The lessons from Sudan

Plural societies must respect diversity to maintain unity

The referendum for independence in Southern Sudan proves once again the adage that the ballot box trumps the bullet. Coming as it does after a quarter century of savage civil war, this week-long mostly peaceful exercise sends multiple messages to a world that is being increasingly polarised on ethnic and religious lines. Had it not been for successive dictators’ violent attempts to impose Arab Islamic culture and sharia law on a Christian and animist south, Sudan could have profitably exploited its rich mineral and oil resources (the latter currently accounting for more than three-fourths of Sudan’s income). Till the nineties, these ethnic fissures were widened by the Cold War, with Soviet or US intervention being a proxy for competing claims on the country’s resources. To be sure, the issue can by no means be considered settled even after the January 7-15 referendum. Prospects for peace remain fragile because, though Southern Sudan is heading towards independence, the question of which grouping will control Abyei, a strip of land on the north-south border that has oil reserves (now considerably depleted), still hangs fire. Twenty-three people were killed in Abyei on the third day of voting and UN observers anticipate more violence in the days to come. Abyei is populated by the Misseriya, an Arab tribe of cattle herders and the Ngok Dinka, who are Christians or animists. For the first, the area is critical as pasture, which they will lose if the area goes to the south. For the Ngok Dinka, union with the north will keep them at a disadvantage as minorities. Abyei has become a microcosm of what the conflict in Sudan is all about and its resolution will test the resolve of political leaders on both sides of the border. Solutions such as sharing oil resources and dividing government jobs equally between the two ethnic groups are being explored, but implementing this will require a political will that has been only shakily in evidence, in that both the northern and southern leaders allowed the referendum, part of a 2005 peace agreement, to go through.

Sudan’s post-independence history has demonstrated the deleterious impact of states that do not create the space for pluralism. This applies as much to the anti-immigration slant of the Tea Party in the US and right wing parties in Europe as to the followers of Bin Laden in their mountain fastnesses and the religious terrorists who blow up trains and invade hotels in India. The clash of civilisations argument may hold a widespread simplistic attraction but it does a signal disservice to the values of multi-ethnicity that have driven some of the world’s most powerful civilisations, from the Roman and Turkish Empires to the United States. In the modern era, the intolerance of the majority for the minority has already been seen in the myriad small states that have been formed in the Balkans, each staking their claims, mostly violently, to a unique identity that still keeps the region unstable. It was also in evidence in the swift secession of the resource-rich Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and the “Stans” of Central Asia after the break-up of the Soviet Union. Sudan’s referendum is a reminder to all plural societies that national unity is based on respect for the idea of “unity in diversity”. India has much to be proud of, but much to defend and protect as a nation of many peoples.