The Sudan -- Contested National Identities.

Ann Mosely Lesch, The Sudan -- Contested National Identities, Indiana University Press: Bloomington, Indiana, 1998. 336 pp. Paperback, $19.95.

This book presents a detailed account of Sudan's ethno-political cleavages and the striving for national identity with a special focus on the last quarter of the 20th century, the May and June military dictatorships and the transitional and elected governments.

The opening pages provide a short discussion on models of ethnicity with respect to nation building. These models include, [among others] symbolic solidarity, and pluralism. Important references that could have been utilized by the author would have been the work of Francis Deng on Problems of National Identification (University of Khartoum) and Sa'ad AI-Deen Ibrahim (1994) Sects and Ethnic Groups, Minority Concerns in the Arab Homeland, Ibn Khaldun Center, 2nd ed., Cairo.

The model the author seems to have adopted is a pluralist one that requires in the context of Sudanese diversity a consistent process of redefinition, even though realignment remains incomplete and the outcome uncertain. Lesch holds that although the development of a consensus on the nature of the Sudanese nation-state has progressed significantly within the main opposition entity, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the struggle to create a pluralist nation-state remains at an early stage [of development]. Indeed, the "Islamist" vision of the ruling group, the National Islamic Front (NIF) is intensifying even as it is placed under siege. "The contest over national identity remains intense and bitter" (page 218).

The reasons the author gives for the obvious prolongation of the contest over Sudanese national identification are well developed. For example, the "northern mea culpa" was evident in the Umma party's statement in February 1994 on the controversial issue of self-determination, which declared that "selfsearching into the past" led the party to recognize that "modern Sudanese selfconsciousness centered on their Islamic-Arabic identity" (page 217). The author comments positively on the Umma manifesto of February 1994 saying "That rearticulation helped to achieve the Asmara accords and the renewed sense of common purpose within the NDA" (page 217).

The problem that Lesch was not able to predict in her concluding remarks was that by the year 2000 the Umma party reformulated the previous re-articulation as asserted in 1994. The Umma leader Sadiq AI-Mahdi engaged in open public dispute with SPLM leadership, and finally froze Umma activities with the NDA Leadership Council. These are steps that were evaluated by many observers as a renewed return to the former strategic alliance between Umma and NIF more than any commitment to the NDA model of an ethno-regional and political pluralism.

Another interesting aspect of Sudan Contested National Identities pertains to the evaluation by the author of Sudan's Arab and Muslim status. On pages 212-21, the author writes: "In particular, the increasingly shrill call for Islamization and Arabization of the country arises from a recognition that the Sudan is marginal in the Arab and Muslim worlds. Arabs tends to view northern Sudanese as African, due to their skin color and cultural patterns, and have even used the humiliating term abid (slave) to describe them."

The marginality of Sudan with respect to Arab and Islamic spheres has been repeatedly assumed in varying degrees by African and Sudanese scholars of whom the distinguished scholar Ali Mazrui once analyzed the issue in the 1960s as a phenomenon of ambiguous affiliation to Arabs and Africans. Ann Lesch's strong assertion is challenged, however, by the fact that all North African and Horn nations could be characterized with a marginality of Arab and Muslim ethnocentrism in as far as the sizable non-Muslim and non-Arab minorities are concerned.

Millions of Egyptian Nubians are committed Muslims who are non-Arab Africans with a glorious history of governing Egypt and Sudan for centuries. The people of Somalia and the people of Djibouti are strongly African Muslims more than Arab. The descendants of the great Mali Empire throughout the Sudanic Belt and the Berber and Tawariq Bedouins who constituted a large population of the Sahara zones of Morocco, Libya, Algeria, Mauritania, and Tunisia are African non-Arab Muslims.

Sudan is not alone with its marvelous diversity that accommodated over history African and Arab-descent population. The problem is not marginality of ethnicity or marginality of Islam. Lesch herself realizes this fact as she says: "Fur and Beja [who are non-Arabs] see themselves both as African culturally and as devout Muslims. Similarly, southerners can use Arabic for commerce without altering their self-identity. ... Within identifiable groups there are wide variations and frequent internal conflicts. People who consider themselves Beja, and Nubian speak varying language. ..." (page 210-211).

For this writer the issue is how much fair distribution of political power, national decision-making, and economic wealth is fairly allocated between Sudanese groups. The issue is not how much Islam is there or how many ethnic groups are there. This is the incorrect and wasteful ideology of the NIF that Lesch correctly mentioned:

One of the most bitter political conflicts today surrounds the practice of Islam; the National Islamic Front seeks to impose its version of orthodoxy on other Muslims and fiercely rejects the beliefs and practices of sufi orders. NIF's homogenizing zeal has caused a strong backlash among Muslims (page 211).

This is a fact that Sudanese secularists led by the Sudanese Communist Party have struggled for since the early 1940s. The SPLM joined with an additional emphasis on cultural equality in the early 1980s, and the NDA adopted these views as national consensus since the Asmara Fundamental Issues Conference of June 1995.

Based on these observations, I tend to believe that the author's statement that "Similarly, Sudanese are marginal to the Muslim world, lying on the frontiers of Africa and generally adhering to syncretic religious practices that diverge from strict orthodoxy. This marginalization leads many northern Sudanese to cling fiercely to their Arab genealogies and to assert vigorously their Islamic credentials" (page 213) is exaggerated. The Sudanese northern Muslims did play a significant role in the spread of Islam through the interaction they had with West African Muslims, the pilgrims to Mecca, and the massive intermarriages with Africans that made the Sudanese who they are today.

Sufi Islam is the Islam that the medieval Sudanese have practiced since they adopted Islam. It is only the arrogant, politically based, and ideologically flawed NIF indoctrination that portrayed the Sudanese version of popular Islam as divergent from the version of orthodoxy that the NIF alone imposed on the country for a reactionary political, cultural, and social rule. The failures of NIF and the hatred that the NIF system of rule acquired with escalated acts of genocide and civil war constituted concrete evidence on the falsification of Islam by the NIF group for political gain, not any religious goals.

On pages 151-152, Lesch writes on the Legitimate Command of the Sudanese Armed Forces. She said: "Meanwhile, senior officers organized themselves as the Legitimate Command (LC) of the Armed Forces under General Fathi Ahmad Ali (former commander in chief), General Abd al-Rahman Sa'id (former deputy chief of staff for operations), and Brigadier al-Hadi Bushra (former deputy director of intelligence). They announced on SPLA radio on 25 September 1990: "Ana Sudan" (I am Sudan) and denounced the RCC [the June Revolution Command Council] for violating the armed forces' pledge to uphold democracy. The LC signed an accord with the SPLM, when they met in SPLA-controlled territory in the south in December 1990. They called on officers to resign and enjoined garrison commanders to negotiate cease-fires with SPLA units in their vicinity."

Lesch then made the point that: "One cannot ascertain the impact of those appeals, especially as the RCC cashiered large numbers of officers that winter. The LC did not command troops inside Sudan and could not form an armed force in exile, since Egypt-which served as its principal base-would not allow armed operations from its soil." These facts are well documented as the LC leader, the late General Ali, referred to them many times in Arab speaking and other journals.

Lesch's statement that: "Over time, General All was increasingly perceived as an arm-chair general, living in Alexandria (Egypt) and lacking a strategy to overthrow the regime. Other exiled officers chafed at his inaction" (page 152) is not acceptable by this reviewer for two reasons. First: She did not refer the allegation that "General Ali was increasingly perceived as an armchair" to any source as she had done with the detailed facts she successfully documented in the book.

Second: The whole statement needs to be corrected with the proper facts that include these points:

(1) General Ali continued to be well-reputed and respected by the NDA leadership and masses as they followed closely his efforts to strengthen the democratic struggles of the NDA to overthrow NIF rule until his sudden death. (2) The NDA Leadership Council made continuous attempts to establish relations with all possible entities to provide appropriate support to the NDA, in general, and the LC, in particular.

It would have been more authentic and factual had Lesch obtained information from the Legitimate Command and the NDA specialized sources. Such authentic information would have helped to reach out an appropriate judgment on the serious and dedicated efforts this great Sudanese leader, General Fathi Ahmed Ali, exerted for the cause of democracy and national unity in Sudan.

Despite these remarks, Sudan Contested National Identities is a significant contribution to the literature available on Sudan's political crisis. It has a strong focus on the divergence between Sudanese ethnic groups that actually cuts across the underlying conflict of power and wealth for whose solution only the NDA Charter and Resolutions are the best candidate.