Posted on behalf of Munzoul Assal

Sudan is one of the fastest urbanizing countries in the world. Population figures show that the country was already 40% urbanized in 2005—and that figure excludes the displaced of Darfur and the large numbers of unregistered migrants and squatters in Khartoum. Darfur today is approximately one third urban, one third rural and one third displaced. Even with the most optimistic scenarios for peace and stability, the majority of Sudanese—including Darfurians—will soon be living in cities. This is a pathological urbanization—it is occurring without social integration. This essay asks, what does this entail for the future of Sudan?

Despite decades of war, Sudan‘s population has been growing at about 2.8% per annum. That population growth is fastest in a few urban centers, with Khartoum having the biggest share. The capital’s population grew from just 250,000 on the eve of independent to an estimated 2,831,000 in 1993—a year when the census estimated Sudan to be 25% urbanized. By 2005 Khartoum was estimated at 4.5 million officially and more than 7 million unofficially—with 40% of the country urbanized, and fully half the urban population in the capital. This makes Khartoum a primate city, not only in terms of absolute figures, but also politically, economically and socially, as large as all the other urban centers combined.

Migration to Khartoum started after independence. For some years, migration was seasonal, and migrants often returned to their areas of origin. But since the 1970s, most migration to Khartoum has been a response to natural and man-made disasters and the inequality of resource distribution. Most of Sudan‘s economic capital and social services are concentrated in Khartoum. Just as economic resources flow to the center and not the peripheries, so too do people move to the metropolis. The long civil war in southern Sudan destabilized communities and pushed millions of internally displaced persons (IDPs) northward. Today, more than 2 million IDPs live in Khartoum—almost one quarter of the population. This can be seen elsewhere too. Nyala now has a population of 1.2 million, plus 300,000 IDPs, making it contend with Port Sudan as the country’s second largest city. More than one in five Darfurians live in and around Nyala. But it is in the three towns of Khartoum, Omdurman and Khartoum North that we see the most extreme and significant urbanization, and it is here that the country’s political future will be decided. Hence this essay focuses on the national capital.

What is the implication of urbanization for the prospects of democratic transformation in Sudan? Will we see urban polarization, poverty and squalor, with resources and services failing to match the demands of urban inhabitants? Khartoum is marked by extreme socio-economic inequality. Rich and upper class residential areas co-exist side by side with squatter settlements and IDP camps. There is a widening gap between the rich and the poor. Khartoum is witnessing a remarkable real-estate development including residential complexes, infrastructure and foreign investment projects that are mostly run by Asians. It is becoming one of the most expensive cities in the world. Yet, these developments do not benefit half of Khartoum‘s population living in the peripheries of the city. The city provides few if any services to this vast group.

Khartoum is the historic location of political protest. Every movement that brought political change originated in Khartoum, notably the 1964 October Revolution in 1964 and the 1985 Popular Uprising. The most recent protest in Khartoum followed the sudden death of John Garang in 2005 and turned violent. Social movements flourish in the city, as seen in proliferating numbers of NGOs and civil society organizations, using the opportunities provided by the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) and the promise of democracy. The overwhelming majority of Khartoum residents are migrants (i.e. not born in the capital). This will undoubtedly have an impact on the nature of political protest in the city—it is less likely to be an elite affair based among graduates and more likely to draw in the vast numbers of disaffected and angry migrants and IDPs, who live below the poverty line. Long-term residents fear that the growth of the city is a destructive force which may consolidate ethnic and class polarization. Successive governments have feared the alleged destructive potential of new-comers and have adopted a security approach to migrants and IDPs, pushing them to the outer edge of the city. In the 1980s Prime Minister Sadiq Al-Mahdi warned of the danger of the zang (black) belt encircling Khartoum and in the 1990s the government demolished many unregistered settlements and relocated their inhabitants to ‘peace cities’ outside the city proper.

Khartoum is the seat of Sudan‘s political leadership. It is a center for decision making, and regional or state governments keep offices there as they depend on financial transfers and technical assistance from the central government. This political dominance has its roots in history. During the Mahdist period, government supporters were encouraged or coerced to come to Omdurman. During the 1960s, the Umma Party encouraged its supporters from western Sudan to settle there, promising housing for migrants. Today, the National Congress Party is trying to buy the loyalty of IDPs in advance of the elections by providing them with residential plots.

When the CPA was signed, many anticipated that Khartoum‘s IDPs would return to the newly-peaceful South, Nuba Mountains and south Blue Nile. But recent displaced persons who went back to the Nuba Mountains and the South returned to Khartoum because poverty is even worse in their original areas than in the city. The hyper-concentration of wealth, services and employment in the metropolis has created a cycle whereby as Khartoum strengthens its economic base it proceeds to attract more and more people to itself. The position has now been reached where Khartoum has become a parasite on the rest of the country.

Khartoum‘s urbanization is pathological. It is the aggregation of people without their integration into a social and political system that enfranchises them and provides for democratic transformation. Khartoum‘s immigrants, who number half of the city, are not integrated into the urban system in a meaningful manner. These people, who mostly were pastoralists or farmers, lost their rural livelihoods before moving to Khartoum. And they were neither empowered to get return to their former livelihoods nor provided with alternative means of sustainable life in the city. This is urbanization without integration. In fact, we can talk about a process of ruralization of the city. Migrants have set up rural forms of community self-help systems to enable them to adapt to new harsh realities. But their economic survival depends on the lowest-end of the labor market, namely unskilled jobs with long hours, often far from their homes involving long commutes. A majority of the IDP households are headed by women. The city’s poor rely on the labor of children and school dropouts—40% of IDPs do not complete primary education.

The failure of integration in Khartoum was brutally manifested in the events that followed the announcement of Garang’s death at the end of July 2005. While many analysts and local media commentators tried to link the rampage in Khartoum to angry southerners, it was found later that those who engaged in burning, killing and looting were not only southerners, but also marginalized people from different parts of the country. The violent events took an ugly ethnic form in which people were targeted on the basis of how they looked. Divisive ethnic sentiments were violently displayed. However, the way Khartoum recuperated was unique and brought hope: still Khartoum can be looked at a site of Sudan‘s unity. Some civil society organization succeeded in calming down the situation and healing the wounds. Yet, the events were so shocking to some people in the north that separatist voices became louder in the aftermath of the rampage. Ominously, the riots also revealed the existence number of armed militias in Khartoum.

The ability of urbanization to foster national unity and integration is predicated on a theory of the "melting pot" whereby ethnic and tribal loyalties fade away over time, giving way to identifications that cut across different ethnic, regional or tribal boundaries. But Sudan‘s protracted instability and conflict has defeated the melting powers of urban centers, and what we see instead in Khartoum is a reconstitution of primordial identities. This process is reinforced by the failure of the state to ensure that the basic needs of the poor are met. State policies of revitalizing tribes and ethnicities also contribute. Policies such as "return to the roots," which has tried to establish forms of tribal administration among urban migrants, has led to people affirming their tribal or ethnic identities in search of socio-economic security and physical safety. New forms of native administration have emerged, for example the many Sultans who now exist among southern IDPs in Khartoum. These Sultans have jurisdiction within the displaced communities, but not over southerners in other areas. Migrants from other areas have also weakened their attachment to traditional sectarian parties.

Pathological urbanization also affects long-term city residents Along with the pressure on urban services, the economic liberalization policies adopted during early 1990s led to a process of pauperization of middle class in the country as a whole. The Sudanese middle class that has historically been so politically influential is disappearing. Their shoes are filled by some "nouveau riches" who are closely allied to the ruling National Congress Party and, recently, the SPLM. This new class is unlikely to play a positive role in democratic transformation, wedded as it is to state patronage on an individual basis. Their interests lie in parasitic forms of capitalism rather than collective action. Disenchanted members of the old middle class have few choices: continue living in the country with ever dwindling possibilities, engage in multiple memberships in the newly emerging civil society forms, or leave the country altogether. Sudan is losing a significant force that is vital for political mobilization.

While old political affiliations are weakening, and ethnic or tribal identities are resurgent, the voting patterns of the city electorates are unclear. One thing that is positive about urbanization is the rising consciousness about rights. Thanks to the emerging civil society organizations that articulate the rights of marginalized segments. The rising awareness about rights suggests that voters will make new demands on their electoral candidates. Realizing the importance of the urban vote—and the fact that southerners in the north may determine the outcome of the 2011 referendum on self-determination in the south, political parties are adapting their messages accordingly.

Civil society organizations (CSOs), national NGOs and a variety of other groups are proliferating in urban areas. By the end of 2005, there were 1194 registered civil society organizations, in addition to 194 foreign NGOs, all physically located in Khartoum. National NGO and CSO membership is drawn from the different segments of the urban society, dominated by disenchanted and unemployed university graduates and former employees who lost their jobs for political reasons. Incipient grassroots organizations are also appearing, especially among IDPs. But we cannot expect these organizations to play a leading role in political transformation. Most of their leaders and members are voluntary and part-time. Many are driven by protest and hatred of the status quo. Others are active because it is a way of making a living. The coalition between the drought migrants and the middle classes, with a spirit of voluntary action, that existed in 1985 and helped bring down the military regime, has passed into history. Instead we see the monetarization of voluntarism and the crisis of the middle class, and the political emasculation of the liberal elites, deliberately engineered by the security services. The NCP also managed to penetrate civil society through the registration of front or phoney organizations. The security agencies retain a strong security grip over IDP camps and monitor community organizations closely.

So far urbanization has not led to fostering national unity, and major cities like Khartoum and other urban areas cannot be considered melting pots where different identities integrate. In Sudan, urbanization is synonymous with the ruralization of cities and is also a response to social crisis and livelihood collapse in the countryside. One can also see it as the inevitable outcome of the hyper-concentration of economic resources in the national capital, which is economically booming, so that the entire national society relocates to the capital bit-by-bit. But the city authorities are unable to manage the immigration and Khartoum society is unable to assimilate the migrants because of their sheer numbers. One outcome of this will likely be the creation of the same patterns of marginalization, frustration and militarization that we have seen in the peripheries. In other words, the urbanization which Sudan is witnessing does not correspond to positive processes that are conducive to removing or else mitigating ethnic and other differences that are instrumental in polarizing societies. That being said, urbanization, whether it is a result of natural course of change or of disasters, is hardly reversible.