Sudan: Race, Religion, and Violence

by Jok Madut Jok

Sudan has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. After decades of civil war, rebel uprisings and power struggles, in 2011 it gave birth to the world’s newest country – South Sudan. But it’s not been an easy transition, and the secession that was meant to pave the path to peace, has plunged the region into further chaos.

In this updated edition of his ground-breaking investigation, Jok Madut Jok delves deep into Sudan’s culture and history, isolating the factors that continue to cause its fractured national identity. With moving first-hand testimonies, Jok provides a decisive critique of a region in turmoil, and addresses what must be done to break the tragic cycle of racism, poverty and brutality that grips Sudan and South Sudan.

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Genres: Africa, Sudan, History, South Sudan, Religion, Nonfiction

352 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2007

Reviews

[Michael Griswold · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book will provide the reader a solid background to the conflicts in Sudan both the civil war in Darfur and the broader civil war between the North and South of Sudan. However, as much as I want to give this book five stars I just can't because Jok has a tendency to be a bit wordy. He uses a forty nine page introduction that could've easily been said in five to ten pages and some of the chapters kinda jump around a little bit to stuff that was covered in previous chapters, but it's nothing that cannot be followed simply enough. Jok does a pretty good job of boiling down a confusing conflict and explaining why any regional or international peace efforts have failed to do anything with the mess that is Sudan.

[Sam Bright · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this book does an excellent job of breaking down the history of the multiple conflicts that have happened in Sudan post-independence and puts them into easy to understand contexts.

It starts with British colonization and the missteps that have hindered many African nations post-scramble for Africa. Uniting a colony that has political borders that indiscriminately place people of different ethnicities into a new country is a difficult task. Much like modern Sudan, colonial Sudan had also had a majority of its resource allocation center on the Arab, Muslim, and Northern half of the country. The non-Arab, Christian, and Southern half was an afterthought in colonial and post-colonial development. Because the center of power was in the North, as Sudan was just about to gain independence, the Arab, Muslim families in Khartoum were closer to the centers of power and were able to adopt stewardship of the newfound country in independence.

The author writes about the history of the identity politics that drive these conflicts and why Sudan is a "dissolving" state. The North/South conflict is separate from the Darfur genocide. The author writes about the modern shift of mindsets of the conflicts. Originally, pre-Darfur conflict, Sudanese wars could be thought of simply as wars between the North and the South. Darfur shifts that mindset to Khartoum vs. periphery. The book also has chapters about how oil exploration exasperates these conflicts and leads western democracies to turn a blind eye to genocide to protect private/corporate profits. The government in Khartoum also recruited and harbored Islamic extremist groups to wage warfare against citizens, the Janjaweed being a prime example.

While the book was written pre-2010, and the conflicts that ravage Sudan have probably changed a ton since (South Sudan is its own country now) this was a really informative book that gave me a lot of context to the genocides the Sudanese government has exacted on its citizens.

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was only partially impressed by this book. It does give some insight into the complex nature of socio-cultural identity in Sudan, a complexity that applies elsewhere. It also shows how our attempt to fit people's identities into conceptual boxes we understand (like accepting the terms African and Arab mean in Sudan what they mean here) leads to gross failures to grasp the complexity of places like Sudan.

Where it fails is in editing (the book has numerous types and poor grammar), in focus (I found that it drifts from the central premise fairly often), in partisanship (the book is much more a plea for a division of Sudan than a dispassionate look at culture) and, ultimately, in adequately addressing the interesting topic it purports to examine.

[Sobukhosi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am honestly glad to have finished this book! To say that I did not learn anything from this book would be a lie but to also say I enjoyed reading this book would be a lie too. I picked up this book to get a local's perspective of the war in Sudan and feel I gained a lot of understanding on the war in Sudan. The book should have been a whole lot shorter though, the author has bloated this book by going over the same points over and over again and in the process making reading the book a tedious affair and quite tiring. It's a worthwhile read if you wish to get a southerners view of the war in Sudan.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a bit academic for me -- kinda like reading a dissertation at points. But, I feel that I walk away from the book better informed than when I started. While the writing was not always engaging, it was interesting enough. There was quite a bit of repetition but sometimes that is needed to make a point and engrain the information into the readers mind.

[Brittany · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book gave excellent insight into the crisis facing Sudan. Gives an excellent explanation on what led the country to break apart. I only wish an additional edit would have followed once the referendum happened in 2011 as it was published in 2007, when Sudan was still one state. Certainly an interesting read, very informative and written by a Sudanese man which gives it greater weight.

[Zobair]

untill now i did not learn any thing from this book