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University of Toronto
As described by Douglas Johnson in The Root Causes of Sudan’s Civil Wars, the crisis in the Sudan is wrenching, violent and impossibly complicated. The long history is concisely handled in the book, providing a thorough and educated summary of a difficult modern conflict. Directed at diplomats, journalists, and development, relief and human rights workers, at Africanists and to the Sudanese themselves (xii), Johnson seeks to offer an examination of the economic and political patterns, the process and consequences of regional underdevelopment and perceptions of religion and race specific to the Sudan (xiv). While the book’s thorough, precise political history accomplishes this more than adequately, its inherent biases prevent the discussion from ringing true. Finding a lasting solution which does not repeat the mistakes of the past since this region is key not only to understanding the long-term results of 19th Century colonialism, but also to resolving the tension currently characterizing both the spread of Islam and the long-term self-determination of African nations. Thus far, the greatest problem in the Sudan has been imbalance between the North and the South. Rights, resources, interest, education, and motivation: the balance has always leaned towards the North. Unfortunately, in his effort to correct this bias, Johnson has tipped the scale too far in the other direction, in several different ways. One is very quickly weighed down by the amount of detail given to the political history of the South, which is so in-depth it becomes almost impossible to apply the many facts to the larger discussion. Abbreviations and acronyms form the titles of splinter groups from factions within factions headed by individuals whose names and dates and numbers appear with seemingly no synthesis at all. So while the discussion of the Addis Ababa Agreement and its repercussions is concise, informed and well-related to the greater scope of the Sudanese conflicts, both past and present (64ff.), the real effects of decades warring factionalism on the South are entirely muted by the amount of detailed historic information. It is not until after a faintly summarizing Interlude (75ff), that the description of the North makes clear a more insidious form of bias inherent in Johnson’s book. In sharp contrast to the intricate elaborations on the political machinations in the South, the description of the situation elsewhere in the Sudan is at once sparse in detail and decidedly, emotionally narrative. If the problem in the Sudan has a solution, it arguably lies in the alteration of the perception—in place since the time of Condominium rule—that ‘government’ is a separate, non-inclusive entity (Johnson 171). Yet throughout the synopsis of the North, Government is characterized with a brutal narrative entirely lacking in the first half of the book, such as: Government began to fail to fulfil its own meaning. Many Southerners remember that the most notorious massacres of civilians during the 1960s took place under Umma party governments, giving a clear indication that the community the Umma represented excluded them and reinforcing nineteenth-century memories of the Ansar who murdered civilians, cut off persons’ hands and abducted slaves and cattle. (172) This decidedly editorial tone extends not only to the definitions of some of the key features of Islamic rule in the North, but even to the Bibliographic Essay, which has a distinct emphasis on the South, with a lack of ample references pertaining to the collective scholarship about the North. As a result of this topical imbalance, the more detailed discussion of the effects of oil exploitation (163) and population displacement are left for the second half of the book and are entirely too brief. The historical background on the North and the central government necessary for real understanding of the key humanitarian, military, economic, bureaucratic, logistical and international issues is unfortunately presented in only the most general of terms. In conclusion, what cannot be faulted—and, indeed, what rings true through the entire book—is Johnson’s slow revelation that the core issues of the conflict have been replayed time and again. The problems of provincial autonomy and self-determination, individuals’ rights and freedoms, massive population displacement, and the lack of effective international intervention and aid repeat themselves and only intensify as time goes by. The historical overview presented in the book is precisely the kind of examination necessary to begin to end the violence and civil unrest in the Sudan. All bias aside, Johnson’s book still does not fail to impress the reader with the complexity of the situation and the ever more urgent need for a new, lasting plan for peace. ●
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