An end to one of the great tragedies of the last decade appears to be on the horizon. The government in the Sudan announced late last week that a referendum on partitioning the nation would be held in January of next year. Torn apart by ethnic and religious hatreds between the north and the south and genocide in the western region of Darfur which lies on the fault line between the two warring regions, the forthcoming democratic solution appears a silver lining. Most pundits are already predicting partition, with the UN and President Barack Obama voicing their hope that should the nation part it will be in a pacific manner. A prime example of the arbitrary nature of African post-colonial borders, Sudan is an amalgam of traditionally warring peoples. An amicable partition provides the opportunity for the easing of tensions within the region. Yet the decision holds more implications than just the creation of a new nation. For a motion for separation would change not just the map but also the mindset of the entire African continent.
The stories of ethnic tensions within the post-colonial African nations have become commonplace. The lines drawn to represent countries are as culturally insensitive as the European colonists that drew them, and the idea of a national identity is often lost amidst ancestral tribal rivalries and hatreds. Whereas the general methodology with which nations have dealt with these tensions over the last four decades has varied from brutal oppression and slaughter (Rwanda and most recently Sudan) to stressed unity behind a common cause (South Africa and apartheid abolition), the notion of self-determination and partitioning is a novel one. The idea that a nation can solve its problems by breaking off its problematic portions is a polemical concept, one that could have a multifarious impact on the region.
The partitioning of Sudan into Northern and Southern Sudan would establish the precedent upon which other nations could handle their feuding sectors. Nations like Nigeria, whose Muslim north and Christian south have long been at odds, and Somalia, whose renegade province of Somaliland is already attempting a split, could emerge as the first countries to follow in the Sudan’s footsteps. No longer forced together by the borders drawn by the West without regard for the people that were to inhabit the spaces between their lines, Africa could enter into a new era of peace. This in turn would allow the exhausted continent to place its energies into the development that it so badly needs. War and the corruption that accompanies it have long been the barriers standing in the way of Africa entering into the world as a true player in the international game. The continent is rife with natural riches and has an enormous working age population, who once freed from the shackles of military service and wartime economic instability could usher in a new era of prosperity for the capital-starved region. The partition of Sudan could be the building block upon which the modern African continent is constructed.
Yet the partition of Sudan, and perhaps a couple other African nations, presents almost as many possible problems as solutions.
Even if the split is nonviolent and two stable governments form in the two new nations, how long will peace last? As has been shown with India and Pakistan, the succession of a hostile region from a nation does not always result in much change in relations between the people of the two states. While the separation of the Muslim north and the Christian south would stop the genocide in the Darfur and prevent the two different peoples from killing one another for control of the government, it may not avert border skirmishes from escalating into a reenactment of the last Sudanese Civil War. Natural resources in the south including around 85% of the nation’s oil output may lead to further conflict in the post-split, as the northern regions may not be as open to losing the hundreds of millions of dollars in oil revenues.
Frankly, few African nations are at a stage of economic and governmental stability to handle an antagonistic state upon their borders. The precedent for succession may birth a continent-wide movement for tribal self-determination of nations, something that while on the surface attractive would most likely further destabilize the region. African nations are stretched for necessary resources, especially water. Imagine the humanitarian disaster that could unfold if a dozen new nations with a dozen new resource shortages emerge. NGO’s would be further stretched and squabbles over the existing resources would involve even more actors. Africa does not need more problems; it has plenty as it is. Thus the decision in the Sudan could stand as a major turning point in the history of the continent. Unfortunately, it is unclear as to which direction looks the more likely. For the people of Sudan, January’s election marks the moment that the inhabitants of Africa’s largest nation take the region’s future into their own hands.
Photocredit: Wikimedia