehensive theoretical

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framework for secession as a social and political phenomenon. He defines secession as “an instance of political disintegration wherein political actors in one or more subsystems withdraw their loyalties, expectations, and political activities from a jurisdictional centre and focus them on a centre of their own” (111). As illustrated in Wood’s statement, nationalism is a core component of secession. Some scholars like Sambanis suggest that secession, nationalism, decentralization, regionalism, civil war, self-­ determination, and ethnic conflict are entangled phenomena with no clear divide between them (Sambanis and Milanovic 2011). All theories on secession, however, share the underlying assumption that a set of preconditions or factors that lead to secession can or may be identified. Yet scholars continue to differ on what these factors or conditions are. The social factor is perhaps the most emphasized by scholars; Wood (1981) calls it the “essential” element for secession. The identity of the group is what forms its core. The group must have a collective identity and commonality (common ethnicity, culture, and language) that distinguishes it from others in the state. According to Wood, secessionist sentiments are ignited when the secessionist group feels that its identity is under threat. These feelings are exacerbated when the group experiences discrimination, marginalization, and alienation from the state. Like Wood, Horowitz focuses on the social factor, similarly suggesting that the agents of secession are ethnic groups who share common cultures and beliefs. According to Horowitz (1985), inequality in ranking and legitimacy between the ethnic groups in a state creates “group apprehension” or “group anxiety.” He holds that those with better education and economic standards tend to control the political systems over those communities that are less educated. The disadvantaged groups, he proposes, will often demand secession. Horowitz’s theory is relevant to the developing world, particularly Africa, where ethnicity plays a central role in the political and societal arenas. Horowitz states, “The path to secession [is led by] backward groups living in a backward region, advanced groups living in a backward region, advanced groups living in an advanced region, and backward groups living in an advanced region” (1985, 179). Advanced groups retain the highest number of post-secondary graduates and have the highest bureaucratic, commercial, and professional employment. The “backward groups” lack education and



Factors of Secession 29

are viewed as “indolent, ignorant, and not disposed to achievement” (233). Advanced regions have a per capita income that is higher than the mean in the state. Horowitz also suggests that backward groups in advanced or backward regions will want to secede earlier than advanced groups in the state (Pavkovic and Radan 1983). In the eyes of the secessionist group, their exclusion from the inherited political apparatus in post-colonial Sudan limited the political legitimacy of the state. Wood describes this as the political precondition or factor of secession. This does not mean that secessionist demands are absent in democratic countries; rather, it implies that they may be stronger in less-democratic countries. Daniel Elazar emphasizes the inextricable links between democracy, decentralization, and social harmony, particularly in pluralistic societies (Elazar 1987). He holds that centralization and authoritarianism will induce separatism in plural societies. Similarly, decentralization and democracy will anesthetize separatism. According to Elazar, democracy must be viewed as an alternative to authoritarianism because strongman rule is by disposition “inimical to federalism [decentralization]” (80). More often than not, a strongman is uninterested in power sharing and decentralization, which are based on distributing power. Some scholars view the social, economic, and political preconditions as interwoven, so they rely on all three factors to explain secession. Proponents of this approach, such as Anthony Smith, suggest that the three factors fall under the category of the centre’s domestic policies (Pavkovic and Radan 1983). Smith’s (1991) work on separatism and secession focuses on attempts at secession induced by nationalist sentiments in Europe and North America. Among the preconditions Smith suggests are discrimination and ethnic revival, which fall under the category of social factors; lack of job opportunity; and the central government’s neglect or mismanagement of ethnic communities, which are pertinent to the economic precondition. Among the case studies Smith examined in the West are those of the Flemish and the Quebecers. The Flemish separatist movement in Belgium arose as a result of the dissatisfaction with the economic and political dominance of the French-speaking population. In North America, the Québécois population witnessed an unprecedented ethnic revival in the 1960s that gave birth to a separatist movement in Canada. Although Smith’s model is based on Western experiences, it is applicable to

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many ­African and Asian states where secessionist movements occur as a result of discrimination and underdevelopment. If discrimination is prolonged, it can create deep-rooted historical grievances. Often the longer the grievances persist, the more unbending the demand is for secession. Pavkovic and Radan (1983) consider historical injustices, defined in terms of cultural, economic, and political grievances, as most reliable indicators of the formation of secessionist groups. They contend that when grievances are consolidated, secessionist groups mobilize towards de facto secession. Contributing to the literature on secession, Young (1994) and Heraclides (1990) stress how the role of foreign actors and the presence of foreign support can be primary determinants of the secessionist movement’s ability to gain de facto independence. They propose that the international community has a decisive role in the attainment of secession. They also suggest that foreign involvement can take many shapes, including ideological encouragement, non-­ military financial assistance, access to information, funds for military supplies, cross-border sanctuaries, military training in exile, military equipment, advisors, peacekeeping personnel, blockades, interdiction, cross-border raids, and more. Young’s and Hercalide’s studies are of great pertinence in our globalized world (see also Bélanger, Duchesne, and Paquin 2005). Foreign support is the reason countries such as Eritrea and East Timor were able to achieve secession, while its absence is the reason others like Chechnya, Kurdistan, and Somaliland still struggle for recognition. In line with this conceptual paradigm, the contention of this chapter is that the secession of South Sudan is a result of five factors: the impact of the centre’s policies and processes, the failure of the peace attempts, the weakness of the democratic governments, the existence of historical grievances, and the role of international factors. Interviews and document analysis are the primary research methods used to support these claims. Six structured interviews were conducted in Khartoum in July and August 2011 through chain referral sampling.1 The participants consisted of three male key informants from the government’s leading party, the National Congress Party (ncp), and the opposition, Sudan’s People Liberation Movement– North (splm–n), and one female and two male members of the general public, including students. The primary sources include government documents and media interviews. The Addis Ababa Agreement and the Comprehensive Peace Agreement are central to this



Factors of Secession 31

research because they brought the Sudanese civil wars to an end and also because they were ratified and negotiated by the two warring parties, the government of Sudan and the South.2 Secondary sources consist of reviews, journal articles, and books. In the next section I examine each of the five factors that culminated in the secession of South Sudan independently.

Northern Arabs’ Policies and Processes Social, economic, and political factors are all immanent in north Sudan’s national policies of Arabization and Islamization, which have contributed to the secession of South Sudan. Both Smith and Horowitz have stressed the central role of socio-economic discrimination on consolidating secessionist sentiments. Horowitz’s framework suggests that backward groups in backward regions were the fastest to demand secession. In Sudan, the national government’s neglect of the socio-economic development of the regional areas (other than central Sudan) was directly linked to the regions’ political isolation. Since independence, the various regional groups were largely underrepresented, if not completely invisible in the national government. As in Wood’s framework, this eroded the government’s legitimacy in the peripheral areas, prompting many groups to turn inward and craft their own governments. For instance, during the 1950s and 1960s South Sudan had multiple separatist governments such as the Southern Sudan Liberation Front, Sue Republic, Nile Provincial Government, State of Anyidi, and many others (A/Salam 2008; Idris 2005). Similar governments existed in Darfur and the eastern regions of Sudan. The second dimension to the northern Arabs’ policies was Arabization. The northern Arabs led an assimilationist agenda to advance their Arab tenets and tradition. Secession experts emphasize that assimilationist policies can directly incite separatism. This is the reason experts on Sudan such as Sharkey (2008) argue that the policy of ta’arib or Arabization was the policy chiefly responsible for undermining the state’s stability after independence. Arabization candidly dismissed the identity of the South Sudanese (Deng 1995). Identity is central to both Horowitz’s and Wood’s frameworks, with Wood calling it the essential factor for secession. Identity is how groups define themselves in relation to their history, ancestors, land, and reason of existence. For the group, autonomy

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is seen as the only viable way of surviving and protecting its heritage. Assimilation is often accompanied by racial hubris and this is a central reason to its failure. As such, the South Sudanese refused to adopt the Arab tradition and culture. The racial superiority that accompanied Arabization in the form of discrimination consolidated the South’s secessionist sentiments.

Failure of the Peace Attempts The two salient peace treaties in Sudan’s history were an attempt to respond to the South’s political, economic, and social grievances. The Addis Ababa Agreement (1972–83) and the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (2005–06) presented an opportunity to resolve Sudan’s conflict and provide attractive unity to the South. However, their failure rendered a missed opportunity for Sudan’s unity, instead contributing to the secession of the South. The Addis Ababa Agreement Jaafar Nimeiry was the first president (1969–85) to reach a solution with the South. A confluence of factors, such as Nimeiry’s communist ideology and region-friendly policies that halted support of liberation movements in the region, facilitated the negotiations between Nimeiry and the Anyanya, the first southern militant faction.3 The negotiations led to the Addis Ababa Agreement, which was ratified in March 1972 and later incorporated into the country’s constitution in 1973. Politically, the Addis Ababa Agreement allowed for extensive power sharing. Nationally, it guaranteed Southern representation in the national government (European Sudanese Public Affairs Council 2002).4 And regionally, it ensured the autonomy of the South, which consisted of the three provinces of Equatoria, Bahr Al Ghazal, and Upper Nile. The agreement stated that the “Regional Legislation in the Southern Region is exercised by a People’s Regional Assembly elected by Sudanese Citizens resident in the Southern Region” (308). The Addis Ababa Agreement also stated that the executive powers would reside with the South’s regional president, who is selected by the national president on the approval of the Southern Regional Assembly. The regional president and his High Executive Council or Cabinet would attain the executive powers and



Factors of Secession 33

r­esponsibilities for all governing aspects in the South except for defence, foreign affairs, currency, finance, and economic and social planning ­(Mitchell 1989). The agreement’s social provisions were equally far-reaching. It ensured equality among all citizens specifying that all Sudanese, “without distinction based on race, national origin, birth, language … economic or social status, should have equal rights and duties before the law” (European Sudanese Public Affairs Council 2002, 314). The agreement acknowledged Arabic as Sudan’s official language and English as the South’s principal administrative and didactic language (Anderson 2005). In addition to giving the southern provinces a regional government, the agreement guaranteed freedom of religion, personal liberty, and equality of citizens. Pressured by Islamist elements in his government, in 1980 Nimeiry proposed a plan to the Southern Regional Assembly to change the South’s borders (the aim of the plan was to strategically place the newly discovered oil reserves in the North).5 The Addis Ababa Agreement stated that no changes were to be made to the South’s regional structure except with a southern referendum. The assembly rejected his proposal and Nimeiry responded by dissolving the body. In 1983, he created “Unity,” a new state in the South, and divided the southern region into three smaller ones with much less authority (Rogier 2005). Nimeiry’s unilateral action contravened the agreement and ended its political, social, and economic policies. This outraged the South, who decided to go back to war, creating the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (spla) in the same year.6 What heightened the tensions was Nimeiry’s decision to establish sharia (Islamic law) as the official law of the country in 1983. Through this Nimeiry was imitating the earlier policies of Islamization and Arabization.7 Emeric Rogier suggested, “While in 1956 Southerners were not granted the special arrangements that they had been promised [decentralized federal model], in 1983 they had taken back from them what they had been conceded eleven years earlier” (Rogier 2005, 17). The Comprehensive Peace Agreement The second civil war broke out in 1983 and it continued until the cpa was ratified in 2005. Two parties – the Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement (spla/m), and the government of Sudan  –

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Table 1 13–23 December 2000 National Assembly election Party National Congress Party (ncp) Independents

Number of seats 355   5

Source: African Election Database (2011) Notes: Registered voters approximately 12 million. Total votes (voter turnout) unvailable. The election was boycotted by most major opposition parties. Voting did not take place in three southern states that were under rebel control.

Table 2 13–23 December 2000 presidential election Candidate (party) Omar Hassan Al-Bashir (ncp) Jaafar Nimeiry (apwf) Malik Hussain Al-Samuel Hussein Osman Mansour (ld) Mahmoud Ahmed Juna

% of votes 86.5  9.6  1.6  1.3  1.0

Source: African Election Database (2011) Notes: There were approximately 12 million registered voters. Total votes (voter turnout) unvailable. The election was boycotted by most major opposition parties. Voting did not take place in three southern states that were under rebel control.

were the principal actors in the cpa negotiations and ratification. At the time, the National Congress Party (ncp), led by Omar Hasan Al Bashir, dominated the government of Sudan. According to the 2000 National Assembly Elections, the ncp acquired 355 out of 360 seats (98 per cent), leaving 5 seats for independents (see table 1). Table 2 shows that Al Bashir won the presidential elections with 86.5 per cent of the votes. The 2000 election failed to meet international standards of transparency and fairness. Moreover, major opposition parties boycotted the elections. Therefore, the ncp and the government of Sudan denoted the same entities, and as such the terms could be used interchangeably. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement included the same core provisions of the Addis Ababa Accord. However, there were three main differences between the agreements, all related to the unprecedented autonomy granted to the South. A state minister suggested, “While the public thought that the Addis Ababa Agreement was quasi-



Factors of Secession 35

independence the cpa was thought to be the actual i­ndependence of the South.”8 First, while the Addis Ababa Agreement did not ­recognize any rights of the South to their resources, the cpa included a wealth-sharing agreement that guaranteed the South 50 per cent of the resources, namely oil. Second, whereas the Addis Ababa Accord included minimal southern representation in the national government, the cpa gave the South proportionate representation. And finally, the cpa allowed the South to maintain its armed forces, while the Addis Ababa Agreement compelled the South to dissolve its army. As one splm–n member suggested in an interview, the southern representatives had learned from their mistakes and were more aware of their rights.9 The first chapter of the cpa agreement – the Machakos Protocol – established a six-year interim period, commencing on 9 July 2005, where South Sudanese would govern their own regional affairs and participate equally in the national government. The South’s administration adopted the title “Government of South Sudan” (GoSS) rather than being designated as a mere regional body. The GoSS would have full autonomy, including its own government, constitution, army, flag, and budget.10 The agreement also stated that by the end of the interim period, on 9 January 2011, the people of the South would vote on a referendum to either consolidate Sudan’s unity or to secede. Shortly after ratifying the cpa, an Interim National Constitution (inc) was written. The inc included all cpa provisions and was held in enactment until 9 July 2011. Throughout the interim period, the cpa stressed that the national government of Sudan was to exert every effort to make a unified Sudan an attractive option to Southerners.11 The cultural aspect of the agreement was also highlighted in the first chapter of the cpa. The government of Sudan (GoS) recognized Sudan as a multicultural, multiracial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious, and multilingual country (Sidahmed 2010). The GoS also agreed that “the conflict in Sudan is the longest-running conflict in Africa. It has caused horrendous loss of life, destroyed the infrastructure of the country, wasted economic resources, and caused untold suffering, particularly with regard to the people of South Sudan” (cpa 2005, 16). The cpa and inc ensured legal pluralism of the country. For example, one provision permitted each state in Sudan to introduce new legislation commensurate with the religion and customs of the

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majority of its people, and to revoke any national legislation that opposed them. A section of the cpa titled “State and Religion” established freedom of faith and forbade religious discrimination. While sharia was recognized as the only source of legislation in northern Sudan, the cpa and inc protected the religious rights of non-Muslims in the area. Additionally, the cpa and inc viewed all indigenous languages of Sudan as national languages to be esteemed, fostered, and promoted. For its part, the GoSS did not designate an official religion for the South and affirmed its commitment to respecting all beliefs and religions. The power-sharing protocol was concluded in 2004, and it stated that all parties involved are “convinced that decentralization and empowerment of all levels of government are cardinal principles of effective and fair administration of the country” (cpa 2005, 55). The signatories expressed their commitment to the underlying principles of power distribution and acknowledged the sovereignty of the nation as vested in its people as well as the government of South Sudan and states throughout the country. There were three tiers of power-sharing, one distinct to the national level manifested in the Government of National Unity (gnu), one to the government of South Sudan (GoSS), and another for the twentyfive states in northern and southern Sudan. The power-sharing protocol established the institutions of the gnu. It included the legislature, executive, judiciary, and other institutions and commissions specified in the agreement and the Interim National Constitution. The agreement stated that the ncp would hold 52 per cent while the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (splm) would acquire 28 per cent and the remaining parties would obtain 20 per cent of the judiciary, executive, and legislative institutions in the gnu. Thus, the cpa guaranteed representation to the South in all of government institutions. The wealth-sharing protocol was another important aspect of the cpa, particularly when it came to oil resources. Although 80 per cent of Sudan’s oil is generated from the South, all pipelines responsible for its transport to Port Sudan on the Red Sea pass through the North. According to the protocol, “Two per cent of oil revenue shall be allocated to the oil-producing states/regions in proportion to [their output]” (cpa 2005, 54), and the remaining net revenues would be divided equally between the GoSS and the gnu.



Factors of Secession 37

Foundering Attractive Unity The cpa ended the war by responding to the South’s concerns. Many in the international community, both state and non-state actors, eulogized its achievements. It was seen as a momentous step in Sudan’s history, one marked by unprecedented compromises by the Sudan government. However, its implementation was problematic. Like the Addis Ababa Agreement, the cpa lacked accountability. In other words, Sudan’s government had room to unilaterally alter the agreement or contravene it. On implementation of the cultural entente, Salva Kiir, president of the GoSS, vice-president of Sudan from 2005 to 2011, and current president of South Sudan, spoke of a clear divergence from its provisions. Kiir said, “There was no respect for ethnic and religious diversity” (Al Oula tv 2010). Atem Garang, deputy chair of the GoSS Legislative Assembly, claimed that Southerners in the North were not protected against religious discrimination (“Direct with Atem Garang” 2010). Atem Garang also pointed to the many hostile statements made by northern religious leaders against the Southerners and the cpa. Many of these comments were provocative and strongly criticized the cpa’s cultural provisions that affirmed the respect and equality of all religions and ethnicities. For example, Atem Garang said, “When we [the splm] arrived to Khartoum in 2005, there was a fatwa [religious decree] stating that the splm is an infidel movement, and whoever deals with it will be an apostate” (ibid.), and that the ncp did not respond to it or repudiate any other similar statements. The nonchalance of the ncp reflected the party’s disinterest in making unity attractive. Al Bashir always favoured his Islamic hardliners and even gave them numerous ministerial and parliamentary posts (Hartog 2007). Surrounding himself with such controversial figures, Al Bashir prevented cooperation and frustrated the Southerners. As for the power-sharing stipulations, the power asymmetry between the ncp and splm allowed the ncp to hinder the application of the cpa’s constitutional arrangements (as aforementioned, the ncp held 52 per cent of all governmental institutions). Federal arrangements in which one order clearly dominates are unlikely to succeed. The ncp was aware of its potency. A representative of the ncp said, “We [the ncp] have the cards of the game in our hands

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and we have to trust other groups if we want to share the cards with them. We have as well the power to organize elections or not” ­(Hartog 2007, 24). A year after the ratification of the inc, international observers recorded that the ncp’s intention to prevent power-sharing was obvious. A representative of the Friedrich Erbert Stiftung academic foundation asserted that Al Bashir and his party tried to hinder the implementation of the power-sharing agreements to the extent that it was not confrontational but enough to thwart political change.12 For example, the ncp was slow to implement important cpa provisions and still followed a somewhat unilateral approach. Many key cpa components such as the National Human Rights Commission and the national reconciliation and healing processes were not established. There was also a lack of progress on border demarcation, the national census that was to precede the elections, and the resolution on Abyei, vital components of the cpa. The ncp’s lack of interest in genuine power-sharing caused particular resentment within the splm. As a result, on October 2007, the splm froze its engagement in the gnu for two and a half months (Nayaba 2010). The splm recalled its ministers, state ministers, and presidential advisers from the gnu and announced that it would recommence participation in the gnu only after the aforementioned issues had been resolved. The splm rejoined when Al Bashir reshuffled his Cabinet and promised the creation of a new arrangement that included splm ministers, presidential advisors, and state ministers. However, power-sharing was not completely absent as a state official and an splm–n leader reiterated in August 2011.13 The state official contended that most of the power-sharing provisions were fulfilled and specified that “about 80 per cent of the power-sharing specifications were implemented; that is the splm received most of the 28 per cent share promised in the gnu’s institutions.”14 The Southerners were most frustrated with implementation of the oil-sharing protocol. Its questionable application almost led to the collapse of the entire cpa in 2007 when the splm froze its participation in the gnu. Kiir spoke repeatedly of clear contravention of the 50:50 share indicated in the cpa. He stated that the GoSS received about 26 per cent of oil revenues and was unsure where the rest went (Al Oula 2010). The lack of transparency in the oil sector and the disagreements on the North-South border (that are



Factors of Secession 39

yet to be finalized to this day) enabled the ncp to deviate from the 50:50 quotas. During most of the interim period, 2005–11, the ministers of finance and energy were ncp members and they did not fully disclose oil revenue information (“Watchdog: Sudan Needs New Oil Deal” 2011). Global Witness, a U.K.-based group that advocates against natural resource–related conflict and corruption, noted the contentious oil-sharing implementation. It argued, “The  Sudanese government and the China National Petroleum Corporation (cnpc), which runs the largest oil-extraction operation in the country, have failed to explain significant discrepancies in oil production numbers” (Global Witness 2011). This led many to suspect that the government in the North was concealing oil revenues from the GoSS. The contravention of the cpa’s wealth-sharing, power-sharing, and cultural provisions proved to the Southerners the historical fact that the government of Sudan cannot be trusted. One author stated, “Sudan is notorious for many agreements dishonoured” (Nayaba 2010, 143), leading to substantial and profound distrust between the parties. From the Southerners’ perspective, secession was inevitable. Despite how good the deal might be, history shows that the GoS had breached and would breach it. Nimeiry (1969–85) and Al Bashir (1989–present) were leaders of the government of Sudan when the two peace treaties were signed. It is hard to ignore the fact that both leaders came to power through coups that overthrew democratically elected governments, and both led dictatorial regimes that silenced opposition and violated human rights codes. Their authoritarian approach also led them to unilaterally contravene core provisions of the peace treaties. For this reason many argue that democracy represented the solution. A sound democratic system should be accompanied by mechanisms that assure compliance with the rule of law and observance of all governmental agreements. Such a system would help to resolve Sudan’s internal conflicts by guaranteeing equal representation and inclusiveness, which would lay out the path to equal social and economic policies. More importantly, only a democratic system would allow, foster, and protect a decentralized structure of governance. Unfortunately, Sudan’s democracies did not uphold these aspirations and as such destroyed the last hope in an accommodative Sudan and reinforced separatism.

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W e a k n e s s o f S u da n ’ s D e m o c r at i c G ov e r n m e n t s The absence of effective democratic governments increases the probability of conflict and separatism in plural societies, as was stressed in Elazar’s and Lijphart’s theories. The Sudanese democratic governments were ineffective, as the leaders misused the country’s resources, failed to find a solution to the civil war, and impeded the country’s social and economic development. During the four democratic periods witnessed by Sudan politicians often engaged in corrupt practices and were unresponsive to the citizens’ concerns. State institutions were too ineffective to ensure accountability or to implement the rule of law. According to Hamid, when looking at the events of the short-lived democratic period (1986–89), “Any veteran observer is bound to have a déjà vu” (cited in El-Battahani 2010, 36). For example, the resemblances between the second democratic period (1964–69) and the third democratic period (1986–89) were indeed remarkable. As Hamid (1988) noted, “The political malaise permeating then paralyzing the body politic in the late 1980s is like an uncanny recurrence of the same affliction that plagued the country in the late 1960s: the same disarray of the same coalition governments of the same political parties; the same instability that is symptomatic of an unworkable political system and an unpredictable political process. The bankrupt economy, drained by a costly civil war, corruption and mismanagement is even worse than the recurrent economic crises of the 1960s. It is as though history is repeating itself with a vengeance” (ibid.). Sidahmed contends that the political parties were not concerned about justice, multi-party democracy, or liberty. He asserts that the two revivals of democracy in 1965 and 1985 were mere accidents caused by the “weakness of military regimes, not the strength of democrats” (El-Battahani 2010, 36). The cpa instigated the fourth democratic period. Democratic transition was at the heart of the cpa and the signatories recognized that “good governance, accountability, transparency, democracy, and the rule of law at all levels of government [are all necessary principles] to achieve lasting peace [and attractive unity]” (cpa 2005, 12). However, like its predecessors, the fourth democratic transition rendered a successful democracy unlikely, particularly when taking



Factors of Secession 41

into account the history of its leadership, the ncp. A history that involved manipulation of ethnic relations, brutal intensifying of the South-North conflict, responsibility for the outbreak of the Darfur conflict, continuous reports of human rights violations, arrests of journalists, and the deportation of Western diplomats caused serious doubts about the legitimacy of the ncp’s democratic credentials and its commitment to democracy in Sudan (Hartog 2007). During Al Bashir’s ruling period, central pillars of democracy have been undermined, including a vibrant civil society and strong opposition that usually flourish during democratic periods, both of which are necessary to achieve a genuine democratic system with robust checks and balances and respect for human rights. After Sudan’s independence (1956), the Sudanese civil society developed and was known to be among the most vibrant in Africa and the Middle East (Hartog 2007), particularly during Sudan’s short democratic periods. When Al Bashir came to power in 1989 non-governmental organizations and the media became subject to callous repression. Unfortunately, even with the civil society’s minimal resurrection under the cpa years, it lacked resources and continued to face intimidation. The ncp’s suppressive attitude dulled and weakened not only the civil society but also political parties, incapacitating them from fighting for Sudan’s unity. Northern opposition parties have been excluded from the government for several years, and as such they initially eulogized the apparent democratic changes, since they gave them an opportunity to reconnect with their political centres. However, very similar to civil society groups, they lacked resources and were beleaguered and marginalized. Only two parties could finance their campaigns, the ncp and splm. The opposition and civil society groups also criticized the ncp for undemocratic conduct that included the party’s control of government institutions. The institutions created by the cpa were weak and fell directly under the heel of the ncp, making them ineffective and unaccountable. For example, despite the cpa provisions, there were serious concerns about the use of state resources by the ncp. There was a serious lack of transparency in the ncp’s funding and expenditure. Allegations of extensive corruption by state officials incited much controversy, but, a direct investigation was not instigated. Moreover, no enquiries were launched to assess one of the most contentious cpa provisions: the national elections. Opposition parties, civil society groups, and foreign observers declared serious

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Table 3 11–15 April 2010 presidential election Candidate (party) Omar Hassan al-Bashir (ncp) Yasir Arman (splm) Abdullah Deng Nhial (pcp) Hatim Al-Sir (dup) Others

Number of votes

% of votes

6,901,694 2,193,826 396,139 195,668   –

68.24 21.69  3.92  1.93  4.22

Source: African Election Database (2011) Notes: Registered voters 16,500,000. Total votes (voter turnout) N/A. Invalid/blank votes N/A. Total valid votes 10,114,310. Prior to the election, five candidates had withdrawn from the race: Yasir Arman, Sadiq Al-Mahdi, Hatim Al-Sir, Mubarak Al-Fadil, and Mohamed Ibrahim Nugud. However, their names remained on the ballot and each gained votes.

e­ lectoral irregularities and even obvious ncp rigging of the entire electoral process, from registration through to polling.15 These concerns were disregarded and claimed as being unproven by the National Elections Commission. An splm adherent who was a member of the High Election Committee at the time of the elections suggested in an interview with the author that “they [the ncp] manipulated everything; they used food, aid, everything to buy votes. And this is one of the biggest violations of the cpa and the election law. Many other things, like the freedom of press and speech were not there, even during the election times. This did not create a conducive atmosphere for free elections.”16 Omar Al Bashir won the presidential elections with 68.24 per cent of the votes (table 3). In the National Assembly elections, Al Bashir’s ncp gained 323 seats out of 450 (table 4). Under the cpa ­parliamentary arrangement, the ncp had 52 per cent of the seats; as a result of the 2010 elections, the ncp made considerable gains, claiming 72 per cent of the seats (African Election Database 2011). The problematic elections sabotaged all democratic prospects and undermined the most important peace agreement in Sudan’s history: the cpa. Al Bashir’s victory in the cpa elections illustrated the improbability of a near-democratic Sudan. Unfortunately, Sudan’s history of unstable and ineffective democratic governments reaffirmed the country’s grim democratic prospects. The democratic governments failed to respond to the South’s grievances, and this dereliction reinforced the gravity of the situation and strengthened ­secessionist



Factors of Secession 43

Table 4 11–15 April 2010 National Assembly election Party

Number of seats

National Congress Party (ncp) Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (splm) Popular Congress Party (pcp) Democratic Unionist Party (dup) Umma Federal Party (ufp) Umma Renewal and Reform Party (urrp) Democratic Unionist Party-Original (dupo) Sudan People’s Liberation Movement–Democratic Change (splm–dc) Others Independents Vacant Total

323  99   4   4   3   2   2   2   4   3   4 450

Source: African Election Database (2011) Note: Registered voters approximately 16,500,00. Total voters N/A.

demands. Any alternative to secession would place the South in great deal of uncertainty and at the whims of Khartoum’s dictators. In his visit to Sudan in 1964, the historian Arnold Toynbee noted that the situation between the North and the South required that the more powerful and developed northern Sudan show “inexhaustible patience, forbearance, and generosity, and immense understanding and sympathy” (cited in Shinn 2004, 243). However, since independence, most of Sudan’s governments viewed the South’s armed struggle as a rebellion that needed to be suppressed. The Sudanese governments based in Khartoum showed little generosity and even less patience.

H i s to r i c a l G r i e va n c e s Deep-rooted historical grievances are the fourth factor that led to the secession of South Sudan. Pavkovic and Radan (1983) stressed them in their conceptual paradigm and stated that they are one of the most reliable indicators of secession. For the South Sudanese, historical grievances and the failure of reconciliation strengthened secessionist sentiments. A middle-aged Southerner, describing his feelings about the unity of Sudan, said, “In every Southern house, whether Muslim or Christian, someone has been lost to the war” (“Direct with Atem Garang” 2010).

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Most of the 2.5 million people killed in Africa’s longest civil war were Southerners. Another 4.5 million were displaced, and millions more were affected by post-war natural crises (such as famines) (“Direct with Atem Garang” 2010). The South Sudanese have faced tremendous suffering, which has been cognitively linked to the North. Another young Southern man leaving Khartoum and heading to the South before the referendum said, “If they treated us well, none of this would have happened” (ibid.). Moreover, the Southerners who lived in the North often felt constant humiliation and racism. Most Southerners working in the North were treated like menials. The majority of South Sudanese place the onus of humiliation, ghastly killings, underdevelopment, poverty, and marginalization on the North. One man described his support for secession by saying, “To be free, to be free, to be no longer slaves” (El-Battahani 2010, 30). These factors undoubtedly prompted Southerners to vote for independence. Secession seemed unlikely under the Southern leadership of John Garang. When he assumed power in the early 1980s as leader of the second rebellion, Garang’s dream of a united secular Sudan was unflinching. His role as a charismatic and visionary leader in the development of Sudan’s affairs was enormous. His commitment to the idea of a united secular Sudan highlights the inability of many international actors involved in the cpa peace talks between the North and the South to foresee secession. A Sudanese academic and federal advisor suggested in an interview, “The network of igad [Intergovernmental Authority on Development] was certain of ­Garang’s personality and his views [including his vision of a united Sudan],” furthered the unexpectedness of secession.17 Secession was inevitable, however, after the death of Garang, one of the few Southerners who had faith in a united Sudan. He died on 30 July 2005  – six months after the ratification of the cpa  – in a plane crash, the cause of which remains unclear. The advent of a pro-secessionist leader, Salva Kiir, made secession unpreventable. Kiir’s influence, charisma, and political capabilities were not equivalent to Garang’s, for he lacked Garang’s sophisticated education, sway, and diplomacy. The relations with North Sudan deteriorated after G ­ arang’s death, after which Kiir spoke of secession publicly. Most Southerners supported secession, and the weak belief in ­Garang’s vision of a united, secular, and Africanist Sudan ended with his death.



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International Factors The last factor that contributed to the secession of South Sudan is international support. Foreign intervention constitutes the core of Young’s and Heraclide’s theory of separatism. They propose that if the central government is unable to accommodate the demands of the secessionist movement and if the movement musters enough public support, only international support is needed to achieve secession. The South received substantial support from regional and international actors during the first and second civil wars, and it was this support that enabled the South to gain de facto secession. Support for the South from neighbouring countries was significant. Uganda proved the most devoted friend to the South. Ugandan support to Anyanya created ground for Sudan’s first civil war (1955–72) as the Ugandan government provided military assistance and training facilities for the movement. In 1986, Yoweri Museveni came to power, a long-time friend of Garang’s, and Uganda continued to extend its hand to the spla/m. Uganda always accused Sudan’s government of backing Ugandan rebel groups such as the Lord’s Resistance Army (lra), the Nile West Bank Liberation Front, and the Allied Democratic Forces (adf), and as a result supported the spla/m (Katete 2010). Ethiopia is another close regional ally to South Sudan. Addis Ababa is much closer to the GoSS than the GoS. In fact, the Ethiopia–­North Sudan relation is inconsistent at best, perhaps the most complicated in the region. However, according to Marchal (2010), “These [Ethiopia-GoS relations] dictate the future stability of the Horn of Africa” (84). In the first civil war Ethiopia supported Anyanya. This was perhaps a cause or an effect of North Sudan’s support of the Eritreans since the mid-1960s. Sudan sheltered tens of thousands of Eritrean and Ethiopian refugees, and North Sudan also assisted rebel groups. In the last few decades, Khartoum supported the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (eplf), the Tigrinya People’s Liberation Front (tplf), the Oromo Liberation Front (olf), and the Ogden liberators. This was a strategic move, since all these groups are considered to be ethnic rebel groups in Ethiopia. In the 1980s, Sudan and Ethiopia’s tensions reached their peak. The two countries were not on the same side of the cold war. While Sudan was turning to the United States, Ethiopia’s communist leadership, Mengistu Haile Mariam (1974–91), maintained close ties with the

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Soviet Union. In turn, Ethiopia supported the spla/m, which claimed a socialist ideology. Ethiopia provided shelter for southern refugees as well as military facilities for spla/m recruiting and training. Regime change in both Sudan and Ethiopia at around the same time (1989 and 1991 respectively) provided an opportunity for an alliance between the two countries. Just as relations started to improve after the overthrow of Mengistu, tensions escalated again in response to alleged involvement of Sudan in the assassination attempt on Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in Addis Ababa in 1995, as well as Al Bashir’s crusading Islamist policies in the region. Soon after, the spla/m was allowed back into Ethiopia. Internationally, Al Bashir’s government supported Islamists in different parts of the world (Marchal 2010). It supported Islamists in Algeria and Saddam’s Islamist rhetoric backing the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. For a few years in the early 1990s, Al Bashir also provided a safe haven for Osama Bin Laden, in addition to building ties with Iran. Sudan’s adversaries multiplied as a result of its Islamist agenda, including the United States as it encountered terrorist attacks in the 1990s. The United States quickly placed Sudan on the State Sponsor of Terrorism list. The United States also rushed into backing Uganda, Ethiopia, and Eritrea’s containment of Sudan. The support reached its climax in the mid-1990s as the three countries became the United States’ “frontline states” in the war on Sudan’s Islamists. In return, the United States provided them with military assistance (Marchal 2010). Al Bashir’s crusading policies also repelled Eritrea, a previous ally before such policies took effect. Although northern Sudan’s support was the main reason that the eplf and Eritrean nationalists were able to achieve victory, relations between Sudan and Eritrea began to sour soon after the latter’s independence. Eritrea’s fear that the government of Sudan’s Islamist regional agenda would try to destabilize Eritrea turned the GoS from a friend to a suspicious adversary (Rogier 2005). Relations deteriorated further when Sudan’s government started to meddle in Eritrea’s domestic affairs by supporting groups, such as the Bani Amir – who live on the Sudan-Eritrea border and who are well represented in Al Bashir’s regime – that made claims to power-sharing. Al Bashir’s Islamist agenda also had an impact on Sudan’s relations with its Arab neighbours, Libya and Egypt. Libya also ­provided



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s­ upport for the spla/m. Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi supported both sides sporadically. Until the fall of Nimeiry, Gaddafi backed the South, because he viewed the spla/m as a liberation movement. The Al Sadig Al Mahdi regime that followed the overthrow of Nimeiry’s government was more amiable towards Gaddafi. The positive relations between the governments persuaded Gaddafi to switch sides and support Al Mahdi, until his fall in 1989. After Al-Mahdi’s fall, Gaddafi welcomed Al Bashir, though Gaddafi soon grew wary of his Islamist agenda. Relations between Egypt and Al Bashir’s Islamist government are marked by historic tensions. All three Egyptian military regimes (Nasser, Sadat, and Mubarak) purged and quashed Egyptian Islamists. As a result of this history, the new Sudanese Islamist regime in 1989 had a negative impression of Egypt’s political class. The assassination attempt on Mubarak caused the relationship to deteriorate further, leaving Sudan with very few friends in the region (Marchal 2010). Meanwhile, Egypt’s interests in Sudan were twofold: water and containment of Islamists. Its need for water led Egypt to support Sudan, as Egypt was afraid that the creation of another Nile basin country (the South) would complicate the issue of sharing water among the basin countries. Approximately 95 per cent of Egyptians rely on the Nile for water. Egypt as well as the other aforementioned countries advanced different peace initiatives that would best suit their interests. There were two peace initiatives in the 1990s and early 2000s: a Libyan-Egyptian plan that focused on Sudan’s unity, and a second by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (igad) that focused predominately on secularism. igad includes Eritrea (which withdrew in 2007), Uganda, Kenya, Djibouti, and Somalia. igad’s peace initiative eventually overshadowed the Libyan-­ Egyptian peace attempt because of the latter’s limits. The LibyanEgyptian initiative focused mainly on political reformation and the South quickly pointed out its incomprehensiveness. The South’s argument was that the Libyan-Egyptian plan failed to comprehend the South’s call for self-determination that required cultural, religious, and economic transfiguration along with the political proposals of the initiative. This Libyan-Egyptian proposal was also accused of disingenuousness, as its interest in a united Sudan was driven by ambitions over water security. The Libyan-Egyptian initiative did not prosper, instead being replaced by igad’s proposal, which

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­ resented a more comprehensive peace plan and guaranteed the p South the right to self-determination. igad’s initiative was more promising; in addition to its proposed inclusivity, it was able to gain Western support and international attention. Its anti-Islamization and pro-secularism agenda led the West to pledge continuous and potent support. The primary goal of igad was to weaken the Islamist government in Sudan, with the logic that a weaker government would abstain from supporting and funding the spread of Islamism in the region. In Rogier’s view (2005), promoting secularism was the core of igad’s strategy: “Secularism was seen as an antidote to political Islam and a possible way towards overthrowing Khartoum’s Islamist regime” (40). igad pressured the GoS into accepting a decentralized system of governance (the cpa) that severed much of its power and weakened it substantially and thereby reached its main objective. The cpa, with its highly decentralized policies that dismissed northern Sudan’s economic, militant, and political power in the South was synonymous with southern independence. In conclusion, the GoS’s regional and international diplomatic and strategic miscalculations have always translated into support for the South. That support for southern Sudan has strengthened its militant capacity, often pressuring the North into making concessions. Al-Bashir’s political miscalculations have been costly for the state, leading directly to the secession of the South. The Al Bashir government has been the most radical Arab-Islamist government in Sudan. The government’s aggressive and crusading policies turned it into a national and international pariah. In the late 1990s, the tensions between the GoS and some of its neighbours reached their peak. Uganda, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Chad simultaneously supported liberation groups in Sudan (including the spla/m). In 1997, the GoS faced multiple rebel armies that, backed by neighbouring Uganda, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Chad, worked together under one commander. Outside the region, the United States provided support for Sudan’s neighbours as part of its efforts to contain Islamist ideology. Mounting pressures led the GoS to reconsider some of its domestic and international policies, and the National Congress Party eventually negotiated the South’s independence.

Conclusion Scholars such as Horowitz, Wood, Smith, Elazar, Young, and Heraclide have advanced the theoretical basis for factors that have



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led to secession. Empirical case studies have demonstrated that secession is often a multifactorial product, as well illustrated in Sudan, where the confluence of five factors led to South Sudan’s secession in July 2011: the impact of northern Arabization policies, failure of the peace processes, weakness of Sudan’s democratic experiments, existence of entrenched historical grievances, and role of international actors. However, Sudan’s situation is much more difficult, since conflicts are not confined between the North and the South. Each of the two regions, with the GoS and the GoSS in the lead, has its own complex internal challenges. In the North, dissent remains widespread as regional underdevelopment, under-representation, and marginalization still characterize the centre-peripheral relations. The GoS is still trying to contain the Darfur crisis and the recent war with rebels in South Kordofan and Blue Nile States. The South faces menacing challenges as well. In 2010, US intelligence stated, “Over the next five years, a number of countries in Africa and Asia are at significant risk for a new outbreak of mass killing … [and] among these countries, a new mass killing or genocide is most likely to occur in Southern Sudan” (Abramowitz and Woocher 2010). Today, the governments of Sudan and South Sudan are very similar. The dominant political parties in both are hostile to democracy and genuine political opening. The GoSS has parallel central-­ peripheral issues with its share of marginalization and transgression. The southern Dinka ethnic group has always dominated the spla and has consistently alienated smaller regional tribes. spla/m’s transgression is best understood in the historical context of the alliances and enmities that formed during the two civil wars. According to Welsh (2011), “Sometimes, whole tribal territories became affiliated with one side or the other, and the vicious North-South war became a defining factor in relations between tribes, infusing old hostilities with a new political dimension.” Therefore, there is substantial mistrust between the spla and smaller ethnic groups. In March 2009 about 700 members of the Murle tribe were killed when thousands of Nuer and Dinka attacked Murle villages to steal cattle. This is not an uncommon occurrence, as similar incidents continue to be reported. In 2010, villages in the Shilluk regions in southern Sudan were also attacked and burned. Survivors and victims said that the army – the spla – raped, tortured, and killed hundreds of women, children, men, elders, and members of the royal family. Over 10,000 people had to flee into the forest in the midst of

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the rainy season without proper clothing, bedding, shelter, or food. It is reported that many children died from hunger and cold. The United Nations and other organizations have reported similar incidents of human rights violations. In fact, an international aid agency director in Juba said, “Human rights abuses off the Richter scale, happen in the South” (Welsh 2011). The most alarming incident occurred in mid-December 2013 when fighting broke out between the army faction of the GoSS and that of former deputy president Riek Machar, who was accused of plotting a coup attempt. The conflict led to the death of tens of thousands and the displacement of over a million people. Although the conflict began as a power struggle between president Salva Kiir and the former deputy president, it is becoming an ethnic cleavage between the Dinka and Nuer to whom the two politicians belong respectively. Considering the current state of Sudan and South Sudan, it is likely that conflict will continue, and further secession is not improbable. The leaders of both the North and the South must decide between continuing down a failed path or following a more promising one of democracy, political reform, equity, and decentralization. Only these elements can reconcile and address Sudan’s diversity in the South and the North. Lessons should be learned from the cpa experiment, and both Sudan and South Sudan must strive for a successful inclusive federal model characterized by balanced federal techniques, sound federal culture, and just federal politics.

Notes 1 I attempted to carry out field research in northern as well as southern Sudan during July and August 2011. However, as the time of secession was a great time of uncertainty, it was considered imprudent to conduct interviews in South Sudan. State and non-state actors voiced concerns about lack of security, particularly as reports on the possibility of an outbreak of a third civil war were circulating. The level of propaganda against south Sudanese required northern Sudanese in the South to take special precaution. Warnings of attacks on northern Sudanese in the south were issued. As a northern Sudanese female I was particularly advised against travelling to South Sudan. It is important to note that the inability to conduct interviews in the south did not compromise my ­findings, because I was able to conduct interviews with southern elements residing in the North, of whom I was able to grasp the south’s perspective.



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2 According to two of the interviewees, Sudan had three federal constitutions: the Addis Ababa Constitution, the 1998 Constitution, and the Comprehensive Peace Agreement Constitution. However, while the first and the last were the outcome of bilateral negotiations between the South and Khartoum, the 1998 Constitution was crafted and ratified unilaterally by Khartoum’s National Congress Party (ncp). Many scholars therefore question the legitimacy of the 1998 federal constitution. 3 Nimeiry’s communist and socialist ideologies required that he introduce a domestic agenda entirely different from the former ones. His social policies excluded the previous Islamization and Arabization policies, because as a communist he was opposed to Islamic rule. Nimeiry frequently spoke of an autonomous South. 4 However, the representation in the National Assembly still did not reflect the proportional regional populations. In general, the Addis Ababa Accord focused more on the Southern Regional Government and less on national transfiguration. 5 There are two explanations for Nimeiry’s action. The first is that he was attempting to take the oilfields unrightfully from the Southern region. The second is that other Southern tribes were placing pressure on him. The Dinka controlled the governance as they were the more educated and the majority. Therefore the Dinka controlled their region in addition to other ethnic regions (the Nuer and Shilluk). The other ethnic groups pressured Nimeiry to redraw borders and divide the one region into three. 6 Confidential interview, Khartoum, August 2011. 7 However, many scholars argue that implementation of sharia law in 1983 was the principal factor that instigated the second civil war, and that is not accurate, because war began in January 1983, nine months before the sharia decree was announced in September 1983. 8 Confidential interview, Khartoum, August 2011. 9 Confidential interview, Khartoum, July 2011. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid. 12 The Friedrich Erbert Stifung Foundation is the oldest German foundation to support international projects on democracy, and political education. It is active in over 100 countries. 13 Confidential interview, Khartoum, August 2011. 14 Ibid. 15 Confidential interview, Khartoum, August 2011. 16 Ibid. 17 Confidential interview, Khartoum, July 2011.

3 Islamic Fundamentalism in Sudan and the Islamic State Envisioned by Hasan Turabi ali kamal

Introduction The rise of religious fundamentalism in recent years has surprised many, refuting the notion that the centrality of religion in the lives of people had been replaced by modernity and secular ideas ­(Armstrong 2000). The regeneration of modern religious fundamentalist movements is not limited to any one religion, for it spans Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Islam. This resurgence of religious fundamentalism prompted re-examinations and analysis of its revival and causes (Bibby 2009). Among the recent religious fundamentalist movements around the world, Islamic fundamentalism is particularly significant, thanks in part to the violence that has accompanied it, the effects of which are felt around the world. It is this contemporary rise in Islamic fundamentalism in Sudan and its causes that is the focus of this chapter. Islamic extremism is a response to fundamentalist fears that the message of Islam is lost in the modern era, where secular ideas have relegated the God-centred world to oblivion (Langman 2006). This, according to Islamic fundamentalists, has drastically changed the social organization of modern societies. In addition, the colonization of Muslim lands that left deep psychological scars and mistrust of Western powers was exacerbated by interventionist policies pursued by the West in the post-colonial era, which Islamists saw as new modes of colonialism. Moreover, governments in the Islamic states failed to stimulate socio-economic growth. The division grew between a few rich and powerful citizens and the poor masses and



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it led people to look for an alternative system that would promise them a just society. What follows is an exploration of religious fundamentalism and a discussion of the events that have pushed Sudan towards Islamic fundamentalism. I will then analyze three prominent themes in speeches and interviews of Allama Hasan Turabi, a prominent political and Islamic scholar and leader in Sudan: the Islamic state and sharia (Islamic law), the status of women in Islam, and jihad (struggle). One of the primary objectives of Islamists is to see that sharia laws supersede all others in the governing of Sudan; sharia is seen as divine injunction, so there is no alternative to it. Towards this goal, Turabi works to see that sharia laws become dominant in Sudan, positioning sharia as a quintessential theme in Islamic fundamentalism. Many critics see the status of women in Islam as out of step with present realities. In Sudan, Islamic fundamentalists encourage women to remain veiled in public and grant them limited freedom and few opportunities for professional development. Furthermore, Sudan is a largely male-dominated society where women’s voices are sometimes subdued. Inequality based on gender differences is justified as in accordance with Islamic teachings. Turabi’s views are important on this issue because he has been instrumental in Islamizing Sudanese society. Considered by Islamists as an integral aspect of Islam, jihad is generally understood to promote violence against non-Muslims. Turabi explains how the meaning of jihad is misconstrued and is understood mostly in terms of armed conflict. For this chapter I have used two complementary research methods: analyses of content and discourse. A content analysis was conducted on the text and talk of Turabi, from which themes were identified. These themes then guided a discourse analysis of Turabi’s speeches and interviews in print and electronic media. Relevant words and sentences were explored using descriptive analysis. Then themes and discourses were situated in the context of relevant literature. When we examine Turabi’s discourses, we see that the colonial encounter strongly influenced his thoughts, which laid the foundation of his rejection of the Western culture and lifestyle. However, Turabi’s views also reveal an Islamic leader with a moderate and modern outlook, contrary to the typical image of an Islamic fundamentalist. We can therefore say that not all Islamic leaders are antimodern, although most Islamic religious leaders vehemently oppose

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modern ways. Turabi’s discourses also capture his perspective on Sudan’s socio-economic issues and the remedies he offers for them in an Islamic context.

C o n c e p t ua l i z i n g R e l i g i o u s F u n da m e n ta l i s m Fundamentalism is defined in the context of religion and adherence to theological movements, the Canadian Oxford Dictionary identifying it as “strict maintenance of traditional Protestant beliefs such as the inerrancy of Scriptures and literal acceptance of the creeds as fundamentals of Christianity.” Therefore, the word fundamentalism is used almost always in religious contexts. Any people belonging to a movement that calls for allegiance to the basic principles of a religion are fundamentalists. The word fundamentalist was first used by Protestant Orthodox religious leaders in America in 1920 (Ozzano 2009) who wanted to rekindle their religious beliefs, which they thought were threatened by rapidly spreading secularism and modernism. Ozzano writes that the term fundamentalism was not considered pejorative, as American protestants used it to refer to themselves, to show their desire to return to the fundamentals of Christianity. However, the term fundamentalism gradually became synonymous with “fanatic” in the secular media. Little academic research had been carried out on fundamentalism prior to 1980. However, the Iranian Islamic revolution and later events of religious reawakening, such as the rise of sharia law movements in Sudan and Pakistan, and the Afghan mujahedeen’s armed resistance to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan increased scholars’ and politicians’ interests in the subject. Many religious fundamentalists are against modernity and the social and political changes it introduced. Ozzano (2009) claims that fundamentalists have a peculiar stance on modernity: they both enjoy its benefits yet stand in opposition to it. Antoun (2001) states that purity is an important theme in the fundamentalist ethos. From the fundamentalists’ standpoint, the world is impure and thus they try to avoid or defeat it. Militant struggle is just one of the ways fundamentalists respond to modernity, using it to capture and overcome an earthly contaminated life for a lasting and better life in the hereafter. According to Antoun, regardless of their faith, ­fundamentalists



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demonstrate negative reactions to modernization and secularization. Fundamentalism is a global cross-cultural phenomenon. Fundamentalists’ positioning on the modern world is marked by backlashes towards the secularization of society that take the form of outrage, protest, and fear. Modernization is associated with change, which contrasts with fundamentalists’ world view of continuity of the status quo, so they respond to modernity with ardent skepticism, concerned about its invasion their religious beliefs, thus igniting vigorous anti-modernization campaigns. The aim of Islamic fundamentalism is to change the social and political order of society and bring structural changes to the educational and financial institutions and the judiciary, and change them to fit within Islamic traditions. Adopting sharia, which is based on the Quran and Sunnah (the sayings, practices, and traditions of Prophet Muhammad), is the primary tool for establishing an Islamic socio-political order in response to economic, political, and cultural crisis (Moaddel 2002). Its goal is to recreate the social and political system in the early period of Islam. The motivation of its conquests at that time were to spread the word of Allah, the Muslims’ God, to the entire world. As Tibi (2009) puts it, “Islamic fundamentalists … claim no more or no less to be involved in a ‘remaking of the world’” (99). Islamic fundamentalists protest against un-Islamic and liberal rulers, Western cultural invasion, the political domination of the West, and socio-economic inequalities, and they intend to change governments to conform to Islamic ways (Moaddel 1996). Islamic fundamentalists consider Western values and Westernization of Muslim societies particularly repugnant, so they revolt not only against Western hegemony but also against Western values (Tibi 2009). For example, Islamic fundamentalists not only take exception to the change in gender roles that were introduced by modernity, but they also feel threatened by women’s increasing independence and freedom. In this chapter, Islamic fundamentalism is understood as a politico-­ religious movement that attempts to reform individuals by calling them to return to the basics of Islamic religious practices, but also intends to restructure an entire society in conformity with sharia laws. Their model is the early period of Islam when the four pious caliphs  – the companions of the Prophet Muhammad  – regulated such a community.

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A B r i e f H i s t o ry o f I s l a m i n S u da n The emergence of Islam in Sudan was not homogenous; it encompassed Shia Islam and Sunni Islam. Shia Islam draws upon the Quran, the message of the Prophet Muhammad, and some books such as Nahj Al Balagha. Unlike other Muslims, the Shias believe that the Muslim leaders should be descendants of the Prophet Muhammed’s own family. For this reason, the Shia consider Ali bin Abi Talib – the Prophet’s cousin and son-in-law – the rightful successor to the Prophet and the first imam. They did not follow Abu Bakr Al ­Siddiq, who became the first caliph of Muslims after the death of the Prophet Muhammad. In Sudan the Shias are represented by a small group of politically inactive followers. Sunni Islam – to which the majority of Sudanese adhere – consists of orthodox Muslims (the Islamic fundamentalists) and Sufi Muslims, who both embrace the fundamental aspects of Islam: the Shihada which is the belief that there is one God (Allah) and that the Prophet Muhammad is God’s messenger; the prayers; fasting during the month of Ramada; the pilgrimage to Mecca; and zakat (almsgiving). However, orthodox and Sufi Muslims are characterized by differences in their interpretation of Islam and their religious practices. The orthodox are more rigid and preoccupied with following the literal meaning of and strict adherence to the Quran and the organization of the Islamic community. While the Sufis believe that union with God can be achieved in the present life, the orthodox argue that spiritual closeness to God is feasible only in the afterlife. In this regard, the Sufis’ belief in the reunification with the divine questions the oneness of God – the very foundation of Islam. Furthermore, the Sufis honour their sheikhs (spiritual guides) as God’s chosen saints, believing that they possess divine power and perform miracles. For orthodox Muslims, however, the imam of a mosque – the prayer leader and preacher of sermons  – is the supreme religious authority. In this sense the Sufi sheiks jeopardize the imams’ authority. Another difference among Muslims is in the orthodox contention that closeness to God can be attained only by following the sharia and Sunnah closely, while the Sufis are of the belief that these two aspects of Islam do not guarantee closeness to and eventual union with God. To achieve that goal the Sufis follow rituals that include madih, chanting or singing songs of praise; and zikir,



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r­ eciting ­prayers and repeating the names or attributes of God while ­performing physical movements and playing drums or other musical instruments. Orthodox Muslims do not find that these Sufi practices fit with the concept of Islamic worship because the only acceptable chanting is Quranic recitation or Azan (the Muslim summons to prayer) chanting, and music and dance distract people from the worship of God. So orthodox Muslims find that Sufism is not entirely compatible with Islam. These differing interpretations of Islam create perpetual tension between the two traditions that often culminates in polemical or physical conflict. The Sufi orders first arrived in Sudan in the sixteenth century, and by the eighteenth century Sufism had gained firm ground. Sufi spiritual leaders were admired and revered, whereas the orthodox were less popular. Consequently, the Sufi sheikhs have accumulated wealth and political power (Degorge 2000; Trimingham 1965). As in many African countries, Sufism in Sudan consists of numerous orders. Although mystical devotion to Allah and to the Prophet Muhammad is the foundation of all Sufi orders, what separates them is the way in which each Sufi tradition performs its tariqa – the rituals and religious practices that are established by the founder of the order. In Sufism a disciple must have a sheikh who acts as a personal spiritual guide. Thus there are successions of spiritual sheikhs through generations. In some instances the disciple of one Sufi order attains spiritual enlightenment through sufficient scholarship of the Quran and Islam, and that disciple introduces his own tariqa, giving rise to a new Sufi order. Two Sufi traditions, Al Mahdiya and Al Khatmiya, are noteworthy for their large followings in Sudan and their continued influence on the political and social landscape. Al Mahdiya was founded in Sudan by Muhammad Ahmad Al Mahdi, who was once a disciple of the Al Sammaniya Sufi order before founding his own tariqa in 1881. Al Sammaniya, which was founded by Sheikh Muhammad ibn Abdul Karim Al Summan, was introduced in Sudan in the second half of the eighteenth century by Sheikh Ahmad Ateyyib Wad Al Bashir. Al Sammaniya stressed the metaphysical doctrines of wihdat Al wujud (the oneness of being), which imply that the existence of everything depends completely on Allah’s creating it, and fana (to cease to exist), which refers to the complete denial of self and the realization of Allah. Wihdat Al wujud and fana are considered the path to union with God through constant meditation, c­ ontemplation of the

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a­ ttributes of God coupled with the denunciation of human attributes, and loud and ecstatic recitations. After being a disciple of Al Sammaniya, Muhammad Ahmad Al Mahdi established Al Mahdiya as a religious and political movement in 1881. He named his followers Al Ansar (the companions), the term the Prophet Muhammad used for the people of Medina who welcomed him and his followers after their flight from Mecca, and wrote ratib Al Mahdi (collection of prayers) that became the prayer text for his followers. When the Anglo-Egyptian regime ended the Mahdist state in 1898, the power of Al Mahdiya diminished until Abd Al Rahman Al Mahdi, Al Mahdi’s eldest son, re-established Al Mahdiya as a religious order in 1908. In 1945 Abd Al Rahman created the Umma Party, a Mahdiya-based political party whose goal is to govern Sudan with modernist Islam. Members of the Umma Party, both descendants of Al Mahdi and others, continue to be influential in Sudan. The Sufi order of Al Khatmiya was established in Sudan by Syed Muhammad Osman Al Mirghani Al Khatim, the grandson of Syed Abdullahi Al Mirghani Al Mahjoob, who was the imam of Al Haram mosque in Mecca. Syed Muhammad was particularly influenced by the Al Qadiriya Sufi order, which flourished in Baghdad in the thirteenth century. Al Qadiriya’s teachings emphasize the struggle against the desires of the ego, the deeds forbidden by religious law, and fundamental habits such as greed, vanity, and fear, in order to achieve union with God. In addition, Al Qadiriya reiterates that its followers may be asked to live in the tekke (the order’s commune) and to recount their dreams to their sheikhs. Al Khatmiya in Sudan charted out its own tariqa: Khatim Al turuq (the seal of all orders) stresses that loyalty to the order (Al Khatmiya) assures one a place in paradise. “The seal of all orders” also implies that the spiritual leader of Al Khatmiya is the “the awaited guide,” not Al Mahdi (the spiritual leader of Al Mahdiya). Al Khatmiya fostered political activism by creating a Khatmiya-based modernist Islamic political party, the National Unionist Party in 1951 and renamed it the Democratic Unionist Party (dup) in 1967. As is the case with Al Mahdiya and its associated Umma Party, Al Kahtmiya and the dup enjoy significant religious and political power in Sudan. Although Al Kahtmiya and Al Mahdiya are political rivals and compete to gain followers, the differences between them seldom result in physical violence.



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(For additional information about these orders, see MacEoin and Al-Shahi 1983). While the Shia Muslims have not been involved in Sudanese politics, the Sunni, the orthodox, and the two aforementioned Sufi orders have affected Sudanese social and political issues in numerous ways. During the British colonization of Sudan (1898–1955), the provincial governors were advised to cooperate with religious groups and leaders who did not subscribe to the Mahdist ideology, such as the orthodox Muslims and those of the Khatmiya Sufi Order, with the aim of weakening and marginalizing the followers of Al Mahdi (Abushouk 2010). After Sudan gained independence on 1 January 1956, the new country was faced with adopting a constitution. Most political leaders were in favour of giving Islam a part in the politics of the country. The sectarian leaders Sayid Abd Al Rahman Al Mahdi (Al Mahdiya group) and Sayid Ali Al Mirghani (Al Khatmiya group) as well as the Muslim Brotherhood, through its lobbying group, the Islamic Front for the Constitution, pushed for making Sudan an Islamic state. The Islamic state would mean that laws and the constitution would be based solely on the Quran and Sunnah (Fluehr-Lobban 1990). The Islamic constitution was a major source of concern for the South, which by this time had a large non-Muslim population, which feared that under Islamic law they would not be able to freely practise their religion or be considered equal citizens. Polarization between the North and the South was imminent if the Islamic constitution endorsed Islamic laws, thereby threatening the unity of Sudan. The implementation of sharia in 1983 was a significant event for Sudanese society. Turabi, who spearheaded the sharia laws at the behest of President Nimeiry, could see his long-cherished goal coming to fruition. The enforcement of sharia profoundly influenced many aspects of Sudanese life. The Islamization that was initiated by President Nimeiry was later carried out even more vigorously by President Al Bashir after he took office, and whom Turabi fully supported. Alan Cowell (1989) wrote, “A day after [Al Bashir seized] power [on 30 June 1989], Sudanese Army officers pledged … to end the country’s six-year civil war and offered a referendum on the future of Islamic law, the central issue driving the conflict.” The Sudanese army was losing its battle with the southern rebels, who were

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f­ighting to preserve their rights and identity and were concerned about the sharia movement launched by the Islamist parties of the North. Cowell further noted, “The Southern rebels have fought a bitter and increasingly successful war against Government forces to back their opposition to sharia, which provides for punishments, including amputation and floggings. It was first imposed in recent times by ex-president Gaafar al-Numeyri [Jafaar Nimeiry] in 1983.” Turabi, who along with other prominent political figures was arrested for a brief period, delivered a lecture to his fellow prisoners in which he said that this would be the beginning of a new chapter in the history of Sudan: “Sharia would remain the law of the land, and the Islamic state would be created despite the protestations of the Southern Sudanese and Muslim heretics, the kafirine [the infidels]” (Collins 2008, 186). The 1996 elections brought Al Bashir an overwhelming victory, which enforced the National Islamic Front’s control of the government. Turabi became Speaker of the National Assembly and supported the National Islamic Front, which held important civil and military positions. The leader of the Umma Party and the ex-prime minister, Sadiq Al Mahdi, rejected the results, calling it a “fixed” election. The elections brought no change to policies towards the South, as both President Al Bashir’s and Turabi’s agendas were of Islamizing the whole of Sudan. However, although the alliance between Al Bashir and Turabi started very cordially, the two men eventually split up over a series of events culminated in open hostility. After the coup of 1989, the Islamist movement united and founded the Congress Party, led by Al Bashir and Turabi. However, when Turabi became the Speaker of parliament following the elections of 1996, he introduced a bill to reduce Al Bashir’s powers as president. The complexity of Sudanese power politics became more intricate when, in 1998, a group of Islamists accorded some of Turabi’s powers as secretary-general of the Congress Party to Al Bashir. Knowing that Turbai would likely retaliate for this move, Al Bashir dissolved parliament pre-emptively the following year, depriving Turabi of his position as Speaker. The relationship between Turabi and Al Bashir became hostile, exemplified in the division of the Islamist movement into two political parties: the National Congress Party (ncp) led by Al Bashir, and the Popular Congress Party (pcp) led by ­Turabi. ­Turbai continues to declare that the ncp “cannot allow such a corrupt and oppressive regime [of Al Bashir] to represent Islam”



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(“Sudanese Opposition Leader” n.d.), and Al Bashir has retaliated by placing Turabi in prison several times since 2004. Nevertheless, Turabi continues to carry on his political activism in Sudan.

T h e E m e r g e n c e o f I s l a m i c F u n da m e n ta l i s m i n S u da n In his examination of the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in recent years, Langman (2006) writes that economic stagnation, political weakness, and intellectual torpor is increasingly evident in the Muslim world. Muslim nations find themselves powerless in the face of Western hegemony, which is giving rise to fundamentalism. Fundamentalism is a typical response to all deprivations that Muslims face, and has grown more forceful. According to Langman, when the modernist and secular forces failed to provide a solid democratic tradition and a stable economic system in the Islamic countries, it offered an opportunity for Islamists who held the theocracy of Salafism and Khomeinism to claim that they could achieve political power through moral renewal. Langman states that while the theory of secularization was confirmed in Europe, it did not apply to Islamic nations. Rational thinking was the foundation of modernity, but Langman maintains that “the irrationality of its rationality dehumanizes the person, fragments the social and disenchants the world while its hubris of progress leaves people bereft of transcendental meanings” (288). The certainty that religion had provided was replaced with uncertainty and doubts about creation and humanity’s place on earth as God’s vicegerent in modern times. We see connections between poor socio-economic conditions in a society and public support for Islamic fundamentalism. Political corruption under military dictators results in inappropriate policy decisions, inefficient allocation of funds for development projects, and nepotism. Consequently, the economy does not grow, causing hardship for the citizens. Poverty and marginalization can cause people to become pessimistic about the future and therefore seek alternatives. Islamists use this state of affairs as ideological justification to change the status quo, portraying themselves as the desirable alternative to corrupt officials and promising a better life. As a result, religious fundamentalists gain support. Richard (2003) argues that “Islamic radicals” enjoy sympathy as a result of political responses to the deepening economic, social, political, and cultural crises in the

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­ uslim world. As Langman (2006) puts it, “Not surprisingly, funM damentalism can often be found in classes and communities where certain populations especially young and often unmarried men, are unemployed, underemployed and face social discrimination” (322). It could be argued, therefore, that in poor economies a growing number of people join religious parties in hope of a better future in this world and in the next. Colonialism and Neo-colonialism Sudanese society underwent major social transformations as a result of the Turkish-Egyptian and British colonization. Although Sufi Islam was more popular in Sudan than orthodox Islam, both regimes promoted and encouraged the spread of orthodox Islam. Under Turkish-Egyptian rule, orthodox Islam was encouraged because the rulers were Sunni orthodox Muslims who considered the Sufi Islam an impure sect that had become un-Islamic. The British, on the other hand, promoted orthodox Islam because they were fearful of the revolt by the Mahdi Sufi brotherhood, which had occurred a few years prior to the British takeover. Therefore, in anticipation of possible uprising of the Sufis against British rule, a counteracting sect of orthodox Islam was promoted. Thus orthodox Islam, despite being less popular in Sudan, had the protection and the support of the colonial government under which it flourished. One strand of Islamic fundamentalism can be located in the neocolonial policies of the Western countries towards Muslim countries. For Fisk (2005), the rise of Islamic fundamentalism has roots in the political and neo-colonial polices of Western powers. Another factor is the defeat of Arab countries in 1967 and 1973 wars with Israel that humiliated the Islamic countries of the Middle East (Ousman 2004). Moreover, Muslims around the world consider the treatment of Palestinians unfair, making the United States and Britain very unpopular among Muslim nations. During the Cold War years, the United States supported and backed religious parties in the Muslim world to counter any influence of the Soviet Union. The association between Islamist groups and the United States peaked during the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in the 1980s. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, a new kind of Islamophobia emerged in the United States, prior to the events of 11 September 2001. For example, Huntington (1997)



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predicted that future conflict would not be ideological but cultural between the Islamic world and the West. Such events increased the skepticism of Muslims, including the Sudanese who still remembered with bitterness the colonial rule of their homelands, and that Western domination had not ended and instead had been transformed and re-emerged as neo-colonialism. Unflinching US support for Israel, who occupied sacred Muslim sites, only reinforced wariness about the West. Those developments propelled many to consider the wisdom of Islamists who warned of neo-colonial imposition on the Muslim world. Modernity The nineteenth century saw the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in Europe, and with it the rapid growth of “modernity,” which was marked by the beginning of the dramatic rise of technological inventions and the elevation of science and reason. Modernity also brought about changes in the structure of society, as a result of the mass migration from rural areas to the urban centres of major European cities (Christinano 2007). Modernity’s beginnings were in Europe, when the work of great thinkers of the seventeenth century onwards, such as the revolutionary writings of Niccolo Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau on the state and its organization propelled European intellectual consciousness into new ways of looking at the world. Isaac Newton’s discovery of gravitational force and laws of physics introduced thinking of the universe as governed by predictable, natural laws, and with it the concept that natural phenomena could be understood by observation and experimentation. René Descartes’s thesis of the “methodic doubt” shifted truth from the realm of God to that of humans, portraying religion as an irrationality from which humans should liberate themselves. Individualism became central and humans became masters unto themselves. Rationality was now the guiding principle of governments, institutions, and individuals. Reason reigned supreme. Scientific knowledge became the cornerstone of modernity and led to breakthroughs in inventions and manufacturing that opened the doors for industrialization. With industrialization came capitalism, a significant marker of modernity. From art to culture, to literature, and architecture, in short every aspect of life was influenced by modernity.

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As traditional institutions were questioned and discarded, religion could not escape the effects of modernity. Secularization was popularized and now there was freedom to choose whether or not to accept religion; religion became a private matter, one of personal choice. In European society, secularization was perceived as a logical extension of the age of reason and rational thinking, but in the Islamic world it was taken very differently. As most of the Islamic nations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were colonized by European colonial powers, many Muslims perceived secularization as a grave threat to the religion of Islam, the traditional way of Muslim life, and the Islamic state that they sought to establish. Secularization became attached to Westernization and a foreign cultural import, which must be opposed vehemently. Although most religious advocates resent secularism, Islamic fundamentalists take an anti-secular stance and associate it as an invention of the West. Islamic fundamentalists use the secular-religious divide as justification for violence against all symbols that they associate with modernity. However, in their opposition to secularization and Westernization the fundamentalists consider moderate Muslims as much an enemy as Westerners. Modernity also brought changing gender roles and women’s increasing independence and freedom, to which Islamic fundamentalists take exception and fear. Bruce (2000) maintains that if we want to understand fundamentalists, we must see the world through their eyes. In pre-modern societies the roles ascribed to men and women were very different from today’s. A primary fundamentalist complaint is of the transformation of gender roles in secular and modern society. As a result of modernity and women’s revolutionary movements that called for egalitarianism in gender relations, the social position of women has changed profoundly, from confinement to household activities to increased participation in social domains. North American and European feminists drew upon modern rationality to deconstruct patriarchal misconceptions about women’s natural abilities and place in the social order (Barrett and Phillips 1992; de Beauvoir 1952/1989). This resulted in debates and movements in support of voting rights, abortion rights, and women’s inheritance. Feminists of colour, both in the Global North and Global South, brought to the feminist dialogue the need to counter racism as well as the political, economic, and cultural effects of



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c­ olonialism in order to enhance women’s emancipation (Hill-­Collins 2000; ­Spivak 1990). Muslim feminists took different stances on secularization and Islamization. Some perceived religion as the antithesis of the social, political, and sexual freedom of women and therefore considered Islam itself the cause of the disenfranchisement of Muslim women. Others did not object to Islam per se but contested the male-­ dominated institutions and male-centred interpretation of Islam, and therefore called for a better understanding of Islam in order to improve the status of women (Manji 2011). Notwithstanding some differences, the three trends of feminism agreed on the freedom of women in a way that goes against Islamic fundamentalists’ belief in the place of women in society. This pushed Islamic fundamentalists to oppose modernity further. In Sudan, many Islamists oppose the roles of women outside the home and call for embracing Islamic values instead of following the Western liberal attitudes toward women. The succeeding sections reveal ­Turabi’s take on the status of women in an Islamic society. Socio-economic Conditions As Sudanese leaders failed to lead their nation on a path to democracy in the post-colonial era, the infrastructure for the development of industries and commerce necessary for economic growth could not be established. As a result, dependence on foreign aid kept Sudan from developing. With a lack of resources, government prioritizing spending on armed forces, and very little money allocated to education, the literacy rate remained low. The peoples of South Sudan, seeing no other alternative amidst the growing Islamization and Arabization of Sudanese society, felt that their legitimate demands of preserving their culture and way of life were being ignored by the power-holders in the North, so they started armed resistance against the North. The long civil war between the North and the South (1955–72 and 1983–2005) pushed Sudan into an economic abyss (Deng 2005). The civil war against the “infidel” South provided Islamists with an opportunity to rally many, especially the young people, and send them into a religious war where martyrdom would guarantee them a place in paradise. However, many young, Muslim Sudanese joined the civil war either because they were unemployed or had no jobs to keep them from

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joining the war. The result was radicalization of the youths in Sudan. Richard (2003) maintains that discontent among Muslim youths is exacerbated by rapid population growth, fewer educational opportunities, government policy failure, rapid urbanization, unemployment, and increasing poverty. Langman (2006) contends, “Such [young] men often find solace in compensatory ideologies that provide dignity” (322). We can say, then, that Sudan’s civil war brought economic disaster to the country, which had started as a result of Islamic fundamentalists’ desire to transform Sudan, including the South, to better reflect their own image. The disruption of smooth economic growth that ensued made even more young people, who had found solace in religion, hopeless. Hence a cycle of war, poverty, and fundamentalism kept repeating itself and taking the country further into a downward spiral, reiterating how the rise of fundamentalism in Sudan is closely related to socio-economic conditions. With rising unemployment caused by a failing economy, fewer prospects were available for young people, opening opportunities for Islamic parties to present Islam as the best solution for Sudanese socio-­ economic problems and push for Islamization. Islamic fundamentalists in Sudan posited that all of society would be better off by placing the nation on a path to Islamization; however, this contention invites a number of questions: Why is an Islamic system of governance better for Sudan? How can an Islamic system, as opposed to a Western system of government, ameliorate the social and economic conditions of the Sudanese people? And how can an egalitarian society flourish under sharia laws? In order to get answers, we turn to one of the most renowned Islamic political leaders of Sudan and one of its ardent advocates, Hasan Turabi. In the following section, a brief introduction to Turabi’s life is followed by analysis of his writings and speeches that help contextualize his Islamic ideology and his conception of an Islamic state, thereby enhancing our understanding of Islamic fundamentalism in Sudan.

Hasan Turabi Hasan Turabi, also known as Hasan Al Turabi, was born in 1932 in Kassala, a northeastern city in Sudan. His father was a qadhi, a religious judge (Taylor and Elbushra 2006), and his family had a tradition of religious learning. After receiving his ba in law from the University of Khartoum in 1955, he travelled to England where



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he earned his ma in 1957 from the London School of Economics. In 1964, Turabi completed his PhD in law at the Sorbonne in Paris. Thereupon, Turabi returned to Sudan and joined the University of Khartoum as dean of the Law School. While working in academia, Turabi was chosen to lead the Islamic Charter Fund (which later became the National Islamic Front), which was affiliated with the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood. This organization advocated making Sudan an Islamic state and implementing sharia. The university became the Islamic movement’s headquarters, and Turabi, as a result of his eloquence and charismatic personality, became a spiritual guide to a new generation of the Sudanese educated elite ­(Vidino 2006). Viorst (1995) describes Turabi as a “man of brilliant intellect and ineffable charm; admired by many, and even more feared by some. He is at ease in both tie and turban, articulate in English and Arabic [and French], and highly educated” (46). Although Turabi studied secular law for many years, he made implementation of sharia the main priority of his political activism. Turabi prioritized Islam over all other matters that Sudan has faced, including ethnic identities, racial or ethnic conflicts, or socio-economic issues. It was in Nimeiry’s regime that Turabi found the opportunity to fulfil his wish of Islamizing Sudanese laws. Turabi held important positions in the governments of both President Nimeiry and President Al Bashir. Turabi on the Islamic State and Sharia In an interview Turabi was asked about his leading role as an Islamic fundamentalist. His answer reveals why he believes that the Islamic system is important, gardels. As the fervor of the Iranian revolution fades, you are said by many in the West to be the “new Khomeini,” the new bearer of the flame of Islamic fundamentalism. What do you think of that perception? turabi. Well, people in the West are fond of personalizing the Islamic revival. No doubt, they will ultimately reduce it to conspiracy to export Islamic revolution, of which I am the leading villain. But there is nothing of the sort. I merely represent a new, mature wave of Islamic awakening taking place today

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from Algeria and Jordan to Khartoum and Kuala Lumpur. As first evidenced in the Iranian revolution, this awakening is comprehensive – it is not just about individual piety; it is not just intellectual or cultural, nor it is just political. It is all of these, a comprehensive reconstruction of society from top to bottom. This wide spread of Islamic revival has been given impetus by the vacuum by a bankrupt nationalism, especially Arab nationalism, and African socialism. The post-colonial nationalist regimes had no agenda but to throw out the imperialists. Once they achieved their goal, they had nothing to offer to people. Then they turned to socialism as an alternative to the imperial West. Now, like everyone else, the Islamic world is disillusioned with socialism. The Islamic awakening began to build in South Asia and the Arab world, as well as in Iran, in the 1950s – participating in some governments in the 1970s. Perhaps due to the limitations of the language and access to the sources of the Islamic law, the expansion of Islamic consciousness came somewhat late to North Africa and the south of the Sahara. The Gulf war, which brought foreigners into the vicinity of our sacred religious centers in Saudi Arabia, gave an enormous boost to the movement in North Africa, not only among the general population but also among the elites. The new and critical aspect of the recent Islamic awakening is that the elites in the army and government – the so-called “modern” sector – are themselves becoming Islamized. This has already happened in the Sudan and is in the process in Algeria. In 1985, the Sudanese army intervened to stop Islamization. But this effort led to an uprising by junior officers who supported Islamization. I have no doubt the same thing will happen in Algeria. The Islamization of the modern sector is the prevalent trend throughout the region. (“An Interview with AlTurabi” 2009) In laying down the reasons for Islamic revivalism, Turabi argues that experiments with nationalism and socialism have failed to improve the lives of ordinary citizens in the Muslim nations. By ­Turabi’s account, the imperialistic economic system of the West cannot improve their conditions. Now that all other systems have been tested and proven unsuccessful, Turabi asserts that Islamization is the only potential model of social organization left and that people in the Muslim world are gradually becoming aware of this.



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For Turabi, Islamization is not applicable only to “cultural,” “intellectual,” or “political” aspects of society. Rather, it should encompass all aspects of society and thus requires a complete restructuring of society. Turabi also takes umbrage with the fact that the United States and its allies have military bases in the Gulf countries, which are close to the sacred places of Muslims, like Mecca in Saudi Arabia. The presence of foreign troops in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries has infuriated Muslims, fuelling anti-Western passions and moving Muslim masses across the Muslim world towards Islamization. Turabi has also emphasized that the “modern” and the “elites” have joined the Islamic movement, indicating that the popularity of Islamization is not limited to the lower strata of the society but is also being accepted by the educated and economically well off. For an Islamic system to be established, sharia law must also be in place. “The Islamic code of Sharia provides the people with higher laws and values,” Turabi wrote in 1992, and “under Sharia, no ruler could suppress his own people” (cited in Vidino 2006, 2). Sharia establishes the connection with the will of God and preserves God’s sovereignty (Morrison 2001). It is therefore necessary to have a state in order to ensure the conditions under which Muslims can lead a faithful and pious life. Hence in Turabi’s view, state and religion are essentially inseparable. The state is only the political expression of an Islamic society. You cannot have an Islamic state except insofar as you have an Islamic society. Any attempt at establishing a political order for the establishment of a genuine Islamic society would be the superimposition of laws over a reluctant society. This is not the nature of religion; religion is based on sincere conviction and voluntary compliance. Therefore an Islamic state evolves from an Islamic society. In certain areas, progress toward an Islamic society may be frustrated by political suppression. Whenever religious energy is supressed, it builds up and ultimately erupts in isolated acts of struggle or resistance, which are called terrorist by those in power, or in a revolution. In circumstances where Islam is allowed free expression, social change takes place peacefully and gradually. (Turabi 1987) Turabi maintains that the formation of an Islamic society is a prerequisite to the formation of an Islamic state. The reason that an

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Islamic society must precede an Islamic state is that religion must not, and cannot, be forced upon citizens, for it would not work. People must be ready and willing to live under sharia law. Once people are ready for an Islamic system of governance, the transition will be peaceful and natural. However, when the people are ready for an Islamic state but those in power are not Islamic and maintain an un-Islamic system of government contrary to the wishes of the people, civil frustration can develop and potentially lead to violence, which is then branded as terrorism. Replying to the question by an interviewer, Turabi said, “But only when Muslims lost Sharia as their binding law under colonialism did they suffer bitter experience of absolutist government” (“An Interview with Al-­ Turabi” 2009). Hence, by returning to sharia, Islamic governments can discard authoritarian and dictatorial leaders and can in turn set the stage for an equitable and just Islamic society. According to Turabi, Islamic government is not total because it is Islam that is a total way of life, and if you reduce it to government, then government would be omnipotent, and that is not Islamic. Government has no business interfering with one’s worship, for example, or prayer or fasting; except, of course, someone’s public challenge to fasting. We don’t confuse what is moral with what is legal. The Prophet himself used strong words against those who didn’t come to the prayers but he did nothing about it. Things like dress, for example, there are moral injunctions of how women and men should dress, but that is not part of the law. (Viorst 1995, 53) For Turabi, Islam is a complete system of life; this all-­encompassing life code means that God has provided the legal, moral, and social model for humankind through the Prophet Muhammad in the Quran. God also gave specific instructions on what an Islamic government should be. The Islamic legal code and the moral code are two distinct domains that exist side-by-side, although Turabi warns of confusing one with the other. For example, according to ­Turabi, the Prophet Muhammad strongly exhorted people to come to the mosque for prayers, but those who did not come to pray in the mosque “he did nothing about.” Therefore, matters of personal piety and religious rituals, such as prayers, although mandatory, are not matters of Islamic law and only an individual’s own responsibility



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towards God. Thus, sharia law does not dictate punishment for the individual who does not pray, for it is a matter between a Muslim and his or her God. For Turabi, governmental involvement in moral issues is inappropriate, and he proscribes the enforcement of the moral code by the government in an Islamic state; regulating people’s personal piety is not a government responsibility. In another example, Turabi comments on the response of the Ayatollah Khomeini to Salman ­Rushdie’s Satanic Verses (1988). Turabi is reported to have said, “Had Salman Rushdie been tried in Sudan, he would not have been sentenced to death for apostasy” (Ibrahim 1999, 216). Viorst (1995) quotes Turabi as saying, “Some people say that I have been influenced by the West and that I border on apostasy myself. But I don’t accept the condemnation of Salman Rushdie. If a Muslim wakes up in the morning and says he doesn’t believe any more, that’s his business. There has never been any question of inhibiting people’s freedom to express any understanding” (53). Turabi’s idea on the killing of an apostate is not typical of a fundamentalist view. While the late Iranian supreme Islamic leader Ayatollah Khomeini declared a fatwa or religious degree ordering the death of Rushdie, Turabi maintains that Rushdie does not deserve to die for the blasphemy that he is accused of by many Islamists. Therefore, we see Turabi’s departure from traditional fundamentalist views, one that gives the impression of a moderate position. According to Ibrahim (1999), for ­Turabi “modernity is simply a God given reality, whose manipulation leads to a more profound worship of God” (202). Contrary to the common popular piety, which sees modernity as a delusion, Al Turabi sees it as a corridor to God. Turabi on the Status of Women in Islam Turabi’s views on the status of women are perhaps the most liberal of any Islamist. The position of women in Islam attracts much debate, as women are generally thought to occupy lower status than men; in some Muslim societies, women are mostly confined to the domestic space. On many occasions Turabi has made his point of view about the status of women in Islam clear. In 1973, he wrote Women in Islam and Muslim Society. Turabi justified his argument for equality between men and women by discussing Quranic verses to demonstrate that God ordained the equality between the sexes.

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He writes, “In the religion of Islam, a woman is an independent entity, and thus a fully responsible human being. Islam addresses her directly and does not approach her through the agency of Muslim men. A woman would assume full capacity and liability once she has attained maturity and has received the message of Islam.” The notion that a woman is an “independent entity” and “fully responsible human being” clearly designates a woman as an independent being who is as accountable for her actions as any responsible man would be. Therefore, women are not dependent on men and can make their own decisions and choose the direction of their own lives. Quoting verses of the Quran, Turabi points out, “God Almighty commanded the Prophet (peace be upon him) in the following words: ‘O Prophet! when women believers come to you to make a covenant with you that they will not associate anything with God, nor steal, nor fornicate, nor kill their own children, nor slander anyone, nor disobey you in any fair matter, then make a covenant with them and seek God’s forgiveness in their favour. Indeed God is extremely Forgiving and most Merciful’” (Al Mumtainah 12, cited in Turabi 1973). A woman can choose her own religion if she decides that she prefers to follow a religion other than the one followed by her father or by her husband. Turabi maintains that Islam gives complete liberty to women. In this case, women are free to follow their own convictions. Turabi draws our attention to the fact that God addresses both men and women equally in another Quranic verse: “Women have an equal opportunity and incentive to share in every aspect of religious virtue: ‘God has got ready forgiveness and tremendous rewards for the Muslim men and women; the believing men and women; the devout men and women; the truthful men and women; the patiently suffering men and women; the humble men and women; the almsgiving men and women; the fasting men and women, the men and women who guard their chastity; and the men and women who are exceedingly mindful of God’” (Al Ahzab 35, cited in Turabi 1973). Turabi maintains that, according to Islamic personal law, a woman is free to choose her mate and can dissolve her marriage upon her own volition. He also contends that the Prophet Muhammad had strongly recommended good education for girls. Furthermore, ­Turabi writes, “Women are entitled to full freedom of expression of their proper views … Muslim ladies used to venture their views in the presence of the Prophet (peace be upon him) as well as his successors, the Caliphs” (1973). Moreover, in terms of economic



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independence and according to Islamic jurisprudence, women can own property and can dispose of it in any manner they like. Turabi also holds that women can work outside of home alongside men to earn living. “The Sharia generally provides for an equitable and fair role for women in the economic life of Muslim society. Just as much as they share in the management of family affairs, they can contribute to the support of the family, although they are not legally bound to provide maintenance” (ibid.). We observe from this discourse that Turabi’s understanding of the position of women in Islam is quite contemporary in its outlook: he neither calls for women to be confined to home nor considers them inferior to men like many other Islamic fundamentalists. Additionally, Turabi emphasizes that women can work outside of home, along with men, to support themselves and their families, which is considered unacceptable by many Islamists. Here again we see that Turabi espouses modern views on women and presents his arguments by citing verses of the Quran. Thus Turabi calls for equal opportunities for women in business, in employment, and professional growth, so that they improve their economic and social standings in an Islamic society. He believes that women cannot achieve economic and social advancement by being segregated and confined to the four walls of their home. Keeping women separated from men is not an Islamic tradition but rather entered into Muslim culture through historical influences. As Turabi says, “Segregation of women is definitely not a part of Islam. This is just conventional, historical Islam. It was totally unknown in the model of Islam or the text of Islam. It is unjustified” (cited in Cantori and Lowri 1993, 58). Thus, Turabi’s views on the position of women are unequivocal; in the modern practice of Islam, women are not subordinate to men. While Turabi speaks of equality of women, he also holds the view that women should wear the hijab, headscarf/hair covering, when they are in public because it is a sign of chastity and modesty. Such views make him similar to other fundamentalists. It is also noteworthy that under sharia law many women in Sudan have been harassed, humiliated, imprisoned, and even publicly beaten. Although Turabi’s writings and speeches about women are very forward looking, he did nothing while in power to challenge brutalities that were committed against women. Therefore, one can sense the contradiction on the status of women between what Turabi says and what he actually did for women in Sudan.

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Turabi on Jihad The term jihad is quite mistakenly understood to mean “holy war”; however, Turabi explains that this is not a correct translation of the word. Jihad, says Turabi, means “putting in an effort,” and that could be struggle. According to Turabi, only in extreme conditions when Muslims are attacked and there is no hope for peace with the enemy does the Quran sanction jihad. Furthermore, such an action can be taken only in self-defence and not for aggression. On another occasion, Turabi said, “The first reference to jihad in the Quran is jihad against their [e.g., people’s] own ignorance, with that which is kind” (“Turabi Speech” n.d.) Here, Turabi is referring to personal jihad, which is understood as an effort to improve oneself by learning and acquiring education, as instructed by the Prophet Muhammad. Turabi further adds, “Of course, a person is internally subjected to desires and fears that hold him back from progressing in life … so he must conduct jihad against what weighs him down, delays him, and makes him slip.” The personal jihad also is the struggle to better oneself in terms of desires that could lead to destruction, so if a drug addict makes a serious effort to conquer his or her addiction, that would be his or her jihad against addiction to drugs. In the same speech (n.d.), Turabi expounds his understanding of jihad: From the very first day, jihad had the same meanings that you do not want to kill the other. But you want to protect yourself, your existence, what the self represents in life. If you opt for peace, because in essence, jihad is surrounded by peace, so opt for it. Even if you know that someone who approaches you for peace is attempting to trick you, you must opt for that. But rely upon God, rely upon God. It is all surrounded by peace. Even if someone capitulates and seeks shelter in our midst, we must shelter him, and after that there will be peace and security. Peace is paramount and must be achieved in every way possible, according to Turabi. Jihad is then a means of maintaining peace and achieving security. Turabi’s thoughts and ideas about Islam are to some extent progressive and are not typical of Islamic fundamentalists, whether in the matters of Islamic state, the implementation of sharia, the position of women, or the definition of jihad. ­Turabi



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calls for a “fundamental re-examination of any basic intellectual and structural Islamic frame work” (Moussalli 1994, 52). As Turabi put it, “In worshiping God, Muslims need not be intimidated by the ungodly concepts by which modernity is perceived or articulated. Like the Prophet who usurped the pagan Arabic idioms to preach monotheism, Muslims have the duty to engage in modern concepts, to gear them toward glorifying God” (Ibrahim 1999, 202). Although Turabi appears to be an Islamic fundamentalist in his outlook when he proposes sharia adoption and Islamization of the entire society, from his discourses we also have a sense of a person who is relatively open minded, unlike other orthodox Islamic fundamentalists. This leads us to contend that some Islamic fundamentalists, such as ­Turabi, believe in a rational explanation of Islam and are cognizant of the contemporary world, and it seems that they are willing to keep in step with the rest of the world to some extent.

Conclusion I have argued that the wave of Islamic fundamentalism that has engulfed Sudan for the past several decades can be located in the three major factors: colonialism and neo-colonialism, modernity, and socio-economic conditions. As a result, Sudan drifted into Islamic fundamentalism, which eventually caused the dismemberment of its southern part as an independent state. By analyzing the discourses of one of the most prominent actors in Sudanese politics, Hasan Turabi, we saw that although he was one of the most vocal supporters for the implementation of sharia law in Sudan, unlike many other Islamic fundamentalists he has more moderate views that call for embracing modernization to guide Sudan on the path of development. Unfortunately Dr Turabi’s moderate Islamic views did not save Sudan from breaking up, as the South separated from the North officially on 9 July 2011. What direction the newly formed state of north Sudan chooses as it moves past a major issues that has haunted it for decades  – the civil war between the North and the South – is yet to be seen.

4 There’s No Place Like Home(s): South Sudanese–Canadian Return Migration1 martha fanjoy

Introduction The Arrivals Room in the Juba, South Sudan Airport was hot, crowded, and chaotic. I had given up scanning the crowd for Michael, whom I had never met but who had agreed to watch over me while I was in Juba, the capital of South Sudan. I assumed that as the only non–South Sudanese left standing in the room it would be easy for him to find me. However, to both our surprise, I was able to pick him out of the crowd before he introduced himself. Although I would never admit it to him, he stuck out in the crowd almost as much as I felt I did. Dressed in cargo pants, a hiking shirt, a fishing hat with a Canadian flag prominently pinned to it, and carrying a large reusable water bottle in a thermal bag, he looked less like the other South Sudanese men milling about the room in suits, military uniforms, and jalabiyas,2 and more like the tourists I had seen about to go on safari in Nairobi the day before. I had been put in touch with Michael by a mutual friend from Calgary, who had insisted he was the only person who could properly look after me in Juba. Michael had moved to Canada in 1998, and then returned to South Sudan in 2009. Juba was his home town, and as a member of the Bari tribe, which lives in and around Juba, he had served as a state politician and union organizer prior to the second civil war (1983–2005). He described himself as a “big man in Juba” in the 1980s before he fled and, despite his different manner of dress, he seemed to have slipped comfortably into retirement back in Juba after twenty years away. He liked to compare himself



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to seniors in Canada who spent their winters in Florida. He planned to spend the bulk of his time in South Sudan, returning to Canada for summer visits with his children, who had been born there and still resided in the country. My first few weeks in Juba were spent mainly with Michael, and the ease with which he had reintegrated into Juba life gave me the initial impression that returning “home” was relatively straightforward. He had been back in Sudan for less than a year and was already busy running a guest house, conducting daily “business” meetings with fellow Bari politicians, and was a regular participant in political debates with other retired “big men,” conducted over large trays of roast goat every Sunday on a local street corner. As I spent more time with Michael, however, and spoke with other returnees, I learned that coming home was not as easy as it had first appeared. The more I investigated, the clearer it became that coming home meant vastly different things to different people. When I first conducted research among the South Sudanese population in Alberta, some six years earlier,3 in 2004, the second civil war had been raging in Sudan for twenty years. While many people spoke of their desire to return home and referred to their stay in Canada as temporary, the actual possibility of return remained a far-off dream. Six years later, in 2010, when I returned to the South Sudanese community in Alberta, the war had been over for five years and the country was moving toward independence in the summer of 2011. While many regions of the South were still far from secure, the ability to return home was no longer a distant dream – for many it had become a very real possibility. Refugees’ experiences are often viewed as linear – moving from flight to asylum, and then on to one of the three “durable solutions” listed by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (unhcr): local integration, repatriation, or, in a small minority of cases, third country resettlement. Michael’s story, however, shows that that linear characterization is often inaccurate, and the growing body of literature exploring the transnational nature of refugees’ lives demonstrates the need to move beyond perceptions of the refugee process as a linear path marked by distinct phases finalized by “durable solutions” (Al-Sharmani 2007; Shandy 2006; Sherell and Hyndman 2006; Um 2006; Van Hear 2006). The increased focus on transnational movements of migrants and refugees has also led to a reconfiguration of our understanding of

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the related issue of return migration. Earlier studies of immigrant and refugee populations in North America have often tended to mask the transnational aspects of migrants’ lives. When return or repatriation was discussed, it tended to focus simply on the “myth of return” – the dream that many migrants had of returning home once they had achieved sufficient economic success in their second home (Anwar 1979; Brettel 1979; Guarnizo 1997). Studies of migrants who had returned to their countries of origin often treated their movements in the same linear manner as they had examined their original migrations – concluding that return was final or the end result of their migratory journeys. Such linear approaches to return migration are limited by the either/or assumptions they make – labelling returnees’ experiences as a success if they choose to return home permanently and settle, or a failure if they continue to move between their country of immigration and home country (Horst 2007). By discussing the experiences of individuals who have attempted to repatriate to South Sudan after living in third country resettlement in Canada for five to ten years, this chapter explores how the “durable solution” of resettlement is often not so durable, and that individuals’ experiences with return blur the lines between the categories often taken for granted of “resettlement,” “repatriation,” “country of origin,” and “host country,” as well as “South Sudanese” and “Canadian.” In an attempt to highlight some of the complexity and diversity of experiences surrounding the concept of return, several examples are explored. Their stories highlight three major themes examined in my research: loss, struggles over kinship obligations, and the attempts to (re)define what it means to be “South Sudanese,” a resettled refugee, and “Canadian.”

Return and Loss As my stay in Juba lengthened, it became clear not all returning South Sudanese–Canadians experienced the relatively easy transition Michael enjoyed. The narratives of return of many South Sudanese– Canadians were filled with the joy and excitement of returning to their country of birth and of reunions with family and friends, but also with underlying senses of loss – loss of remembered lives that no longer existed, loss of all that was destroyed during the war, and loss of the lives they had established in Canada. The majority of



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returnees I spoke with in Juba had not set foot in the city before the war. They were from villages in remote areas of the country but upon return found the only job opportunities were in Juba, as were the basic amenities, such as running water and electricity, to which they had become accustomed in Canada. Most, therefore, found themselves not simply returning to their country of birth, but also attempting to integrate and settle into a strange city. Paul’s experience of return exemplifies the mingled sense of joy and loss many returnees expressed. We initially met in the first weeks of my field work in Calgary, and he soon became one of my closest contacts within the community. As the director of one of my main field sites4 during the first half of my research, an underfunded and overcrowded, afterschool program for South Sudanese youths, he was a passionate person who was very involved in the community, both politically and socially. A fabulous storyteller, he positioned himself as my teacher of all things “South Sudanese.” We would sit and chat for hours before the children arrived at the centre and after they had left, discussing whatever topic related to South Sudan and the community in Calgary he felt was important for me to know that day. Our conversations covered everything from the difficulty of raising children in Canada, to who in the Azande community to see to have a love spell cast, to the horror of his time as a rebel solider in the bush during the war. He always came back to one topic, though: the beauty of South Sudan and the perfect nature of his home village. He often described it in such minute detail that even I had vivid images of the sights, the smells, and the sounds of his distant home. Several of our discussions centred on the excitement he felt for an upcoming four-week holiday to South Sudan. I knew he was ecstatic about returning to South Sudan, but because of his strong connections to the Calgary community, it came as a surprise when I received an email the day he was due to fly back to Calgary, announcing he would not be returning to Canada. We met up when I arrived in Juba a month later.5 He came to pick me up at the guest house where I was staying, and the first thing I noticed was how fantastic he looked. He seemed to walk in a different way – standing straighter, taking longer strides – as if he owned the place. He appeared more comfortable than he ever had been in Calgary. When I mentioned his transformation he laughed and told me, “I even feel better in my skin! I breathe better, I eat better, and I walk better on Sudanese soil!” He was definitely different from the

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Typical family residence in Juba, South Sudan. Photo by Martha Fanjoy

tired, stressed, and sometimes angry man I had come to know so well in Calgary.6 As I spent time with him over the next few months it became increasingly clear, however, that his return was a significantly different experience from Michael’s. Still dealing with the breakup of his marriage in Calgary and struggling to settle into Juba, Paul began having mixed feelings about his return. While Michael had returned to his home town, Paul had never been to Juba before the war. First as a soldier, and later in exile in Egypt and Canada, he told me it had always remained a far-off dream of his to see the inside of the city that had eluded the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (spla) for so many years. Upon his arrival in Sudan he described feeling an unimaginable sense of joy and accomplishment when he stepped off the plane. After a few days he was eager to return to his village in the Bahr el Ghazal region. He discovered, however, that there were no opportunities for business there, so he ended up



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back in Juba. As a result of lack of development and high cost of construction, housing in Juba was hard to come by, and the majority of residents still lived in mud huts, or tukuls.7 Paul was lucky to find a place in a house built by a fellow South Sudanese–Canadian, from Edmonton, Alberta, which they shared with six other South Sudanese–Canadians. On the last day of my stay in South Sudan I visited his house for lunch, and during a tour of the home and compound, the owner and Paul were quick to point out how “Canadian” the place was. The courtyard contained a flagpole bearing South Sudanese and Canadian flags, and they had planted a small flower garden (complete with fence to protect the plants from wandering goats), to make the place look more like “home” in Calgary. The “Canadian” decor was interestingly different from the houses and apartments I had visited in Calgary. In Calgary, homes had been decorated in a distinctly South Sudanese style – heavy drapes, an abundance of plastic plants, the smell of burning incense, and embroidered seat and couch decorations with which every woman was expected to decorate her home. However, Paul’s house in Sudan was different. It was very consciously “Canadian.” There were no plastic plants or heavy drapes. Instead the walls were hung with “dream catchers,” a Calgary Flames poster, and pictures of the Rocky Mountains. As we sat in the yard after lunch gossiping about mutual acquaintances in Calgary and how various people who had returned to Sudan were faring, Paul spoke of his experience returning to his village. He was frustrated by what he described as an inexplicable sense of loss and anger that had overtaken him upon his return to his home village, which chipped away at the optimism and joy he had initially felt upon return. Paul wondered if too much time had passed for him to ever feel at home again, It was amazing, because I had to ask where to go. Because streets had changed … maybe the same houses, but they turned the street this way and that way, and maybe added a house here and there … I didn’t even know my place. I was walking with my dad at that time, and he said, “Show me where is our house, and where was your home.” I couldn’t know it. And even five mango trees that were in our house – they were cut down during the war, so I didn’t know it. It looked like a desert or something. He said, “You used to play here, and your room was here, and this

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and this,” but it was not making me feel anything, because … to me that house was broken. He said this is the place but I could not feel anything … I couldn’t believe that I felt nothing and I was not happy. I thought maybe I could feel something if I could find a piece of something to hold so that I could remember my childhood … so I asked him about my pictures from when I was young to help me remember. And he said, “My son, that time when we had to run away we lost everything, even the pictures, so the family pictures are lost. It was very bad.” … I don’t have any pictures from my early life, I don’t have anything [he begins to cry here, and continues to be very emotional for the rest of our talk]. And I don’t know anyone. I know my close relatives and people in my age group, but the rest are like when you travel to a different country you have never been to. These people were born when I was not there. And they have grown up, and when they see me they are like, “Who is this?” They own the place, this is their country, this is their area, they know they belong there, and they know I don’t. They are surprised when I say I am the son of So-and-so. They say, “Where have you been all this time? We didn’t hear about you.” I feel like how can these people treat me like this … this is my country and I am from here, but no one knows me. People from their forties up, these are the only ones I know. But they are different too, especially the girls that I used to know. Some of them, they are going with a stick like this [mimics a bent-over person with a cane]. They got older too fast because of the situations that happened in the war. You find somebody and he is an old man … very old man, but we are the same age group. We are the same age but they got older! Their experiences, the trauma from the war … I don’t know. When you talk to them they just talk like old people, and when you ask them what happened they don’t tell you anything. This is where the connections between me and them … they were broken by war … it is terrible to have no connections. Being away a long time you find a lot of things different. It is not easy, it is very hard. It seems now like the same as when I left Sudan the first time – I left Sudan just going where I was going – I didn’t have a bed, didn’t have a house, I didn’t have anything. It’s the same thing now that I came back to Sudan.



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I went to Wau [a city in South Sudan], and my dad has four houses and all my brothers are there and my sisters, but because I am the eldest son I should have one plot. But I told them, “No, I can’t take it from one of you. You guys are coming from years in the bush, so I can’t take it.” So now it’s like becoming a refugee all over again. Paul’s narrative of return to South Sudan is a poignant example of the loss of place and affiliation many Southerners felt upon their return. It was often expressed by men who had become disillusioned with life in Canada, disappointed with employment and education opportunities, or facing broken marriages – for them, return became a dream, but a dream unrealized. Similar feelings have been recorded for Jamaican returnees who, disillusioned with racism and feeling a lack of belonging after immigrating to the United Kingdom in the 1960s, began to construct ideals of return, but were similarly disillusioned by the difficulty of readjusting to life in Jamaica when they later retired there (Horst 2007). AbuSharaf’s (2011) account of South-Sudanese women living in internally displaced persons camps on the outskirts of Khartoum also describes the difficulty of return. In an allegorical story told to her by a Dinka priest, returnees’ home communities are characterized as lizards that shed their tails when in danger, and grow new ones when the danger has passed. People who fled the war were the discarded tails that could not be reattached to their communities. Paul, and many others, were the discarded lizard tails. Return for them becomes just another form of displacement, forcing them to once again rebuild, recreate, and renegotiate their conceptions of home and their places within it.

Return and Kinship Obligations While Michael’s and Paul’s stories provide insights into the emotions many feel upon returning to South Sudan, Mau’s experience sheds light on the complex network of kinship obligations stretching between Canada and South Sudan that many returnees must also negotiate. As an active member of the South Sudanese community in Calgary, Mau often spoke out against return because of the “brain drain” it caused within the South-Sudanese Calgary community.8 Despite his reservations, however, he returned to South Sudan to visit his ailing brother, and then stunned the South Sudanese Calgary

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community a few months later when, upon his return to Calgary, he announced he had accepted a Finance Department job in his home state in South Sudan. He was excited by the opportunity to put his degree in accounting from the University of Cairo, Egypt, which had not been recognized in Canada, to use. His decision to return permanently was even more surprising, because he had a wife and several young children and had always spoken of the importance of developing the Calgary community and criticized men who returned to South Sudan and left their children behind in Canada. When I met with Mau in Juba a few days before Christmas, he also appeared transformed to me, but not in the same way Paul had. Instead of the confident person who had left Calgary six months earlier, he was nervous and on edge from the insecurity still plaguing his state. He had returned to the capital, Juba, desperate to arrange for a ticket to get “home to Calgary and my children” for the holidays. The longing he felt for his family was obvious, as was his disappointment with his job. He complained about the low salary that made it impossible to support his family in Canada while also meeting obligations to family in South Sudan, and the rampant corruption in his department that made it next to impossible for him to do his job properly. When we parted at Christmas, he spoke of seeing me again in Juba when he came back in January, but I was not surprised to hear a few weeks later that his ticket to Calgary had been one way, and that he had decided not to return. Back in Canada, several months later, I spoke with Mau about his reasons for returning to Calgary. He stressed it was not the corruption or insecurity that finally made him leave, but the stress of dealing with competing family obligations. The majority of people I encountered who had returned to South Sudan and had chosen to stay were men who had grown children, were single, or were divorced or separated from their spouses in Canada. Several factors contributed to that trend, the key one being the lack of facilities and development in South Sudan. With hardly any functioning schools and very few clinics or hospitals, not many men or women were willing to take their children back with them. As the primary caregivers, very few women were willing to leave their children in Canada for extended periods of time in order to return to South Sudan. Additionally, many mothers also saw greater opportunities for their children in Canada and therefore wished to keep their families rooted in Calgary. The majority of women I spoke with also noted the importance of the increased ­opportunities



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they found for themselves in Calgary, voicing an unwillingness to return to South Sudan, where they felt they would experience less social freedom and be more restricted in their access to ­education and employment. It is also a reality that the majority of women, unless travelling with a well-connected husband, do not possess the financial or social capital required to return to South Sudan and access basic necessities such as housing and employment. Mau was in a stable marriage, had several young children at home in Calgary, and, shortly after his return to South Sudan, had an older brother there pass away, leaving him with three young nephews in the country to support. At the same time he was still expected to maintain a level of financial support to other family members in Sudan comparable to the remittances he had been sending from Canada prior to returning. Meeting those obligations on his limited government salary, however, left little money to remit back to his wife in Calgary to assist in supporting his young family there. In addition to the pressure to fulfil financial obligations, Mau also spoke of the pressure from family to fulfil reproductive obligations once he was back in South Sudan. His current wife, whom he had married while in asylum in Egypt, was from a different tribe, and upon his return to South Sudan his family hoped he would take a second wife from his tribe in order to provide the family with children in Sudan – a suggestion that did not sit well with his very vocal wife back in Calgary. The combination of pressures to support his wife and children in Calgary, support extended family members in Sudan, and fulfil additional reproductive duties left him feeling as if he were being “pulled between two countries across the ocean,” and he finally decided he “couldn’t stretch anymore.” Mau was not the only returnee I spoke with who experienced pressures to fulfil family reproductive obligations. Several Dinka men I interviewed were under considerable pressure from their families in South Sudan to marry “ghost wives” for their brothers who had been killed in the war prior to having children. The practice of marrying “ghost wives” in the name of deceased relatives is intimately linked to Dinka and Nuer beliefs in the role of cattle exchanges in establishing kinship connections and paternity. It consists of collecting bridewealth cattle so that a male relative, usually a brother, can marry and reproduce in the name of a male family member who died childless (Evans-Pritchard 1951). While H ­ utchinson (1996) notes spla efforts to stop the practice during the second civil war, evidence from ­several

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men I spoke to indicates it is still relatively ­common, and after the war is becoming a priority for families who lost sons during the conflict. While the men I spoke with were reluctant to take on numerous spouses because of the potential conflicts it would cause in their own households in Calgary, as well as the added financial obligations, many felt unable to refuse their families’ requests. As one man, a university professor with five grown children and a wife to support abroad, said, “What can I do? I myself I don’t believe in this, but my family does and I loved my brothers … they fought and died and I did not. I loved them and could do nothing for them, so if I can do this for them then I will probably do it. My wife will not like it, and I would rather not, but we have no choice once your family decides. If the marriage is a family marriage, then the girl they choose for you is the family’s wife, not really yours, so you have no choice, and you must marry her, and your first wife must understand, because she has no choice either.” The struggle to balance kinship obligations is a common one. Leng (2004) found a correlation between feelings toward kinship obligations and the length of time couples had resided in Calgary. Men, whose prestige and position within the community depends upon their kin networks, often wished to continue retaining strong extended kinship ties by sending remittances back to South Sudan. Women, however, begin focusing more on meeting the needs of their immediate families in Canada. These shifting priorities leave many men trying to balance the maintenance of a stable household in resettlement and proper kinship ties in South Sudan. As one man explained, many see it as a struggle between the North American definition of family as nuclear, and the South Sudanese definition as extended. We believe in the extended family, so you feel like being here [South Sudan] you will help your family. Because if you are [in Canada] there is no way you are going to be able to sustain yourself and sustain your family here. It’s too hard, because life there [in Canada] is defined around you and your family, and the definition of your family is nuclear – you, your wife, and kids. Here [South Sudan] the definition of family is different, it is extended – you, your wife, your cousins, everyone – and they depend on you. If anyone from my family, or even my area, comes, they can just say, “Hey I need this,” and there is no way



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I can say no. If I say no, then I risk my reputation. So people will come back to Sudan based on that, because you want to do something to help and there is no way you can go back there [Canada]. That is the main reason people come back. Mau’s solution was to return to Calgary to be with his nuclear family and attempt to increase his income in order to continue to support his extended family in South Sudan. Others, however, try to meet their obligations by staying in South Sudan. Akol, a doctor who returned to work at the government hospital in Juba, spoke of the constant pressure from his family in Canada to return: “I love Canada and it is my second home, but they have to understand, I went with no intention of staying. I left not by my choice but because of war and knew as soon as it was over I would be back. My colleagues in Canada thought I was crazy, and my children don’t understand. They miss me, and one is angry I am here, but I have other family too – like my father – and I have responsibilities to them too.” The issue of men returning to South Sudan and leaving wives and children behind in Calgary was a hot topic of discussion between men and women in the Calgary community. Even though a majority of women preferred to stay in Canada, many eventually felt left behind in Calgary for months, or even years, when their husbands went back. The number of men returning to South Sudan, and the prolonged periods of separation that ensued, led to considerable stress for women in the community. While men at parties often gathered to talk about return and plan business ventures in South Sudan, women, usually in the next room, tended to discuss the latest tragic case of a woman abandoned by her husband who had returned to South Sudan and remarried, or simply refused to give any indication of when he would return. The stress of finding themselves suddenly single parents, and the uncertainty of their marriage and financial situations took its toll on many of the women whose husbands had returned to the South. Mercy is a Latuka woman in her mid-thirties with four children. Her husband had returned to South Sudan for a visit, taken a job, and at the time of this interview had been away for over a year: I’m crying all the time, just crying. I’m not crying because he is away – I’m crying because of my responsibilities. I don’t sleep, ever. When I go to work at night I come to the house at 7:15 in

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the morning, then I have to wake the kids up, prepare them to school, then I go to bed around 8 or 9, but I have to get up at like 12 noon to get all my work done. And that’s that. Because I have to clean, I have to cook, I have to take care of the little ones. I have to do work, go out shopping, and be back when they come from the school. And then the homework … oh, my God! I have to help with homework, then I give them shower, feed them, and put them to bed. When they go to bed at 9 or 8:30, sometimes I sit with Deng [her eldest son who is in junior high] until 10 because his work is so hard and I don’t know exactly how to help with his homework – it’s difficult for me, even the terms are so difficult for me. My husband always did this – he knows English more than me, he has a degree … this was his job. Sometimes he [Deng] explains the terms to me and we laugh and he says, “Who is helping who now?” But that’s my life now – when the kids go to bed I don’t have any time to go to rest, so I just make my tea or coffee and go back to work and that’s all I do. Settlement and social workers in Calgary noted that after the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed there was a marked increase in the number of women accessing services for the first time, even though they had been in Canada for several years.9 As a result of the gendered division of responsibilities in most South Sudanese households, a large number of women had been in Canada for five to ten years, but never had the opportunity to learn English10 or familiarize themselves with services such as banking or how to pay bills. When their husbands returned to South Sudan, however, they suddenly found themselves responsible for the household, despite having little experience in many day-to-day household tasks. Several women whose husbands were in South Sudan spoke of feeling abandoned and unprepared to look after their homes and children. One mother of four, who worked night shifts at a chicken processing plant, told of how her husband left her responsible for the car payments and mortgage. He had promised he would be gone for only six months, but two years later had yet to return. To add to her frustration, although she was making the car payments, he did not trust her to drive, so he had locked the car, put an anti-theft club on the steering wheel and taken the keys with him to South Sudan. While she finally managed to gain access to the car, rumours that her husband had taken a second wife only increased her stress.



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Another woman spoke of the financial stress she was enduring as the result of her husband’s decision to take a second wife upon returning to South Sudan. While ostensibly exploring business opportunities in South Sudan he contacted her and instructed her to take out a $15,000 line of credit and wire him the money so he could invest it in what he described as a fantastic business opportunity. After sending the money she did not hear from him for two months. It was only upon calling his house in South Sudan and having another woman answer and introduce herself as his wife, that she learned he had used the money, not for a business opportunity, but to pay the bride wealth to marry a second wife. The threat of husbands remarrying weighed heavily on many women’s minds in Calgary, often weakening their positions within their own households. They were too scared to oppose their husbands for, as one woman said, “If you disagree with him he will just tell you to stop bothering him, and if you continue he will tell you to be quiet or he will just go back to Sudan and get a better wife.” Some South Sudanese women attempted to use the increasingly difficult position many women were finding themselves in as impetus to advocate for increased women’s independence. Women in positions of authority within their respective communities identified the increased number of households headed by single women as an opportunity to push men and women to focus on the importance of education and language training for women. Aguok, a senior woman in the Dinka community in Calgary, had first-hand experience with the stress a husband’s return to South Sudan could place on a household. Her husband had returned to the South to take a position within the government. Since their three children were older, in university, and her marriage “old,” she said she did not initially object to his return; he would be making a good salary and would be sending an agreed amount home to help pay for their children’s schooling and their mortgage. At first everything proceeded as planned. However, a few months after his leaving, the phone calls and money transfers stopped. She eventually received a phone call from a family member informing her that her husband had taken a new wife. After much negotiation they eventually agreed that her husband would still send money to help support their children, but would not contribute to the mortgage for their house. He told her she could find a job to pay for the house if she wanted to keep it. Aguok had a post-secondary degree from Khartoum and had worked in Sudan for

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many years, but had put her career on hold in Canada in accordance with her husband’s wish that she remain home with their ­children. When he remarried in South Sudan she suddenly found herself trying to find work in her mid-forties with no Canadian experience, just to pay for her home. She found employment as an immigrant women’s counsellor, managed to keep her home, and now spends most of her days counselling other refugee women. She works primarily with young South Sudanese wives and mothers, attempting to emphasize the importance of pursuing at least a basic education and learning to function independently outside of the home. Some of our community members kill their wives by keeping them at home. Not really kill them, you know … but kill any chance they have for a good future. They don’t send them to school, they don’t let them learn how to survive here. If you stay at home and you don’t go to school, what will you benefit from? Nothing. This year you will have baby and next year another one and then this becomes your permanent life – you don’t write or read, you don’t know how to shop, you don’t know how to do anything because you’re just staying at home. Sometimes this is from the lady who wants to stay at home, but most times she is getting some restriction from her husband. They say, “If you’re going out, you see and hear about money and want to spend too much.” Or, “If you are going to school you will find a boyfriend, your eyes will open, you will know more and come and kick me from our home.” This is a very bad concept for the men to have, a very bad concept. The future should be for both of you, education should be for both of you. The decision to return to South Sudan or stay in Calgary is not easy. Either choice often leads to increased tensions between spouses, parents, and children, or with extended family members in South Sudan. The back-and-forth movement of men between South Sudan and Canada as they attempt to negotiate competing kinship obligations emphasizes the importance of family considerations in migration decisions. The “mirage” of permanent return as a viable possibility often leads to the reality of a transnational life, stretched between two or more countries, becoming the only way many men see of balancing their extensive social obligations.



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Return and the Search for a South S u da n e s e I d e n t i t y Travel between Calgary and Juba became increasingly common during my stay in South Sudan and I was surprised at the n ­ umber of acquaintances from Calgary I ran into while in Juba. One night while out for dinner at the Queen of Sheba, an Ethiopian-style restaurant frequented by foreign aid workers, I heard a familiar loud laugh. Before I could mentally place it, I was being hugged by Arek, a twenty-two-year-old woman whom I had interviewed as part of my research in Calgary. I had no idea she had been planning to return to Juba, and we were both shocked to see each other. She was the first of the few young women I had met who had returned, so I was interested to hear how her stay had been going. Arek’s father had been a high-level commander in the spla who had been killed in the war, and she was closely related to several very highly positioned officials within the government of South Sudan (GoSS). She had left Sudan at a young age as part of the group of youths who were sent to Cuba during the war. Through Arek I was introduced to a group of young South Sudanese–­Canadians, the majority of whom had also lived in Cuba, who had returned to the South after hostilities with the North had been officially terminated. While the majority of returning South Sudanese–Canadians tended to avoid expat hangouts like the Queen of Sheba, Arek enthusiastically referred to it as her “home away from home.” She and her friends spent most of their time in Juba either there or at the Havana, a Cuban-themed restaurant run by two fellow Cuban South Sudanese–­Canadians catering to the expat crowd. I spoke with Arek several times over the next few months. She often referred to the social and economic marginalization she had felt in Canada and her desire to return to South Sudan to find her sense of self and a feeling of belonging. Although she often grew frustrated with the slow bureaucracy and rough living conditions, she remained convinced that if she remained in Juba long enough, and eventually travelled to the village where she had been born, she would finally be able to, as she stated, “know all of myself” and to “understand the part of me that is ‘South Sudanese.’” Shortly before leaving Juba, I met with Arek one final time at the Havana, and found her enthusiasm to connect with her “South

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Sudanese self” had become shaken. When she arrived at that meeting the first words out of her mouth were, “I’m ready to go home, I just need a bathroom, a good shower and some clean water … I want to leave.” I was surprised at her change in attitude, since just a few weeks before she had seriously been considering accepting a job in Juba and making her return to South Sudan permanent. She explained that a frightening encounter with the police a few nights earlier had precipitated her change of heart and convinced her that, although she hoped to find a place to belong in South Sudan, “I’m just as much an outsider here as I am in Canada.” She went on to explain that she had been leaving a restaurant with her cousin in the early hours of the morning when she was propositioned by a couple of police officers. Her cousin reacted angrily to their comments and they were subsequently grabbed, handcuffed, beaten, and taken to the police station. I thought I was in a movie – they were beating me, they were beating my cousin. They thought I was a Ugandan prostitute and kept saying, “Why do you come here? You are not a good woman out drinking.” They only stopped when they heard me speaking [her native language] to my cousin. They realized then we were Southern Sudanese. But then they got angry again – they took all of our money and said, “We are starving and have no food for breakfast and now you come back and spend all your money on drinking while we suffer and have nothing!’ They only stopped when they read our ids and knew who my uncle was, and then they were scared and let us go. My cousin wanted to tell my uncle, but I said no, I know the type of justice they give here – it’s not like what we are used to in Canada – and I don’t want to be the cause of that. Arek’s story illustrates the struggles many young South Sudanese– Canadians face when trying to find their place in Canada and South Sudan. Many had high hopes that, upon their return, they would find a way to move beyond the marginalization they felt in Canada. While some did find success in business or through government appointments, they tended to remain isolated from the larger South Sudanese population, socializing only with each other and preferring to work with Western non-governmental organizations or the



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United Nations rather than in the local government. As one young woman who came back to work with the GoSS said, “I only lasted a month there. No one would listen to me because I was young and a woman. And the corruption was unbelievable! I couldn’t handle it. It was stressing me out too much. As soon as I could, I moved into a position with undp [United Nations Development Program], and I’m much happier now.” The difficulties that younger South Sudanese–Canadians returning to Sudan had fitting in did not go unnoticed. Older returnees were saddened by the fact their youths seemed unable to fit in in Canada or Sudan. One older returnee commented, “You pity the young. When they were taken away they were very young … and when they went to Canada they could not fit in there because of problems with race and all that … so they have a lot of trouble with the law, and alcohol and conflicts with the community. So they try to come back here and still don’t fit, and have problems.” One of the primary differences between young South Sudanese– Canadian returnees and those who had remained in South Sudan was their desire to move beyond relying solely on tribal11 affiliations for establishing and maintaining social networks. While South Sudanese youths in Calgary were encouraged to socialize with those beyond their tribal community, including non–South Sudanese, this practice often led to tensions within communities and between family members in South Sudan. One young man observed, “It is normal to go to your tribe sometimes. It is your tribe and you should. But for us young people, if there are any conflicts or something like that, those who will protect you will be your friends, not your community or your tribe. This can make people angry sometimes, they will say, ‘Why are you spending time with So-and-so? They are not from us.’ They don’t understand that doesn’t matter for us anymore.” Many older returnees also noted a shift away from purely ethnic or tribal affiliation. They were surprised to find that, unlike in Canada where they tended to spend more time with members of their tribe, in Sudan they were now associating more with South Sudanese–­Canadians, regardless of tribe. That is not to say that ethnic or tribal divisions present in Canada disappeared completely. Tensions between tribes from Equatoria and Dinka and Nuer tribes continued to surface in Calgary; however, many still noted a marked difference in whom they were associating with regularly:

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It is different how we group here. Like, if I go with some people who were never away, never in Egypt or Canada, and we talk, I don’t fit with them. Like, if I say, “Canada has snow,” somebody who has never been there and doesn’t know snow will say to themselves, “This person does not belong here.” Because of this most of us from Canada, we become like one body. Like in this house now there are seven of us, all Canadian, and another house there [points down the road], they are six, all Canadian, and another house on the next street, there are six more, all Canadian. The relationships between those who stayed in South Sudan during the war and those who fled was a touchy topic for many returnees. While many were reluctant to talk about conflict or tension at first, it was clear they existed. When the topic was first broached, many would say that job discrimination did exist and they felt that their resumés often went to the bottom of the pile when it became known they were from Canada, but that people were justified in doing that, since the feeling was that for those who stayed it was “their time now, after so long in the bush they deserve to get something good.” While many older returnees seemed prepared to accept that and wait for a position, it bothered many younger returnees. They were indignant that their skills and abilities to contribute to reconstruction were being ignored by people who they felt were under-qualified for the positions they held. Many also felt the contributions they had made to the war effort, such as sending remittances and lobbying for international intervention, were ignored and undervalued by their family members and the community in South Sudan. A story relayed to me by Michael during my first week in Juba painted a clear picture of these tensions. He and a friend, who had resettled to Australia during the war and who had also recently returned to Juba, both owned land in the city prior to the war. They were reclaiming plots of land illegally claimed by spla commanders in their absence and rented to tenants at the end of the war. While Michael pursued his claim through the court system, his friend tried to talk to the commander occupying his land in an attempt to reach an amicable compromise. Michael accompanied him to the meeting, and upon his return told me angrily how the commander had pulled a gun on them before they had even had a chance to talk, and warned



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Michael’s friend not to return or pursue a land claim because “I don’t care when you bought it or how much you paid for it, I fought while you ran … I paid for this land with a bucket of my blood!” Tensions between returnees and those who remained in South Sudan for the duration of the conflict are not limited to just those who attained resettlement. Efforts to repatriate thousands of South Sudanese from neighbouring countries also raised tensions over resources and land claims, as well as aggravating responses to changing marriage, family, and gender norms. For those who were in third country resettlement, as Arek had unfortunately discovered when she was arrested, such tensions often resulted in the redrawing of boundaries, identifying some who are considered “South Sudanese” in ways that often exclude those who have spent significant amounts of time outside the country. Subsequently, many returning Southerners, driven to return by a yearning for home and a connection to the “South Sudanese identity” that they feel they have lost in Canada, find themselves once again negotiating and producing new forms of association and group affiliation born out of forced migration and resettlement.

Conclusion These narratives add complexity to discussions of exile and return by highlighting the displacement many returnees feel as they attempt to reconnect with the ideals of home they have imagined, but to which they often no longer feel they belong. The chapter illustrates the need to address the inadequacy of simply categorizing complex and fluid refugee experiences and has demonstrated problems in characterizing those experiences in linear terms. In none of the cases examined, whether it be Paul’s successful reintegration into Juban society, Mau’s aborted effort to return, Arek’s struggles to find belonging, or any of the other examples cited, could their experiences be characterized as linear. As South Sudanese–Canadians continue to inhabit increasingly transnational social fields, their experiences of return migration highlight the fluidity and contextual nature of the meaning of many traditional labels employed to describe their circumstances. Rather than presuming a directional finality to their movements, as exemplified by unhcr’s “durable solutions,” the experiences of South Sudanese refugees moving between Canada and South Sudan highlight the “circularity of movement and the multidimensionality of connections” (Um

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2006) inherent in forced migration. As many South Sudanese begin exploring the option of living transnationally, third country resettlement and repatriation often blend into indistinct phases, becoming parts of an ongoing identity negotiation and renegotiation. The simplistic labelling of returnees’ experiences as successful if they return permanently and unsuccessful if they continue to travel between two or more countries is clearly problematic. While it may be valid to suggest Mau’s experience of return was unsuccessful because he returned to Canada prematurely, or that those who had thriving businesses in Juba and so stayed permanently were successful, generalizing such conclusions would be grossly premature. Following that rigid division would lend one to conclude Paul’s experience of return was unsuccessful simply because he decided not only to reside in Juba, but also to regularly return to Canada for extended periods, and that Michael’s was successful because he made a permanent return to South Sudan. Such conclusions, however, clearly ignore the obvious complexities of those individuals’ experiences. The diversity in how return is practised and enacted, as illustrated by those examples highlights the need to move studies of return migration beyond the dichotomous categories of returnees and those who stayed behind (Horst 2007). Individuals’ varied flight and resettlement experiences, kinship obligations, and expectations for return often lead to vastly differing experiences. The increasing ease of transnational movement has allowed many Southerners to attempt to fulfil their obligations to kin in both Canada and South Sudan by straddling the space between both countries. The manner in which individuals fulfil those obligations, however, can vary dramatically and further illustrates the complex and contextual nature of return. It was kinship obligations, for example, that ultimately led Mau to return to Canada, yet very similar obligations that resulted in Akol choosing to stay. Gender relations also factored into experiences of return migration and perhaps most clearly illustrated its transnational character. Because men usually returned to South Sudan alone, leaving the women behind, the two sexes experienced return very differently. Gender norms often left women secluded in their homes, looking after children and unable to access education and valuable life experiences in Canada. Expectations of men to take second wives upon return then resulted in those women being forced to face difficulties for which they were unprepared, leaving many, such as Mercy



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and Aguok, having to adapt quickly just to ensure survival of their families. As a result, women and children were frequently left vulnerable and with few options. The often unrecognized gender dynamics of South Sudanese return migration illustrates that increasing the focus on the fluidity and frequency of refugees’ transnational ­movements should not obscure recognition of factors that limit movement of specific groups within the population. Perhaps what all returnees shared was their desire to find a way to balance multiple ways of belonging across the variety of identity categories they negotiate daily. Whether challenging the bounded identities associated with their refugeeness, tribal affiliations, or nationality, in all cases presented, the complex and contextual nature involved in this balancing act played a major role. Some, such as Michael and Akol, seemed to have found what they were looking for, while others, such as Paul and Arek, were still searching. Chol, a Dinka man who spent over a decade in Canada before returning to South Sudan to work for the United Nations Development Program, summed up the feelings of many returnees when he stated, “How can someone say one place is their home over the other? They are both our homes, and that doesn’t have to conflict. It’s absolutely possible to have loyalty to two homes, to two nations. We are all Southerners and Canadians. I go everywhere for meetings and I tell people internationally and locally, ‘I am a Southern-Sudanese Canadian.’ Government can have problems with this sometimes, but it’s really not governments that have the problem, it is really only people with the conservative mindset, who think only about borders that think it is only possible to have one home.” As Chol and other South Sudanese–Canadians continue to inhabit increasingly transnational social fields, it is clear that the uniformity or stability of the boundaries established by the categories of “South Sudanese” and “Canadian” are blurred and continuously shifted when South Sudanese–Canadians unpack their return experiences and negotiate ways of belonging that continually cross them.

Notes 1 This chapter is based on twenty months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in 2009–10 with Southern Sudanese refugees living in Calgary, Alberta, and Juba, South Sudan, to better understand the transnational

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connections that refugees maintain with their country of origin. The Calgary portion of the research consisted of interviews with thirty individuals, as well as thirteen months of participant observation (attending community meetings and social events, spending time in the homes of community members, etc.). Research in Juba consisted of interviews with twenty Southern Sudanese–Canadians who had repatriated, as well as six months of participant observation. Traditional robe usually worn by Arab men. This earlier research was conducted in 2004, as part of a research project under the auspices of the American University in Cairo, as part of a larger project studying the expectations and experiences of Sudanese refugees resettling from Cairo to Canada, the United States, and Australia. During the thirteen months in which I conducted participant observation with Southern Sudanese in Calgary, I had several field sites. However, the after-school program where I spent three days a week and ­coffee shops frequented by community members were some of the few sites tied to a specific location. Other sites within the city were tied to events rather than locations, including community meetings, weddings, funerals, parties, women’s groups. My field sites in Juba were as fluid as in Calgary and involved accompanying Southern Sudanese–Canadians as they went about their daily activities (business meetings, shopping, social events, etc.) and were based more on following the flow of their actions than spending time at a specific location in the city. While I originally attributed Paul’s new-found self-assurance and the change in how we interacted to his happiness at being “home,” I began to wonder if there was also a shift in how he and I perceived our relationship – in Calgary he had relied on me for assistance running the after-school program he managed (transportation, gathering resources, organizing paperwork, etc.), while in Juba I was now the one who needed guidance and it was Paul who was taking the lead and showing me around the city, offering me advice, and providing me with meals. As I spent more time with him in Juba I became increasingly convinced that it was also the shift in our relationship and the power dynamics that led to my changing perception of our interactions and of Paul’s demeanour. Hut made out of mud, normally with a thatch roof, typically found in East Africa. Interestingly, this also is a primary argument against resettling refugees in the first place. The head of unhcr in Southern Sudan blamed



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the lack of postwar development in the South on the fact that too many of the “good refugees were scooped up by greedy Western countries” and that resettlement policies greatly contributed to “brain drain” in war-torn countries. 9 This statement is based on anecdotal evidence shared during interviews by staff of three large settlement agencies in Calgary, as well as interviews with school settlement workers. 10 Upon their resettlement, it is very common for Southern Sudanese wives to enter low-income jobs requiring minimal English skills relatively quickly in order to support their families financially as their husbands pursue ­English training and education. 11 The use of the term tribe is frequently contested because there are negative connotations of “primitiveness” or “backwardness” sometimes associated with it. Since it was the expression most often used by Southern Sudanese to describe certain relationships and affiliations, however, my use of the term reflects their language choice.

5 To Cross the River: Refugee-Physicians and Their Mission to Return to Post-Conflict Sudan j u l i f i n l ay When you are sending a soldier to cross the river, it’s just to cross the river, and they have accomplished their mission. But with us, the soldier has been sent and we didn’t cross the river yet. We are beyond the river. We have to cross. So that mission, we have to accomplish it to cross the river. That’s the thing that we have to do. Madit (2006) spla’s children of war are trained to be the future soldiers of peace and development. Mansoor Khalid (1992)

Introduction In 1985 and 1986, 619 South Sudanese adolescents journeyed from Itang refugee camp in Western Ethiopia to Isla de la Juventud (Isle of Youth), an island south of the Cuban mainland, and the boarding schools of Fidel Castro’s Cuba. The late John Garang de Mabior (henceforth referred to as Garang), leader of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army/Movement (spla/m) from 1983 to 2005, promised them a free education and safety, and Castro’s foreign education policy was the means to that safety. The foreign education program brought students from Africa and Latin America to receive an education and then return home with needed skills. Garang and the spla/m transformed Cuba’s policies into a “mission” that



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he bestowed upon the 619 South Sudanese youths: to go to Cuba, receive an education, and become the future of Sudan when the war is over by returning to South Sudan and imparting their new skills and knowledge to the people in need. More than a decade later, as some of the students completed their education, Cuba and the United Nations sent about 200 of them to Canada as refugees from the civil war, which continued in Sudan. In 2006, after completing medical school in Cuba and moving to Canada as refugees, fifteen of those students – no longer children – began a medical education/aid experiment. Samaritan’s Purse, an international evangelical Christian-based non-governmental organization (ngo), paired up with the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Medicine to help the fifteen tune up medical skills that had been unused since the refugees’ arrival in Canada between 1998 and 2002. The Sudanese Physician Reintegration Program was created to provide instruction in medicine from University of Calgary Faculty of Medicine volunteers, and in Christianity from Samaritan’s Purse, who also provided financial support to the participants throughout their training. This chapter is based on a study conducted in Calgary, Alberta, in 2006 to examine factors influencing the return of refugees to their homeland following termination of hostilities. The chapter applies a historical approach to analyzing one of the motivating factors: the “mission” to return to South Sudan and apply the education and skills obtained in Cuban schools to the post-war rebuilding process. The research comprised the entire group of fifteen Cuban-educated Sudanese refugees in Canada who were participants in the Samaritan’s Purse / University of Calgary Faculty of Medicine Sudanese Physician Reintegration Program (sprp). The study encompasses two sets of semi-structured interviews, the first during the ninemonth training period of the sprp, and the second immediately prior to departure for a medical internship in Nairobi, Kenya, following the classroom work in Calgary. The study’s method came out of a joint agreement with four representatives of the fifteen sprp participants in a meeting in January 2006. Following this agreement I introduced the study to all sprp participants in a group meeting at Samaritan’s Purse headquarters in Calgary during that same month. As the potential participants were simultaneously involved in a training program that University of Calgary faculty members partially administered, I explained that the

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decision whether or not to participate would not be revealed to sprp leaders or instructors. Everyone agreed to participate, and I arranged two sets of private individual interviews over the next six months. Two of the study’s participants are women, thirteen are men. At the time of the interviews (spring and summer 2006) they ranged in age between thirty-two and thirty-seven years old. They all fled from villages, towns, and cities in the South Sudan states of Jonglei, Lakes, and Upper Nile between 1983 and 1985. For the doctors, English is a third, often a fourth, language. The phrasing they used in the interviews has generally been retained in the quotations that appear in this chapter. I gathered the documentation and secondary source materials after the formal interviews. I selected specific materials that connected directly with the themes and stories from the interviews. These sources include documentation from contemporary newspaper articles and the United Nations about Itang refugee camp, a collection of speeches of Garang’s, an unpublished evaluation report on the Sudanese Physician Reintegration Program, emails from informants, and literature from the Samaritan’s Purse Canada website. In the initial meeting with my informants, and later in the first set of interviews, I realized that more factors influenced their return than I had found in the refugee studies voluntary return literature, like family or the opportunity to work as a doctor, although these were there, too. Several of them referred often to their “mission.” As I probed in the interviews, it struck me that a concept or idea that was such a strong motivating power in their lives required a historical perspective – not to isolate the moment that spawned the notion of a “mission,” but to investigate the processes that nourished their mission up to the moment I met them, when they were telling me it motivated their return. While still conducting the first set of interviews I turned to historical anthropology as a framework for understanding the mission and why it seemed to have such a strong influence on the decision to return to South Sudan. According to Silverman and Gulliver (2005), “Historical ethnographers try to link the past with the present, chronologically and processually, in order to explain the present by understanding the past. The concern here, then, is not only to record the past for its own sake but to show how things came to be the way they are now” (152). Historical anthropologists assume that the past significantly contributes to the actions of individuals in the



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present, and that people can identify some of those historical factors, but also that a review of the historical records can supplement that understanding. In attempting to understand the influence of a particular mission in motivating fifteen people to return to South Sudan, I opted to first understand how that mission was defined, where it originated, and what fed and nurtured it over more than twenty years through multiple nations, ideologies, levels of education, and life experiences. Wolf (1999) encouraged locating the object of ethnographic study not just in place, but also in time: “It is not the events of history we are after, but the processes that underlie and shape such events. By doing so, we can visualize them in the stream of their development, unfolding from a time when they were absent or incipient, to when they become encompassing and general. We may then raise questions about proximate causation and contributory circumstances, as well as about the forces impelling the processes toward culmination or decline” (8). In accessing the methods of historical ethnography, I am attempting to delve more deeply into one of the factors barely examined in the voluntary return literature, that of the “noble mission to save their nation” (Al-Rasheed 1994, 211). Comaroff and Comaroff (1992) suggest that the objective of historical anthropology is to make use of all available sources, whether archives or interviews. What is important in historical anthropology is to read the sources, whether informants themselves or written materials, with a multiscopic vision that allows the anthropologist to rebuild the individual threads that created a tapestry of meaning in time and space. As with Comaroff and Comaroff, my task is to establish how the mission became real and an essential element in the story of my participants’ return.

F ro m S u da n to C a n a da Leaving Sudan On 16 May 1983, members of the Sudanese army mutinied in Bor and Pochalla in southeastern Sudan. This incident marked the onset of the second twentieth-century civil war in that country. For the participants in this study it was the beginning of a long journey: to Itang, an Ethiopian refugee camp; to a boarding school and medical

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school in Cuba; then to a classroom in Canada preparing to return to southern Sudan in 2006. For some the trip to Ethiopia was relatively easy, traveling in a vehicle with other spla members. Or, in one informant’s case, flying to Nairobi for a brief holiday before his father informed the family they were not going back to their comfortable life in Sudan. For others, like twelve-year-old Timothy, the 300-kilometre walk from Malakal was long and terrifying. Of the seven children travelling without family members, he was the only one to survive when his group ran out of water in a fourteen-hour trek across a desert in January 1985. Itang was a grass hut and tent refugee camp fifty-five kilometres east of the Sudanese border in southwestern Ethiopia on the Baro River. It grew quickly as the civil war in Sudan spread, the population of the Ethiopian province of Ilubabor growing from 12,000 Ethiopians to include more than 40,000 Sudanese refugees within the first year of fighting (unhcr 1985). The participants in this study lived in Itang or the nearby military training camp for varying periods of time, from a few months to more than two years, before rumours spread about the possibility that some of the children would be sent far away for an education. The spla headquarters were near Itang in Bilpam, also in Ethiopia. Mengistu Haile-Mariam, Ethiopia’s president at the time this study’s informants lived in the camp, supported Garang and spla’s revolution against the Sudan government by hosting spla headquarters and allowing the rebels to cross the border with Sudan (Johnson 2003). Mengistu, who had benefited in the past from relations with the Soviet Union and Cuba (including support from 16,000 Cuban troops who helped Ethiopia repel Somali forces in 1978), introduced Garang to Castro (Gleijeses 2002). Mengistu had been sending Ethiopian students to Cuba for a free education through Castro’s foreign student education program (described below) since 1979 (Kebede 2007). Several of my study participants informed me of Garang’s connections with Mengistu and Castro, and they told me about a visit Garang made to Cuba and his reasons for going, which subsequently became what they described as their “mission.” So at that time the leader of movement [Garang] had a relationship with the government of Ethiopia. The government of Ethiopia, too, had a relationship with the government of Cuba.



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So our leader, he talking with Ethiopian government to get us to Cuba. Because at that time we don’t have even passport. We don’t have condition to go there. But I think leader of movement, he told government, “I have student here, but we looking for some place, somewhere that these students could go there and could continue to school. One day they could come back and then they can – for future, they can come back in country and they can develop our country in the future. Because now they are children, and now we are time of war. So better for the children they can take out and they continue their study. And then later they can come back and they continue their development of the country.” (Riek) There is some question of how the spla/m commanders selected the children they sent to Cuba. A total of 619 went, although there must have been thousands of school-age children in the camp by then. The United Nations (un) estimates the population of Itang at 72,000 by mid-1985 (unhcr 1985) and 104,000 by mid-1986 (unhcr 1986). The consensus of this study’s informants was that selection was based on academic merit and age. spla officers and camp teachers (not un staff) collected the school-age children in the camp together and administered a test in Arabic and English (being taught in the refugee camp by un teachers). If they passed, they went to Cuba. The selected children spent three months at spla headquarters in Bilpam, learning Spanish from Cuban teachers. Then on 30 December 1985 the first group of approximately three hundred youths and fourteen Sudanese teachers boarded a Soviet Union cruise ship from a port near Asmara (now in Eritrea), headed for Isla de la Juventud, where they arrived on 22 January 1986. The remaining children flew in two groups from Ethiopia to Angola to Cuba, arriving in June and July 1986. Abraham described the departure speech given to the first group by Garang and its impact on him: They told us, “It’s not your time to fight the enemy. Now you have to go to Cuba and you have to study very good. You gonna be a future fighter in our country.” And this war, and this speech is still in our minds, you know. Because the people who were saying that to us, they all of them are die. But this mission, go back to Sudan and participate in construction of our country is still

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… it’s the same mission they told us before we left our country. They told us to go there, to Cuba, and go back to Sudan to help our people to provide education, health – everything we got in Cuba, they told us go back and teach our people. Yeah, this our mission. Isla de la Juventud, Cuba Resting off the southern coast of Cuba’s main island, Isla de la Juventud hosted boarding schools where Cuban students worked on a nearby farm to support their needs and went to school on weekdays, returning home to their families elsewhere on the Isle and on mainland Cuba on weekends (McManus 2000). In 1977 the C ­ astro government opened the first foreign student boarding schools to house and educate Angolan and Mozambican students. All received free tuition, room, and board, and a monthly stipend in exchange for agricultural work. The goal of the foreign scholarship training was to provide an education for those who otherwise would not receive one, and then to have the students return to the country of origin to use that education to help in the development of their own country (ibid.). By the mid-1980s when the informants in this study arrived to occupy what had been one of the Ethiopian boarding schools, Isla de la Juventud hosted students from Angola, Benin, Bolivia, Burundi, Cape Verde, the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Kampuchea, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Saharawi, Santa Lucía, Sao Tomé y Príncipe, Seychelles, Surinam, Yemen, and Zimbabwe (McManus 2000, 129). Canada The students were never intended to live in Canada. The agreement between Garang and the Cuban government (as with all foreign students educated in Cuba) was to return home following graduation. Instead, after several attempts to reintegrate former students that ended badly and political changes in spla/m and the Soviet Union, the Cuban government chose to stop sending the Sudanese graduates back to Sudan or bordering countries. In the 1990s the youths no longer had a relatively stable organization to return to in South Sudan, as the situation in the spla/m changed through infighting



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and fission. The spla/m had split into two factions in 1991; the spla/m Mainstream led by Garang and the spla/m Nasir led by Riek Machar (see chap. 7 in Johnson 2003 for a detailed examination of the history and impact of spla factionalism). Simultaneously, the fall of the Soviet Union precipitated a crisis in Cuba, making life more difficult for everyone, including foreign students. Cuba contacted the United Nations, asking for a place to send the graduating students. Following attempts to establish nationality via refugee camp rosters, the United Nations conferred refugee status on the Sudanese students and informed them that Canada would provide refuge without proof of citizenship. The invitation was open to all Sudanese living in Cuba at the time. No time limit was set, allowing the fifteen informants to complete the six-year medical program, graduating as general primary-care practitioners. While more than half of the Sudanese refugee students left Cuba after completing secondary school, college, or military or agricultural training, all of this study’s informants remained behind to complete medical school, arriving in Canada between 1998 and 2002. Once in Canada, many of the graduates resumed contact with family members they had lost for the majority of the time in Cuba. For most of the students, contact with family meant learning of their dire circumstances: living in refugee camps or areas of South Sudan with little or no infrastructure. This knowledge meant Cuban medical school graduates had to decide whether to pursue the uncertain pathway to a medical career in Canada or the more assured route of unskilled or low-skilled jobs that would pay the bills and allow them to send money so siblings could go to school in Kenya, or family members could leave the refugee camp they had lived in for nearly twenty years. By 2005 none of the twenty-six Cuban-educated Sudanese physicians residing in Canada were working as doctors. When ­Alexander, one of this study’s participants, contacted them that year about moving to Calgary to participate in the Sudanese Physician Reintegration Program (sprp) so that someday soon they could return to South Sudan as doctors, fifteen of them responded in the affirmative. The sprp was born as a result of the cooperation between Samaritan’s Purse Canada and University of Calgary’s Faculty of Medicine whose goal was to facilitate the return of qualified physicians to South Sudan within three years. It differs from previous Samaritan’s Purse Canada “world medical missions.” One mandate

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of ­Samaritan’s Purse as an evangelical Christian ministry and aid organization is to provide medical support to areas in need in the world through short-term placement of volunteer Christian physicians, dentists, and other medical personnel at mission hospitals and clinics (Samaritan’s Purse Canada n.d.). They do not generally partner with a secular university medical school. Also, they had never trained and supported physicians who originated from the region. Nor had they engaged in the long-term commitment that sprp required through the Calgary-based language and skills upgrading and the Kenya-based internships. When a director at Samaritan’s Purse Canada learned of nearqualified doctors willing to return to Sudan – substantially increasing the number of Sudanese doctors practising in South Sudan, with a potential long-term humanitarian impact, a partnership was suggested and accepted with the University of Calgary International Medical Graduates Program director. As the participants lived in various locations across Canada, Samaritan’s Purse Canada accepted responsibility for relocating the doctors, providing their living expenses and all direct costs of the training program, which took place from January to September 2006, and dealing with future initiatives in Africa to facilitate their repatriation. Those future initiatives included a period of internship in participating hospitals in Kenya that began November 2006 in order to provide the trainees with hands-on experience in an environment closer to the one they would encounter in their homeland. Faculty of Medicine instructors with developing-country experience planned, developed, and presented the training to upgrade or update basic clinical skills, clinical reasoning, and medical knowledge relevant to Sudan. Samaritan’s Purse Canada provided a shorter parallel program of personal, professional, and spiritual development (chapter 6 provides greater details about the sprp).

The Mission Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines mission as “a body of persons sent to perform a service or carry on an activity,” “a specific task with which a person or a group is charged,” or “a pre-established and often self-imposed objective or purpose.” A “mission” in this context is an idea that propels action, with a specific end in mind. As mentioned above, the informants to this study viewed their



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e­ ducation in Cuba as the beginning of a mission given to them by Garang and/or high-ranking members of spla/m. To complete their mission they needed to return to Sudan, to educate and to heal its people. Most of the fifteen doctors spoke of their mission in the first set of interviews. When asked about what had influenced their decision to return to South Sudan, they all provided similar descriptions of their mission, including its originator and its definition. As Solomon described it, “When we are saying it’s our mission, because when the war start in Sudan and we decide we want to join our movement to fight for our country, so our leader decide to send us somewhere to study. But the reason when he send us to study, not just study for yourself. Because when the war over, those people then can do something for the country. That, we say, is our mission. When our leader sent us to Cuba to study, not to stay in Cuba or to go somewhere else. It’s to go back to our country.” In slanted handwriting, this mission was outlined on newsprint at the front of the room at Samaritan’s Purse Canada’s headquarters in Calgary in January 2006: Return to South Sudan to help suffering people as medical doctors • Bring leadership • Educate Sudanese people • Rebuild South Sudan • Reconciliation • Encourage spiritual growth (share gospel) • Support peace Overall, this mission is to rebuild South Sudan, after the end of the civil war. Several doctors spoke of themselves as a second wave of fighters, except their fight would not be against northern government troops and instead would be against the devastation, poverty, and illness that would likely result from extended hostilities targeting southern villages. Alexander said, Our people, they say “We are going to fight. We are going to fight, you are kids. We are going to fight, you go to school. When we finish the war you can be able to do the second war.” Because they know that the second war is more complicated than the war they were being. Because it’s easy to take the gun and shoot

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somebody. But it’s not easy thing to build building or to educate people, get school. It’s not easy. So it’s investment. Go to school. So everybody has mission. They had their mission and we have our mission. And altogether combined we form the Sudan. So people gave us that mission. We say that Dr Garang sent us to Cuba. But Dr Garang without people is nothing. So it was our own people. Rebuilding is the goal, and the informants are active, educated, expected participants in that process, sent away specifically for that purpose. What is it, then, that they are supposed to do when they return to South Sudan? What are the components of this mission? There is education, as indicated above. Not simply receiving an education in Cuba, but taking that education, practising what one has learned, and teaching the Sudanese who were not able to go to Cuba themselves. In addition to repayment for the education they received in Cuba, a theme that emerged in the interviews was a sense of indebtedness to those who had remained behind in Sudan – an indebtedness that strengthens their belief in the importance of their mission to return and rebuild. We are one of the people who had a chance to get out from the refugees camp ourself, to travel far away to Cuba and have a chance to continue the education and be someone in the future. But when they sent us, we were obligated, because they knew the war would be over one day, but if we don’t teach people, no one is going to help, because many people they die in this war, more than two million people. Most of them they leave their wife behind, they leave their kids behind, they leave all the member of family. And those people, they didn’t have chance to go to school. They been in the war for twenty-two years. There’s some kid that born in refugees camp. This mean all their life was in the war. And you know the loved one give their life for the freedom we’re going to have now. And if those people that died for us to be free, I think the mission is to go back and try to finish the job they start. It means like try to help those people who are coming back from the war. Try to help those people who didn’t have an opportunity to go out. Try to educate those kids of martyrs who were there in the war, but they don’t have any kind of education.



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This mean if you go there, they will feel like they get a payback because they say, “Oh my father died in the war, but now there’s somebody who had a chance to get his education through the Movement, through the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement. So this person now can give me what my father didn’t … he couldn’t give me, like an education or shelter.” (Timothy) While repayment was part of the mission, there was also the desire to honour those who fought and died for their freedom. Yar acknowledged the chances he was given and the responsibility he felt for receiving opportunities others did not: I think I’m one of the lucky people, and all of us we are so lucky to be sent to abroad and get that education. Which our nationals, our brothers who are in Sudan, they couldn’t have that chance … And the way that only to deal with those is that showing them that what we learn here and go back is not just for us, it’s for all, for them and for everybody. We are here on behalf of them. And the job we will be doing, we will be doing for them, and to them … A lot of people put their life on the line to save … to liberate the country. And I think this our turn to go back and, you know, give that they need. Timothy talked about responsibility and selfishness: I try to put myself in their shoes, those people who was in refugees camp, they use to live out, they used to walk three miles, five mile every day to get water and walk for miles looking for food, wearing one clothes for almost a year. And so I have to put myself in those people who didn’t have opportunity like the one I have to go out and study abroad, to get a chance to come to Canada and to make my life. So the way I feel is a big responsibility and I have to go back and try to do something to better the life. Because if you don’t go back, no one’s going to change a life. It will be like this forever. And it’s not right. This mean it would kind of selfish for us to stay here and good living and not helping those people who deserve a little bit of help. Gabriel spoke of the sense of duty created in him by the generosity of others:

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My going back to Sudan is in a sense of duty that I say okay, somebody give me education in Cuba. I didn’t pay for it. So I came here to Canada. I didn’t pay to come to Canada. Somebody paid for it. And now in this program, which is medical upgrading skill in U of Calgary, I didn’t pay for it. Somebody pay for it. So all those people have been blessing from God to me, so I could be also blessing from God to other people. I can also deliver health care. I can also go to South Sudan and I can save his life. Along with their sense of responsibility to those they left behind, the doctors believed the people in their towns and villages expected them to return. They received feedback from other Cuban-educated Sudanese living in Canada who had made trips to Sudan. People there were waiting for “Garang’s seeds” to return and fulfil their duty in helping to heal the people and rebuild the skeletal infrastructure. “And they are still waiting for us. They heard about our program. People in the villages and people outside the villages: where are the seeds? They will call us Garang seeds. Where are the seeds? When they are coming? And now a lot of people are happy now because they know we are coming” (Alexander). Two of the doctors, along with representatives from Samaritan’s Purse, met with Salva Kiir, then first vice-president of Sudan and president of the government of South Sudan, in Washington, dc, on 19 July 2006. They informed him about the training program and discussed the impending return of fifteen Sudanese nationals. That visit and the subsequent oral report back to the group further encouraged the belief that they were wanted, needed, and expected. Salva Kiir was one of the spla/m officials who spoke to the informants before they left the refugee camp in Ethiopia, increasing the potency of his assurances. As Timothy stated, I remember exactly when I went to Cuba, even the ticket, I receive ticket of admission that you going to Cuba, I receive it from his [Kiir] hand. And I think no one know more in spla than him in this situation know of us than other people who went to lead us in Cuba. Because he’s the one person who sent us to Cuba. And for him to see us working back home would be big support, would be something that could give him hope that really Sudan going to work because he will see, I sent those kids



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for education. They get the education. And now they come back. He will feel like he accomplish his mission. Thus helping rebuild through education is one component. So is practising the skill they earned in Cuba: medicine. Using their medical expertise, not allowing all that time and training to be wasted, formed another branch of their mission. Ruth said simply, “I want to go because I have a need to practise my profession.” Jok said, The possibility to practise medicine here [in Canada] are minimum. And, if there’s a chance, instead of wasting my knowledge and just stay here, I find it better go there and try to practise it … And also, you know, I’m going home also. So, if I just stay here and not practise medicine, so there’s no reason that I studied medicine in the beginning, because when you study something it’s to practise it. And you don’t practise it, that’s just a waste of part of your life. So I’m finding that. If I go there and I try to practise it, it would be helpful for me, and it would be helpful for the people. Several of the doctors said that there are approximately fifty doctors for ten million people in South Sudan. The World Health Organization does not maintain statistics separately for north and south Sudan, but Samaritan’s Purse staff suggest 179,000 people per doctor in South Sudan. A 2007 report from a World Bank Health Sector team stated, If the number of staff is calculated according to known qualifications, rather than job title, the inventory shows that there are few highly skilled staff in the workforce. A more detailed analysis of the survey data showed an estimate of 4497 health personnel who have some kind of health training, from 1–6 years. This means that, with an estimated current population of 11 000 000, in Southern Sudan there is less than one health worker (0.4) for every thousand people in the country. This is estimated to be an absolute shortage of personnel and will certainly have an impact on health outcomes and on the ability of the country to achieve its priority health goals. In addition there are large differences in distribution between and within States; here, as everywhere,

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there is an urban bias with a quarter of all health personnel in three towns, Wau, Juba and Malakal. (World Bank 2007, 57) Jok addressed this shortage: “There’s no people working there in Sudan. I mean healthy people in the field of medicine. And if we fifteen will go there, I think we can make a difference. It’s not like there’s a village and there is one doctor. You can do what you can do. It doesn’t mean that you are going to cure everybody, but you can make a difference in that village, or any town.” In addition, practising medicine in South Sudan was indicated as particularly important. Abraham asserted, “I want to go back to Sudan to help. First one, I want to go to Sudan to help my people, you know. To provide health care there in Sudan. Not in Sudan exactly. Because Sudan is divide, you know. When you go to the north, they appear, too, like south, but when you go there the thing is better in the north, more than south. Why I want to talk – I want to go to South Sudan, you know, to provide health to my people.” Building ethnic unity (also reunification and reconciliation) is the final component to the mission. Jok spoke of the destructiveness of what he termed tribalism: “People all the time try to separate people, and that why there’s a lot of trouble, because there’s tribalism, because people try to be separate, and you are Nuer, you are Dinka, and that. And I think that the main problem, that it bring conflict now between tribe. People don’t want to work together, you know, to be the same people. And I think to limit to tribalism will be difficult. Because all the time people identify themselves, like Dinka, Nuer, Anuak, and all that, you know. So it’s kind of hard, you know.” Several of the doctors spoke of the regional divisiveness of the South Sudanese, and the manipulation of the northern government that contributed to the factionalism within the spla/m and perhaps extended the civil war. Having lived together, regardless of ethnic affiliation, for more than two decades, and influenced further by Cuban attitudes (described below) and what they termed Canadian multiculturalism (the idea that people live together in Canada without extensive overt problems that can result from differing ethnicity), the doctors believed that all South Sudanese could and should live and work together toward the common cause of a unified South Sudan. They viewed themselves as role models for such unity: “They have to see how we are here. We are from many different tribes, and we are getting along because we do understand each other. And the



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differences we can lead them away. And to get that what will give us the unity. If you aren’t united, your enemy will kill all of you one by one. But if you guys are united, that is the way you can fight your enemy” (Madit). Returning to the statement on the wall of the Samaritan’s Purse Canada headquarters, the overall mission, then, is to help rebuild a post-conflict Sudan. The fifteen doctors described how they would do that: through education of the people, practising medicine, and providing an example of unity and cooperation. This was their mission – one described with consensus and described in the interviews as a primary motivator for their return to South Sudan upon the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005.

Origins of a Mission While the form the mission took is unique to these doctors, they are not unusual in believing they have an important role to play in rebuilding their post-conflict nation. Nor are they unique in stating that this mission is a motivating factor in their voluntary return. Egon Kunz made an early attempt to consolidate individual refugee experiences into a model with predictive possibilities (Kunz 1973, 1981). While he recognized the uniqueness of each refugee situation, he sought out the recurring elements and common patterns. Through a comparative study of available refugee literature, Kunz recognized that combinations of certain factors affecting the timing of flight and the perceived reasons for flight and continued exile resulted in differing refugee outcomes (Kunz 1981). Regardless of the reason for flight, Kunz (1981) found that a refugee’s social relationship with the people of the home country fell into three categories: eventsalienated refugees, self-alienated refugees, and majority-identified refugees. Events-alienated and self-alienated refugees are embittered or ambivalent toward their former compatriots either as the result of events such as discrimination preceding their flight (events-­ alienated) or for personal reasons or philosophies (self-alienated). The Sudanese physicians in this study fall more readily into his majority-identified category. Kunz (1981) defined majority-­ identified refugees as “those refugees who are firm in their conviction that their opposition to the events is shared by the majority of their compatriots. These refugees identify themselves enthusiastically with the nation, though not with its government” (42–3). On

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the ­outcome (a desire either to return home or to settle permanently in the country of exile), Kunz (1981) contended that the majorityidentified refugee’s strong ideological connection to the homeland, or to a group in the homeland, drew him or her back when the conflict ended. In addition, the ideological connection with the majority of the people they left behind may evoke a form of survivor guilt. This guilt for not sharing the same fate and experiences as those who did not leave may lead to perceptions of responsibility for the lives of “their people,” compelling them to find ways to help the people “back home.” Barnes’s 2001 study of resettlement experiences amongst Vietnamese refugees in Australia supported Kunz’s outcome predictions for majority-identified refugees. She found a tendency for majorityidentified refugees to anticipate a return to the country of origin when circumstances allowed it (such as when a peace agreement is reached between the warring factions). During the period of exile they watch social and political developments in the country of origin, evaluating the potential for a safe return. In this study, the Sudanese doctors maintained a strong connection with the spla/m, which has a representative in Canada who has met with the group on multiple occasions. The meeting with Salva Kiir, president of a sanctioned, semi-autonomous government in South Sudan at the time of their training, by two of the doctors in Washington, dc, in 2006 also reinforced the ideological connections to the spla/m, and reassured them of the place open to them in South Sudan. It was also a reminder of their mission to return and assist those who had been left behind while they were afforded an education outside of the war zone. According to Al-Rasheed (1994), some refugees view their flight as refugees not as a matter of individual choice but as a collective action that circumstances force upon them. This type of refugee, one with an affinity for the majority group in the home country (e.g., the spla/m), can view himself or herself as the future enactor of a “noble mission” to save the nation in one form or another (“The soldier has been sent, and we didn’t cross the river yet,” said Madit). These refugees are not estranged from those they left behind; rather, they identify with their suffering and seek to alleviate the anguish they escaped. The idea behind the mission, attributed to Garang in 1985 and 1986 by this study’s informants, seemed to spotlight the acquisition



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of an education unavailable to many Southerners in Sudan at the time of the war, and limited only to primary grades in the refugee camp. Difficulty for Southerners to access an education equivalent to that of northern Sudanese is a theme that can be traced far back into Sudan’s history. By the time Sudan was granted independence in 1956, “Not only had they [Southerners] no qualified candidates; it would be very many years before more than a tiny handful of Southerners could complete the lengthy educational preparation which was required, and gain a little experience and seniority” (Sanderson and ­Sanderson 1981, 3). In Rumbek in the 1970s, a town in the Lakes District southeast of Wau, access to education for Southerners was difficult to come by. Yar, who lived near Rumbek at the time, told a story of education and its importance to him. His father, he said, was a very hard worker, but his older brother had died, leaving him with the responsibility for his brother’s wives and children in addition to his own. Yar was the fourth of his mother’s children, and, with no school nearby, took care of his father’s goats and sheep. One day government official come – the police. And they took one of my favourite goats. And I said, “Oh what is wrong, why they took?” And they say, “Oh, this is the government.” We didn’t pay the taxes last year, so that why they come and, you know, when the one year pass you gotta pay. And I wasn’t happy about that. And I said, “Dad, what is the government?” And he say, “You know, the government has people who are educated. They know how to read and write. And they are the one running country, you know. And we pay them goat.” And I say, “You know, you should put me in school and we’ll be part of government.” [Laughs] And he says, “Yeah, yes I know, I will do that, but … you have to grow a little bit and then I will put you in school later.” Two years passed, with Yar not forgetting about school. During that time an older cousin told him about a school that had opened up thirteen kilometres from his house. Yar thought to himself, “‘I have to do something. My dad seem to be forgetting that promise he made to me.’ And one day I just left. I didn’t tell him where I was going. I went to school to … to see what was going on there.”

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Yar saw other children sitting on the floor writing Arabic letters in the dirt. He watched until the director of the school noticed him and called Yar over, asking his name and what he was doing at the school. Yar said, “I’m just watching the student.” The director asked if Yar liked school. “Yes,” he said, “I like it.” “Okay,” said the director. “Sit down here.” Yar sat and began to learn the letters. At the end of the day the director said, “Okay, you will come back tomorrow.” And he did, neglecting his goats and telling his suspicious older brother he had gone to visit an uncle. The next day the director asked to meet Yar’s father: “You are doing so well, and I think you must be in this school.” According to Yar, at that time sons were trained to take care of the sheep and goats, and eventually the cattle. They did not go to school. But Yar was persistent. He went home and told his father that a school had opened up and the headmaster wanted to speak with him. His father asked, “What, did you cause a problem over there? And by the way, how did you get there, and why you went there?” Yar said, “Dad, I just went, you know, I pass there – I was going to see my uncle and my cousin. I don’t know what happened. He called me and he said, ‘Let your dad,’ you know.” The next morning they met the headmaster. Yar’s father asked if Yar had been causing problems. “No, no, no. No, not at all,” stated the headmaster. “Your son is great. He been here for two days and he’s doing so well I’m just amazed. So I just want to help him to get to school. How many sons do you have?” “Three,” answered Yar’s father. “You can leave two and take care of other business at home. But you can put this one in school,” said the headmaster. Yar’s father agreed. The next day he and Yar went into Rumbek to buy the shoes, notebooks, and pencils he needed. He started school in 1979, older than many of the other children, but quickly rising to the top of his class. Three years later he moved in with an uncle and cousin in Rumbek where it was easier for him



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to get to school and he could help in their business. In 1984 the war found him and all the schools were shut down. He was in grade six. Several of his friends heard about an spla base and a United Nations refugee camp in Ethiopia. He decided to go with them. First, he stopped to see his father. “Are you leaving? Are you going to Ethiopia?” his father asked. Thinking his father would say he was too young to go, he said, “Yes.” “Okay,” said his father. “Go with God. And try to go to school.” “Dad,” said Yar, “there is no school. It’s just going to be bush. This is not a school – there is no school.” “Oh, you will find a school.” Yar found the refugee camp, and eventually a school, with help from Garang. Garang was born on 23 June 1945 to a family of cattle herders in a Dinka village north of Bor in Upper Nile state (Burr and Collins 1995). At ten years old he was orphaned, and a relative sent him to primary school in Wau. He attended secondary school in Rumbek, but his Christian education was interrupted when President Abboud imposed aggressive Arabization and Islamization policies that expelled and denied re-entry to the Christian missionaries who still ran many of the southern schools. In 1964 the Sudan government officially expelled all remaining Christian missionaries (Holt and Daly 2000). Garang fled Sudan for Tanzania in 1962, where he continued his studies, winning a scholarship to Grinnell College in Iowa, earning a bachelor’s degree in economics in 1969. He was briefly a member of the southern-based Sudanese guerrilla army Anyanya, fighting against government forces, then absorbed as part of the peace process in 1972 into the Sudan government army and moved to Khartoum (Phombeah 2005). Over the next eleven years Garang completed the Infantry Officers’ Advanced Course at Fort Benning, Georgia, United States. He also earned a master’s degree in agricultural economics and a PhD in economics at Iowa State University. As part of the government army in May 1983, Colonel Garang went to mediate in the mutiny of Army Battalion 105 in Bor, but instead joined with the mutineers (ex-Anyanya fighters) who fled to Ethiopia (Johnson 2003). Once in Ethiopia, Garang became founder of the spla/m and its leader, until he signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in January 2005. Following the peace agreement he

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became first vice-president of Sudan and president of the government of South Sudan, roles he assumed for only three weeks until his death on 30 July 2005. (Unless otherwise indicated, the information about Garang is from Flint 2005.) Peter Adwok Nyaba wrote about Garang and the spla/m during the civil war as an insider (Nyaba 1997). He joined the spla/m in 1986 but participated in the factional split, joining the spla/m Nasir group until 1996 when the spla/m reconciled and reunified. Nyaba suggested that a “cult of personality” developed around Garang and the other top spla leaders in the training camps, one that seemed to be evident in the reverence with which many of this study’s informants spoke about him. In the course of their training, the recruits used to spend eight to ten hours a day, not receiving political education, but on songs of praise to the leaders of the Movement. In fact, instead of praising the revolution or liberation struggle, the soldiers idolized and mystified the leaders. Even the support from friendly countries and governments was mistaken for a favour from Dr John ­Garang de Mabior. This general feeling was reinforced by Dr John Garang himself whenever he personally interviewed each and every recruit into the Movement, and distributed the weapons and uniforms to them individually at the time of their graduation. Thus, after this experience, each spla soldier formed the idea in his mind that it was Dr John Garang who was the revolution and, as such, it was the duty of all soldiers to pay allegiance to him. (Nyaba 1997, 50) It is not only the doctors in this study who have expressed the desire ­ arang’s role to participate in the rebuilding of South Sudan, and in G in fostering the idea. Bixler (2005) interviewed several of the “Lost Boys of Sudan” who travelled from the refugee camp of Kakuma, Kenya, to the United States. They also believed education was the key to reconstruction of the South. In 2002 in a speech in Atlanta, Garang reminded the “Lost Boys” of the importance of acquiring an education and skills that would be useful for the rebuilding effort on their return to southern Sudan at the war’s end. Whether it was Garang’s idea to send the children to Cuba, or, as Berger (2001) suggests, a Marxist south Sudanese member of the spla and former lecturer at University of Juba, it was Garang to



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whom the doctors attributed the active pursuit and implementation with Mengistu and Castro. Madit recounted what he believed about Cuba and Garang’s role: Since then Dr John Garang, with the president of Ethiopia, they talk about what will be the future of those children they were having in refugees camp and others in spla/splm headquarter. And he decide to say, okay, in Cuba he has a lot of children there, about a thousand Ethiopian children, they are studying there. And other from the third world. The good thing’s we have to go to see Fidel Castro. And he went, Dr John, the late John G ­ arang went to Cuba to see Dr Fidel Castro. They had a conversation – about eight hours having very good conversation and Fidel ­Castro accepted. They say, “Bring them in, there’s no problem. As much as you can.” Several of the doctors suggested that Garang had them sent to Cuba so that no more children would be sent to war. Why did Cuba accept the 619 Sudanese students, spending the resources required to educate them, some for fifteen years of professional education, only to send them back to their source countries at the conclusion of their education, thus never directly benefiting themselves? And how did the time and experiences in Cuba reinforce the importance of education to the rebuilding of Sudan and the role of these informants in that process? Revolutionary Cuba has a lengthy history in Africa, beginning very soon after Fidel Castro seized control in 1959. Early on, Cubans volunteered for international assignments in health, education, and military programs. They called these assignments “missions” (Báez 2004, 23). According to Gleijeses (2002), within two years of ousting Batista Castro, Castro’s representatives were offering assistance to Algerian rebels who were fighting against Algeria’s French colonialist government. Within weeks a Cuban ship offloaded weapons for the rebels in Casablanca, returning to Havana with seventy-six wounded guerrillas and twenty children from refugee camps. Thus began the era of Cuban scholarships to foreign students. Cuba provided a place to live, expenses, and an education to youths from developing countries. This was partly a response to the dire need for medical staff in countries to which Cuba was providing military, health care, and technical assistance. For example, before the arrival

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of Cuban ­doctors, there had been a total of nine doctors serving all of Congo (with a population of 850,000 people). The Cubans sought a more permanent solution than the provision of their own medical staff (many physicians fled Cuba when Castro took over, leaving the country in dire need itself). They offered “full scholarships to 210 Congolese teenagers to attend secondary school and, eventually, nursing, agronomy, or, ideally, medical school in Cuba” (Gleijeses 2002, 168). While the result was not ideal (many of the teenagers were selected on the basis of bribes and personal connections over academic ability), when they arrived in early 1966 it was the largest group of foreign students hosted by Cuba to that point. Since then, thousands of African students have studied in Cuba on full scholarships paid for by the Cuban government. The peak number of African students was reached in 1988, with 18,075 in residence (Gleijeses 2002). When the Sudanese students arrived in 1985 and 1986, revolutionary Cuba highly valued the combination of study and work in an effort to develop a holistic “new human being” through Marxist education programs in which students worked and workers studied (Gleijeses 2002). The work/study combination for foreign students meant working in large school gardens surrounding the dormitory-schools. According to Gasperini (2000) a component of the education curriculum involved sixty hours of “values education” in ninth grade. None of the doctors discussed this (or any other subject that they studied), but if it was taught to them, topics covered in the classes included values and attitudes aiming at consolidating internationalism, national identity and patriotism, a morality of work, solidarity and defense against external threats. In addition, teachers reinforce values and practices that permeate the entire life of the school. For example, the colectivo is at the center of the school life. Individualism is discouraged, both among teachers and students. Cooperation and solidarity between students of the same group or class coexist with competition between classes and groups. Competition is called “emulation” to emphasize that its aim is self-improvement and not a fight against the other. Selfsacrifice and rejection of individualistic attitudes are also seen as



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characteristics of the “new human being” that the education system aims to produce. (Gasperini 2000, 19) The students also learned the history of Cuba, Cuban revolutionary heroes of the past (e.g., José Marti), medical missions of the past, and values of “just seeing people as one … not have a separation of others,” said Madit. In a speech on 22 February 1963, Castro said, “‘The power of Cuba is the power of its revolutionary ideas, the power of its example’” (Gleijeses 2002, 22). Apter (1993) believes that Cuba has used its health-care missions as a “form of political outreach” that “has become one of the dominant narratives of the Cuban revolution” (xiii). Gleijeses (2002) argues that Cuba’s involvement in Africa’s revolutions was both an enactment of their revolutionary ideals and an act of self-preservation. Providing assistance to revolutionaries that espoused socialist principles would both weaken American influence on the continent and provide Cuba with allies outside of the Soviet Union. Hammett (2003) also suggests that Cuba uses aid to “encourage policy reform in recipient countries” (11). Feinsilver (1993) highlights how widespread Cuba’s international medical aid programs have been, albeit primarily in countries or with revolutionary groups with similar or compatible ideologies, providing millions of people with direct medical care, and thousands more with medical education and training. She suggests that provision of this aid has “vastly improved Cuba’s relations with other countries and has increased Cuba’s symbolic capital among governments, international organizations, and intellectuals” (156). Gonzales (2000), on the other hand, argues that Cuba’s assistance is altruistic, that, as Castro said, it is Cuba’s duty to compensate Africa for the role of slaves and their descendants in the revolutionary wars, and in creation of revolutionary Cuba. Feinsilver (1993) says that the Cuban government explains its internationalist policies of civilian and military aid and its solidarity with third world liberation movements as repayment for the international assistance it has received in the past, particularly from the former Soviet Union and other Eastern European countries. However, there is also an expectation, echoing Gleijeses, of economic support through trade and aid, should they need it in another form, such as, food, oil, and, if that is not possible, then diplomatic support on the international

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stage. Gonzales (2000) agrees that Cuba has received political support from Africa in return for medical missions, military assistance, and education programs. There are themes in Cuba’s policies and programs that reverberate in the sentiments of the doctors when they speak about their mission. They feel a need to repay a debt, not to those who provided them with assistance, but to others who need help. The term mission itself echoes the terminology the Cuban government uses to describe their internationalist assignments to provide education and medical aid. The values of self-sacrifice and responsibility to others learned working in the gardens, and in the stories they heard about the medical and military missions, contributed to the reinforcement of their own “mission.” The primary and secondary school systems encouraged cohesion of the group. Certainly by keeping the Sudanese together they have said that previous ethnic attitudes ceased to be important when they lived together “like brother and sister” (interview, Seth) for so many years. To build ethnic unity became a significant component of their mission. There can be little uncertainty that the powerful ideas and activities the doctors were exposed to early in their lives contributed to the perpetuation of the goals of the mission, even to the original idea itself. They were told about the importance of education in their home villages and towns and in the refugee camp. Garang, a welleducated person himself, sought out education for the youths, knowing that a future Sudan would need educated people to rebuild. In Cuba the students learned about altruistic medical missions, self-­ sacrifice, and how to live together (relatively) peacefully. In Canada the affiliation with (and active support of) Samaritan’s Purse Canada, an organization committed to providing medical support as part of their self-described aid mission, reinforced all of these ideas. The mission to become “Garang’s seeds” was a powerful force influencing, perhaps even motivating, these fifteen people to find a way to return to South Sudan when the opportunity presented itself. In October 2006 fourteen of the fifteen doctors returned to South Sudan briefly before completing internships in Kenya. They visited the burial site of Garang, then were greeted by Salva Kiir Mayardit, president of South Sudan, in his office. The next chapter sheds light on the journey that these physicians embarked on from Canada to Kenya and finally to South Sudan.

6 Competence, Confidence, and Conflict: The Sudanese Physician Reintegration Program1 rodney crutcher, daniel madit thon duop, j o h n c l ay to n , r u t h pa r e n t , a l l i s o n d e n n i s , scott shannon, and shelley ross

Introduction2 The international community continues to be highly engaged with the Republic of South Sudan (rss), as are fifteen Sudanese-­Canadian physicians who, in contrast to the global flow of physicians from the developing world to the developed, chose to return to their homeland (Chen and Boufford 2005; Crutcher et al. 2008; Mullan 2005). This chapter explores a seven-year program carried out by the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Calgary (U of C) and the Samaritan’s Purse Canada (spc) to provide these physicians with upgraded medical skills to enable them to return to the rss to practise medicine. Through the personal story of Madit Thon Duop, as well as a broader account of the curriculum design and outcomes of the Sudanese Physician Reintegration Program (sprp), we recount the journey of these physicians from Sudan to Cuba to Canada to Kenya and finally back to South Sudan. A quantitative and qualitative mixed methods approach to education and assessment demonstrates the impact of this program on the physicians involved and on health care in South Sudan. Developing a U of C–based educational curriculum that was practical and needs-based was key to ensuring that training was relevant to South Sudan. Achieving engagement from Kenyan mission hospitals allowed for hands-on training in an environment comparable

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to South Sudan. Accomplishing an educational mandate in South Sudan, where assessment is not part of medical or regulatory culture, where conflict is prominent, and where health-care needs are overwhelming and resources scarce, required a flexible and nuanced approach. The evidence allows us to affirmatively answer our research question, “Are the physicians applying and adapting learning in their Sudanese workplace with increased competence and confidence?” With the physicians’ return to South Sudan and placement in hospitals and clinics, they began applying their clinical skills in their homeland. The U of C–trained Sudanese physicians are effecting change in their communities, and their skills are being applied to save lives.

Beginnings Madit Thon Duop3 was born on 20 March 1970, in Bor Civil Hospital, in what is now South Sudan. Born a Bor Dinka of the Dinka tribe, he is a member of the Pan Buoi Family, the Athoon Clan, the Nyarweng (Duk County) Section, and the sub-tribe of Dinka. He was the second-born of twins. His name combines the prefix Ma, for “boys,” with dit, which means “birds,” as the Dinkas believe only birds give birth to twins. When he was seven years old, Madit was baptized a Christian and given the biblical name Daniel. His father, Nathaniel Thon Duop Bol Buoi Arak Lual, had five wives. Madit has six sisters and five brothers. Thirteen other siblings have predeceased him. Madit began school in 1977 at the Duk Payuel Primary School. On 16 May 1983, as he was about to start his Primary 6 (grade 6), the civil war broke out in Bor town. To escape the fighting, he took his pregnant mother and three siblings and ran out of the town. As he recalls, “I walked for two days and my father came from the village to rescue us. My siblings couldn’t walk anymore and I couldn’t handle carrying my younger brother, who was three years old. We settled in Panyang (a village), but my mother’s health kept deteriorating, and there was neither medicine nor a doctor. My mother passed away after giving birth to a baby girl, who also died the same day. My mother asked me to leave the house with the kids before she closed her eyes. She did not want us to see her passing away.” As Madit’s father was the sultan of the clan in Panyang, it was his responsibility to accommodate and feed those who were ­walking



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through the village on their way to Ethiopia to join the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army/Movement (spla/m). He also facilitated this migration by providing policemen to guide the people to the border. As Madit explains, The enemies of the spla did not welcome the kind of work that was done by my dad and they planned to kill him. The spla leadership discovered the plan, so the leader, Dr John Garang, asked my father to leave the village and join the spla/m. On February 20, 1984, my father told me he was leaving and taking me with him, saying that it wasn’t safe for me to remain behind. He also told me that I was going to continue my school in Ethiopia, so I became very excited. My father had assembled around eight hundred men, including myself. I had no idea where we were going, except my father told me we would walk for more than two weeks. It was fine with me, and I had the idea of schooling as my driving force. I was not carrying anything heavy, just my father’s walking baton and his big hat on my small head. Sometimes I would carry no weight, because someone else carried me. My father decided that we would walk at night and rest during the day so that enemy planes would not detect us. It was very hot during the day, and people would walk long distances without finding drinking water. The group arrived at the Itang refugee camp in Ethiopia on the twelfth day of their journey. Madit’s father was summoned to meet with the spla/m leader. As Madit recalls, I was sitting with my father when Commander Ngor arrived and told him that Dr Garang, the chairman of spla/m wanted to see him. Always close to my dad, I looked at him, thinking he would leave me and go alone. My dad immediately understood my worry so he told me, “Let us go.” I was curious about the man who was being followed by all of Sudan. We arrived at the big man’s house, and he was there waiting for my father. Dr Garang stood up and greeted my father warmly. He ordered my father to go to an splm political school where mature and intellectual Sudanese were instructed in the objectives and ideology of the splm. There was no mention about my school, and I felt betrayed. Tears flowed down my cheeks, and

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my father’s expression became angry, as I embarrassed him in front of Dr Garang. But Dr Garang asked me politely in Dinka, “What’s wrong, my nephew?” I explained that my father had brought me here for me to go to school, and now he is the one going to school and I am not. The commander-in-chief persuaded me by saying the school my father was going to attend was for adults only and not for children. He assured me that if I waited, the opportunity for my schooling would come soon. Madit’s father joined the spla/m political school, and eventually Madit found himself in Bilpam, the general headquarters of the spla/m, Around a thousand kids had just arrived from Greater Bahar El Ghazal in the South of Sudan. Those age-mates walked for more than three months, facing all kind of difficulties and dangers that I would never want any child to face. I joined the Gallant Troops of the Red Army and our commander was Dr Garang. In Bilpam we were trained there together with about one company of girls and women who had also joined the splam/spla. At the same time, a training of 10,000 troops was taking place in Bonga – a training camp for adults on the highland of Ethiopia. When those troops were graduated and sent to the battlefields in Sudan, some of them were passing via Bilpam. Among them there were some boys that were our age-mates whom we knew. Those boys and some adults nicknamed us “Katiba banat” (in Arabic), which means “girls’ battalion.” We were named that simply because we were trained with girls in the same camp. So we got upset and complained to Dr John Garang that we wanted to go to Bonga, otherwise that nickname will not go away … In 1985, we found ourselves on the mountains of Bonga as the Red Army Battalion #1. Dr Garang went there with a big delegation from the Cuban government. The visit was about the arrangement made between Ethiopia, Cuba, and the splm, regarding our going to Cuba and continuing our education there. I was happy and excited at the same time because the opportunity that Dr Garang promised to me had come. In December 1985, Madit was part of the first group of approximately three hundred children to travel to Cuba. They sailed at



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Christmas on board the Soviet ship Ayvozovskiy. On their twentyfour day journey, Madit saw “a totally different world  – things I had never seen or imagined before.” On 22 January 1986, their ship docked in the Port of Havana, where Madit and his colleagues were warmly received by Cuban government officials. A few hours later, they boarded a smaller ship, which transported them to Isla de la Juventud. Madit successfully finished high school and, with his high academic marks, enrolled in medical school at La Facultad Superior de Siencias Medicas de Villa Clara in September 1994. He transferred to La Facultad Superior de Siencias Medicas de Santiago de Cuba in the summer of 1996 and graduated in August 2000. Madit reflects, “I cannot find words to thank the Cuban teachers, people and government for giving us everything they could, during the very difficult times they were going through, so that we could become what we are today. Thank you Fidel Castro and your people.” Madit travelled to Canada and began work at an Alberta meatpacking plant in March 2001. Like most other Sudanese physicians, he sent money abroad to family, helping to support his relatives in the refugee camp in Africa as well as his young daughter in Cuba. Madit and the others were granted Canadian citizenship. Yet, while he continued to work at the meat-packing plant for four years, a return to South Sudan was never far from his thoughts. He persevered, he recalls, “with the hope that one day I would go back to Sudan, Southern Sudan particularly, and practise medicine, and that I would help rebuild the region that had been a battlefield for years, devastated by decades of bloody civil war, with no infrastructure, with a collapsed health-care system, and among the worst health indicators of the entire planet.”

The Request Following the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (cpa) between the Sudanese government and the spla/m, Madit saw an opportunity for the return of the Sudanese-Canadian physicians to Sudan. Despite their relatively comfortable lifestyles in Canada, the physicians confirmed that their individual and collective goals were clinical practice in South Sudan, not Canada. Having been disconnected from their country for nearly twenty years, they knew that reintegration into South Sudan would not be easy. They also readily

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acknowledged that in order to be effective physicians, their medical skills needed to be refreshed, upgraded, and adapted to the realities of their homeland. In May 2005, driven “by both a strong sense of mission and human solidarity with the suffering people of Southern Sudan,” Madit met with members of the Samaritan’s Purse Canada to begin planning for the physicians’ long journey home. Through foundation grants and private donations, spc and the University of Calgary secured $550,000 in funding, and the vision for a holistic program (the Sudanese Physician Reintegration Program) addressing the needs of the physicians – including academic upgrading, English-language skills, leadership, personal development, and preparation for reintegration – began to take shape. Phase 1: Calgary Beginning in January 2006, spc offered these fifteen physicians an opportunity to participate in a personal development program that included refinement of communication and leadership skills. In February 2006, the physicians began an intensive nine-month program of educational upgrading at the U of C’s Faculty of Medicine. Registered as U of C graduate students, they began a course of study that included classroom teaching and supervised clinical experience. U of C faculty members with experience in developing countries established the principles and objectives for the training curriculum. Guiding principles focused on the need for training to be relevant to South Sudan simple, realistic, low-tech, and practical • evidence-based • customized and individualized, as feasible • supportive to the development of clinical skills • •

An educational needs assessment was conducted at program commencement to evaluate medical knowledge, clinical skills, and proficiency in English. In January 2006, the physicians took part in their first Objective Standardized Clinical Exam (osce) to help establish their baseline clinical skills. Every effort was made to adapt the examination to the needs of the program. Twelve actors were employed to act



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as ­standardized patients, including four from the local Sudanese community and one Spanish-speaking woman. As each physician saw each of the twelve patients, an examiner marked them on their ability to take a formal history and perform a thorough physical examination. In some cases, they were asked to suggest a diagnosis, and in one case they were asked to perform emergency life-saving procedures. In the first month of the program, the physicians also completed the Self-Assessment Evaluating Exam of the Medical Council of Canada (mcc) in order to help the program coordinators assess their basic medical knowledge. This online, multiple-choice examination is set at the level of graduating Canadian medical students and is designed to allow international medical students to assess their readiness to sit the mcc Evaluating Examination. Language professionals administered the Canadian Language Benchmark Assessment, measuring the listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills of each physician.4 The assessment results showed many deficiencies in basic knowledge, diagnostic reasoning, and clinical skills. There were also gaps in English-language proficiency. These results were not surprising, as it had been many years since the physicians’ graduation, and they had no intervening involvement in medicine and little time to prepare for these assessments. On the basis of these results, medical educators developed curriculum in an iterative manner to address their needs while helping to prepare them for medical practice in South Sudan. The Medical Education Upgrading Program took place at the U of C between January and September 2006,5 spanning 140 instructional days averaging 6.5 hours per day. More than seventy instructors with knowledge and experience in the relevant topic areas were invited to participate, and many volunteered their time to contribute to this program. The training included interactive presentations, practice of interview and physical examination procedures, case-based clinical problem solving, topical study in small working groups, practice with simulated patients, and supervised patient care. Curricular content spanned tropical diseases, obstetrics and maternal-child care, therapeutics, preventative programs, essential surgery, essential medical procedures, and basic clinical skills and reasoning. The physicians attended a spectrum of additional seminars, conferences, and workshops offered through the Faculty of

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Medicine at the U of C. They also attended guest lectures given by Médecins sans frontières, physicians, engineers, and representatives from local humanitarian ngos. Modelled and practised in classroom and workshop settings, surgical skills and techniques included a focus on emergency trauma management and obstetrics. Instructors used models and mannequins in hands-on sessions that allowed the physicians to practise such techniques as chest tube insertion and lumbar puncture. The physicians practised their suturing skills on pigs’ feet and applied plaster casts to their fellow students’ arms and legs. They took part in two modified short courses: Advanced Trauma and Life Support, and Advances in Labour and Risk Management. To provide direct patient care exposure, the program offered the Sudanese-Canadian physicians opportunities to “shadow” at a local health clinic, a refugee health centre, and local emergency rooms. Additional educational opportunities provided outside the classroom included sessions at the laboratory facilities at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, the operating room at the Foothills Hospital, and a local dental clinic. For regulatory reasons, the opportunity for extensive supervised clinical experience was limited. The physicians received intensive instruction in English-language development. A focus on reading, writing, and public presentation skills incorporated medical language and terminology. Projects were assigned to support the use of English in medical learning and research. Language upgrading was individually structured to meet the needs of each physician. The program also supported the development of medical informatics skills. Provided with their own laptop computers supplied by spc, the physicians were trained in word processing, data gathering, file management, assessing medical information, and formal web-based literature searches. At the request of the physicians and with the support of Samaritan’s Purse, time was set aside each week for applied Bible study. This provided a unique, case-based opportunity for discussions on the ethical issues that the physicians would face at the point of care when they returned to South Sudan. All physicians acknowledged that caring for persons from other tribes and differing faiths would be a component of their medical practice in South Sudan. Towards the end of the Medical Education Program, instruction transitioned to focus on the social and political implications of the physicians’ imminent return to Africa. Presentations on profession-



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alism and medical ethics helped to prepare them for the roles they anticipated assuming in their communities. Formal clinical skills evaluation occurred at the end of Phase 1. A post-program osce was administered in order to determine change in performance over the course of the nine-month program and included “matched” stations to compare with initial osce results. On the clinical assessment component of the osce, twelve of the fifteen Sudanese physicians improved their score over the course of the medical upgrading program. A post-program Canadian Language Benchmark Assessment showed that all fifteen of the physicians maintained or improved their scores on at least two of the three assessment areas of listening/speaking, reading, and writing. The physicians also reported subjectively that their knowledge and clinical skills improved over the course of the training. They noted that while patient interviewing skills were taught in Cuba, physical examination skills were not, so this was a new skill set. They also appreciated the emphasis on clinical reasoning skills, including creating a differential diagnosis. The U of C educational process helped to provide them with an evidence-based approach to patient care. Phase 2: Kenya Having determined that there was a need for additional hands-on clinical training relevant to Sudan, the U of C, spc, and the physicians determined that it would be valuable to seek an internshipstyle clinical training experience in Kenya. A working relationship with Interchurch Medical Assistance facilitated this programming. spc again raised substantial funding, and with additional support from the Capacity Project and the United States Agency for International Development (usaid), a Kenya-based training program was developed.6 The Kenya-based clinical training program began in October 2006, focusing on clinical preparedness for medical work in South Sudan. While in Kenya, the physicians received intense training and experience working with patients and interacting with other professionals. Placed in mission hospitals in Nazareth, Litein, Kapsowar, Kikuyu, and Kijabe, they dealt first-hand with illnesses and diseases commonly found in Sudan. The residency was initially intended to last for one year, paralleling the traditional Kenyan internship, but given the clinical competency goals, physicians were given the

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opportunity to extend the program on a case-by-case basis. Supervisors were required to “sign off” on each rotation when they determined the physician had reached a level that would allow him or her to practise medicine safely, independently, and competently. Each physician was required to complete rotations in medicine, surgery, pediatrics, and obstetrics and gynecology. Some completed the training in just over a year, while others required up to eighteen months. Undaunted by the harsh realities of the state of health care in South Sudan, the physicians were eager to return to their homeland to fulfil the mission given to them so many years ago. Eleven physicians completed their training in Kenya and returned to South Sudan. Phase 3: South Sudan With health indicators among the world’s worst, the Republic of South Sudan (rss) is a nation struggling to meet even the most basic health-care needs of its people (Liverpool Associates et al. 2010; Yogesh, Boulenger, and Pressman 2007). The average life expectancy is fifty-nine years, 8 per cent of infants die within their first year, and 10 per cent of children do not reach age five. A household survey conducted by the South Sudan Ministry of Health in 2010 reveals that in the two weeks prior to the survey, one-third of children in the households surveyed suffered from pneumonia, malaria, or diarrhea. Families often struggle to access care for their children, as only half of the children suffering from these conditions were adequately treated. Care for pregnant women is also lacking, as only a quarter of women receive prenatal treatment. Eighty-seven per cent deliver at home, with more than 40 per cent delivering unattended, and only 15 per cent cared for by a skilled birth attendant (Liverpool Associates et al. 2010). The rss infant mortality rate is 102 (per 1000 live births); the under-five mortality rate is 135 (per 1000 live births). The maternal mortality rate of 2054 (per 100,000 live births) is acknowledged to be among the world’s worst (South Sudan Centre for Census, Statistics and Evaluation n.d.). Currently, there is no formal postgraduate medical education or accredited continuing medical education available in rss.7 When the South Sudanese–Canadian physicians returned to South Sudan, there were an estimated fifty-two physicians available for a population estimated at nine million, and many of these physicians were in administrative roles (Ministry of Health South Sudan et al. 2006).



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While physician numbers have increased to an estimated three or four hundred, many remain in administrative roles, are urban based, and working with ngos. A lack of health-care workers is combined with the added complexity of an environment in which local and Western paradigms of accountability compete for precedence. As in both the developing and developed world, physician shortages are particularly prominent in rural locations. Placement of the Calgary-trained physicians in Sudanese healthcare facilities was overseen by Interchurch Medical Assistance, in coordination with the South Sudan Ministry of Health. The four U of C trained physicians who did not complete the Kenyan training program subsequently returned to South Sudan; they were sponsored by South Sudan’s Ministry of Health and found clinical work at the Juba Teaching Hospital. With the successful completion of the U of C and Kenyan training programs and the return of the physicians to medical practice in South Sudan, the Canadian International Development Agency (cida) requested a proposal from the U of C that would continue to support these physicians and health-care development in South Sudan. The U of C and spc jointly submitted a proposal in September 2008. The Southern Sudan Healthcare Accessibility, Rehabilitation, and Education program (sshare)8 was designed to improve health care in South Sudan, thereby developing stability in communities destabilized by war and creating favourable conditions for lasting peace. Moreover, it sought to provide support for the Calgary-­ trained Sudanese physicians and their health-care colleagues to build medical capacity in South Sudan by rehabilitating essential medical facilities and building capacity for medical personnel. The U of C’s contribution to these goals focused on enhancing the competency and confidence of the Sudanese physicians. cida funds allocated to spc were used to construct and renovate facilities,9 while cida funds allocated to the U of C were used for education. In the early months of sshare, the Sudanese physicians completed a Medical Education Needs Assessment, the results of which shaped U of C program focus and implementation. Medical Education and sshare Globally, continuing medical education and professional development are essential for maintaining clinical competency. For physicians working in remote and isolated locations in the developing

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world, such ongoing learning and professional development are particularly important. Opportunities for continuing medical education within sshare included short-term medical education events, clinical support from visiting physicians, professional development courses, educational resources, and long-distance learning initiatives. sshare physicians were also included in a pilot project associated with the development of the Digital African Health Library.10 Medical camps were an integral part of the sshare program. Each of the seven camps (six in South Sudan and one in Kenya) had a different focus, although each addressed a medical education need as articulated by the Sudanese physicians. Medical camps brought the physicians together for structured events, lasting seven to ten days, which focused on workshops and hands-on teaching sessions to provide relevant medical education. The camps were facilitated by physicians from the U of C and partners from the United States, Kenya, the United Kingdom, and South Sudan. In addition to medical teaching, they provided the physicians with support, encouragement, and the opportunity to focus on their own educational needs and well-being rather than the often overwhelming burden of continuous patient care. Extended visits from Canadian, American, British, Kenyan, and South Sudanese physicians at four of the sites where the sshare physicians worked provided for hands-on clinical support and education, both during and in addition to the medical camps. The sshare physicians were also given the opportunity to attend professional development events, including conferences in Kenya and South Africa. Textbooks, technology resources, clinical support items, and teaching tools were delivered to the physicians to assist in their independent learning and to support the teaching they did within their communities. Educational consultants with sshare developed a program to provide long-distance learning opportunities, creating educational modules at the U of C and providing them electronically to the Sudanese physicians. The long-distance learning content was intended to provide the Sudanese physicians with access to continuing medical education to support their professional development and to build their own learning capacity, confidence, and skills, and was designed to be responsive to the expressed needs of the physicians. The modules were also designed to support English-language proficiency. Over the course of the sshare program, five long-distance learning



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Table 5 The Southern Sudan Healthcare Accessibility, Rehabilitation, and Education program (sshare) medical camps Location

Date

Focus

Werkok, South Sudan

November 2009

Bor, South Sudan Brackenhurst, Kenya

February 2010 June 2010

Bor, South Sudan

November 2010

Akobo, South Sudan

April 2011

Juba, South Sudan

June 2011

Juba, South Sudan

February 2012

Clinical care at the Memorial Christian Hospital Ultrasound instruction Case-based tropical medicine Surgical theatre preparation and surgical skills Ultrasound instruction Teaching and learning The role of physicians as teachers within their communities African dermatology Palliative care Physician wellness Maternal and child health Clinical care at Bor State Hospital (pediatrics and surgery) Outpatient clinics on fertility Anesthesia skills Diagnostic use of ultrasound Surgical skills Integrated management of pregnancy and child care Advanced trauma care Medical leadership, including conflict resolution Professional writing Physician wellness Digital African Health Library

Source: Sudanese Physician Reintegration Program, Calgary, Canada

modules were offered. As the learning modules were initially presented via email, the physicians required Internet access to complete their assignments. As many of the physicians were placed in locations without Internet access, the delivery method was modified to allow modules to be accessed via an iPod. When this method proved to be limited as well, the format of the modules was further altered in an attempt to create documents that were more user-friendly and accessible. Although the physicians confirmed that the long-distance learning program was a priority to them and that it was needed, their demonstrated engagement in this dimension of sshare educational programming was marginal. Ultimately, the long-distance learning program did not achieve its goals. Factors contributing to

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this outcome included technological issues and the time required to complete the modules. Physicians report seeing up to three hundred patients a day, working long hours, and working seven-day weeks. They report very little free time to attend to their own learning needs. As one physician explained, “Sometimes people are busy and they don’t have the time to do it. When they are busy in the hospital and they come home, they are tired and they don’t have time to think.” For this group of physicians an in-person, hands-on approach to medical education and professional development was ideal. Such an approach provided the opportunity for discussion and collegial interaction. Clearly, medical camps, visiting physicians, and conferences provide knowledge and skill development that is relevant and timely. While the long-distance learning program offered an opportunity for the sshare physicians to access educational resources, any such initiatives or courses must be user-friendly and modelled on e-learning experiences that prove conducive to the technological and time constraints of physicians in South Sudan.11 Methods of Program Evaluation In addition to providing professional development opportunities and medical education resources, the sshare project included program evaluation. It is not enough to create education opportunities, resources, and assessments, and assume they are having the effect intended by the creators; all elements of medical education in sshare were evaluated. Thus, a research question was embedded within the broad sshare evaluation plan: Are the sshare-­sponsored physicians applying and adapting learning in their Sudanese workplace with increased competence and confidence? Below, we briefly describe our methods and report on our findings. Principles of Assessment Five basic assumptions determined the type of assessment used for the sshare program: Respect for context (Sudan is different from North America or Europe, where most forms of standardized assessments originate) • Focus on direct observation •



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Assessment for learning (assessment is an ongoing process that evaluates learners and informs them of their strengths and weaknesses so that improvements can be made (Black and Wiliam 1998) • Multiple tools for assessment • Competence is a habit (competence develops over time and should be viewed as a progression, rather than as the attainment of a specific, discrete skill) •

With these principles in mind, a sshare assessment plan was developed to create a culture of assessment, where assessment is valued as contributing to learning and professional maturation. The intent was to look for continuing progress in competence over time. Methods sshare adopted a mixed-methods approach to evaluating its outcomes, including those related to competence and confidence. Qualitative data arose from focus groups, field notes, retrospective observations, physician interviews, clinical site visits, and community medical outreach reports. Quantitative data consisted of examination results. The physician-satisfaction and self-confidence survey and the monthly data-capture reports had both quantitative and qualitative elements. In the early phase of sshare, data from focus groups, physician interviews, and a physician-satisfaction and self-confidence survey were collected. Progress was monitored in part through community medical outreach reports. Intensive data collection was completed at medical camps. Data from all sources were collected in the final phase of sshare. Quantitative data were analyzed using basic statistical functions in Excel. Given the small sample sizes and multiple threats to traditional statistical rigour, statistical data analysis was primarily descriptive. Qualitative data were analyzed using thematic analysis and – where appropriate – grounded theory approaches.

W h at I t M e a n s to B e i n S o u t h S u da n The quantitative data allowed the sshare team to identify where learning had occurred and was valuable for identifying topics that

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could be included in future medical education opportunities. The qualitative data analysis resulted in a better understanding of the experiences of the sshare physicians since their return to South Sudan. With regard to the quantitative data, our survey results indicated a trend towards increasing confidence and satisfaction with professional life and procedural skills. However, there was no reported change in the perceived Clinical Skills Confidence Rating. The apparent plateau in overall clinical skills as noted in the Physician Satisfaction and Self-Confidence Survey could be attributed to a number of factors, including changes in professional roles and responsibilities, a lack of suitable medical equipment, and the challenges associated with reintegration. Community Medical Outreach Reports documented the sshare physicians’ impact on their communities. Evolving from and deepening the physicians’ relationships with their communities, these sessions were trust-generating activities resulting in increased health awareness. The physicians reported very positive responses from their communities to these medical outreach sessions. The monthly data capture reports allowed better understanding of the clinical presentations most commonly seen by the sshare physicians (infections, diarrhea, anemia, and trauma) and the common need for surgical interventions, including such procedures as appendectomies and Caesarian sections. These findings were helpful for determining topics for upcoming camps and for identifying where past camps had contributed to confidence and competence. Further evidence for increasing competence was seen in examination results. During the initial phase of upgrading at the U of C (2006), the fifteen physicians enrolled in the Advanced Trauma Life Support (atls) course. None achieved the overall atls pass benchmark. A comparable, although not identical, program was offered as part of the sixth sshare Medical Camp held in Juba (2012). All but one of the participating sshare physicians passed this course. This improved exam performance on comparable educational tasks provides objective evidence of the participating physicians’ developing clinical competence. Common themes arose in the qualitative data collected about personal experiences, regardless of method (focus groups and interviews). In general, the physicians were most satisfied with their ability to serve their communities and country and to save lives by applying



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The Southern Sudan Healthcare Accessibility, Rehabilitation, and Education Program, community medical outreach, Bor County, South Sudan. Photo by Ajak Kuchkon

their medical skills and knowledge. The physicians were pleased with the independence achieved through the referendum in South Sudan and identified closely with their fellow countrymen and women, which enhanced their pride in being medical professionals in their own country. Over time, most sshare physicians felt that they were successfully establishing networks, both professional and personal. The physicians believed that peace was being helped by the availability of medical care, an area to which they were contributing substantially. However, the qualitative data revealed challenges faced by the sshare physicians. In a country of few resources, many of the sshare physicians reported feeling overworked; many work seven days a week and are the only doctors in their area. In addition, there are financial challenges and the uncertainty of the conditions in which they work; for some, even transportation is difficult, and they walk over an hour to and from rural hospitals. Dealing with trauma daily

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was stressful. Some physicians reported difficulties in being able to get married, as their incomes were insufficient to buy the number of cows needed to meet the expectations of the families into which they wish to marry. Finally, the threat of military service added to their feelings of uncertainty. The physicians’ responses confirmed that they saw the need for continual learning in order to better serve their patients, and that with increased learning came increased confidence. The other qualitative tools used were directed at measuring competence and confidence (field notes, clinical site visits, and retrospective observations). Again, there were common trends identified. Competence and confidence steadily increased over time. These observations provided a rich data source, in part as they contributed a longitudinal dimension to our inquiry and evaluative efforts. Additionally, these types of observations offer a narrative history of the skills, knowledge, and abilities of the sshare physicians by educators who have been familiar with the physicians’ work over a period of four to six years. The dedicated site visits are particularly relevant to the reciprocal nature of the program and the confidence of the sshare physicians. The sshare physicians valued the dedicated site visits for a number of reasons. While there was clearly a formal educational component to the visits, the physician evaluators also built collegial interaction, encouragement, and support into each visit. After one site visit, we received the following message: Dr —’s visit was very important to me and to my family. — gave me a lot of encouragement during our medical camp in Juba, and I needed —’s presence here for more encouragement. It is always good to hear someone appreciating your work and giving you feedback during discussions. Dr — came at a time when I felt like I was doing a lot but getting no feedback at all. People keep demanding help from you, and you don’t know if you’re doing well or not. I got the feedback from Dr — and it was like giving me a baton so that I could run for another 100 metres. — pushed me by encouraging me with feedback.

Persevering through Conflict Within the sprp/sshare context, coping with conflict and other associated environmental challenges has been a recurrent theme



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and subtext of our work. sprp was conceived and continues to exist in a conflict-laden environment (Schomerus and Allen 2012). The ­geopolitical context of renewed civil war in the 1980s led to the need for Madit and other children to travel to Cuba for their education. Ongoing war required that the physicians languish in Canada as refugees, unable to practise medicine. Upon their return to South Sudan, those physicians who had previously been child soldiers feared the possibility of being re-­ commissioned to combat aggression from the north. They soon discovered, however, that the greater danger for conflict was within their own semi-autonomous region of South Sudan. Observations from the educational camp of Akobo in South Sudan, for example, revealed that cattle rustling and gunfights were common, and team leaders struggled with a sense of responsibility for their team members in the midst of a consistently unstable environment. As a team leader from Akobo reported following a recent conflict, “Mercifully, most all of our team was out before the shooting in town started.”12 Many of the sshare medical camps included trauma care, as several of the doctors continue to deal regularly with patients severely wounded from armed conflict. Many have bravely cared for the gravely injured in unstable rural settings in spite of increased personal risk. Just prior to the Juba 2012 medical camp, a communication was received from a physician who served as the medical director and sole physician in a rural hospital in Warrap State: “Greetings from Marial Lou [in Warrap State]. Can you cancel my booking from Monday to Friday because of an emergency in the hospital? On 28 January at around 6 a.m. the Nuer attacked Dinka Luach in the cattle camp and we have thirty-one wounded. Most of the wounded were children and women, and many people lost their lives. Regards” (Mach).13 Overall, the threat of local hostilities has curtailed some of the options that the physicians might otherwise have considered for service, particularly in rural areas. Not all the conflicts faced by the Sudanese-Canadian physicians have been external. While in Canada, they faced the challenge of trying to reconcile their relatively comfortable lifestyles with their heartfelt beliefs that they must return to their homeland. Once back in South Sudan, the physicians often encountered resentment from those who had not escaped the ravages of war, nor received an education in the safe havens of Cuba and Canada. These physicians, who

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were considered by some to have become “white” Africans, faced the challenge of reintegration and finding their place in a culture vastly different from the one they left. Most have suffered repeatedly from common tropical diseases such as malaria, brucellosis, and typhoid fever. The fact that the Sudanese physicians have returned to South Sudan and are effecting change in their communities is a testament to their remarkable ability to survive – and sometimes thrive – in an environment of continuing conflict.

Discussion and Conclusion The evidence from our multiple data sources allows us to affirm that the sshare-sponsored physicians are applying and adapting learning in their Sudanese workplace with increased competence and confidence. Given the nature of competency-based assessment, our strongest data are qualitative. All data sources speak to the development of confidence among the physicians, but field notes, retrospective observations, clinical site visits, and trauma course performance provide our best data sources to address the assessment of competence. Triangulation from these multiple data sources, iterative review, and sustained reflection have given us confidence in the conclusions we have reached. We recognize that the sshare physicians have diverse roles within the health system, some with a predominantly clinical focus and some with administrative or medical leadership roles. Competence is context specific, and we have considered this when responding to our research question. Medical educational research has consistently shown that physicians are poor at self-assessment (Davis et al. 2006; Sargeant et al. 2010). Additionally, there may be cultural factors influencing self-assessment that are poorly understood. For example, in North America, recognizing and acknowledging professional limitations is a marker of a mature clinician. Elsewhere, doing so may be perceived as an indicator of weakness or perhaps professional incompetence (Betancourt 2003; Crutcher et al. 2011). Our Sudanese colleagues are often hesitant to admit to a lack of knowledge or understanding. We have learned there is a need to support them to candidly acknowledge gaps and to admit when they do not have the answers. The shared challenge is to create a safe and nurturing environment in



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which the sshare physicians feel confident in developing and refining competencies that help address the needs of their c­ ommunities. Responses to our evaluative tools are culturally mediated and may reflect a desire to please and appear grateful. However, in spite of the potential inaccuracies of self-assessment, it is clear that the sshare physicians state that they benefited from this program. An important aspect of the sshare physicians’ continued progress is the development of a “learning environment” in South Sudan. While in Canada, the physicians commented on being surrounded by books, libraries, ready Internet access, and nearby colleagues and learners. These physical, technological, and human resources are largely lacking in South Sudan, where physicians often practise in clinical settings with few colleagues present with whom to consult on patient-care challenges. Moreover, learning is more than just having access to resources; it also requires a proximate culture where learning is valued and made a priority. Reports of community medical outreach give a strong sense of what has been accomplished by the sshare program and also reflect the challenge of assessing competence and confidence and the impact of the sshare program. Quantitative data are insufficient to capture this type of community impact. The effect of outreach upon members of a leper colony was profound, as they responded with heartfelt gratitude to an outreach visit from an sshare physician who treated them as human beings who were struggling with a chronic condition, rather than as unclean outcasts. As a direct result of the sprp program, fourteen physicians are working clinically in South Sudan. State Ministries of Health or ngos employ them, some in extremely remote areas. One physician is a member of the South Sudan Legislative Assembly (ssla) and was recently the chairperson of the ssla Health and hiv/aids Affairs Committee. As Canadian citizens, the sprp and sshare program participants are but one plane ticket away from returning to the peace and security of Canada, yet none have expressed any desire to make Canada their permanent home. In South Sudan these physicians have meaningful work, and there is considerable status and opportunity available to them. Each has the opportunity to take on significant responsibility within his or her fledgling country, and each will continue to have opportunities to assume higher levels of prominence and responsibility. All have reconnected with family and have started new families of their own. They can now fully actualize

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their sustained and deep sense of obligation to alleviating suffering in their new country. We believe the partnership of the faith-based organization, the Samaritan’s Purse Canada, and the University of Calgary, has been a necessary and effective mechanism for supporting the aspirations of this particular courageous group of Sudanese-Canadian physicians. sprp has enabled returnee commitment and motivation to return to South Sudan, while sshare has contributed to physician resettlement (Crutcher et al. 2008). Our work demonstrates the continuing relevance of push-and-pull theory in understanding physician migration (Labonte et al. 2006). This explanatory model describes individuals and families being “pushed” from one locale (for multiple reasons, including poor working conditions, limited economic benefits, lack of security, poor educational resources, and political repression) and “pulled” or recruited to another locale with the prospect of a better life. In South Sudan we provide additional evidence that remaining in place or being “planted” is conditional on political, social, personal, and family support (Klein et al. 2009). The evaluation and educational research work embedded within sshare contributes to the scholarly understanding of the role of context in assessment theory, programming, and educational practice. The work presented here echoes the context, input, process, and product (cipp) evaluation model developed by Stufflebeam and Shinkfield (2007). In the cipp model, stakeholders work with evaluators to assess a project at the beginning, during implementation, and at the end to ensure that community and providers’ needs are identified and responded to. sshare takes this model out of a traditional educational context and extends it to medical education. sprp and its offspring, sshare, offer one approach to the mobilization of health professional diaspora. This approach is  in harmony with elements of the World Health Organization Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel (World Health Organization 2010). It is one small, discordant, and notable example of Smart Partnerships in Education and Research (Canadian Academy of Health Sciences 2011). The educational thrust of sprp and sshare is aligned with the strategic direction of Health Professionals for a New Century (Frenk et al. 2010). If successful over the longer term, the knowledge gained could help shape theory, policy, and practice in health-worker migration and global medical education.



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While we do not know whether this group of Sudanese-Canadian physicians will work in South Sudan for the long term, the ­current behavioural evidence strongly suggests that this is their intention. The seeds of hope planted twenty-seven years ago in Sudan are beginning to bear fruit.

Final Words After a journey that began in 1983, Madit has now settled into life as a physician in Malakal, South Sudan. He has a home, a wife, and two beautiful daughters. Overall, he describes his life as “active and fulfilling, met with great challenges but happy at the same time because I am doing what God wants me to do.” He feels he is completing the mission given to him by Dr Garang by saving lives and leading in the capacity-building of South Sudan. In 2010, Madit married Adeng Duot Deng Malual,14 who had completed her Diploma in Architecture at Juba University in Khartoum in 2008. She stays home looking after their children. Their live in an ngo guest house made of mud walls plastered with cement. It lacks the modern amenities Madit enjoyed in Canada, but it is comfortable and welcoming. There is a sitting room, a veranda, a small kitchen, and what Madit describes as “an outside bathroom with an acceptable toilet.” It also has running water, but not clean enough to drink. “It is a five-star hotel by South Sudanese standards,” he says, “because it has air conditioning in the kitchen and the sitting room.” Malakal, built along the Nile River in northeastern South Sudan, is the headquarters of Upper Nile State. The population of Malakal is estimated between 300,000 to 400,000 people, although census material is outdated and approximate at best. Hundreds of people arrive in Malakal each year, some escaping violence in neighbouring Sudan, others hoping to reintegrate into the rss after years of displacement. The mud roads flood each year, and temperatures can reach 40°C between January and April. Madit explains, “It is not an easy place to live during rainy season because of mud and stagnant water, which bring a lot of mosquitoes and therefore increased morbidity and mortality from malaria.” Madit works as the team leader for Interchurch Medical Assistance World Health (ima), a non-profit faith-based health-care organization with a mandate to provide aid and assistance to those in need in developing countries. ima oversees an umbrella program

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for ­provision of a basic package of health services in Upper Nile and Jonglei States. In his administrative role, Madit provides team leadership to direct strategic planning and decision-making. He has been instrumental in developing and implementing reporting, evaluation, and communication systems to ensure effective program operations, as well as setting up a county health department in each of the thirteen counties of the state. He also practises medicine in Malakal Teaching Hospital, “especially during emergencies when needs arise to fill the gaps caused by the lack of available physicians,” and he helps with the training of hospital staff and provision of medical equipment. His professionalism, integrity, and knowledge have made him a respected leader in his community. Madit travels to remote areas to support health care where it is needed most. In response to a life-threatening outbreak of acute watery diarrhea, Madit gave a presentation to over 1,500 people in his small home village of Panyang, who gathered beneath a tree on a very hot day to hear him speak. “There is a belief in Dinka culture that diarrhea outbreaks in children of a certain village happen when some parents have intercourse while the mother is lactating,” he recounts. “I explained that diarrhea occurs because of poor hygiene and instructed mothers to wash their hands before they breastfed their infants, and to wash the hands of their older children before they ate and after defecating.” In a nearby community, Madit was able to identify and arrange treatment for a small child who presented with rapidly growing hydrocephalus. His visit to this remote area most certainly changed – and saved – lives. A trip to Maban in Upper Nile State to deliver safe motherhood kits, clean delivery kits, and surgical supplies meant that for three months the 5,400 women of this village, mostly returnees and refugees from Sudan, would have improved medical care. While in Maban, Madit met with other international ngos to form a task force to coordinate all the health activities in the county in an effort to provide sustainable, long-term support. The significance of holding weekly meetings, taking minutes, and communicating information cannot be underestimated in a country where infrastructure has been lacking for decades and is only now being tenuously put in place. Madit saw extreme suffering at a recent visit to a nearby refugee camp. “I once was a refugee, but not to that extent. Children and women are sleeping in the middle of the bush, no tents or anything of that kind. Let us pray to God Almighty to bring peace so



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that all these suffering people can safely go back to their homes (if any still exist), and for a smooth and honest delivery of relief to those poor people.” His presence at the refugee camp, and his ability to provide medical relief, provides hope. Madit has little time for recreation. While in Canada and Cuba, he enjoyed basketball, watched movies, and read books. In Malakal, opportunities for recreation are limited, and he spends any free time he has with his family and visiting relatives in other parts of the country. When Madit looks at his young daughters, he “sees a blessing and assurance from God that the future of this country will be different, and that children of today and tomorrow will not go through what the past generations of South Sudanese children went through.” When asked about his dreams, he responds, “I dream that one day my children will not suffer the way I did, that they will play as normal kids with toys and not with ak-47s the way I did, that they will not go hungry for days and weeks, and that one day they will live a healthy life and have a right to schooling as do other children around the world.” In 1985, Madit was sent to fight a “different war.” He was asked to put down his gun and pick up a pencil. His journey has taken over twenty years and spanned the globe. When asked if he believes he has fulfilled this mission, Madit answers, “Not yet. This is just a beginning of the war we were prepared for; a lot still needs to be done. It is too early to say that the mission has been accomplished. Nevertheless, our presence here is a foundational ground for fulfilling the mission and keeping alive the torch of Dr Garang’s vision. We will get there, God willing. Yes, together we will.”

Notes 1 The authors wish to acknowledge the funding and in-kind support of the Arthur Child Foundation, Samaritan’s Purse Canada, Samaritan’s Purse usa / World Medical Mission, the Capacity Project, ima World Health, usaid, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance and the Medical Benevolence Foundation, the Christian Health Association of Sudan, Sudan Medical Care, the South Sudan Physician’s Organization, the Institute of Family Medicine (Kenya), the Christian ­Medicine and Dental Society (Canada), Health Partners International, Partners in Compassionate Care, Central

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Baptist Church (Edmonton), the Canadian International ­Development Agency cida, the University of Alberta, and the University of Calgary.   The authors are also thankful for the hundreds of volunteers who gave of their time and talent to support the South Sudanese physicians while they were studying in Calgary and upon their return to South Sudan. The clinical contributions of these volunteers and the sustained encouragement and support of many were integral to the success of this program. The authors also appreciate the editorial assistance of Angela Waldie, PhD project associate, Department of Family Medicine, University of Calgary. 2 The views in this chapter are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of cida. 3 This is his real name. 4 The Canadian Language Benchmark Assessment measures three separate components: listening/speaking, reading, and writing. The reading and writing components were completed in a group setting, while the listening and speaking component was assessed individually. The physicians were graded on the basis of standardized benchmarks. 5 While the Canadian-based program was initially intended to last six months, it became apparent that core program objectives could not be achieved in that time. A three-month extension was negotiated, and steps were taken to create subsequent clinical skills training in Kenya. 6 Fourteen of the original fifteen physicians chose to take part in this training, while the fifteenth physician chose to remain in Canada. The program expanded to include one more Cuban-educated Sudanese physician who had not taken part in the U of C training. 7 There are three medical schools within the rss, but none is currently functioning. 8 For further information on the sshare program, see http://www.ucalgary. ca/uci/development/sshareproject. 9 spc constructed or renovated three public health units, a maternity ward, a medical ward, and a laboratory. 10 The Digital African Health Library is an evidence-based decision support resource, which makes use of smart-phone technology and is appropriate and relevant for East Africa primary care clinicians. 11 Three sshare physicians successfully completed an e-learning Basics of Health Economics course, offered by the World Bank Institute. The model for this course – a five-week intensive learning program with required reading, written assignments, and deadlines, which required reliable Internet access – may be the model for future long-distance learning initiatives.



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12 Karen Daniels, personal communication. 13 Benjamin Mach (his real name), personal communication. 14 This is her real name.

7 Canada’s Contribution to the Resolution of the Darfur Conflict1 ashley soleski and amal madibbo

Introduction This chapter explores Canada’s contributions to the resolution of the Darfur conflict (2003–present) through the activities of its government, non-governmental organizations, grassroots organizations, and conflict-resolution initiatives relevant to the Darfur conflict. In order to understand the broader social and political context surrounding this topic, the chapter first examines the role of the international community in the resolution of the conflict in Darfur. More specifically, our analysis sheds light on the role of diplomacy, humanitarian assistance, advocacy campaigns, lobby groups, and educational programs that Canada and Canadians carry out, directed towards ending the Darfur conflict. To this end we utilize qualitative data generated through semi-structured interviews conducted in the Canadian cities of Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, and Montreal with four Sudanese Canadians, and four Canadians involved in initiatives aimed at resolving the Darfur conflict. Our analysis also drew upon secondary sources, such as scholarly books and articles, policies of governments and international organizations, and material of media outlets and websites. We used the information from these sources to frame a discussion about why clear regulations must be mandated to help deal with conflicts, such as that of Darfur’s. As the conflict extends well into its twelfth year, the world continues to watch hostilities unfold between the Sudanese government and several Darfur revolutionary groups. Reeves (2009) has noted that we must accept that the Darfur conflict has unfolded



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and c­ ontinues to do so plainly before us. People from around the globe have continued to hear the post-Holocaust promise of “never again,” but twelve years later violence and destruction continue in Darfur (see also Sidahmed, Soderlund, and Briggs 2010). The conflict has gained international attention, with many agencies, governments, and individuals working together to create peace for Darfur. There has been little doctrinal clarity on how the international community intervenes in such intrastate disputes. In the aftermath of the Rwanda genocide, the United Nations noted the importance of a new mandate to be developed that would fall between traditional peacekeeping and full-scale peace enforcement operations (Carment and Rowlands 1998). After the Yugoslavia genocide, the international community recognized the need to employ as many different techniques and strategies as necessary to stop the violence. Such cases justify the need for clear regulations to be mandated throughout the international community. Government and non-­ governmental organizations have worked hard to create lasting conflict resolution methods that can be sustained in Darfur. With the help of such agencies, peace and development can become a reality for the people of Darfur. When dealing with such intrastate conflicts, it is essential to look at the role of governments or heads of states to understand and appropriately deal with hostilities. When governments do not address such serious offences properly, as is the case with the government of Sudan, the need for international intervention is crucial for brokering peace (Osaghae 2005). The international community has been able to examine the Darfur conflict in progress for years, enabling us to more fully understand the sheer scale of what is taking place. By understanding the conflict we are better able to create conflict-resolution initiatives that are workable and sustainable for Darfur. Without help from members of the international community, there is little chance that conflict will be resolved in Darfur, leaving millions of people with little hope for the future. As suggested by Reeves (2009), “The scale of human destruction is such that for political, legal and moral reasons, it is incumbent that we do as much as possible with the data collected” (173). When dealing with the Darfur conflict, it is crucial that the international community remains focused on conflict resolution as well as conflict prevention. There is a role for the international community in intrastate conflicts. as has been made increasingly apparent

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since the creation of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) Doctrine, which was spearheaded by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty through the Canadian government in 2000. The R2P outlines that state leaders are granted sovereignty, accompanied with the responsibility to protect the rights of citizens from genocide and mass killing. Within the document it was argued that collective international forces were authorized “to protect [a state’s] population from genocide, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity” when a state was unable or unwilling to do so, such as in the case of Sudan (“Is ‘Never Again’ a Hollow Promise?” 2007). This doctrine has since gained widespread international support, resulting in its endorsement by the United Nations in the General Assembly as well as the Security Council.

Conflict Resolution As Fisher (2000) notes, conflict in itself is not necessarily good nor bad, what is important is how conflict is handled. The negative impacts of conflict are well documented and hugely important when attempting to end conflict. Death, humiliation, rape, famine, and homelessness are all among the negative impacts that conflict brings. As conflict unfolds, the negative impacts of conflict and war greatly affects the way states, non-governmental organizations (ngos), and individuals respond to such situations. However, as Burgess (2004) points out, there are also positive aspects to conflict, in which conflict can right injustices and create positive social change. Conflict occurs often because groups in society are not given equal access to the rights and freedoms available to others. If, when conflict occurs, positive conflict resolutions and methods are put into place quickly, positive social change can occur, bringing peace and stability into the region and fostering a more active society. In our small global village, it is important to work together to develop strategies and methods for conflict resolution that will benefit everyone. In Darfur, it was not until late 2003, when systemic violence was revealed in testimonies of displaced people and humanitarian workers, along with videos and photographs, that the international community took steps to resolve the Darfur conflict. In March 2004, state minister for foreign affairs of Sudan, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator, Mukesh Kapila, wrote, “A predominant feature of this is that the brunt is being borne by civilians.



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This includes women and children … The violence in Darfur appears to be particularly directed at a specific group based on their ethnic identity and appears to be systemized.” This is akin to ethnic cleansing (cited in Dagne 2004, 4–5). The United Nations and other international organizations should have been quick to respond to such injustices, as the government of Sudan was unwilling to protect its civilians. Initial inquiries took place in 2004, but years went by as the international community debated what was actually taking place in Darfur. Dallaire (2010) notes that it was as if the international community heaved a collective sigh of relief as the Darfur commission concluded that acts of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes were taking place in Darfur, but not genocide. Dallaire goes on to argue that murder, rape, and destruction of a way of life clearly was not enough to warrant a strong, united humanitarian response. Had international organizations and governments utilized the history of similar conflicts and employed well-researched conflict-resolution methods, the conflict in Darfur might have ended before large-scale violence erupted. Conflict resolution has no clear definition, but rather refers to a combination of theories and practices used to solve conflict (Burton and Dukes 1990). It emphasizes decision-making and a problemsolving approach. Many types of conflict resolution can be examined in relation to Darfur. Because the situation is complex, international agencies are working on a number of solutions to bring peace to the country. Working internationally, the African Union / United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (unamid) is implementing specific activities to contribute towards a peaceful solution, which include providing security for humanitarian assistance programs, creating stable conditions for political negotiations, bringing about an end to violence, holding all political parties accountable for previous ceasefires and agreements, and facilitating the voluntary return of the displaced Darfur community (United Nations 2010). The most significant contribution of unamid has been the 20,000 member peacekeeping force helping ensure that the goals of the organization are carried out. Although peacekeeping forces originally focused on interstate conflicts, the changing atmosphere of conflict in general has led to an increasing need for peacekeepers in intrastate conflicts. As noted by Dag Hammarskjöld, second secretary-general of the United Nations,

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peacekeeping is not found in the United Nations Charter but instead is placed between traditional methods of peaceful dispute resolution and more forceful actions that may at times be authorized (ibid.). The role of peacekeeping is very important to the conflict in Darfur; international peacekeepers are often the only form of security in conflict areas, protecting civilians who are caught in the conflict. Another aspect of conflict resolution is humanitarian aid for civilians caught in the crossfire. It has been estimated that there are 5.8 million displaced people in the countries surrounding Sudan as the result of years of conflict and violence (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs [unocha] 2010). People living in such conditions have basic needs for food, shelter, clean water, and other health services, and the unocha is among organizations that provide those needed services. Often, security is in place to protect internally displaced persons (idps) and refugees in such camps where educational programs and income-generating activities can be taught, and human rights claims processed (ibid.). idp camps, together with refugee camps, contribute to conflict resolution as those living within these environments are often protected by international law or the precedents established in human rights conventions. People caught in the conflict can theoretically find a safe haven in these settings and can then work towards resolving the conflict while free from harm. Within the last decade a shift has begun, moving the focus from conflict resolution to conflict prevention. As Ackermann (2003) points out, prevention remains one of the most difficult challenges in the twenty-first century. The cost of conflict in financial and human terms is devastating, and the effects of such conflict remains for years. Whereas conflict resolution works to create peace in hostile environments, conflict prevention can bring about peaceful negotiations, reducing tensions and hostility. As the Darfur conflict continues into its twelfth year, conflict prevention is no longer viable, but once hostilities have ceased and life returns to normal, it will be crucial to promote strategies that focus on development throughout Sudan. Goals for all international organizations and governments in promoting peace should address the role of poverty in conflicted areas around the world. As Goodhand (2003) notes, poverty is one among many factors that contribute to violent conflicts. He goes on to argue that if horizontal inequalities are addressed, the shift from grievance to violence will be reduced, moving the issue away



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from conflict towards a sustainable solution. It has been suggested that poverty and poor social services can fuel conflict from below (ibid.). ngos are adapting to this view by working in communities to address conflict that stems from the perception of inequality. When ngos address the root causes of tension they can work to prevent an escalation of anger, which often leads to conflict. As Ssewakiryanga (2009) puts it, that ngos often provide a large number of services in areas where the state is absent. He argues that ngos have been the catalysts in a number of successful global campaigns and that their work, whether that be in satisfying basic needs or right-based initiatives, has contributed to eliminating pervasive poverty. As stressed by Kofi Annan (former un secretary general), conflict prevention and sustainable development are mutually reinforcing activities that must be adopted together (Griffiths-Fulton 2001). Development in regions of conflict is essential to conflict prevention, implying that development and peace are interconnected. As expressed by Skinner and Wood (2006), certain levels of achievement in economic and social stability appear to promote peace. Countries are also at an advantage if they are involved in good governance, open communication, and respect for human rights. The international community must work together to develop strategies that will help achieve peace for Darfur. There are specific criteria for successful peace negotiations (Darby and MacGinty 2003). As Zartman (2003) maintains, peace negotiations will not be successful until there is a “ripeness” for resolution. For example, all parties must be willing to negotiate in good faith, and negotiators must be committed to a sustained process. Additionally, conflicting groups must avoid using violence and force to achieve their ends. Failing on any one of these principles may jeopardize the peace process, creating more conflict. To achieve peace, therefore, the parties involved in the conflict (in this case, the government of Sudan and Darfur revolutionary groups) must realize that victory is impossible under current conditions and that further conflict is painful for all. Entering into negotiations can break away from the shared pain that conflict has caused everyone (Netabay 2009). It is crucial that there be cooperation between the international community and the groups involved in the conflict, with local ngos in Sudan, and with the international organizations and governments that participate in peace negotiations. Once peace agreements are reached, the international community must monitor the implementation of these agreements

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to ensure that the conflicting parties are committed to ending the conflict and maintaining peace, and that promises of funding and development programs from other negotiators are fulfilled. Conflict-resolution methods are crucial to brokering peace in Darfur. As Canada has spearheaded the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine, it is essential that the Canadian government, Canadian ngos, and Canadians across the country work to ensure that equality and peace come to Darfur. Canada’s participation in conflict resolution in Sudan, as well as in encouraging other nations to promote peaceful coexistence in Sudan could help strengthen the image of Canada as a mosaic of communities and cultures, and an agent of both peacekeeping and peace-making worldwide.

C a n a d a’ s R e s p o n s e Grzyb (2009) suggests that two different perspectives help determine individual and communal responses to international crises such as Darfur. The first perspective underlies the idea that, when growing up in a Western society, our learned ideas and beliefs prevent us from looking at the situation objectively. Grzyb argues that Western culture has allowed people to tolerate disturbing images without challenging the system that creates them. The news is flooded with images of destruction, war zones, and starving children, as millions of viewers sit with their families eating supper. In a Western globalized society, people tend to remain detached from issues that take place outside their immediate personal spheres. Western governments act in the same manner and tend to factor the complex web of conflict within their own beliefs about culture, politics, and war. If civil society does not seem to be engaged in issues regarding Darfur, the government allocates resources to other programs accordingly. Within this perspective little will be done for the people of Darfur, as Canadians have been desensitized and continue to focus solely on Canadian issues. The second perspective is quite simple by comparison. Allowing internal conflicts to continue signals to governing bodies that the international community recognizes governance through violence and oppression (see also Welling 2007). It can therefore be argued that in cases of intrastate conflict, the willingness of the international community to intervene influences the level of violence faced by state actors.



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Non-governmental organizations (ngos) and individual campaigns, as well as media images, have shown us death and damage in Darfur. Civilians have faced atrocities, with little to no security or humanitarian aid. There should be no question that action is needed to stop such violence, and Canadians must act to ensure that peace comes to Darfur. Many ngos play an essential role in resolving the conflict and contributing towards peace. When basic needs are met, people have a chance to discuss possible solutions for Darfur, rather than fight for survival. It is important to note that ngos have played a crucial role in bringing the Darfur conflict to the population at large. Justice Africa was among the first to comment on what was taking place in Darfur, and what was likely to take form, writing in 2003, “The crisis in Darfur underscores the need for a fully representative political process in Sudan as an integral part of the peace settlement … some military response is likely … serious humanitarian concerns arise in the context of such military actions” (Grzyb 2009, 79). Media coverage and ngo action has brought the Darfur conflict to Canadians across the country. Many Canadians have committed to working to bring peace to Darfur. Many Canadian ngos work within Canada as well as abroad ensure that the end of the conflict is within sight. Although each organization supports Darfur in varying forms, all would like to see peace come to Darfur, with security established for all Darfurians, and displaced people begin their migration back to their homes. ngos also work to provide essentials to the displaced Darfurian community. For example, care Canada provides food, water, and sanitary technologies to the idps throughout Darfur and Chad. Canadian ngos continue to respond to vital humanitarian needs of the distressed civilian population, such as in providing medical care within Darfur and the surrounding regions. This is critical for the Darfur region, as many have left their homes with little more than the clothes they were wearing. At such extreme times, there is a need for clean water, food, shelter, and health facilities. Canadian ngos support such initiatives by raising the funds necessary for such projects, as well as recruiting and volunteering to distribute the necessary supplies. In addition, the ngos provide the link between civil society and government within the state, as well as within the international community framework. As such, the work achieved by ngos has been extraordinary in times of conflict (Hoile 2005).

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The government of Canada has also responded to the crisis as one of the key financial contributors to the African Union Mission in Sudan (amis) from the outset. Canada’s foreign policy on Sudan is based on three pillars of activity: aid, diplomacy, and security. The Canadian International Development Agency (cida), the main body responsible for overseeing Canadian aid contributions in Sudan, offers humanitarian assistance to Sudan. Since January 2006 Canada has provided over $230 million to Sudan through humanitarian efforts that included lifesaving food, clean water, and emergency medical assistance. It also donated over $185 million to early recovery initiatives such as governance, food security, and the reintegration of the idps (Government of Canada 2012a). Canada’s key contributions included the equipment and support provided to amis and the unamid in Darfur along with training initiatives to help prepare members for challenges that may arise in conflict-ridden areas. Additionally, the aviation assistance provided by Canadian-contracted helicopters greatly assisted the transition period between amis and unamid. The government of Canada continues to rally for peace and justice in Sudan through diplomacy. Canada has played important roles in the years since the conflict erupted that have been aimed at creating a democratic peace agreement to stop the conflict. As well, Canada has played a crucial role in the Darfur Peace Process that was signed in 2006 as an international partner with the United Nations and the African Union by expressing their concerns over the humanitarian and human rights violations in Darfur (Government of Canada 2012b). Although Canada has provided much support to ensure that peace comes to Darfur, many would like to see more being done. As Mozersky and Rock (2006) stated, “Canada is the principal architect and advocate of the ‘responsibility to protect’ doctrine. It should therefore play a key role in galvanizing international action.” But the Canadian government has been relatively slow to respond and often has chosen the safe, non-committal path rather than adopting a leadership role and pushing forward with a harder and albeit riskier undertaking. As Black (2007) notes, in 2006 the Conservative government disbanded the High Level Special Advisory Team on Sudan, which consisted of Senators Romeo Dallaire and Mobina Jaffer, as well as Ambassador Robert Fowler that Prime Minister Paul Martin struck in 2005, shortly after it came into power, with



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no new committee to take its place. Since the Special Advisory Team was “mandated to monitor and administer the implementation of the Canadian assistance package to Darfur … devoted to support for the African Union Mission in Sudan … for humanitarian and peace-building projects, and for diplomatic support to the political peace process in Abuja [Nigeria]” (Dallaire 2006), its termination diminished Canada’s role in taking charge in such a situation. It is also important to look at the aftermath of the Darfur Peace Agreement that was signed in 2011 in Doha, Qatar. Although ­Canada played a significant role in the signing of this peace agreement, it is important to be aware of the reality in Darfur. Little has been done to implement the agreement, and the violations taking place amongst the civilian population continue to be commonplace. Canada needs to be responsible for implementation of the Darfur Peace Agreement, as well as pressure other countries to join the initiative. Without enforcement, violence and suffering will continue to be widespread in Sudan (Mackrael 2013). Contribution through Advocacy Advocacy is a crucial goal for many ngos. Advocacy groups focus on bringing the conflict into the public domain. Awareness campaigns can come in such forms as letter-writing campaigns, movie premieres, and speaking with the media, amongst others. One participant, Amani, stated, “We have to speak out, we have to talk about it … This is our culture, this is our land, and people have to know that.” Participants also felt strongly that people across Canada have to be aware of the conflict. Therefore, advocacy groups in Canada focus on bringing the core causes of the conflict into the public’s view in order to create awareness about the situation. It was essential to all participants that awareness campaigns support all Darfurians in their collective efforts and demands. It was noted among the participants the strong role the media has to play in awareness campaigns. As one participant suggested, “Media is lacking, which is why we really have to keep the community involved through awareness activities; murder, violence, and rape are still taking place in Darfur and people must know what is going on.” As media focus moves away from the Darfur conflict, ngos and other organizations feel it is essential to continue rallying support for Darfur, allowing no one to forget the violence.

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It was ascertained throughout the interviews that all groups need to be represented in advocacy campaigns. For that to be achieved, Darfurians across Canada need to continue to discuss peaceful resolutions to end the conflict, which can then be communicated to family members and friends still living in Sudan and the surrounding areas. Participants thought it was crucial to represent a united front abroad to fight for peace in Darfur. This unanimity is a valuable tool for conflict resolution; when groups work together abroad, they set an example within their own country, illustrating that peaceful negotiations can occur among diverse groups of people. Several participants stated that Canadian ngos and organizations working for Darfur must also come together to create and promote large-scale awareness campaigns. As one participant noted, a campaign is promoted through all networks so that it can become large and successful, even though each individual group is relatively small. Within this context, John stressed that “the more people, the more countries that get involved in a common effort and have a common agenda with some disciplined implementations, the more chance there is of success.” One organization looked at the role of people from all ethnic backgrounds and cultures. Amani commented, “We really want to exercise this in a very multicultural sense, so that it doesn’t put off one opinion.” The benefit of such an organization is that people in similar situations and conflicts can also be a part of the peace process. They can work towards solving the conflicts in each area and exchange knowledge. As Amani argued, “We do things together as a team, and we put ideas there together as a team.” Therefore, advocacy campaigns are not limited to one group or one perspective, but rather are the union of many ideas. Advocacy groups are essential for in conflict resolution. As these groups continue to educate and raise awareness within the community, the movement similarly continues to grow. Amani maintained that organizations have grown substantially over time, so the awareness campaigns really are making an impact. As more people join the movement, more action can begin to unfold. Participants within the study knew of many different awareness campaigns across Canada, which included documenting violations and sharing them with the media community to be broadcast to a wider audience. Also, a number of workshops, public demonstrations, school discussions, and public rallies have been conducted to raise awareness in Canada. The core value of advocacy groups is to



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create action through awareness campaigns. As Jessica asserted that within her organization, “awareness is very much what we do, but with the end goal of having that awareness turn into action.” Contribution through Lobbying Very closely related to advocacy is lobbying. Benjamin (2009) observes, “The ngo community has come to be synonymous with a new form of grassroots democracy that transcends nationality and crosses borders” (33). This is seen as ngos begin to play significant roles in the creation of humanitarian policies around the world. It has also been argued that ngos’ pressure on governmental organizations has forged alliances to allocate of financial and material resources that benefit displaced populations. As Laura contended, “Advocacy groups are two-pronged with their goals. It is important to create policy that is then lobbied to the government, but it is also important to create the ground support across the country to be able to push the policy.” Lobbying is an oral or written communication with public officeholders that attempts to influence a legislative or administrative decision (Commissaire au Lobbyisme du Québec n.d.). Lobbying for Darfur is crucial; as the general population increases demands on public officials for action in Darfur, the more willing they are to commit to action. Groups often begin to lobby as a result of inadequate government action. In the view of one participant, “Had we had a government already taking initiatives, maybe this organization wouldn’t even exist.” Another participant, John, suggested, “If not Canada, then who? Canada is a wealthy country. We are well supplied with resources, and although we don’t have many soldiers to put on the ground, we have technical and development people that would be helpful in the Darfur region.” As with advocacy campaigns, participants felt it was indispensable to work together to lobby the Canadian government for action in Sudan. One participant confirmed that the strength of his organization was that they could engage a variety of groups to help lobby for the same issues. He explained that the government would be more receptive to broad support because people with different expertise and different backgrounds were fighting for a common goal, conveying the urgency of the situation and how badly something needs to be done for the people of Darfur.

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It is for these reasons that many groups and organizations are pressuring the Canadian government to act in the interests of Darfur. Participants were lobbying by sending documented violations to Parliament, conducting letter-writing campaigns, and sending citizens to Ottawa to speak with members of Parliament. As Tony corroborated, “We are hoping to appeal to the Canadian government to play a lead role with other international communities to put an end to the conflict by exerting diplomatic pressure on the Sudanese government to stop its military campaign and seek a lasting peace through political negotiations with the rebels.” The international community must be involved in Sudan for peace to come to Darfur. As Amani put it, “It is Sudan [the government of Sudan] who is creating the problems, but now they are admitting it’s out of their hands … the international community has to be there, they have to be involved, they have to monitor.” Since Canada is the leader behind the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine, it is essential that lobby groups in Canada continue to ask more of the Canadian government in helping Darfur. As one participant contended, “I absolutely think that Canada should be, and can be a world leader in upholding that doctrine [the Responsibility to Protect], and we will continue to push for that.” Contribution through Education According to unicef (2010), education is a fundamental right that is critical for the development of individuals as well as societies. Education can end poverty and disease as well as lay the foundation for sustainable development. As international agencies continue their involvement in conflict resolution, the need for educational programs for the people of Darfur is crucial. The participants of this study stressed the need for education within Darfur to help ensure peace comes to the area. They pointed out that no ethnicity or group should be excluded from educational programs. As one participant observed, “If we favour one tribe, or if we train just one group, we will create an additional problem, we will create a power imbalance, and then we add to the problem instead of alleviating the problem.” Therefore, participants highlighted the importance of equal and fair access to education and posited that education was a necessary first step to changing people’s attitudes and beliefs about the conflict.



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The educational programs outlined in this chapter were founded during groundwork in Darfur and Chad, as local Darfurians maintained that they were concerned for their family, friends, and their way of life. Study participants were of the view that the people of Darfur wanted to create suitable education programs for the area. As Jill observed, “Conflict resolution came out of consultations and discussions with people on the ground.” Youths throughout the area asked to be involved in bringing peace within their country. In this way the Darfurian community has designed numerous educational programs, allowing the flow of ideas and solutions to be discussed and agreed upon among themselves. For many participants, it was of great importance that the local community has a say in the educational peace process. According to one participant, “I think we Darfurians, we have to initiate that process anyways, because we know who we are and what we need.” This was further argued by another participant who acknowledged that their primary strategy was to create a coalition of Sudanese Canadians so that learning could occur between the two groups to ensure support for such programs. Two main educational focuses became apparent in the interviews. It was important to offer educational programs about conflict resolution that were aimed at youths and women. It was suggested that youths are “triggered” in conflict and that they are the ones often recruited into rebel movements. One participant noted that educational programs needed to target both boys and girls between the ages of eleven and eighteen. Peer training was implemented to find ways of resolving conflict without bloodshed. Youths participated in such activities by expressing themselves through music and drawings. Youth were also asked to identify what separated the groups of Darfur, as well as their similarities. In such programs, youths were able to break down their barriers to peace with one another through art and realize that they were not so different from each other. Such programs also provide different tools to resolve disputes. As one participant noted, “We need to build a generation free of violence, free of war, free of thought of violence even. Their knowledge has to be concentrated in a different way of solving problems.” Hamburg (1994) shows that humans are very likely to form distinctions between “our” group and “their” groups, and to develop a marked preference. Educational programs, such as those developed by the participants, can help reduce intergroup conflict and enlarge

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social identification in light of common characteristics, better allowing fundamental human identification to be seen within diversity. By recognizing common characteristics within cultural diversity, education allows the people of Darfur to unite and respect one another. If barriers are broken down and unity and respect ensue, peace will begin for Darfur. Study participants worked towards unity by providing education workshops and contacting people throughout Darfur and in regions along the Chad border. In such workshops, people were able to discuss their concerns openly. Women are an integral part of the educational process, because they are often the model and educator of the family. The value of prosocial behaviour in early child development has been documented (Hamburg 1994). It is essential to educate women on the peace process, so that they can share the information with their family. Participants found that basic literature programs for women as well as programs empowering women work to provide peace in Darfur. As Amani maintained, if women are not educated, they will not be able to educate or empower their children. In her view, basic education offers first steps for empowering women and children. Another participant, Jill, asserted that it is also necessary to provide skills training to unemployed women so that they can create a livelihood for themselves through social entrepreneurship. When women can go to school, whether for basic education or skills workshops, they are better able to provide for their families, enabling development. In this sense, women will be able to build a better future for themselves and their families, break the cycle of poverty, and advance economically in society. These initiatives suggest that Canadians are providing essential skills to help resolve the Darfur conflict. Organizations in Canada have contributed to conflict resolution by conducting awareness campaigns, lobbying governmental organizations, and teaching methods of conflict resolution. Working abroad, Canadians have contributed financially to humanitarian efforts and offered education and development for Darfur. Such activities introduced by Canadian organizations and ngos, can actually help to ease tensions and contribute to resolution of the conflict.

Conclusion Armed conflict, village destruction, and ethnic cleansing describe what is taking place in Darfur. In 2004, Jan Egeland acknowledged



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Darfur to be “one of the most forgotten and neglected humanitarian crises in the world” (cited in Grzyb 2010, 3). Twelve years later, many would argue that this statement remains true. Conflict will continue in Sudan as long as people fight over power and resources. It is therefore imperative that conflict resolution continue to be pursued throughout the whole Sudan to allow peaceful change to take place. As violence continues in the region, the role of governments, ngos, and other grassroots organizations will be crucial to help broker peace in the coming years. Although much has been done to assist the people of Darfur, more should be done to ensure lasting peace. For example, 75 per cent of aid never translates into real development assistance, as it is spent on emergencies rather than on solving the basic problems (Welling 2007). Rather than sending money in times of crisis, we need to provide skills and funds to create a sustainable place for growth. Peace and development may not be clear-cut, but internal conflict has been directly linked to poverty. By creating sustainable development, organizations will be able to break the cycles of poverty, thus creating the opportunity for peace. In addition, as ethnic cleansing and violence persist, Canadians along with other international bodies must continue to do as much as possible to help the millions of civilian victims caught in the crossfire. As Romeo Dallaire (2010) so famously asked, “Are all humans human, or are some more human than others?” (xxviii). When Canadians collectively agree that no child is more important than another, and that each person deserves basic human rights and freedom from violence and pain, that is when we will step onto the road to international peace. Such challenges are difficult, but as Canadians commit to resolving conflicts and endure the personal sacrifices necessary, change will materialize. As Reeves (2009) reminds us, “It is incumbent that we do as much as possible with the data we have. Not to do so is to continue by other means the international betrayal of the people of Darfur, who have lost so many and suffered so much” (173).

notes 1 The analyzed data in this article are part of the data of the Race, Ethnicity, Immigration, and Identity in the Sudan Project, which is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (2009–13).

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  We are grateful for permission to reprint this chapter, which was originally published as “Canada’s Contributions to the Resolution of the Darfur, Sudan’s Conflict,” in Asian Journal of Canadian Studies 16 (1–2): 59–87, in a slightly different version.

8 Conclusion amal madibbo

Substantive literature has documented immigration to Canada, conflict, and reconstruction as largely isolated issues. This book fills the important knowledge gaps between the interconnections of immigrant communities in Canada and conflict reconstruction in their source countries. The volume improves the paucity of research about the Sudanese diaspora in Canada and conflict resolution in Sudan. The combination of Sudanese-born Canadians’ perspectives with those of fellow Canadian researchers makes for a unique, empirical investigation of Canada and Sudan that examines issues of relevance to both these countries: immigration, conflict, and reconstruction. In our discussions of immigration we unveiled the economic and demographic factors that have led Canada to receive immigrants from around the globe. Because of the discrepancy between the vastness of its land and the size of its population, Canada needs immigrants for population and economic growth. However, the country’s Confederation-era immigration policies remained exclusionary from 1869 to the 1960s, favouring white North Americans and Western Europeans over other racial and ethnic groups. Eventually, and especially after the Second World War, Canada entrenched more inclusive policies, which resulted in the immigration influx from the Global South (including Africa). In 1971 Canada endorsed its multiculturalism policy, affirming its interest in ethnic and cultural diversity and recognizing its positive contributions to society. Since that time, Canada has endeavoured to create spaces for diverse groups of people to live together and reconcile their ethnic uniqueness with national interests. As such, those who relocate to Canada are encouraged to

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participate in the economic and social dimensions of Canadian life and engage the issues of their communities both within Canada and their source countries. We also emphasized the social and ethnic fabric of Sudan and its history, along with socio-political issues that pushed the Sudanese to leave their country. Sudan is rich in natural resources and cultural diversity. Its people are heterogeneous, comprising hundreds of ethnic groups who speak many languages and embrace numerous religions. In its early history, states such as the Nubian kingdoms flourished and made significant achievements in governance and architecture. More recently, Sudan has endured two colonial systems: the Turkish regime that governed from 1821 to 1885, and the condominium government of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan that lasted from 1898 to 1956. The Sudanese resistance to this colonialism was echoed in the Al Mahdiya Revolution (1881–85) and the ensuing sovereign Mahdist state (1885–98), as well as the activism that culminated in the country’s independence in 1956. Post-colonial Sudan has been governed by three military dictatorships, in 1958–64, 1969–85, and 1989 to the present. Two popular uprisings brought with them two short democratic regimes, the first 1964–69 and the other 1986–89. Over time, some groups co-existed peacefully, intermarried, and maintained social and economic alliances. However, decades of decay have prevailed, and this book has reviewed three conflicts that have afflicted the country: the Darfur conflict that began in 2003, the 2011 secession of South Sudan, and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism. The root causes of the secession of South Sudan and the Darfur conflict are multifaceted. Both go back to the exclusionary ideologies and actions of the colonial and post-colonial eras. On the one hand, both Turkiyah and the Anglo-British regimes enhanced development in the central region of north Sudan while ignoring other regions in the country. The regimes also facilitated education in the North, which contributed to the formation of an elite among the largely Arab(ized) and Muslim population of central Sudan, placing them in a strong position to control power and resources in the country. On the other hand, the succeeding post-colonial governments – both the dictatorships and democratic regimes  – reproduced similar trends of development versus underdevelopment in particular regions of the country. Since the post-colonial regimes were rules largely by the elite, they favoured their identity by imposing a restricted Arab-



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Muslim affiliation as Sudan’s national identity framework. Together, those practices brought about drastic socio-economic and development disparities between central Sudan and the rest of the country. They also alienated many who did not adhere to the Arab-Islamism hegemony, those who instead opted for other identities such as Africanism or moderate Arabism. Eventually, some revolutionary groups entered into armed struggle against the government of Sudan (GoS) in pursuit of justice for the disenfranchised people and regions in the country. However, the divisions within Sudan are also a product of external forces. Some regional and international actors intervene in Sudanese affairs in ways that further jeopardize the country’s stability. They may provide military or financial support to particular groups or factions that they assume will help them attain their own geo-political and economic purposes. Such interventions contributed to the continuing conflict and polarization. It is in such an environment that the Darfur conflict broke out between Darfur revolutionary groups and the GoS. While the secession of South Sudan is arguably a consequence of the two civil wars between the North and South of Sudan (1955–72 and 1983–2005), the latter of which was prompted by exclusionary measures, in addition to the way the GoS mishandled issues peculiar to the South. Two peace agreements were reached between the GoS and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army / Movement, which led the South’s struggle against the GoS. The Addis Ababa Agreement (1972) and the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (2005) sought to promote citizenship rights and grant wealth sharing and autonomy to the South. Unfortunately, the GoS contravened these agreements on many occasions, disrupting unity and evoking secession. In Sudan, Islamic fundamentalism started gaining ground in the 1970s. Secularism and the freedom of women that were ushered in by modernity saw Islamic fundamentalism rise in resentment, aggravated by the colonial and post-colonial cultural impositions and the military force exerted by the West on the Muslim world. Extremist Islamists perceived these as threats to the Islamic state and society they sought to establish, instilling in them an urgency to safeguard their Islamic goals by any means, including violence. The message of the extremists and rhetoric of their leader, Hasan Turabi, was an appealing one for many Sudanese. Some supporters considered Islamic fundamentalism a viable alternative to the familiar poverty

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and marginalization to which they were subjected. Others found Islamic fundamentalism an extension to the Arab-Islamic orientation and identity that they planned to spread in Sudan. However, Islamic fundamentalism alienated both moderate Muslims and those who do not adhere to Islam and has therefore further exacerbated tensions in the country. These (amongst others) have had considerable consequences. They instigated cycles of destruction and the killing of civilians, dislocation, and migration to numerous places in the world, including Canada. Against this backdrop, Sudanese immigration to Canada is a relatively recent phenomenon, the first substantial wave arriving in the 1980s. The Sudanese are found in most Canadian provinces. A handful thrive, but the majority is under-employed or unemployed, and many face isolation and suffering from the trauma of war. Yet regardless of their socio-economic status, members of the Sudanese diaspora remain committed to reconstruction in their source country in order to help resolve the conflicts, rectify their ramifications, and prevent further fragmentation. As the book shows, Sudanese reconstruction is illustrated in transnational economic, socio-cultural, and political enterprises. These enterprises send substantial remittances to families and friends in Sudan that are utilized mostly for material consumption and smallscale projects. In addition, they carry out educational and healthrelated activities in Sudan and bring artists from Sudan to perform in Canada. Moreover, they mobilize protests and awareness campaigns to lobby for democracy in their source country. On the matter of return, the book depicts temporary visits, especially of the northern Sudanese to north Sudan, to meet families and carry out socio-cultural activities, while the South Sudanese tend to stay in South Sudan for long(er) periods with intentions to enhance development there. Men in particular return and work in the public or private sector and participate in the political and social aspects of life. Former Lost Boys and Girls of Sudan who have studied medicine in Cuba followed by training in Canada, also returned as physicians and apply their skills in clinics and hospitals in South Sudan. These repatriates encounter obstacles such as dishonesty from public officials, kinship obligations, and sexism towards women. We also observed that identities, such as “South Sudanese,” carried different interpretations of belonging and citizenship rights to different people that elicited hostility from those who remained in the



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South throughout the war towards those who returned afterward. Consequently, some people decided to move back to Canada, while many opted to travel back and forth between the two countries, and others still preferred to stay in South Sudan to accomplish the missions they had planned to achieve there, regardless of the emergent social and political barriers. It is important to stress that the reconstruction efforts are not confined to the members of the Sudanese diaspora in Canada but include fellow Canadians who contribute to peacemaking in Sudan through lobbying and pro-democracy advocacy, as well as educational initiatives aimed at conflict resolution. Furthermore, the government of Canada is fostering reconstruction in Sudan, focusing its efforts on aid, diplomacy, and security. Within this orbit, Sudan is a major recipient of Canada’s Official Development Assistance. Canada provides Sudan with financial and humanitarian assistance and also takes part in peace processes and democratic governance programs. In addition, Canada offers material and logistical support to international peacekeeping operations in Sudan. At the same time, Canada has also imposed sanctions on Sudan. It has withheld its export, finance, trade, and investment along with governmentto-government development cooperation from the Sudanese government. These measures were in response to the human rights abuse and deteriorating humanitarian situation in Sudan. As such, this volume echoes the literature on immigration in Canada in its review of the structural barriers and downward economic mobility that some visible minority immigrants encounter, along with opportunities that arise, during integration. In addition, the book explores the connections between immigration, conflict, and reconstruction in Canada. For example, some scholars (Satzewhich and Wong 2006) asked whether or not the relationship between immigrants and their source countries strengthened as they stayed in Canada. In this regard, the authors propose that the scope and frequency of transnational engagement among the Sudanese immigrants increase as they continue to challenge the hegemony of their home state and attempt to bring about peace and stability in their source country. Others (Lauer and Wong 2010) reiterate the need to analyze the relationship between immigrant transnationalism and receiving states and society. Although transnationalism can harm relations between immigrants and the receiving state, the book posits that transnationalism from above and from below can

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be mutually reinforcing when the receiving state and international migrants promote enduring peace, sustainable development, and brain c­irculation. On the relationship between immigrants and the receiving society, this volume brings to light alliances formed between immigrants and fellow citizens, along with the benefits of these ties for conflict resolution in the source countries. The conflict in Darfur persists as other clashes resurface on the border of Sudan and South Sudan, in the northern Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile, between the government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement. Also, clashes between the Luo-Neur and Murle, and Dinka and Nuer in the South, and the Rizigat and Maalia in western Sudan continue. This volatility suggests that more people will leave Sudan. Meanwhile, Canada will continue to welcome immigrants to expand its population, which is in decline. The average annual growth in Canada from 2000 to 2010 was only 1.1 per cent, and it is projected to slow further (Employment and Social Development Canada 2014). Because of the political wrangling in Sudan and demographic shifts in Canada, we anticipate that the Sudanese community in Canada will continue to increase. This leads us to believe that numerous actions and additional research are required for immigration to benefit the Sudanese immigrants themselves, Canada, and Sudan. It is imperative to improve the settlement and socio-economic integration of the Sudanese in Canadian society. Newcomers need additional services to help them adjust to their new life in Canada, acquire and upgrade skills, and attain Canadian credentials and work experience. Women deserve particular attention to ensure their access to these resources. Youths need endorsement to increase their chances of high school completion and transition to post-­secondary education, work, and adult life. Canadian federal, provincial, and municipal governments offer a wide range of settlement services and programs to newcomers, including education in Canada’s two official languages, English and French. Other services provide counselling and therapy as well as interpretation and translation. Newcomers also receive information about schools, health care, housing, and the justice system. These resources are freely available across the country, but their use by Sudanese newcomers is stunted because they do not know about them or they rely on members of their community to help them meet their needs. Therefore, it is important to improve newcomers’ access to the services that newcomer‐serving



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agencies offer and make them more ethno-culturally specific, a goal that requires consultation with, and partnership between the agencies and the Sudanese community organizations. In order to achieve successful socio-economic integration, the economic incorporation of the Sudanese into Canadian society must be leveraged. Access to the job market requires that international credentials and work experience be recognized and workplace racism and discrimination be eliminated. The Canadian government has taken steps to eliminate these obstacles to help immigrants (among other minority groups) move into the work force. For example, regulatory bodies, internship, and bridging programs offer assessment services and placement training in the public service and private sectors. These mechanisms allow immigrants to have their international credentials evaluated and acquire Canadian work experience. To combat racism and discrimination, legislation such as Canada’s Employment Equity Act and the Federal Contractors Program – along with numerous diversity training programs – seek to secure fairness for minority groups in hiring, promotion, and career advancement. These measures have been successful in that they have significantly improved the economic incorporation of some visible minority groups, including Middle Easterners, Indians, and Chinese. However, ethnic groups such as Blacks and Filipinos continue to encounter systemic barriers in accessing employment and bridging the wage gap, as well as workplace harassment and under-­ representation in upper-level and managerial positions. These barriers could be explained by racism towards specific racialized groups as well as negative stereotypes about some countries in the Global South. In addition, the coping strategies of individuals and groups could contribute to these states of affairs. For economic incorporation to be successful for immigrant communities, it must be perceived as a reciprocal relationship in which both immigrants and the host society adapt to change. Governments and stakeholders should ensure that employment-equity policies and programs bring about the desired outcomes for all marginalized groups. This will require increased follow-up to ensure that employers understand and apply them efficiently. This step goes hand-inhand with instituting diversity-training programs to raise awareness and build skills that could reduce biases and prejudices. In so doing, there is need for accountability to reach the goal of inclusion for the excluded groups, including the Sudanese. On their part, members of

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the Sudanese diaspora in Canada should be more proactive in their approach to employment. They should take advantage of available resources, such as professional training programs and networking opportunities that will enable them to update and strengthen their skills and social capital, placing them in a better position to enter the job market. The socio-economic integration of the Sudanese cannot be successful without functional community organizations that offer – and can direct individuals to – services and programs, and also intervene on behalf of the community. For the Sudanese organizations to work effectively, they need adequate financial and logistical assistance. In addition, members of these organizations should attempt to identify community needs and partner with stakeholders to enhance community well-being. The more the Sudanese diaspora is engaged with life in Canada the greater an asset it will become; integration enriches Canadian culture and helps strengthen the economy. A well-integrated Sudanese community could benefit the government of Canada by helping it enhance its foreign policy and official activities with Sudan. The community could provide feedback about the socio-economic, political, and educational situation in Sudan and offer advice on efficient practices and policies to address the needs of groups and communities there. Feedback could be used to better develop platforms and forums that bring together the government of Canada and members of the Sudanese diaspora across Canada. Participation by women and men as well as representatives of Sudanese ethnic groups in these consultations will allow for more inclusive perspectives and informed suggestions. Moreover, the Sudanese diaspora’s socio-economic, socio-­political, and socio-cultural activities must produce broader benefits for development in Sudan. For example, remittance inflows should support more businesses and community-based projects. They could also help with poverty reduction (Gupta, Patillo, and Wagh 2007), formation of human capital (Edwards and Ureta 2003; Hanson and Woodruff 2003), and improvement of the source country’s creditworthiness (Avendaño, Gaillard, and Parra 2009). To reach these goals, Sudan could draw upon initiatives that some developing countries have undertaken to transform brain drain into brain gain. Kenya attracts long-term investment by reducing remittance costs and offering tax incentives. India has introduced the diaspora bonds,



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which are national products sold by governments or private companies to nationals living abroad at a preferential rate. The bonds improve the source country’s economy and infrastructure, and Israel and India have raised over US$40 billion through this channel. These initiatives could reproduce similar success for Sudan. Similarly, the diaspora’s socio-cultural efforts will be more fruitful if they are turned into more effective educational and cultural outcomes. More teaching, collaborative research, and exchange programs between Canadian and Sudanese universities could foster the circulation of knowledge. Senegal’s installation of a computing grid in its universities as a result of a unesco-funded pilot project launched from 2006 to 2008 is one successful initiative. The grid was jointly developed and implemented by Senegalese scientists in the country and others in the diaspora, and facilitates access to technologies and global networks of communication. In addition, it will be useful for universities in Sudan to host Sudanese and fellow ­Canadian scholars to teach and conduct research in Sudan, and Canadian universities could implement similar initiatives. The diaspora’s cultural productivity deserves to be expanded to better facilitate the cross-cultural sharing of information and skills between Sudanese and Canadian artists. Broadening the scope of the transnational political activities of the Sudanese in Canada could allow the diaspora to play a more crucial role in bringing democracy to Sudan. Building additional links among the Sudanese and key advocacy networks such as international and domestic ngos, foundations, and women’s rights and human rights groups could assist in democratizing Sudan. Mass mobilization of the diaspora and its allies could instigate forums of national and international negotiations and place pressure on the governments, corporations, and interest groups who are generating policies on Sudan. Moreover, there is worth in increasing the peace-building initiatives of fellow Canadians. By expanding awareness about conflict in Sudan and methods to help resolve it, acquiring more financial support, and building coalitions with the Sudanese and other groups dealing with conflict resolution, peace may be more easily achieved. Links between the government of Canada and Sudan need to be extended to decrease Sudan’s dependency on aid and transition towards mutual exchanges and shared benefits in trade, investments, and knowledge.

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Future research is required to gain more comprehensive understandings of the Sudanese community in Canada, conflict in Sudan, and the relations between Canada and Sudan. As such, inquiry could focus on pan-Canadian studies about the settlement patterns and integration of Sudanese newcomers and established immigrants in Canada, identity construction and negotiation, and the functioning of community organizations. Research should make strides to better document the barriers that hinder the advancement of Sudanese women in Canadian society and the youths’ experiences of inclusion and exclusion in the school system, among other societal spheres. Attention should also be paid to the successful practices of individuals who are well integrated into Canadian society and the organizations that function properly in order to identify initiatives to build upon rather than supplanting or duplicating them. Future research could also investigate conflicts in Sudan that scholars have overlooked, such as the clashes that have unfolded between the government of Sudan and the Eastern Front, and the recent conflicts in Sudan and South Sudan. In addition, analysis could provide models to accommodate the ethnic configuration of Sudan and its pluralistic identities. Some countries in the Global South, such as South Africa, have endorsed multiculturalism policies to manage ethnicity in their societies (Ryan 2010). Like Sudan, these countries are multi-ethnic and experience serious cleavages. It will be interesting to examine the viability of the multiculturalism framework in a Sudanese context and the extent to which it could help downplay polarization and foster consensus. Further research could elucidate ways in which the Sudanese engage with their source country as well as the benefits and shortcomings of their transnational activities. Moreover, it will be intriguing to assess the results of conflict resolution initiatives of non-Sudanese Canadians for Sudan, the outcomes of the government of Canada’s peace-building programs in Sudan, and the impacts of economic sanctions on Sudan. Such studies would enable better informed policies and activities. Of course the suggested actions and research require development, democracy, and political restructuring in Sudan, and a state that situates itself above divisive identity politics. The effectiveness of these measures will remain questionable unless improvements are made in settlement and integration in Canada as well as Canadian foreign policy. This is a collective responsibility that requires ­commitment



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and political and public will from states, identity groups, and the civil society in Sudan and the diaspora. Those of us who have ended up in Canada have the ability and opportunity to make change feasible; in doing so we will have given back to the country that has afforded us an education. We will have helped offer the gift of prosperity to the people who have raised us. We will have convinced the children of Sudan that their dreams can come true and that their dreams can be larger than life.

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Contributors

John C l ay ton is a project director at Samaritan’s Purse Canada in Calgary, Alberta. R odne y C rut c h e r is a professor in the Department of Family Medicine at University of Calgary, Alberta. His research interests are in medical education, specifically clinical competence assessment, health work force research, international medical graduates, and global health. He has practised in Canada and New Zealand and carried out scholarly work in Sudan, Nigeria, and Scotland. He has been the director of the University of Calgary Sudan program since 2005. D a l a l D ao u d is a PhD student in political sciences at Queen’s University. Her research interests include ethnic conflict, social movements, and ethnic politics. A llison D e nni s has an MEd and a ba in linguistics. She is the language instructor for the Sudanese Physician Reintegration Program / The Southern Sudan Healthcare Accessibility, Rehabilitation, and Education program at the University of Calgary. M a rt h a F a n joy has a PhD in anthropology from the University of Toronto, Ontario. She teaches at the University of Calgary and works in policy and research at the United Way of Calgary and Area. Her research focuses on transnationalism and identity politics among refugees from South Sudan living in Alberta. She has conducted fieldwork with South Sudanese in Canada, South Sudan, and Egypt.

198 Contributors

J u l i F i n l ay is a PhD candidate and sessional instructor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Calgary. Her research interests include cultural anthropology, the anthropology of knowledge production, and knowledge translation. A li K ama l graduated from the University of Calgary with a master of arts in sociology. His research interests encompass the Islamic world, political sociology, and immigration. A m a l M a d i b b o is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Calgary. Her research focuses on race and anti-racism, global immigration and integration, Black francophone immigration to Canada, and race and ethnicity in subSaharan Africa. S u sa n McGrath is a professor in the School of Social Work at York University in Toronto, Ontario, where she also served as director of the Centre for Refugee Studies from 2004 to 2012. Her research focuses on collective trauma, settlement services and supports for refugees, and social development. She has been involved in research projects in Rwanda and Sudan. Dr McGrath is the principal investigator of the sshrc Strategic Knowledge Cluster grant, which is supporting a Canadian and global Refugee Research Network. R u th P a r e nt is the program manager of the Sudanese Physician Reintegration Program / The Southern Sudan Healthcare Accessibility, Rehabilitation, and Education program at the University of Calgary. S h e l l e y R o s s is an assistant professor, education researcher, and education strategic planning team leader in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta. Sc ott Sha nno n is a medical doctor msph dabfp. She is a family physician and former director for Sudan Physician Reintegration Program, Phase II at the University of Calgary. A shley Sol e sk i graduated from the University of Calgary with a Bachelor of Arts, Sociology (Honours) and a Bachelor of Arts, Psychology. After travelling to several countries in Africa, she became



Contributors 199

involved in conflict and conflict resolution. Ashley works as a child development advisor in the Calgary area. Da n i e l Ma d i t T hon Duo p is a medical doctor and team leader with the ima World Health in Malakal, Upper Nile State, in the Republic of South Sudan.

Index

Page references in italics indicate a table or figure. Abboud, Ibrahim, president of Sudan, 13, 119 Abd Al Rahman Al Mahdi, 58, 59 Abdullahi Ibn Mohammed, 12 Abu Bakr Al Siddiq, Caliph, 56 Abusharaf, Rogaia, 7, 83 Ackermann, Alice, 156 Addis Ababa Agreement, 30, 32–3, 35, 171 advocacy groups, 161–3 Africanism, 15–16, 17, 20 African Union Mission in Sudan (amis), 160 African Union/United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (unamid), 155 Allied Democratic Forces (adf), 45 Al-Rasheed, Madawi, 116 Annan, Kofi, 157 Antoun, Richard, 54 Anyanya (separatist rebel army), 32, 45 Apter, David, 123 Arabism, 15, 17

Arabization, 10, 18, 31–2, 49, 65, 119 Arman, Yasir, 42 authoritarianism, 29 Al Azhari, Ismail, 13 Baqt agreement, 10 Bari tribe, 76 Barnes, Diane, 116 Al Bashir, Ahmad Ateyyib, 57 Al Bashir, Omar Hasan, president of Sudan: coming to power, 41; dictatorship of, 13; domestic policy, 41, 46; election victory, 34, 42, 60; foreign policy, 46; Islamic radicalism of, 37, 48; peacemaking and, 39; Turabi and, 60–1 Beja Organization of Canada, 22 Benjamin, Dave, 163 Bixler, Mark, 120 Black, David, 160 Bruce, Steve, 64 Burgess, Heidi, 154

202 Index

Canada: advocacy groups in, ­161–2; African diasporas in, 7, 8, 22–3; Darfur conflict and, ­158–62, 163, 164, 166, 167; employment-equity programs, 175–6; immigration policies, 169–70, 174, 175; immigration rate, 4–5, 174; increasing access of social services, 88, 99n9; population of, 5; status of visible minorities, 175; Sudanese immigration to, 21, 172, 174; Sudanese women in, 87–9; transnationalism and, 5–6 Canada Immigration Act (1869), 4 Canada-Sudan relations, 3, 7, 24–6, 160, 173, 177–9 Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, 7 Canadian International Development Agency (cida), 7, 135, 160 care Canada, 159 Castro, Fidel, 100, 104, 121, 123 Chad, 48, 159, 165, 166 China National Petroleum Corporation (cnpc), 39 Christianity, 14, 15 cipp (context, input, process, and product) model, 146 civil wars, 20, 51n7, 65, 103 Cohen, Robin, 5 Comaroff, Jean, 103 Comaroff, John, 103 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (cpa): vs. Addis Ababa Agreement, 35; consequences of, 40–1; criticism of, 37–8; Garang’s signature on, 119; on government of South Sudan, 35; history of,

33–6; importance of, 31, 32, 37; origin of, 171; on power and wealth-sharing, 36; ratification of, 27; on state and religion, 36 conflict management, 6, 154 conflict prevention, 156, 157 conflict resolution, 6, 154–8, 162, 165 conflicts, nature of, 154 Cowell, Alan, 59 Crutcher, Rodney, 25 Cuba: foreign affairs, 121, 123–4; foreign student education program, 100–1, 104, 106, 121–3; Sudanese refugees in, 25, 121, 122 Dallaire, Romeo, 155, 160, 167 Daoud, Dalal, 24 Darfur Association of Canada, 22 Darfur conflict: advocacy groups and, 161–2; Canada’s role in, 158–62, 163, 164, 166, 167; characteristic of, 154–5, 166–7; evolution of, 152–3; humanitarian aid and, 156, 167; international community and, 153, 155; origin of, 20, 170; peacekeeping efforts, 155–6; poverty and, 157; role of education in, 164–6; role of lobbying in, 163; study of, 25, 152, 153; Western perception of, 158 Darfur Peace Agreement, 161 Darfur Region, 3, 31, 160–1, 164–6 Darfur Sultanate, 10 democracy, 29 Democratic Union Party, 23 Deng, Francis, 18 Descartes, René, 63



Index 203

diasporas and source countries, 175–6 Digital African Health Library, 136, 150n10 Dinka people, 49, 51n5, 85 Duop, Daniel Madit Thon: at Bilpam headquarters, 128; Canadian experience, 129; career path, 147–8; decision to return to Sudan, 129–30; education of, 126, 129; family of, 126–7, 147, 149; meeting with John Garang, 127–8; military experience of, 128; personality of, 149; on refugees, 100; resettlement in South Sudan, 147; residence of, 147; travel to Cuba, 128–9; tribal affiliation, 126–7. See also return migrants Egypt-Sudan relations, 47 Elazar, Daniel, 29, 40, 48 elections in Sudan, 34, 42, 43 employment-equity policies, 175–6 Eritrea, 16, 23, 30, 47 Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (eplf), 45 Eritrea-Sudan relations, 45–6, 48 Ethiopia, 9, 25, 100, 104, 112, 119 Ethiopia-Sudan relations, 45–6, 48 ethnicity, 18, 20 family, cultural definitions of, 86 Fanjoy, Martha, 24 Feinsilver, Julie, 123 feminism, 64–5 Finlay, Juli, 25 Fisher, Ron, 154 Fisk, Robert, 62 Fowler, Robert, 160

Friedrich Erbert Stifung Foundation, 38, 51n12 fundamentalism, 54–5 Fung Kingdom (1505–1821), 10 Gaddafi, Muammar, 47 Garang, Atem, 37 Garang, John: as a charismatic leader, 44; collection of speeches of, 102; cult of personality of, 120; education policy of, 100, 116–17, 120; foreign affairs, 104; influence of, 124; as leader of spla/m, 107, 119–20, 127; life and career of, 119–20; political views of, 44 Gasperini, Lavinia, 122 Gladstone, William Ewart, 11 Gleijeses, Piero, 121, 122 Gonzales, David, 123 Goodhand, Jonathan, 156 Gordon, Charles, 12 Government of National Unity (gnu), 36 Government of South Sudan (GoSS), 35, 36, 38, 39, 45, 49 Grzyb, Amanda, 158 Gulliver, P., 193 Hamburg, David, 165 Hamdan, Mohamad, 26 Hammarskjöld, Dag, 155 Hammett, Daniel, 123 Heraclides, Alexis, 30, 45, 48 historical anthropology, 102–3 historical grievances, 43–4 Hobbes, Thomas, 63 Horowitz, Donald, 28, 29, 31, 48 human rights violations, 50 Huntington, Samuel, 62

204 Index

Hussain, Malik, 34 hut (traditional dwelling), 81, 98n7 Hutchinson, Sharon, 85 Ibrahim, Abd Allah, 71 identity, 14–16, 19–20, 31–2, 93 immigration to Canada, 4–5, 7, 173. See also Sudanese diaspora in Canada Interchurch Medical Assistance World Health (ima), 147 Intergovernmental Authority on Development (igad), 47–8 internally displaced persons (idps), 8, 156 Isla de la Juventud (Isle of Youth), 100, 105, 106 Islamic fundamentalism: characteristics of, 55, 61; modernity and, 63–5; neo-colonial policies and, 62–3; origin of, 52–3, 61, 75; rise of, 171–2; socio-economic conditions and, 61–2, 65–6; study of, 3, 24, 53 Islam in Sudan, 9–10, 14, 56–61, 62 Itang refugee camp, 104, 105, 127 Jaffer, Mobina, 160 Jamaican returnees, 83 jihad (holy war), 53, 74–5 Juba, 3, 80, 81, 98n5 Justice Africa, 159 Kamal, Ali, 24 Kapila, Mukesh, 154 Kenya, 25, 133–4, 176 Khalid, Mansoor, 100 Khartoum, 12, 18 Al Khatmiya Sufi order, 58

Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah, 67, 71 Kiir, Salva: conflict with Riek Machar, 50; influence of, 44; on oil-sharing, 38; political career of, 37; refugee-physicians and, 112, 116, 124 kinship obligations, 83, 86, 90, 96 Kitchener, Horatio Herbert, 12 Kuchkon, Ajak, 141 Kunz, Egon, 115, 116 Langman, Lauren, 61, 62, 66 Lawry, Steven, 19 Leng, Deng, 86 lobbying, 163–4 Locke, John, 63 Lord’s Resistance Army (lra), 45 Lost Boys and Girls of Sudan, 25, 120 Lybia-Sudan relations, 46–7 Machar, Riek, 50, 107 Machiavelli, Niccolo, 63 Madibbo, Amal, 25 Al Mahdi. See Muhammad Ahmad Al Mahdi Al Mahdiya religious movement, 57, 58 Al Mahdiya Revolution (1881–85), 11–12, 170 Malakal (South Sudan), 104, 147, 149 Marchal, Ronald, 45 Martin, Paul, 160 medical camps, 136, 137, 140, 143 Medical Education Upgrading Program, 131–3, 150n5. See also University of Calgary – Faculty of Medicine



Index 205

Mengistu Haile-Mariam, 45, 104 Al Mirghani, Ali, 59 Al Mirghani, Muhammad Osman (a.k.a. Al Khatim), 58 modernity, 63–5 Mozersky, David, 160 Mubarak, Hosni, 46, 47 Muhammad Ahmad Al Mahdi, 11, 26n2, 47, 57, 58 Muhammad ibn Abdul Karim Al Summan, 57 multiculturalism, 5 Museveni, Yoweri, 45 Muslim Brotherhood, 59, 67 National Assembly of Sudan, 34, 43, 51n4 National Congress Party (ncp), 30, 34, 38, 41, 60 New Partnership for Africa’s Development, 6 Newton, Isaac, 63 Nimeiry, Jaafar, President of Sudan: Addis Ababa Agreement and, 32, 33; dictatorship of, 13; election results, 34; ideology of, 51n3; Islamization policy, 33, 59; peacemaking and, 39; policy in Southern region, 33, 51n5; social policies of, 51n3 non-government organizations (ngos), 157, 159, 161–2, 163 Nubia, 9–10, 18 Nuer people, 14, 49, 50, 85 Nyaba, Peter, 120 Omdurman, Battle of, 12 O’Neill, Kate, 26 Ontario, 7, 21 Oromo Liberation Front (olf), 45

Ozzano, Luca, 54 Pavkovic, Aleksandar, 30, 43 peace-building, 7 political parties, 40, 41, 43, 58 Popular Congress Party (pcp), 60 power-sharing, 36, 37–8 Al Qadiriya Sufi order, 58 Quebec separatism, 29–30 Quran, 72, 74 Race, Ethnicity, Immigration and Identity in the Sudan project, 26n3 Racialized Hierarchy of Desirability (rhd), 4 Radan, Peter, 30, 43 reconstruction, concept of, 3, 6, 7 Reeves, Eric, 152, 167 refugee-physicians: in Canada, 101, 106–8; departure from Sudan, 103–6; education of, 100–1, 110; evaluation of, 105, 144; family connections, 107; as “Garang seeds,” 112; interviews with, 109–10; knowledge of languages, 102; life in Cuba, 106; meeting with Salva Kiir, 112, 116; mission of, 100, 108–15; prospects for practicing medicine, 113; relations among, 124; repatriation experience, 144, 172–3; sense of responsibility of, ­109–11, 111–12, 114, 124; stories of, 104–6, 109–13; study of, 24, 101–3, 115; views of, 114–15 refugees: common patterns in experience of, 115–16;

206 Index

­ on-linear experience of, 77, n 95; problem of resettlement of, 98–9n8 Republic of South Sudan: capital city, 9; community medical outreach, 141, 145; experience of return migrants in, 76–7, 78–80, 81–3, 85, 91–3, 94–5; family traditions, 85–7; health care, 113, 134, 135, 143, 148; Interim National Constitution (inc), 35, 36; lack of medical education in, 134, 150n7; reconstruction efforts, 172–3; referendum on independence of, 27; refugee camps in, 148; secession of, 27, 30, 49, 170–1; separatist governments in, 31; study of, 24, 50n1, 77; territory and population, 8; tribal division, 93–4; violence in, 44, 143. See also Government of South Sudan (GoSS) Responsibility to Protect (R2P) Doctrine, 154, 158, 164 return migrants: assumptions about, 95–6; career path in Sudan, 90; conversations with, 77, 79, 91–2, 98n6; employment challenges, 99n10; experience of loss, 78–83; kinship obligations, 83–90, 84, 85, 87; resettlement experience, 76–7, 78–80, 81–3, 85, 91–3, 94–5; search for identity, 91–5, 97; settlement in Canada, 76, 83–4, 90, 98n4–5; stories of, 76–7, 81–3, 87, 89–90, 117–19; tribal affiliation, 93–4; young generation of, 93. See also Duop, Daniel Madit Thon

return migration: challenges of, 83; complexity of problem of, 95–7; gender factor, 84–5, 87–8, 96; scholarly research on, 77–8, 83, 97n1, 98n3 Richard, Alan, 61, 66 Rock, Allan, 160 Rogier, Emeric, 33, 48 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 63 Rushdie, Salman, 71 Samaritan’s Purse (non-government organization), 101, 107–8, 125 Sambanis, Nicholas, 28 Al Sammaniya Sufi order, 57–8 Satanic Verses (Rushdie), 71 Save Darfur Canada advocacy group, 23 secession: causes of South Sudan’s, 31–2, 49, 170; definition of, 27–8; factors of, 28–9, 30, 31, 43–4; theories of, 27–31 secularization, 64 separatism, 29, 45 sharia (Islamic law): as official law of Sudan, 33, 36, 51n7, 53, 59; sources of, 55; status of women and, 73, 74; Turabi and implementation of, 60, 67, 69–70, 75 Sharkey, Heather, 31 Shinkfield, Anthony, 146 Sidahmed, Abdel Salam, 40 Silverman, Marilyn, 102 Skinner, Mathew, 157 Smith, Anthony, 29, 31, 48 Soleski, Ashley, 25 Southern Sudan Healthcare Accessibility, Rehabilitation, and Education Program (sshare):



Index 207

benefits of, 141, 142, 145; community impact, 140, 141; evaluation methods, 138–9, 140; information about, 150n8; longdistance learning and, 136–8, 150n11; medical camps, 136, 137, 140, 143; mission of, 135; success of, 146–7 Southern Sudan Liberation Front, 31 South Sudan. See Republic of South Sudan South Sudanese Canadians. See return migrants; Sudanese diaspora in Canada Soviet Union, 62, 106, 107, 123 Ssewakiryanga, Richard, 157 Stufflebeam, Daniel, 146 Sudan: access to education, 117– 18; Anglo-Egyptian rule, 11–13, 170; Arabization of, 10; capital city, 9; Christianity in, 9–10, 14; civil wars, 20, 51n7, 65, 171; constitutions, 51n2; democratic governments, 39, 40–3; domestic conflicts, 6–7, 49–50, 171, 174; economic development, 9, 18–19, 39, 65–6; elections, 34, 42, 43; ethnic diversity, 10–11, 13–16, 17, 18; financial aid to, 160; foreign relations, 45–6, 45–8, 46, 48, 177; history of, 9–13, 170; identities, 14–16, 17; immigration from, 5, 7, 16; independence of, 13; introduction of sharia as official law, 33, 36, 51n7, 53, 59; Islam in, 9–10, 14, 56–61, 62; Islamization policy, 68–71, 170; linguistic diversity, 14; natural

resources, 9; Northern Arabs’ policies, 31–2; North-South divide, 17, 36, 42–3; political regimes, 13, 49, 170; promotion of secularism in, 48; revolutions, 13; rise of Islamic fundamentalism, 61–2, 171–2; scholarly research on, 3, 24–6, 178; territory and population, 8; tribal violence in, 49–50; Turkish rule, 11, 18; women in, 53, 65, 71–3. See also Darfur conflict; Republic of South Sudan Sudanese Association of Manitoba, 22 Sudanese-Canadian Association of Ottawa, 22 Sudanese Community Association of Ontario, 21 Sudanese community in Calgary, 83, 97n1, 98n4–5 Sudanese diaspora in Canada: assistance to newcomers, 174, 176; goals of, 21–2; involvement in politics, 22–3; participation in reconstruction of Sudan, 22, 172, 173; scholarship on, 7, 8, 178; services and activities, 7, 21–2, 23; women from, 87–9, 90 Sudanese Nuer Community Association of Edmonton, 22 Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (spla), 33 Sudanese People’s Liberation Army/ Movement (spla/m): Bilpam headquarters, 104, 105, 128; cpa negotiations and, 33–4; recruits of, 127, 128; and rise of Africanism, 15; split within, 107

208 Index

Sudanese Physician Reintegration Program (sprp): benefits of, 145–6; evaluation of, 102; funding, 130; origin of, 101, 102, 107; participants, 107, 125, 150n6; students’ training and assessment, 130–1 Sudanese/sshare physicians: benefits of sshare program to, 141, 142; Bible study, 132; career path in Sudan, 145; challenges of reintegration, 141–2; clinical training, 131–2, 133, 140– 1; competence of, 142, 144–5; education of, 130–1; Englishlanguage instructions to, 132; excessive workload, 138; experience with long-distance learning, 136–8; internships in Kenya, 124, 125, 133–4; language assessment, 150n4 Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (splm), 36, 38 Sudan’s People Liberation Movement-­North (splm-n), 30 Sufi Islam, 56–7, 62 Suleiman Solon, Sultan of Darfur, 10 Sunni Islam, 56–7 Teny, Riek Machar, 50 Tibi, Bassam, 55 Tigrinya People’s Liberation Front (tplf), 45 Toynbee, Arnold, 43 transnationalism, 5–6, 25–6, 173–4 tribe, use of term, 99n11 Turabi, Hasan: arrest of, 60; domestic policy, 59; on inter-

national politics, 69; on Islamic state, 67–71; on jihad, 74–5; life and career of, 66–7; on moral and legal code, 70–1; personality of, 67; popularity of, 171; relations with Al Bashir, 60–1; on role of sharia, 69–70; on Salman Rushdie, 71; speeches and interviews, 53; on state and society, 69–70; on status of women, 71–3; views of, 53–4, 67–8, 75 Turkiya (Turkish regime), 11, 18, 170 Uganda, 45, 46, 47, 48 Umma Party, 43, 58, 60 United Nations (un), 50, 105, 107, 154, 155, 160 United Nations Development Program (undp), 93, 97 United Nations High Commission for Refugees (unhcr), 77 United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (unocha), 156 United States Agency for International Development (usaid), 133 University of Calgary – Faculty of Medicine, 101, 107, 125, 130, 140. See also Medical Education Upgrading Program US-Sudan relations, 21, 45, 46, 48, 69 Viorst, Milton, 67, 71 Waldie, Angela, 150n1 Welsh, May, 49 Wolf, Eric, 103



Index 209

Women in Islam and Muslim Society (Turabi), 71 Wood, Bernard, 157 Wood, John R., 27, 28, 29, 31 World Health Organization Global Code of Practice, 146

Young, Robert, 30, 45, 48 Zartman, William, 157