The Genesis of the Arab-Africa Conflict

BY THE LIBRARIAN

Designation

The Librarian puts the Sudan conflict in the context of history, from the view of historical authors

In January 1987 the National Islamic Front issued its Sudan Charter, which outlines the party’s views about a Sudanese nation-state in which religious plurality, Islamic commitment and national unity are delicately and precariously balanced. The Charter pledges the party’s commitment to a federal system of government. It is explicit on a number of important issues of contention such as:
(1) The Sudan is united in diversity. What unite the Sudanese people are common religious and human values ‘the bonds of coexistence, solidarity and patriotism. They are however diverse by the multiplicity of religious and cultural affiliations’;
(2) For ‘unity’ and ‘dignity’ of the Sudanese peoples a number of principles are recommended for observation. These include respect for religious beliefs, freedom of choice of one’s religious creed and sanctity of religious functions and institutions;
(3) Since Muslims are Unitarian in religious approach to life and they are the majority in the country, the constitutional system must be non-secular. ‘Moslems have a legitimate right by virtue of their religious choice, their democratic weight and of natural justice to practice the values and rules of their religion to their full range-in personal, familial, social and political affairs’. Secularism is dismissed as unfamiliar to Moslems and only developed from a peculiar European experience’;
(4) Local ‘subcultures’ (defined as tongues, heritages, ways of life etc.) are respected and may be freely expressed and promoted ‘without derogation from national educational policies or from the status of the official language’ (which is Arabic);
(5) National identities are reduced to simple racism, which is constitutionally discouraged in several ways and effectively forbidden, (but) ‘ethnicity is a natural trait not deriving from human attainment and no good as a basis for discrimination against people or citizens in socio- political or legal relations. Moreover the expression of ethnic arrogance, rancor or strife should not be allowed’;
(6) The Federal Legislature is supreme. Its legislation overrides regional legislation and not only in areas of concurrent powers but also in other areas and the state of national emergency;
(7) The Federal Legislature may declare a state of emergency under specific circumstances, including ’wars, calamities and constitutional collapse’ and suspend regional powers and institutions;
(8) The source of legislation, national and regional and (presumably) the source of judicial pronouncements is Islamic jurisprudence;
(9) Legislative authority of any region predominantly inhabited by non-Moslems may object to the application of any rule of criminal nature, which draws explicitly from the Sharia;
(10) The proposed federal system will be applied gradually as infrastructure –material and human-is provided, the assumption being that independent financial resources can be raised.
Most independent African states have experienced the agony of internal conflicts to varying degree. Some of these conflicts arose from efforts by disenchanted groups either to seize power or to break away from the sphere of influence of the central authority. In the Sudan, the African-Arab conflict was complex and tragic .As the situation deteriorated an accumulation of antagonisms and of deep-felt hatred between the people of the North and South surfaced. Many factors played a role in the both its generation and outcome. – The Librarian will appear on this page in every issue