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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | 'Discovering the South': Sudanese Dilemmas for Islam in Africa |
Author: | El-Affendi, Abdelwahab |
Year: | 1990 |
Periodical: | African Affairs: The Journal of the Royal African Society |
Volume: | 89 |
Issue: | 356 |
Period: | July |
Pages: | 371-389 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Sudan |
Subjects: | Islamic movements minority groups civil wars Religion and Witchcraft Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Politics and Government nationalism violence |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/722373 |
Abstract: | The resurgence, since September 1985, of the radical Islamic group of the Sudan, the National Islamic Front (NIF), appears to have a direct correlation with the civil war in the South. This paper examines the dilemmas of Sudanese Islam against the background of the increasing North-South polarization. It pays attention to the emergence of the 'South' as a political concept in the 1950s; the development of an Islamist movement as a reaction to the emerging North-South conflict; the formation of a new parliamentary bloc, the New Forces Congress (NFC) in 1967; the coup of 25 May 1969, which brought decisively anti-Islamist forces to power; the 'National Reconciliation' deal with Nimeiri which brought the opposition National Front (including the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood) to government in 1977; the second civil war, which started in 1983; and the NIF counter-offensive, with which the North-South polarization took a distinctly Muslim-secularist overtone. The author argues that it is unlikely, in the given circumstances, that the conflicting demands of the two camps could be satisfied within one State. The likely break-up of the Sudanese State could have far-reaching implications for the fragile State system in Africa and for Islamic ideology and practice. Notes, ref. |