Riven Populations

There is nothing particularly new or different in Africa of populations in opposition to one another through tribal and clan differences, language and religious, tradition and cultural variations. But in Sudan, a vast geography whose north and south represent as so radically different, with herders and farmers, ethnic differences, with Arab and black populations so at odds with one another, it makes sense they be geographically separated.

Sudan's north is comprised of mostly Arab, and light-skinned Muslim-majority populations which dominate through sheer strength of superior will and determination, the south. That oil wealth is concentrated in the south of the country has been a curse and a division for southern residents who see the government of Sudan profiting in the north by the oil proceeds and nothing trickling down to the south.

Herding nomadic Arab populations contrasting on the land with black animist or Christian farming communities make for resistance and unrest with contrasting needs and values. The Arab population in Sudan feels itself superior to the blacks whom they look upon as inferior because of their skin colour. Opportunities are denied Sudanese blacks, as effectively second-class citizens.

Years of war between the north and the south significantly reduced populations through bloodshed. Now, with a vote pending for secession, a mass migration reminiscent of the partition of India into the division between pluralist India and Muslim-dominated Pakistan and the horrendous massacres that ensued with Hindus and Muslims attacking and slaying, another upheaval through mass migration and slaughter seems in the offing.

Mass revenge slaughter of black Sudanese will not faze Sudan's President Omar Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir, already charged with crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court for his janjaweed-led slaughter and dislocation of black Darfurians. A charge he spurns and ignores.

Institutionalized racism in the country and the oil wealth in the south will ensure that non-existent scruples will not deter him from attacking the secessionist south.

Dark-skinned people living in and around Khartoum, originally from the south, but who migrated north to escape the terrors of the decades-long civil war have been gradually returning to the south, hoping for the prospect of a new beginning with an independent south representing their interests.

Their tribulations will not be so soon over, if history and the more recent depredations suffered by Sudan's Darfur region is anything to count on. If the semi-autonomous south becomes truly independent, taking its oil wealth with it, Al-Bashir will be most unappeased and definitely unpleasant. And then what?