Islamification and Arabization in South Sudan

This paper examines the challenge of creating a unified postcolonial Sudanese identity after gaining independence from Anglo-Egyptian rule in 1956. I focus on how the North Sudanese tried to enforce a new national Sudanese identity on the Southern Sudanese. Before the creation of the border that now divides South Sudan and North Sudan (2011), Sudan was the largest country in Africa, encompassing many different groups of people with different languages and belief systems. Those who lived in the North spoke Arabic and were predominantly Muslim, while the citizens of the South were either Christian or followers of traditional beliefs. They did not affiliate with an Arab identity. Thus, after independence, it was very challenging to develop a new national identity of the Sudanese citizen. Since most political power was centered in the North, the Northerners enforced Arabic and Islam on the Southerners. They believed this was a step to decolonizing the Southerners since the colonizers left them speaking English and practicing Christianity. However, what began as an effort to unify turned into the erasure of indigenous Southern identity. Through legal regimes and other strategies of state and bureaucratic power, the North forced Southerners into speaking Arabic and practicing Islam. As this paper demonstrates, it became clear that the Northern Arabs deemed themselves superior to Southern identities. Ultimately, I conclude that what was once an effort to decolonize the South led to another form of colonialization.