102 the sudan handbookpatterns of religious ferment across the country, provoking not only
newly strident declarations of faith but also an apparent resurgence of
‘old’ beliefs and of indigenous elements within the framework of the
mainstream world religions. In the south and the north-south border
areas, rural families literally having to flee for their lives are known to
have held impromptu prayer meetings under trees as they camped along
the way, and have attributed their survival to their faith in the God of the
Bible. In the refugee camps of neighbouring countries, where different
groups of Sudanese from the south, the Nuba Hills or the Blue Nile met
with each other and found support among locals of the host countries, a
sense of belonging to a wider world through one’s church membership
was important. Much international aid also came via Christian organi-
zations or secular Western organizations perceived as Christian, who
were often able to provide moral support as well as material. Within the
south, even during the war, commitment to the Christian faith deepened
and there was a spread of daughter churches into rural areas where they
had not existed before. Even domestic dwellings in some areas began to
display simple wooden crosses on the roof. With the ongoing return of
the displaced to their former homes, the re-establishment of churches in
both the physical and moral sense is proving a key element in post-war
recovery.
What has been the role of religion in Sudan’s civil wars? It is not helpful
to reduce the 1963–72 and 1983–2005 civil wars to a struggle between
Islam and Christianity as such. But the element of religious rhetoric,
there from the start, did intensify, especially with the appearance of the
National Islamic Front which took power in the coup of 1989 (later being
transformed into the National Congress Party). The NIF represented
a further fusion of patriotism with religious enthusiasm, in this case
stemming from the growth of the modern Muslim Brotherhood, from its
roots in the older Wahhabiyya or Salafiyya movement of Saudi Arabia.
Military strategy increasingly justified campaigns against un-believers
as jihad, holy war. These campaigns extended, paradoxically, into some
areas, such as parts of the Nuba Hills, where the people were actuallyThe Sudan Handbook, edited by John Ryle, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo and Jok Madut Jok. © 2011 Rift Valley Institute and contributors Muslims.^ Similar^ strategies^ of^ counter-insurgency,^ with^ accompanying^
(www.riftvalley.net).