Alex:

Engelbert’s arguments are just a transparent attempt to ‘de-legitimise’ Africa; and it is sadly the latest, but all too familiar example, of Western scholars wringing their hands and talking over the heads of Africans about “what to do about Africa”.

For starters, a history of failure of the sovereign to deliver essential public goods (e.g. rule of law, development, social welfare and security) for some of its citizens (“some” as opposed to “all” – the distinction is important) is hardly the preserve of Africa, is it now???

See, for example, the indigenous communities in Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Bolivia, Brazil (where most of them form the majority population) and elsewhere in South and Central America , Myanmar, and the inhabitants of Bihar State in India (whose 83 million population dwarfs that of any African country – bar DRC, Nigeria, and Egypt) to name but a few non-African examples.

In other words, the ‘exceptionalism’ of Africa, claimed by Engelbert is, upon closer examination, patently false.

Second, a sense of perspective, again sadly missing in Engelbert’s sensationalist prescriptions, is needed.

European nations, the USA, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, for example, took hundreds and hundreds of years to deliver those essential public goods to their citizenry and fought numerous civil and external wars before their “symbols and instruments of national sovereignty” received domestic acquiescence, if not outright legitimacy. (The provision of public goods to all citizenry was, as you know, an even more recent phenomenon in Australia, where Aborigines were not even counted in the official census ‘til 1974, while in the US ‘Jim Crow’ segregation laws , with accompanying economic and social exclusion, were abolished only fairly recently, too).

Therefore, is it really justifiable for Engelbert to expect African sovereigns (none of them more than 55 years old) to ‘earn their stripes’ domestically virtually overnight???

Hardly.

Alex, your comments about the applicability of Engelbert’s thesis to the example of Sudan have also missed the mark, notably your support to Engelbert’s “‘double hypocrisy to the prevailing system of international recognition”’ regarding the example of south Sudan.

Yes, you’re right: there is indeed “double hypocrisy” in the “prevailing system of international (read Western) recognition” in the case of Sudan.

But it is the other way round than what you claim.

The ‘Khartoum’ government continues to be de facto denied full recognition by Western states despite having made significant strides in extending the provision of key public goods (economic development, social welfare, security) to the Sudanese citizenry, and holding general elections recently whose results, at the very least, broadly reflected the popular will. (Proof? Seen any public strikes, tanks in the street, and Thai-style street demos in Khartoum or anywhere else in non-south Sudan since the election results were announced??? Nope. Yet, Western governments have still remained reluctant to explicitly and unambiguously recognise the choice of the Sudanese people; so much, then, for Engelbert’s de facto call to the West to invoke “wholesale withdrawal of recognition from African states” until they build domestic legitimacy – it’s whether the choice ‘fits’ with the West that’s important.)

Meanwhile, the Government of South Sudan (GOSS) has, in the continuation of the pattern under OLS, franchised delivery of key public goods (health, education, development spending) to international NGOs; held elections whose results were not even remotely credible; creamed off most of the oil money for itself; and has failed abjectly to provide security to its citizenry in many parts of the south; even so, GOSS’s aspirations for statehood have received explicit acceptance (indeed in many quarters outright, if unwitting, encouragement) from key Western nations in the international community.

In short, if anybody has got/stands to receive a “free pass” in the prevailing system of international (again read Western) recognition in the case of Sudan, well, it sure as hell isn’t ‘Khartoum’!!!

Even more galling is the fact that the ability of Khartoum to provide adequate economic development and social welfare (surely the key criteria for “meeting conventional or normative prerequisites for statehood” and the kernel of Engelbert’s focus on Africa???) to all Sudanese citizens has remained severely hamstrung by real and implicit international economic sanctions (US, World Bank, IMF, de facto EU etc).

Those sanctions on ‘Khartoum’ still remain intact even today (five years on from the signing of the CPA). And they have become even more finally tuned to flatten federal public finances, and so severely handicap its role as the primary lead agency for ensuring adequate economic development and welfare provisions to its citizens.

In other words, Western nations have deliberately (stress) ensured that the ‘Khartoum’ government has had only very, very limited financial means at its disposal since 1989 to meet the “conventional or normative prerequisites for statehood” – i.e. development and social welfare, the one that matters most to the Sudanese citizenry, and indeed arguably all other Africans.

It is that financial constraint that has sparked the entirely predictable outcome of armed challenges to the Sudanese state by non-state actors (economic under-development being the underlying driver for Sudan’s conflicts and all that).

Put even more starkly, Alex, the critical exception of real and de facto economic and financial isolation from Western nations over the last 21 years should give one serious pause for thought before casually lumping Sudan into the ‘failed state’ box.

In fact, a counter argument could be made that Sudanese state sovereignty has proven remarkably resilient over the last two-and-a-half decades in the face of very extreme stress tests: US government economic sanctions; US disinvestment campaigns; de facto financial sanctions from the EU; no money from the IMF or the World Bank and other Western-dominated IFIs; neighbouring states (Ethiopia, Eritrea, Uganda, and Chad – not to mention the US) directly or indirectly arming non-state actors in the south and the west to try to overthrow the Khartoum government; US cruise missile attacks (El Shifa); and financial estrangement from the GCC countries in the immediate aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War.

How many sovereigns do you know in this neck of the woods (or outside of Africa) that could come out of those stress tests still standing – let alone be in a position to take on the lion’s share of post-war reconstruction costs as laid out in the CPA???

Not many, I bet.

Sure, Sudan, and Africa generally, has many, many weighty problems: hunger; generating higher rates of, and more broad-based, economic growth to lift the millions living in extreme poverty; income inequalities (a lot of it stratified along geographical or racial lines), endemic diseases, a dearth of opportunities for individual economic advancement and personal development (or the tools to access them); civil wars; neo-patromonialism; corruption; and weak governance to name a few.

But those problems are hardly exclusive to Sudan and the African continent generally.

And we could certainly all do without the simplistic and naïve ‘solutions’ to those problems proffered by Pierre Engelbert.

Afro-pessimism at its very worst and news worthy only to the likes of Fox News.

This is a valuable theoretical perspective on the political economy of dependent capitalism. It is well-accepted that in states characterised by rentierism, political classes coalesce (in the form of factions) around their relationship to power rather than on the basis of relations of production. Contemporary Sudan provides us with an exemplary instantiation of this. Given that entitlement to internationally-recognized sovereignty serves as an engine of generating political power in a rentier state, the mechanisms whereby sovereignty is bestowed or withdrawn therefore become a primary instrument of managing power. In the absence of class organization, the only available mechanism for challenging state power is the putsch.

Ibrahim Adam would be better served in his defence of the current regime if he were to construct his argument in the following manner. Denied the rents routinely provided by international aid donors and international financial institutions to the possessor of state sovereignty (through mechanisms that I need not enumerate herein), the Sudan government has instead utilized a strategy of domestic legitimation through Islam and nationalism, and thereby met the Montevideo Criteria such that it would be a prime beneficiary of any reform of the international sovereignty regime as proposed by Prof. Englebert.

Such an argument would necessarily overlook the fact that, faced with isolation from the circuits of regulated global capital, the Islamist regime tapped into unregulated and criminalized sources of capital and thereby constructed an alternative rentierism. It is the lethal combination of this hyper de-regulated peripheral capitalism and the exclusivist socio-political Islamist project that has so estranged the South Sudanese that the demand for separatism have become unstoppable. Trying to pretend otherwise, however much we would wish it, serves no purpose save self-delusion.

Everything we hear about the Juba government suggests that it is replicating rather than reforming the rentierism it inherited from Khartoum. The Juba regime is one of grand-scale primary accumulation. Objectively, the situation of the ordinary South Sudanese masses may ultimately be little improved from under earlier regimes. That is neither solace nor excuse for apologists of Khartoum’s grotesque misgovernment and oppression of the South, which has brought us to today’s disastrous denouement.

Ibrahim Adam,

Engelbert focuses on African issues, but does he ever claim that Africa is exceptional?

Engelbert’s argument may lack for historical-comparative context (I haven’t yet had an opportunity to read his book myself), but he is quite correct that many African states have limited internal legitimacy despite full their accession to the international legal sovereignty. It is also true that the international system tends to scrupulously acknowledge governments even when governance is mostly fiction. Lebanon during the 1980’s and present-day Somalia are standout examples. For most of the past decade, the eastern DRC was virtually outside the control of government in Kinshasha. Post-independence secession by geographically contiguous, economically self-sufficient regions that constitute distinctive ethno-cultural enclaves have often ended in spectacular failure. The United Nations is in fact largely responsible for Congolese national unity by way of its involvement during the Katangan Crisis. The few exceptions to this rule were either first severed from the original owner (Kosovo) or managed to succeed against long odds (Eritrea, South Sudan).

Whatever one can draw from history, it should be clear that when states fail to deliver essential public goods as you have defined them — particularly at this moment in history, when one is apt to describe them as missing, rather than under development — human suffering results. After nearly twenty years of practical chaos in Somalia, it is time to admit that the doctrinaire line on sovereignty is sometimes not very helpful. The Western experience suggests that delivery of these social goods is no easy — or bloodless — achievement. However, in the West, states were allowed to fail, or else to suffer division as the price for their sins. The population transfers of the 1920’s have probably spared Greece and Turkey another war. While the demise of Yugoslavia is tragic not only for its human cost, but also for the ideal of ethnic community that was scarred during the wars of succession, the constellation of new, ethnically-defined states in its wake, if unpalatable, appear to be more stable. In South America, the various states of Gran Columbia rapidly parted ways as the result of differences in regional culture.

Khartoum has extended key public goods to only a subset of citizens, carefully controlled. It has long been obvious to non-Arab populations in eastern, western, and southern Sudan that the vision of nationhood offered by the center is wholly distinct, and often abusive. The accusation that the South Sudanese government cannot deliver security to all of its constituents, while true, somehow rings hollow when compared with Khartoum’s abysmal record of crimes in Darfur alone. Before the rebels, there were the policies that made the rebels.

Without reading the book myself, I can’t know whether Engelbert seriously contends that the international community should abjure African sovereignty, or if he intended only to stimulate discussion of alternatives to the current situation.

Best,

Matt

Dear Alex
You would agree with me that some in the West,simply exploit the lack of interest of people in the west in African Affairs to write whatever they would imagine about Africa, this has been the case of many books written about Dar Fur, as you know.

It is however when some find in a book, what justifies or upholds their own views, that they project it, as you do here,with this book you refer to and seem to promote.

Which authority is there to determine (this conventional or normative prerquisites of statehood), that the author wants to brighten our minds with? Is it the same one that made Taiwan a (State), gave it a Permanent Seat in the Security Council?

Or where is this movement of (Anglo-phone Cameroun) that is referred to and which is trekking its way to the UN? It is true that some literature exists, that talks about the (Anglo-phone Cameroun), but we never heard of a case of Anglo-phone Cameroun in the UN Committee responsible for Peoples and Territories Under Colonialism.
A wisdom reigned during the independence movement in Africa to recognize the borders of states inherited from the Colonial Era, and that saved Africa many wars, but when some colonial Masters later realized that their interests can be better served by further dividing this nations, they (the Colonial Masters), raised issues and arguments advocating secession.

Biafra was one such case, even Canada was not spared such machinations, and to-day is quite clear in Sudan, it is not only the South, but Dar Fur is coming and after that the East, and the world is ready, all you need is some bright mind that brings forth the rational of undeserved sovereignty, or what we have come to hear these days (about internationally recognized sovereignty).

And I am afraid it is not Sudan alone ,but Sudan is the beginning,`for there is the legitimization by the CPA, though the reasons as you and Mathew Sinn imply are enough.

You say that the Southerners proved that no one can rule South Sudan except Southern Sudanese, well may be I should remind you that people like Gordon Mortat and other were opposed to the Government of Joseph Lagu and Abel Alier, since the inception of the 1972 Addis Ababa Agreement and to be honest it was not because of the North, but because of the corruption of the South Administration.
Moreover and again I repeat, that the SPLM/A started and waged its most ferocious battles against the separatist in the South, because it was a national movement seeking reform in the whole Sudan, however things seem to have changed and we are yet to see what the referendum might bring.

Mathew advances that same old simplistic argument-it has long been obvious to non-arab populations in eastern, western and southern Sudan that the vision of offered by the center is wholly distinct, and often abusive-I donit really know if you and Mathew have ever read a book entitled “Al-Inghaz Fi Amme,” (One year of the revolution of national salvation), where we are told that the democratically elected government of Sadiq Almahdi was toppled because it did not recognize the arabism of the Fur Tribe, the largest tribe in Dar Fur, I sincerely wish that Mathew Sinn would read this book.

I think Mathew concludes by what seems to be a trend that I hope this blog will not promote-he says-I can’t know whether Engelbert seriously contends that the international community should abjure African sovereignty or if he intends only to stimulate discussion of alternatives to the current situation.

My answer, is it is indeed the first,the same international community, that made Taiwan a state with a permanent seat at the Security Council for sometime, may of course take the wisdom of intellectual and scholars like Engelbert, and apply it to Africa, and this could be a neat outcome of the referendum in South Sudan.

Ibrahim Adam:

Thanks for exposing Engelbert’s analysis.

One of the arguments, that I feel healthily skeptical on, is the one having to do with Khartoum’s boom being “underpinned by income, customs, and sales tax receipt” and “not oil revenue”. Sudan’s GDP has been projected to grow at 3%, this year. The explanation, that I have read, is that of falling oil prices. I’m interested to hear what you think about this.

It is well known, and ignored, that comparative temporal considerations with regard to Africa’s political evolution, are redundant due to the nature of modern global affairs, and I would also add, as well, the plethora of information and educated perspectives possessed by African politicians and academics, make it so. The oppression has external and internal sources, that are inexcusable.

Engelbert’s NYT edited op-ed is academic ammunition for R2P 2: The Return. It would be additionally informative to have Engelbert trade a response to some the criticisms raised.

-Jamal

Ibrahim,

I think it could fairly be said that many of those who write about the possibility of ‘liberalising the supply of sovereignty’ in Africa” do so in the context of confusion, even frustration, over what they perceive as the international community’s inexplicable decision to extend the benefits normally conferred upon juridical sovereigns — i.e., access to developmental aid — to those states where the quality of governance is deemed inferior to that in Somaliland. They are essentially choosing a new metric — political stability — by which to evaluate merit.

Let me also add that it is a convention of certain Western bureaucrats and academics to stimulate discussion on a contentious topic by supplying policy options that run a range from one extreme to the other. Thus, a policy memo that spells out the options for a decision-maker on, for example, another country’s nuclear weapons program, might offer options ranging from a preventative military strike to “do nothing.” The fact that these options are written down, complete with “pro” and “con” pieces, is not intended to constitute endorsement; rather, it sets the stage for a wide-ranging discussion of the issues at hand.

I must register disagreement with your characterization of Biafran resistance during the Nigerian Civil War. The Biafran state was born amidst serious ethnic turmoil that seemed, for many Igbo, to suggest that they could not expect happy integration into a federative state. As a concept, a sovereign Biafra faded only after Nigerians on both sides of the conflict had suffered horribly. The fact that Biafra endured so long under siege is a strong indication of the level of popular support for secession.

With respect to abjuring sovereignty, I think the main impetus for those kinds of calls is the obvious suffering of millions who live in regions of the world that are essentially lawless. It is compounded by the appearance that their governments are either incapable of delivering them from these conditions, unwilling to do so, or else responsible for them in the first place. The great human catastrophe in Darfur is essentially the outcome of a brutal, indiscriminate counterinsurgency on the part of the central government. Localized conflict and general banditry are certainly serious problems, but both pale by comparison with the suffering wrought by the scorched earth and ethnic cleansing campaigns.

As far as whether state sovereigns seek domestic legitimacy, persons in the South Bronx or on the South Side of Chicago are able to enjoy a great many more positive social goods than one might expect at first glance. The problems of crime, poverty, and disenfranchisement are both serious and shameful. However, while services are inadequate, they are nonetheless available. If minorities are overrepresented in our prison populations, the United States nonetheless has a functioning legal system that provides substantial protections to the accused. Contract law is effectively enforced. While imperfect, the health infrastructure does provide opportunities for individuals with low income to receive free or discounted care. Many people in the United States struggle to make ends meet; they do so, however, within the context of a society that affords them political representation, however imperfect. If they are wary of, or consider themselves underserved or misrepresented, in Washington, they nonetheless go to sleep at night without fear that their government will condone civil violence.

It is very true that this was not always the case for all inhabitants of the United States. The Native American, African American, and Chinese American populations in particular have suffered extraordinary hardship. They have suffered genocide, forced removal, and state-sanctioned violence — all behaviors that might be considered strong evidence in favor of the exclusion of sovereignty. However, I think that while history suggests that state formation can be enormously violent, we should not contend that there may be solutions other than patience. In some areas of the world — the areas of greatest concern to those who advocate rethinking automatic sovereignty — the state is effectively defunct, as in Somalia and portions of the Democratic Republic of Congo. In others, it is clearly complicit in horrendous acts of indiscriminate violence against particular groups of people who are targeted purely because of their ascribed ethnic, religious, or racial identities, as in Darfur. Governments in the developed world may not search actively for the approval of all their constituents, but by and large, they strive to do no harm. Surely that is a desirable outcome.

“Crimes” is a value-laden term, but one that I chose deliberately. Morally speaking, these can be no excuse for what has happened in Darfur. Whether threatening Sudan’s political leadership with prosecution is wise, that is another question entirely.

The Merowe Dam is an important example of the inequitable distribution of social goods in Sudan. According to Jok Madut Jok, the dam will “roughly double Sudan’s power supply and … irrigate land that is now barely arable” (p. 93). However, residents of the areas to be flooded have been relocated “to areas with far less fertile soil and distant from water sources.” Promised state services have not been delivered. The Sudanese government has barred international access to several areas upstream from the dam. In October 2008, dam operations caused extensive flooding that forced about one thousand local residents to flee, without compensation. These problems are not necessarily unprecedented in the West: the history of the American Indian on two continents reads almost exclusively as a tragedy after 1492. However, they are serious reflections of the fact that Khartoum’s current plan for national development largely excludes certain groups.

Economic recovery and booms do tend to start in key population centers for exactly the reasons you describe. However, there does not appear to be any indication that the developmental windfall enjoyed by residents of the northern riverine zone will filter westward to Darfur. And it is not so much the regional disparities that are alarming to observers of Sudan, but the apparent picture of extreme and lasting privation (combined with state abuse) by comparison with gradual recovery elsewhere.

David,

I would challenge your description of Biafra as a case of manipulation by colonial interests. On what basis have you made this assessment?

May I ask for clarification on the trend you believe that the blog shouldn’t promote?

Best,

Matthew

Dear Matthew:

Thanks again for your comments.

That “frustration” is precisely the point; Westerners would do well to be reminded (continuously) that stable nation-state formation took centuries; put simply, they have no right (emphasis) to be frustrated and come out with half-baked solutions like the withdrawal of international recognition proffered by Engelbert.

Period.

As I said, the ‘Jim Crow’ segregation laws were only abolished fairly recently in the US; and I’ve already made my point about Aborigines in Australia (who were de facto considered “wildlife” ’til 1974 and so excluded from the human national census).

This irrational impatience in the West – you can call it ‘blue skies’ thinking if you want, Matt, but don’t think ordinary Africans right here in the mix would agree with you when it comes to Engelbert – , I may add, is also evident in the vexed shouts from Western observers for democracy to spread quick-time across the Middle East and North Africa region.

Key point, Western nations were happy with the political status quo in the MENA region for near on 50 years, and it is only when the MENA region started to look like a global anomaly in the post Cold War period that the shouts in the West for ‘democracy’ suddenly piped up.

“Nevertheless go to sleep at night without fear that their government will condone civil violence”.

Wow.

Matt – is that really how you think ordinary Sudanese live???

It’s not.

Ordinary Sudanese don’t crave protection from the caricature of a predatory hooligan state – most of them never come into contact with it, the Sudanese state, in any shape or form – but need protection instead from crushing poverty.

As for your references about the Merowe dam – you’re wrong. I’ve been there many times – you’re being misled by the International Rivers Network.

As for your comments about Darfur, I also think you’ve been slurping from the US’ activist’s Kool Aid.

Of course Darfur has benefited from the boom; Sudan is not made up of racially pure homogenous states – it’s just like the US, with heterogeneous communities.

There are roughly over two million inhabitants from Darfur living in Khartoum state, sending home remittances to Darfur; Nyala, capital of South Darfur (home to approx 90% of Darfur’s population) is also Sudan’s second largest city and a thriving hub of commerce and agriculture.

Come to Sudan sometime – and see for yourself, Matt!

Darfur and Sudan’s issues are not as black-and-white as it looks from afar; nothing peculiar to Sudan – nowhere ever is.

Matt, you will never get an accurate read out of the fluidity and dynamics of Sudan by ‘remote control; in other words, basing your view about Sudan on secondary, or even third or fourth-hand, sources of info from the well -meaning, but deeply uninformed, US activist camp and their attendant simplistic prose and policy prescriptions about how to solve “Sudan’s issues”.

All the best,

Ibrahim Adam

El Fasher

North Darfur

Sudan

Matthew Sinn,

Thank you very much for your compliments and for considering my thoughts. You do me too much justice. I may have mentioned before, I am an engineer by education, and am not nearly as literary trained as some of the more esteemed contributors to this forum, such as yourself. As such, I am truly limited by my interpretive and expressive abiltiies, and verily modestly ask that you note that my commentary is personal and quite unobjective and unpolished.

Often, we Sudanese resort to inappropriate passionate discussion that steps outside normative bounds of professionalism and western decorum. I apologize, on my behalf.

If I may take a minute to divulge more of my views, outside the subject of this thread (however, on Sudan specifically, even though I have read, noted, and conceded to a lot of your points which I have little quarrel with, in its essence):

The infusion of political Islam, extensive grapple of religious dogma, excessive cultural patriarchism (possessed by even the most liberal of intellectual Sudanese men), and/or tightening of socio-economic and political conditions, have afflicted many well-meaning and aspiring people in Sudan. You must recongize these qualities. I have seen it personally, the few times I have visited my native land, in many of my relatives who live day-in and day-out under the tyranny of an illegitimate, mismanaging, and corrupt government. As a child, I was often jokingly asked by chuckling (and concealingly concerned) relatives: “which is better? Sudan, your country of origin, or Cote d’Ivoire, your country of temporary residence?” I often timidly and honestly replied “Cote d’Ivoire”, only to be received by amused, denying, and what I can describe as obscurely politically overwhelmed and frustrated strangers, relatives, and relatives’ friends. How could they understand? Or did they understand? And 10 years later, Cote d’Ivoire it still is, despite the current political crisis in a country who’s physical and political infrastructure was forged and exacerbated by the French (might I add Mugabe’s Zimbabwe and Kagame’s Rwanda as provoked heads of state who are not independent of the external machinations and doings of foreign represenatitves and organizations). Sudanese obscure much of their views and political sentiments. It makes for unclear prospects for our democratic future. But what is delivered often, Matthew, to individuals who are perceived as delivering wholesale hammer-down policies on Sudan, and are perceived as disinterested in Sudanese cultural subtleties, are vociferous neutralizing couterattacks.

As a “third culture” and deeply American influenced Sudanese, I struggle with questions (such as “Who are we Sudanese”), and struggle to negotiate understanding the perspectives shared by the scant diplomatic, nongovernmental, ambassadorial, technocratic, and informal Sudanese spheres, that I have had the privilege of interacting with, through my primary significants. But lately, I have become increasingly aware that most Sudanese are crushingly impatient with the NCP. But, there are more subtleties to this story, unfortunately. I believe that there is a salient, tacit, and informal communicative agreement amongst the Northern—albeit, politically oppositional and unaligned—center, whom have grown leery, and might I add, fearful, of peripheral movements’ cries for change and revolution, despite the near-parallel views with regards to current political affairs. So, what hangs in the balance? Why are the northern Sudanese people reluctant to openly heavily criticize the NCP? Why didn’t most jump on board the US activists’ bandwagon of demonizing “Khartoum”. This is a question that I have struggled with for a long time, for I have never received instruction or guidance from more informed Sudanese. Most, in the diapsora, rather not talk about it. In my experience, it has proven to be most counterinuitive to view and subscribe northern Sudanese as NCP sympathists. The manifestation of this trapping can be seen in the Zionist and media-prone villification of northern Sudan in the coinage of the word “Khartoum”, when describing acts of state purpatrated by the NCP against all Sudanese citizens, but most visibly affecting “peripheral” Sudanese. Again, I describe the dangerous characteristic verbiage all too prevalent in western discourse. But I digress: every time I step into Sudan, it is like stepping back in time. Surely something is amiss? Are the crimes committed outside of Khartoum missed on Khartoum’s residents? There are many dimensions to this question: running from true divisions in the North, to back-pocketed apologists, to frenzy-whipped anti-western alarmists and nationalists, to the Stockholm Syndrome suffering types. Alas Matthew, there are also other reasons. The most critical I feel is of import to mention is that northern Sudanese in Khartoum have realized that there are economic limits to this sad country, and have settled with taking aim at the quietude and vicissitudes of personal life. Very few approve or are aware of “Khartoum’s” transgressions. But that is my own immediate experience, which is starkly different from that of a southern Sudanese’s or Darfuri’s! At any rate, there is merit in saying: those few elite who matter most in delivering the change to this tragedy have turned to looking after basics, wealth, and/or property accumulation. You can see many lovely villas springing up in Khartoum, as property prices continue to stay high. People are afraid of change, as they are impatient for an overthrow, because of the associated personal economic risks that run in the balance. And who could judge or blame them? It is this balance between tyranny and bequeathing the right to accumulate personal property, that remain finely balanced instruments of control by the NCP. Your sources are not misinformed about that. Khartoum (read as the NCP), are well aware of this need to pacify and render politically inert the kernel of the North (those unaligned in Khartoum who are most threatening to their survival) by successfully diverting the majority of resources (i.e. power and hydro projects) to the center. But other parts of the country are starting to benefit from some reform mindedness that was born out of the upswing in international pressure and vigilance. Ibrahim has already mentioned the vast road construction projects. Also, the Sudan Central Bank has some of the most intelligent economic strategists, which merits commendation, but is also exacerbating/alleviating the alacrity of popular mobilization.

There are other oppositional figures reason who view Sudan as structurally inadequate, and thus believe that our political evolution must run its course. Marginal cries resist this conjecture with tempestuousness and rightful indignation. Like Alex said the “unrealized search for the symbols and structures of political legitimacy” has confounded the NCP and even eluded the most highly oppositional and ideologically ossifying members of the diaspora now living in Canada, the UK, and the US. The Sudanese opposition’s ideas and abilities are growing old and ineffective. The seeds of an era of democratic progress remain and will end with them.

Still, there are other pundits who posit that the country’s bout of economic boom will change for the worse, and as such, so will this salient and deep spiritual reservoir of patience. Some delusionally believe that an uprising is imminent. I do not share this optimism.

The South is of very little cultural, political, and economic import to northern Sudan, and northerners in the SPLM continue to unconvincingly distract the public with arguments and platforms that ring hollow. The South remains secondarily significant despite the marketed fiction of a great, culturally unified, “New Sudan”. The movement did not seek to promote its cause amongst members in the center. Ultimately, this platform was rejected by members of the majority moderate (and political-Islam co-opted) center. Minority politics doesn’t resonate in our national discourse. How could it? It is a foreign abstraction. And this should not be misinterpreted as a western-style racism, although racism does exist in a more historically relevant and imported contemporary Sudanese form. At any rate, this development was not missed by southern Sudanese politicians who have grown tired and are all too aware of the North’s desensitization to their political ails, misrepresentation, and abuse, which is why we’re seeing this relatively recent adjustment in aims by the SPLM to forge an independent path. And as such, southern Sudan should gain independence and surpass northern Sudan to the best of her abilities. I don’t know if there’s much fuss about that in the north. Most have an air of reluctant content with whatever the development. Sadly, this lack of proactive engagement, with the issue, will further alienate the minds of frustrated denizens.

As oil prices have fallen and negotiations about oil sharing, post-secession, are visited, the NCP will be again faced with a downturning Sudanese economy. Urban legends and rumors about gold mines in Sudan have run rampant (the source is the NCP). Again, these rumors persist to have Sudanese chase after ‘ghosts’. More objective and alarming is the falling Sudanese pound: an indicator of the economic fragility of the country.

What is equally important, to myself, is that the perception of the North, be not directed at Washington for economic ails faced. This will further quell the simmering vexation and anger towards the NCP.

And please, let’s stop saying Khartoum when talking about the NCP. This Zionist-born language is inflammatory and misinforming. I am aware that it is common for Fox news to speak of “Chicago” politicans when bashing Pres. Obama, or the American media to refer to the executive government, senate, congress, or State Department as “Washington”. However, I think this is inappropriate for Sudan’s case. It is the NCP we are all after. I was born in Khartoum and most people I know from Khartoum want this government to face (I stress) ‘national’ justice for all crimes perpatrated and all crimes not yet perpatrated against all Sudanese peoples.

No one can deny that the NCP has committed crimes against humanity. Again thanks for the feedback. I have few discussions that I can readily participate in.

All the best,

Jamaledin
California, USA

Dear Matthew
In reply to your first question, I wish to say that this is not my assessment alone, this is from the history of the war and Nigerian Politics, however it worth mentioning that all too often we tend to restrict the term (colonial interests) to only mean the Foreign Policy of the Colonial Powers or the West towards the third world, and notably Africa.
Dont you find it intriguing that we never hear talk of the Trans-national Corporations, or of religeous Groups, or economic interests?Press reports that President Obama has stopped investigations of Blackwater Activities in South Sudan, may be of interest to you.
As for your second question ,the trend I refer to is that of some obscure pseudo-intellectuals, who write to communities that are more concerned with burning issues at home than with issues in foreign territories, and thus would not care to verify or vet what is written.
You seem to classify the people of the Sudan into Arabs and Black Africans ,as when you visit the Sudan, then may be you can tell us more about the methodology you applied to do this classification, and who in your view is an Arab in the North: the following who still speak their own languages:
the Nubians, the Mahas, the Danagla, the Beja, the Beni Amer, or who?