Previous page | New search |
The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here
Book chapter | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Political narratives and identity formation in post-1989 Sudan |
Author: | Salih, M.A. Mohamed |
Book title: | Ethnicity and the State in Eastern Africa |
Year: | 1998 |
Pages: | 72-85 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Sudan |
Subjects: | nationalism National Islamic Front |
Abstract: | This chapter is concerned with the politics of the National Islamic Front (NIF), the ideological mentor of the military regime which came to power in Sudan in 1989, and the consequences for post-1989 identity formation in the country. Against the background of the turbulent relationship between north and south Sudan, the chapter describes and explains the ways in which a variety of discourses (Islamic, non-Islamic, Arabic, Afro-Arab and African) have been consciously used as pointers to specific identity forms. The author argues that the association of Arabism and Islam has forced non-Arab Muslims to resist a nationbuilding project premised on that cultural foundation. The latter is rejected by the African population, both Muslim and non-Muslim, as an ideological instrument designed to safeguard the economic and political dominance of the Arabs. Africans in the south and north comprise the majority of the country's population, and they naturally reject an ideology that excludes them from the regime's definition of Sudanese national identity. Bibliogr. |