118 the sudan handbookresult of a new source of economic strength; for the first time since the
cotton boom of the early 1950s, a Sudanese government has buoyant
revenues – from oil. Much of this money has been spent on maintaining
and expanding the apparatus of state violence. But the longevity of the
National Congress Party and the Ingaz government may also result from
a restriction of ambitions. Since the split in the Party and the expulsion of
Hassan al-Turabi and his supporters, the government has retreated from
its earlier project of cultural transformation; its concerns are no longer
with Islamization, but rather with the extraction of oil wealth, and the
spending of this wealth, either abroad or in the central riverain area. All
other parts of the Sudan – west, east and south – are significant only
as potential sources of oil, or as potential bases for rivals. Khartoum’s
concern is limited to controlling political challenges and ensuring the
speedy extraction of oil. This pragmatic approach places less strain on
the regime’s resources, but it has fostered a policy of destabilization and
disruption of the margins of the state, designed to preempt any challenge
to oil extraction or the control of the state.
Paradoxically, it has been the National Congress Party, the longest-
lasting of all post-independence regimes, that presided over the break-up
of the modern Sudanese state. The pragmatic strategy of the NCP, a
strategy of minimal aspiration, is one that served earlier states well.
The Fur and Funj states of four hundred years ago had little interest in
transforming the political culture or worldview of their subjects; in each,
a ruling group survived and maintained itself in power principally by
extracting resources – mainly slaves – from peripheral areas, areas they
deliberately kept in a state of instability. A similar governing strategy has
kept the present government in power. But the periphery has fought back
more fiercely than before. It has reclaimed both land and power from the
centre. The future may see a return to an earlier political era in another
sense, a return to a situation where multiple centres of power vie with
each other within the borders of the former Sudanese state.The Sudan Handbook, edited by John Ryle, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo and Jok Madut Jok. © 2011 Rift Valley Institute and contributors
(www.riftvalley.net).