Event Transcript
Religion, Nationalism, and Peace in Sudan

U.S. Institute of Peace Conference
Tuesday, September 16, 1997

Panel Two: Religion and Identity in the South

Speaker: Marc Nikkel, Episcopal Church of Sudan
Speaker: Francis Deng, Brookings Institution
Respondent: Bona Malwal, Sudan Democratic Gazette

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Well, even though people are going to be a little bit lethargic about returning, I think we'd better resume our activities in the interest of time.
Let me say one word about the next panel, which as you see is on the subject of religion and identity in the south. In reference to one of the points made by a questioner earlier, we actually had tried to get some representatives of religious communities. We, in particular, tried to invite Bishop Makran Max, a Roman Catholic bishop from the south, and he was interested in coming, but we simply couldn't work it out.

So we've had a little trouble satisfying that certainly acceptable expectation, but in any case, we do have on our panel Marc Nikkel, who is with the Episcopal Church in Sudan and thus can speak in reference to the interests of religious communities in Sudan, or some of them in any case.

And also have our old friend and constant companion, Francis Deng, who has agreed now to fill in for the slot on religious identity in the south. Certainly Francis is well equipped to do that, as we all know, having grown up in the south and having reflected and written on that subject as well. So we're deeply grateful to Francis for filling in and helping us out in this respect.

And then finally the respondent, of course, is Bona Malwal, who's familiar to many of you in this room of the Sudan Democratic Gazette in London.

Now, we're going to follow the same procedure, 15 or so minutes by way of presentation, and five or so minutes by way of response, and then we'll open discussion to the panel, and then we'll eventually open discussion to the general audience.
I'll ask Marc Nikkel to being.

MR. NIKKEL: Thank you.

I feel privileged and humbled to be called on to represent something of the church in Sudan, in its great diversity and complexity. We've been looking at some big national issues, policy issues, and I feel like I'm pulling you now down into something that's very specific and local, rooted very much in southern Sudan, but other places as well.

I am a pastor, a priest, and I'd like to start with a song. This is a time of songs in southern Sudan remarkably, in the midst of this war. I'd like to share one of six verses of what's become perhaps one of the most popular song in the area that I relate to in Bora Jing. I won't use the word "Dinka," but Jing.

A song that was written immediately after perhaps the greatest upheaval that that area east of the Nile experienced back in '91, the beginning of the interfactional clashes, the raids and counter-raids, but in '91, that massive raiding of cattle, cattle being the central theme of traditional life around which everything is ordered for the Jing Pagrate Nilotic cattle peoples in Sudan.

I traveled in '94 in that region, and in 100 miles did not see one cow or bull or goat or sheep, in a place where a couple of years previously it would have been white as far as the eye could see.

Those raids in '91 in a sense ripped the heart out of that area, and well over 200,000 people fled, leaving tens of thousands dead as well. They journeyed by stages southward and westward. It was at Pagare just after the fall of Torit, again, having been torn from land, from property, from all they had, this remarkable song, which perhaps has become the most powerful one over the areas of the Episcopal Church in Jing Lan and in displacement as well, is perhaps most popular.

It says this: Let us give thanks. Let us give thanks to the Lord in the day of devastation and in the day of contentment. Jesus has bound the world round with the pure light of the Word of his Father. When we beseech the Lord and unit our hearts and have hope, then the Yuk, the old power, has no power over us. God has not forgotten us. Evil is departing, and holiness is advancing. These are the things that shake the earth.

Now, there's some that may say those themes are an overlay of Christian faith, but moving into them, into the world view they represent in the midst of upheaval, they are very profound words.

God has not forsaken us, which portrays the thought that maybe he has. The high divinity overall in the chaos of this war and this day. It says, that last line, "Evil is departing and holiness is advancing. This is what shakes the earth," that is, what has torn us up by our roots. It is in a sense a redemptive hope. It's a vision of transformation, but somehow the horror of this day of war, the death of our people, the loss of our most valued property, somehow there's something that divinity is doing that out of this will be for ultimate good in Sudan.

There's two things I'd like to stress in my comments. One is that when we talk about Christian identity, as I was asked to address, it's very difficult to speak of identity in Sudan. It is not simply one Christian identity. In this day when people have been scattered to the winds, across foreign borders, ripped from their own roots, in isolation, in communities in many areas of this vast country, out of the old missionary traditions, the journey goes on.

There is an adaptation. There is a melding with culture and people's traditions that we from outside -- and certainly I am quite, quite astounded by -- there is something that has in the midst of 40 years dominated by war made Christianity a deeply indigenous, a deeply rooted experience, very diverse, very multifaceted across the south, and I would say in displacement camps across the borders into northern Sudan, in Nuba Mountains, as well.

So to speak of Christian identity, singular, is very difficult. I would say identities if we want to understand the profound things happening during this time of great unprecedented upheaval.

The other thing I want to say is something of the way that as for the Jing war in this period of upheaval. Religion has been for them a mode of survival, of reinterpreting their identities, their roots in the midst of some of the greatest trauma and loss they have ever experienced.

It's been said in recent years the church in Sudan is the fastest growing church in the world or, rather, in Africa, and that within the Anglican communion, the Episcopal Church in the province of Sudan, is the fastest growing in the world.
Well, in the midst of our civil war, all of our statistics are very difficult to come by to make that very concrete. What we must acknowledge is that in Sudan in the 1980s and '90s, there has been a remarkable Christian movement, unprecedented probably since the first millennium and the growth of the Nubian Church, which many people in northern Sudan cling onto, saying, "We're part of that old root, that heritage of 1,000 years of Christianity that's reemerging with vitality today."

All we can point to is a few specifics in different areas. They could be applied in many regions. Ruben Mashir, a Jure Bishop in the Episcopal Church -- and I won't comment much on the Catholic because I had hoped Makram would be here. That would have been so good to have him -- Bishop Ruben went confirming in his new diocese, was made bishop back in August of '95. For two months he walked on foot and confirmed 16,000 people.

Those are fairly carefully counted in one small area, with tens of thousands of others waiting for the Episcopal blessing as well.

The bishop with whom I work, Bishop Nathaniel Borang in Bora area and Kakuma refugee camp, people outside of their own home territory, part of those raids, ten thousand were confirmed in 1993 at Kakuma over a three-day period.

I went walking with Bishop Nathaniel in early '96. In three weeks of walking in our diocese, there were 5,600 people confirmed.

Now, that's a very small glimpse of what's happening in many isolated communities in different places, and we could go to different areas, as well. Nuer, during the 1980s, the late '80s, all of their Presbyterian pastors, in what had been the Presbyterian sphere, had gone to Ethiopia to be with their flocks there as refugees, and yet in their place something like 1,000 young men came up to nurture the new Christian communities in Nuer area. Today the Presbyterian Church of Sudan estimates 1,500 of these young, untrained, newly literate people who are leading Christian churches in Nuer area.
This period also has seen the growth of a narrative theology as well as each community is trying to interpret their experience, their upheaval, their dislocation in theological terms, like the Kuku and the Kakwa southwest of Ye, over 50 percent of whom were displaced, have been displaced and have increasingly since 1990 seen their whole experience in terms of the exodus moving from Ye to Kia to Kubuka, and now with SPLA victories in '97, back to Ye again, speaking of a faithful people following after a God who's been with them throughout out.

The Azande, who perhaps have been one of the most shaken through this war with their hierarchical traditions, their militaristic traditions, culturally they've been at a low ebb. There the churches are trying to assist with reclaiming aspects of traditional culture, the artifacts, the story telling, the healing processes, the church playing a part in trying to regain what's been so badly lost in this period.

And we could go on to other ethnic groups. In this process of a people's struggle to survive, I would say very often the powers mentioned in that verse that I read for you that says if we unit our hearts, the Yuk, the powers that people have venerated for hundreds of years in Bora area, in these years of mass migration, tens of thousands to the east in Ethiopia back to their own lands. Today, what, 20,000 in Kakuma refugee camp. People have been pulled by their roots, and many of the old geographical boundaries no longer hold true as they once did, and the movement has consistently been in these years from those lower powers to, again in our area, in Myalich, the God above all gods and his revelation in the person of Christ.

People see themselves in the midst of two great wars. One is the war on the ground with military weapons, a battle fought on the human plain. The other is a spiritual battle in which many would proclaim that battle is being won in our land.
But there are things in the midst of that which for me as a foreigner great that I don't comprehend fully. I'm trying to get to know the Yuk better, their rootedness, their meanings in society traditionally.

But this thing of using Christian faith in Sudan as a mode of redefining ourselves in the midst of trauma, it isn't new. It goes back to the mid-19th century certainly when those early Catholic missions would buy children off the slave markets. Those who left records, who wrote their stories, we can think of Salim Wilson and Daniel Sworthaddimdeign, among others, who told their own experience as liberated slaves in the mid-19th century and how closely they associated their Christian conversion with that concrete mode of liberation.

Perhaps in the modern era it has been much more in the '60s. It's been the post independent era. Perhaps it was men like these early on, schooled in the mission schools, who first came to Christian faith. Then perhaps you might have spoken of Sudanese Christian identities in that Catholic sphere or that Anglican sphere.

But in the years that followed, especially after the expulsion of missionaries in 1964, you had communities that went off in exile to Uganda, others who hid in the forest during that tumultuous time. Leaders were formed in their faith during that period as had not happened before, and this Christianity became something rooted in that soil.

The songs that were composed that came out of the soul of the people in those first years of war, today they multiply perhaps much more broadly to in our own diocese of Bora along something like 3,000 songs, which can be counted in these war years alone. That's true in many, many other regions as well, as a people try to interpret their suffering and their trauma in terms of this faith, the biblical narrative they have imbibed.

It's going on as well in Nuba Mountains, remarkably in SPLA held areas. We hear so much about the human rights abuses of that region, but south of the road between Padugli and Hiban there are thriving churches even in this day, as Muslims and Christians and people of traditional religion live with remarkable harmony and confidence together.
I wonder if they don't offer a bit of a model to broader Sudan as well. We find the local Muslim administrators look with great pride on the churches which are there, which have tripled in their membership in the last ten years, even in Nuba Mountains, the Sudan Church of Christ and the Episcopal Churches particularly.

This is a faith that's been tested and has been bonded and is rooted in the visions, in the culture of this time. Perhaps if we think of the history of mission, it it's the brevity, that missions came only in the early 19th century. It was when the first of their crop of students were becoming adults that all missionaries were expelled, and it's what happened since then that is perhaps most dynamic in defining Christian identity, but no period more than the present, with the sort of growth we're talking about, the processes, in isolation of people defining their faith in new terms.

Again, in the context where I work in the diocese of Bora, I've been trying to document something of the crosses that emerge in that area of which these are examples. This was once the wand, the baton of a traditional Tiet, a diviner with which he would have invoked the powers.

In these years, the things of those traditions, the sacrificial pegs and stakes I would say have been reinterpreted, refashioned in terms of the cross, this one who suffers with us in a day when many in that area, different from other regions -- I'm saying Jing is not the same across to Bok or Tweech -- but in this particular area, there's been a great transformation of traditional themes, implements into the symbols of a faith where people no longer at this period rooted in their land, a transient people, those stakes pulled out and refashioned into crosses for a people who now are often refugees, displaced.

Themes of reconciliation, coming out of the psyche, out of the soul of southern Sudan I suppose I'm struck by. I put some pictures up here of people with the crosses they carry. In the upper left-hand corner there's one of Zion, perhaps the largest structure of local construction ever made in Sudan, a vast building. For two years I was the only expatriot who visited it.

The dream, the vision that people have had is that through the four doors of that vast cruciform shape would come our near neighbors, would come Nuer and Mundari and Murle and other Jing; that somehow in that cross we would be united and reconciled.

Granted that's a local vision within the south, but visions of conciliation nonetheless. I could go on with a number of others. Perhaps a quick comment.

People ask at times. With the movement of the church in this period, especially as one finds it in the SPLA, we find some of our most powerful commanders have openly confessed Christian faith in recent years. You'll see a picture there of soldiers with their crosses.

We hear of chaplains who are working in the SPLA as well and more and more are being trained to offer pastoral care on the war front. You hear one commander I recall who in Jing said, "In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, SPLA Oye."
(Laughter.)

MR. NIKKEL: What's happening here is this synthesis of religion and military movement, is this Christian jihad countering an Islamic jihad. That question has been asked numbers of times. I would have to say, no, that there is something that is very much rooted in the land.

Again, there's a song I'd love to share with you that I've put in my paper but don't have time for that speaks of the land that has been given to us by Myalek, that the land almost has personality. There's a power in itself that has identity. We must be loyal to that land.

In the old days it was the Yuk that defended and inhabited the land. Today it's that link between land and Myalich that is our possession we must defend. That's very much core to what's taking place during this time.
I've translated some hundreds of songs with friends, profound and complex songs that deal with faith, that deal with the trauma of this day. I think one thing that surprises me among the liberation songs composed by Christians a well is the fact that not one of them speaks against Islam or the Prophet in any way. They've got some very strong words for Sadik Al-Mahdi in the early days or against Omar Bashya, but not a word against Islam or the Prophet. There is an honor; there is a respect there, and that's played out in many other ways.

So in closing I suppose what I would like you to hear is that there is something very significant taking place in terms of the church in this day. As societies have in many areas been crushed, fragmented, some of the most valuable aspects of social structure and ethical structure have lost their edge during this time of upheaval.

In some places, not all, but in some the church is part of this process of reconstruction, offering moral values, and if there is to be negotiation in the future, our Christian leaders, our bishops, our moderators, our people out of the ground, our women's leaders, as we've heard, in a time when women in all of our churches have been focal to what has been taking place in encouraging the broken and at the forefront of much of the most hopeful change taking place in southern Sudan, they need to be part of that dialogue and be recognized for the grassroots, moral, ethical vision that they offer to our peoples.

I would say also there is in this day this great movement northward and southward of peoples. How many million have we said of southern Sudanese who have gone to the north? In the '60s, you had young men who went from cattle camps to the north, imbibed Christian faith, experienced it there. Today they are among the strongest church leaders in the south.
The chemistry in northern Sudan has impacted and formed the life of the church, Christian identity in southern Sudan. There is never more so than now in this day when we have these hundreds of thousands, millions perhaps, many of whom are trying to maintain that faith in the shanty towns, in the displacement camps, amidst great opposition in northern Sudan.

Whether they remain there or they return, who they are, what they experience will very much impact the future of the nation.

I will close there. Thank you.
(Applause.)

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Thank you, Marc, for a moving description.

Francis Deng.

MR. DENG: Well, I'm sure you will sympathize with me following Reverend Marc after his presentation, and I have to tell you that I have always enjoyed listening to him, and he does move me enormously, and I even share much of what he says.

Now, I'm supposed to be stepping into somebody's position, certainly not stepping into the shoes of Reverend Max, but my comments could almost be really comments on Reverend Nikkel's statement.
Let me begin with a small story about a colleague of mine who was a middle ranked judge. We were both at Yale Law School in the '60s, an over a relaxed visit with some friends over the weekend, we happened to be talking about the Sudan, the south in particular.

He had been posted in the south, and at one point he commented, "What a sad people they are. They don't even believe in God."

And I said to him, "They don't believe in God? Are you aware of the fact that there have been volumes and volumes about Nilotic religions by anthropologists, very well known?" That was long before I started writing.
(Laughter.)

MR. DENG: And his comment was, "Really?" He was amazed.
I tell this story to make the point that what is often behind the religious missions of Christians and Muslims is an assumption of a spiritual vacuum in the south that has driven missionary work going back to pre-colonial days, into the colonial period, and that is also what drives Islamic mission in the south.

What Marc says, which I for the most part agree with, is, I think, a core of a complex picture in which this is an element, maybe even a much more vibrant, dynamic element, in a picture that I believe is more eclectic, is more diffusionist, which has over a history of a long period, has always combined elements and digested them and reproduced them.
It is true, and I'm saying this almost as a conclusion to what will then be elaborated, that today Christianity has emerged as a modern tool that in a sense is competitive with other world religions, such as Islam, in much the same way that English, which is not necessarily well spoke in the south, is also emerging as a language that is seen as a counterpart to the further assimilation.

What you then have are symbols of identity that function at both the level that he said, a genuine spiritual rejuvenation, survival response, but is at the same time also mixed with other elements of the indigenous culture to produce a unique expression that has several functions, spiritual as well as political.

Let me begin with talking about the nature of religion, and I should say, by the way, that like Marc I have been interested in collecting songs and started collecting in the early '60s and continue to collect and to translate and to publish my first book of Dinka songs in the '70s, so that over a period of time through the content of the songs I have been able to monitor some of the changes that are occurring because songs are really living expression of a people's experience. They're not poetic expression of a few who are gifted, but expression of just about everybody about real experiences, and I have monitored some of the changes or evolution that religion as an element of identity has gone through.

In traditional societies, and I think this is quite general, but let me be specific to the societies I'm more familiar with, there is no word for religion. Religion is part of the way of life of a people. It is an integral part of their culture, of their values, of their patterns of behavior. You don't say, "What is your religion?" because your religion is essentially a component of the person's identity, cultural, ethnic, the whole lot.

And because it is part of the total cultural identity, it is expressive of the values of the people which can be identified, and one of the most significant elements of these values that is tied to religion is the sense of ancestral continuity or immortality through the line, which means that in these societies their sense of religion is so focused on life as they know it in this world, on survival which is almost physical while you are alive, well-being in its composite, holistic sense, or when life ends, as it will always, it continues through the memory of the dead, best through ones own children, but also through the large family and circles of friends one has touched in life, in other words, to be immortalized through the memory of the living.

This central value, which is deeply religious and which accounts for the veneration of ancestors, requires cooperation as well as individuality. It's communal, as well as individualistic.

Every individual has to be immortalized. If an individual dies before marrying or dies before begetting a child even after marriage, through a custom called Leverett, a woman would be married to the name of the dead person, and even a dead woman before married, there is a marriage of female relatives that is supposed in a sense to be a substitution of the dead person.

Children are begotten to the name of the dead person who will, even if begotten by a living brother, will be considered their brothers and identified with the dead person, who in this case could be a father.

So one can beget one's own children who are one's brothers. The continuation of every individual in the family line is absolutely essential, what makes it very individual, but it is collective in the sense that ultimately it is the clan, the lineage which is immortalized.

By the same token, it requires cooperation. It requires the unity of purpose of all the members of the family, which in turn also requires harmony, and above all, the dignity of every individual and of the group is essential to the memory of the dead.

In law they say in Western law that the dead person cannot be defamed. In traditional Nilotic law, the defamation of a dead person is more serious than defaming a living person. So that even after death, people continue to participate in the activities of the living.

Now, this set of values has certain implications. Among the implications is the pride people have in their heritage, which is associated with the ancestors, the memory of the ancestors, the pride people have in the notion of the continuity of the culture so that even when it is transformed, there's an element of continuity, unlike America where people take pride in doing better than their fathers have done. In Nilotic culture, you always absolve your ancestors above you. No Nilotic can ever brag, as they do always in songs, can brag about having done better than their ancestors. They always play up the ancestors as the model of what is ideal.

It is also a culture that is resistant to assimilation. It assimilates, but does not want to be assimilated. It's a culture that's very, very committed to autonomy, the independence of the unit, whether that be a group or ultimately the individual, and therefore, as we said earlier, profoundly democratic and, therefore, does not want to be dictated upon.

But while it is in many ways also a system that is prone to continuity, it is also a system that adjusts in a very dynamic way. There's a flexibility in adaptation with continuation, and we know in the history of Dinka religion, for instance, that when the Mahade appeared, the spirit of the Mahade was adopted by the Dinka and he was known to have been someone on who the spirit of Deng Dit, which is associated with the sky and the rain and the power behind, had descended.

This was a man believed to have been inspired by this universalizing notion of God in order to come and rid the country of the evils of the Turko-Egyptian rule. The Dinka composed songs to the spirit of the Mahade to free them, to liberate them from the disasters they were confronting because they had heard that a religious man in the north had appeared, inspired by god, on whom Deng Dit had fallen, coming to rid the country.

And to the Nilotics, because there is no such a thing as religion per se, the power of God can be manifested in anybody, and as long as that person is representing that power of God, there is no segregation, that he does not belong to my religion. He's a manifestation of God and, therefore, is accepted.

That hymn of the Mahade, when the Mahade later on turned out to be a source of evil for them, that hymn was being invoked, the spirit of Mahade was being invoked with the songs that were composed for the Mahade against the Mahadists, who had turned out to be only another invading force from the north.

That's how flexible it was. When I wrote a book on the Dinka called Africans of Two Worlds, which dealt with the past, present, and future, beginning with the myths of creation, some of the myths of creation were seen to be so close to the Bible, the Old Testament, and even the Koran, and some of my anthropology friends were saying these things must have come from the missionaries.

Well, the stories were recorded from men in their 70s and 80s and 90s who said they had heard it from their grandfathers. These were ideas of foreign religions assimilated, digested, and reproduced as part of the religion of the Dinka. They believed it was their own, and not surprising because there has been a lot of interaction in the Nile Valley, which a history of animosity and conflict has so distorted that people in the north and south think they have nothing at all in common, when in reality they have given and taken.

That same ability to adapt, to absorb, to digest and reproduce was the way the missionaries were met when we, our generation, were the first to go to school where we were introduced to Christianity. The Dinka took Christianity, the work of the missionaries, as part of the process of being educated, which they took as a positive thing.

They did not see it as a transformation of their spiritual world, even though the boys and girls who went to school were taught that the traditional religions of their people were evil. The elders themselves, when we came home -- I remember one story -- coming to our father because we needed his permission to be baptized, and he asked why we wanted to be baptized, and we said because unless one is reborn again, one cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. One will go to hell.
And after a bit of discussion, he said, "If we assume that the missionaries are correct, that only by being baptized will you go to heaven and others will burn in hell, are you boys going to be happy in heaven when the rest of the family burns in hell?"
(Laugher.)

MR. DENG: They took the whole idea of rising again as superstition. I mean these people who have been accused of superstition were taking the idea of rising again to go to heaven or to hell as superstition. They dismissed it.
But they took education as an important factor, and Christianity came with education.

Many, many years later my father and I were talking about the situation, and someone I knew he asked, "Was that a friendship or is there more to it?"

I said it was just a friendship. We're colleagues, but after all, even if there were something, that person is a Muslim.
And he said, "And what are you?"

This is the same man who has given his permission for me to be baptized when I was in elementary school. Years later he was saying, "What are you?"

Because, you see, it is for them not so important that you are a Christian, a Muslim, or what have you. It's important that you are religious, that you have absorbed spiritual values whether they come from Christianity or from wherever.
Now, what we have today is a situation where the south has during moments of crisis -- and I think Marc was absolutely correct -- that during moments of crisis even in tradition, that's when prophets arise, and anthropologists have documented the rise of prophets among the Nuer and among the Dinka during critical moments of the 19th century upheaval.

What that does then is it brings together a reassessment of the spiritual experience, revitalizes it under the leadership of specially inspired people in order to confront the crisis.

Today what do you have? You have a situation where Christianity has become accepted. You have a crisis situation where the role of religion is being reasserted. You have a situation where the traditional religiosity of the people is combining with their acceptance of Christianity as a new modern tool for countering their assimilationist trend coming from the north.

So I would disagree with Marc in disassociating politics from what is happening. Now, he is dealing with a specific situation where he obviously has more of the facts on the ground, but I would say that it's a combination of the spirituality of the people, of their tradition, mixing with Christianity, being used also as a tool whether consciously or instinctively as a modern tool for countering the threat of assimilation from the north.

Let me say very quickly since I have three more minutes left there is something going on which is very painful and which is very sad. When I look at the myths that I recorded years back and the stories that I now see being reflected in the songs, there are several trends going on.

One trend is what we have just said, a search for religious ways of redeeming oneself. Another trend reflected largely among the traditionalists is a recognition that what they had assumed and taken for granted, that they were God's model of what a human being should be and what a society should be, chosen people, if you will, that this is being shattered.
There's a diminishing self-image. Among the myths that the Dinka used to give to explain why they chose cattle was that God had asked them to select. There is something called "what?," what and the question mark, and the cow. Which one would you want, black man? Then the Dinka said he wanted the cow, and God said, "Are you sure? This thing called 'what?' has some wonderful mysteries in it." But the Dinka would not accept the "what?" He took the cow.
This originally was said with pride, that God gave us the ideal symbol of wealth. Today songs are lamenting that the tragedy that has befallen us is because our ancestors chose the cow instead of the thing called "what?"
That "what?" is now given to the white man and to the Arabs, which is why through science and technology they have discovered and are lording it over us.

Another myth had it that God created us as twins. Sometimes they say triplets, the black man, the brown man, and the white man. Originally the myth had it that the black child was so favored by the mother that she treated him better than the other one, but then the father one day decided since the other children were being mistreated, he was going to plead with God to take those children as his servants, and so God took them and taught them things.
Today those myths that were supposed to reflect the pride of the people are being reinterpreted to say our suffering has come from a mother who loved us more than the others and our father took the other brothers to be God's servants, and they lived.

And I can go on with several other myths that were supposed originally to project a very positive image of being revised. That's the negative side. It's a painful sort of charting of what's happening.

The positive side is there's a renewed assertion of identity, particularly among the educated and particularly among the people in the liberation movement. These are a people who are, in fact, revising the religious experience of the Dinka. They're revising even tradition and looking into the Bible to reassert the identity of the people of the south as people who have suffered so much that God is now coming to redeem them.

Isaiah is reinterpreted about the land behind the rivers, divided by the rivers, and all the details, including people of tall and dark skin, glossy skin, is being interpreted to mean this is we and our time is coming.

It's almost a renewal, a revival, very similar to the revival trend in the north. It's a revival of the old spirituality of the people reasserting their chosen value as a people who have a special place with God and who have suffered enough and it is time for them to be now redeemed.

I think it is important to take this whole picture in mind in assessing what religion means as a symbol of identity that has spiritual dimension, as well as political dimension, and that there is no longer a vacuum in the south as had always been assumed to be the case.

Thank you.
(Applause.)

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Thank you, Francis, very much, indeed.

Bona Malwal, about ten minutes if you please.

MR. MALWAL: Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, since this is my first time to take the floor here, let me thank you, David, and all the colleagues and friends at the U.S. Institute of Peace for again providing a very elaborate and beautiful setting for us to discuss the Sudan again as you have repeatedly given us the opportunity.

It is difficult to comment on papers of such rich spiritual content like that of Marc Nikkel and Francis Deng. So what I will do is probably gloss over them and give you my own views about --
(Laughter.)

MR. MALWAL: You know, and try deal with lack of it in Sudan.

I think what the two speakers have been describing for us today is what you summed up in your background paper that you sent to us, David, in which the religious nationalism -- I think that's the sum of what Francis and Marc have told us this afternoon.

In fact, Francis talked much more elaborate about the spiritual beliefs and content of the people from southern Sudan from a much broader sense. Marc has zeroed in on what is happening to Christianity in southern Sudan today, and that's where I'd like to dwell a little bit.

I think that the continuing war in southern Sudan, the civil war that has lasted for over 40 years, has created a certain sense of Christian nationalism in southern Sudan that was not intended to be a religious movement of any kind, but it has, you know, unwittingly become that in a sense because of the perceived and actually given threat of Islam based on the fact that, you know, the powers that be in the Sudan have always said that the only way the country called Sudan can be is for the people who are not Arabs and not Muslims to accept Arab culture and accept Islam as the basis of oneness of the country.

This has produced a reaction, and a reaction that has started, I think, first of all, with the educated people because, again, Christianity came to southern Sudan through the missionaries, and the only way the missionaries could introduce Christianity to southern Sudan was by opening up schools, and so it was a very limited movement in that sense, that, you know, it was an elitist sort of a movement.

And once independence came to the Sudan and, you know, Islam and Arabism because the crying symbol of the authority up north, Christian leadership, of course, which was the educated leadership in southern Sudan, was identified as the resistant leadership of the south, and unfortunately for the Muslims, I think, they decided that Islam must be imposed by the use of force, and it created a reaction, you know, a grassroot reaction in the uneducated and, you know, non-Christian southern Sudan, so much so that in the last eight years what Reverend Marc Nikkel has been describing to us is that Christianity has become a populist movement of southern Sudan which has created, in fact, for me quite satisfactorily a very interesting sense of identification.

All people of southern Sudan, because we are easily accused of being, you know, a bunch of tribal people, we find it quite easy and quite satisfactory, you know, to find solace in this Christian identity, the unity of Christianity as a symbol, not as a symbol of religion, but as a symbol of national movement.

I find quite paradoxically this is disturbing even to the Christian, you know, especially many of the foreign Christian missionaries who believe that, you know, Christianity is something that should be spiritual and that is it. You know, so people will come to you and say, "You know, you are now trying to introduce war into religion, and it should not be," and it has not persuaded very many people in southern Sudan because people have come to find unity in Christianity, and it is the symbol of their national identity now.

I don't know. I hope it lasts, but it may not last long, and so it is much easier when people want to divide southern Sudan to say, you know, it is a bunch of tribes, and it is very easy to pick a Joangarund who is a Dinka and a Ryatmahjar who is a Nuer and say it is a Nuer against a Dinka. It is not easy to call Riak Machar, you know, the Christian from the Nuer, and John Garang, the Christian from the Dinka country.

So they unite under Christianity, and that is probably threatening to even Christianity itself, and so the question of compromises that were talked of, and that is my point I want to end these few remarks on, you know, Francis particularly this morning spoke, Mr. Chairman, about that people have to find compromises, and you know, the word "compromise" is a very good thing, but the problem with compromise is that, you see, what is at stake in the Sudan is not religion versus religion. It is not belief versus belief. It is, in fact, power, and power is given in a particular hand, and that hand is the hand of the Muslim and of the Arab.

And for you to compromise means that you must leave power where it is, and so I find it very difficult, you know, as a non-Arab and as a non-Muslim to compromise because a compromise that would leave power the way it has been run and is being held in the Sudan today means that I have to accept a certain part of me to remain second class for the rest of my life, and that's a very difficult compromise to ask people to make.

So really in discussing the compromise, you must discuss where the political power has to lie, and that's the center of the issue. As long as the power remains imbedded in the hands of the Muslim and in the hands of the Arab, you know, they are characterized Africans of northern Sudan. It is very difficult to reach a compromise.

And so I would take, you know, asylum in the answer I got privately this afternoon during lunchtime, that you know, if the compromise eventually leads to, you know, no one giving up his role and, therefore, leads to breaking up the Sudan, that is the preferred solution I would accept myself.

Thank you very much.
(Applause.)

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Thank you, Bona, and thank you, Marc and Francis, for very stimulating comments.

We now have about 15 minutes or so, and the procedure is as was before. We'll allow the panel to raise questions and make comments, a little interchange here, and we'll reserve some time for public participation at the end of this session.
Yes, Sulayman Nyang.

MR. NYANG: Well, I will say thank you to the three speakers. I think all three of them have identified the important issues. I want to really raise points with Francis. I think Francis raised a point which is very critical with regard to what is happening in Sudan and, by implication, what is happening to the whole continent of Africa.
There are three areas where I think the Sudanese experience has serious consequences not only for Sudanese in terms of state building and nation building, but in terms of the future of the state and national identities in Africa.
The concept of Afro-Arab identity in the Sudan is very serious for the Sudanese, both for the northern Sudanese and the southern Sudanese, and I think in order for Sudan to emerge as a modern state, with constitutional guarantees for each and every member of the society, Sudanese intellectuals both from the north and the south must be very honest with regard to the Afro-Arab experience.

Otherwise a national identity for Sudan will never be a reality, and the Afro-Arab experience will continue to be a wedge rather than a bridge between the north and the south and between Sudan and the rest of Africa.
The second point I want to raise, and I think Francis has a point here which I think many Sudanese intellectuals and African intellectuals are not honest about, and that is when he described the Dinka people developing their own philosophical attitude towards life.

There is nothing that gives superiority to Islam or Christianity or Judaism or any other belief system. It is a matter of belief, and you know, like when you have Muslim and you believe in Islam, you are saying that you believe that Islam is the final revelation.

Now, in the modern context what has to be accepted, and this is something where African intellectuals have not been very honest with themselves and in the sense that they have allowed the Abrahamic tradition to exercise hegemonic monopoly and control of power over traditional African beliefs, and I think this is something that the Sudanese intellectuals bothers southerners.

What the southern Sudanese agree is they are just playing Christianity as a global basis of solidarity against what the National Islamic Front is doing with regard to Islam. So you have the battle of what I call the fundamentalist elephants.
When two elephants, the grass suffers, and that is precisely what you're beginning to see in Sudan. The unity that supposedly exists among southern Sudanese could be developed under a new framework if Sudanese intellectuals from the north and from the south are honest with themselves.

And Bona is quite correct. Power is the issue. It's not religion. It is power. So you have to create the political framework whereby Abrahamic religions which exercise hegemony over Sudan and much of Africa, by the way, and come to term with traditional African beliefs so that you can create a new political framework whereby constitutional guarantees exist for whatever beliefs you have, and you do not have privileges for any religion over the others.

This way the Dinka traditionalist is as equal within the Sudanese state as a Christian Dinka or a Muslim Dinka. So you have both of them equal. You don't have to pass as a Muslim Dinka to be preferred in Sudan over a Christian Dinka or a traditional Dinka.

And unless the Sudanese are willing to deal with this reality, Sudan will never be able, and Bona's suggestion might very well the case. You may have secessionism as opposed to the integrity of Sudan.

The last point I want to make here, and I want to get a reaction from Francis or any of the other people here, and that is apart from the Afro-Arab connection of Sudan, which is a critical factor for the Sudanese reality, and I think the Sudanese, both northern Sudanese and southern Sudanese have to be honest about themselves. Whether you are a northern Sudanese or a southern Sudanese, you have to deal with the Afro-Arab relations that exist.

Sudanese have been influenced by the Arabic language very much like Sudanese have been influenced by the English language. Why are we here talking in English? The very fact that English exercises influence on the Sudanese just like Arabic exercises influence with the Sudanese.

What has not happened is the English did not stay in Sudan long enough to create Anglo-Saxons or Afro-Saxons, we call them.
(Laughter.)

MR. NYANG: And if you have Afro-Saxons versus Afro-Arabs in the Sudan, you have to create a political and constitutional order where by the potential Afro-Saxon is an equal to the Afro-Arab who enjoys privilege.

Thank you.
(Applause.)

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: I'll call on Rosalind Hackett, and I have you in mind, Mr. El-Tinay.

MS. HACKETT: Yes, thank you.

My question is very simple and brief to Reverend Nikkel. You talked about growth and you've talked about revival. Could you tell us, please, whether there are Christian groups operating in southern Sudan that could be termed revivalist, in other words, more Evangelical or Pentecostal, in other words, that might offer a counter force to Islamism? Are there any groups or individuals of that persuasion?

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Let's get a few questions. If your question is on this general subject, why don't you go ahead, Stan?

MR. DeBOE: Actually it is dealing with growth because you've talked about the growth among the Christian communities, and I was kind of thinking that in other models where we've talked about growth in Christian communities in other parts of the world and wondered if we can either make some parallels or some comments or learn some lessons from it.
But during the dissident movements in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union we talked about tremendous church growth in the Christian communities there where the churches were used in many ways not so much for areas of spiritual growth, but as a center of dissent.

So, you know, it's difficult to measure that, you know, how many people are becoming Christians or joining churches because of the spiritual movement in their lives or because it's been seen as a place where dissent can be spoken out freely and become a center of dissent.

What we saw after the changes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, the churches lost a lot of influence. People left the churches then for other pursuits.

But on the other side of that we have the church in China, where again people are talking about tremendous growth, but it's not a center of dissent, and so we're kind of looking at two models there.

Does Sudan parallel any of these? Are there similarities or differences, or do you see it as something completely different?

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Other questions or comments on this point? Yes, Mr. El-Tinay.

MR. EL-TINAY: Indeed, this has been a very enlightening session. I thank all the contributors to having giving us some more light on the issue, and it has been inspiring. It inspired me the following points which I'd like to share with you.
Before that, I'd just say since this is the first time for us to participate in this meeting, I represent Salam Sudan, which is a Sudanese initiative, an independent, nongovernmental, nonpartisan, nonprofit, cultural organization founded in Paris in 1985 for regaining cultural dignity, peace, democracy, human peoples and cultural rights through intercultural and interreligious dialogue, reflection, research, and publications, just as an introduction.

What this has inspired is the following. perhaps there are two dimensions to the issue in terms of perspective and framework. One is the local, which Francis touched upon first this morning, and the other is the universal, the village and Washington.

I think they should be present in our minds because they are incredibly interrelated and interlocked.
Now, I would like just to say that, point number one, perhaps we need for peace in the Sudan and in the world to question our perspectives, all of us; to ask the question whether we or our hostage of a dominant paradigm and culture, which actually cultivates self-centeredness by design and exclusive behavior, thinking, attitudes, and values.

The second point is, therefore, the reality and the modesty of our knowledge in terms of what we are striving for. Sudan is part of the Nile Valley. I come from Paris. We have now a very interesting exhibition called "Sudan, Kingdoms on the Nile," which actually has proven for the first time that the so-called Egyptian civilization actually is Sudanese civilization because civilizations don't develop and go up the rivers, but rather they go down the rivers.

So it means this is very interesting because I think this has implications to our knowledge of our roots, be we Americans or whatever, because the knowledge of the history of this part of the world, which explains actually the spirituality of the place, is very important, and it is important for the Sudanese, but it is important for the Americans.

So do we need to also reconsider this dominant paradigm for which we are hostage? I have the opportunity and the privilege to write a paper in 1981 for UNESCO about Africa over the 1980s, a telling for the social sciences.

So we cannot just limit our discourse to the frontiers of the Sudanese frontiers. When we speak of Sudan, if we have an African perspective or an Islamic Afro-Arab perspective or a universal perspective, things are different.

So do we need to liberate ourselves from this logic of partisan attitudes, thinking, conditioning and behavior and exclusiveness which breeds violence and which, of course, relates to the question of power raised by Bona and emphasized by Sulayman?

The third question: do we need to be more responsible and more humble in terms of learning more, making more effort, going deeper, and hence including spirituality as an important dimension in terms of our proposing new projects for societal renewal? And this is for Sudan and for all societies in African, and I subscribe to what Sulayman said about democracy in a new light, that is, the democracy that really respects all cultures, all spiritualities, all religions.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Could I -- could you --

MR. EL-TINAY: I conclude by -- I conclude by two verses, one from the Bible, which I think is appropriate for here because we are involved in interreligious dialogue. It says -- it's from the Chronicles 12:7. It says, "Now, when the Lord saw that they humbled themselves, the word of the Lord came to Shimaya saying, 'They have humbled themselves. Therefore, I will not destroy them, but I will grant them some deliverance. My wrath shall not be poured out on Jerusalem by the hand of Shesha.'" That's Judah, the Holy Bible, the New King George version, page 494.

Now, the last quotation is from the Koran. "In the name of God, most gracious, most merciful, ALR, a book which we have revealed unto thee in order that thou mightest lead mankind out of the depth of darkness into light by the leave of their Lord to the way of Him, the Exalted in power, worthy of all praise." This is from Abraham, the Holy Koran, 14, page 619.

Thank you very much.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Thank you.

We have a number of comments and specific questions that have been addressed to a few of you. Would you like now to respond, Marc or Francis or Bona?

MR. NIKKEL: May I respond to a couple of things?

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Of course, of course.

MR. NIKKEL: This phrase "spiritual vacuum," I suppose, in the 16 years I've lived in Sudan I would never have dreamed of describing any side of Sudan in terms of a spiritual vacuum, whether it's living out in cattle camp as I did my first years or in the north. I have a great sense of respect for the traditional belief systems of our diverse peoples in Sudan.
And what I was commenting on most of all was the process of synthesis, I think, as you were saying as well, that I find underway; that there's much that's taking place in these societies today that have to instruct me, us outside. There's a very specific work that's being done amidst the great trauma of this time.

The other is on English language. I suppose if the missions did anything right, it was the use of vernacular is what strikes me so much, is the power of vernacular language and the way that becomes a tool of interpretation, of claiming and of remaking something for communities themselves.

And it's that distinctive dialogue within the Christian context, with scripture, with culture, with traditions in the vernacular that partly works to make almost our faith, our experience during this phase of the evolutions of peoples in Sudan.
I guess I'm not certain so much about, as Bona said, Christianity as a symbol of nationalist movement. Yes, it is that perhaps in some contexts, but I'm also very aware of the isolation of peoples, and on the grassroots level the profundity of that spiritual, theological dialogue that's there as well. It's both/and, and I suppose in a context like this, I'm concerned that we can so easily go towards the politicizing of religion rather than take it for what it is at the grassroots.

The interpreting of songs that Francis has done in the past, I think we need to be doing a lot of that sort of work in the present as well, what's happening at the grassroots in whatever religious context because it has much to tell us about the larger nation.

Okay. The question of Evangelical or revival churches in Sudan. Going back to the first decade of this century, it was the Roman Catholics, the Anglicans, the Church Mission Society, and the American Presbyterians who went to Sudan, and Sudan was divided in three large spheres and given out to those groups so that they wouldn't fight with each other, the missionaries having missionary wars.

And that has determined very much the imprint on those large areas since. In the last 15 years, you have other groups, African Inland Mission, the Pentecostal Churches, several other dominations and para-church groups that are working in Sudan as well.

I would be very cautious about the way we use the word "fundamentalist." If it means going back to the Book, I think we find many Christians in Sudan are torn going back to the Book because, on the one hand, you have the strong statements of reconciliation, of forgiveness, and so forth, of Christ. On the other, you have the Old Testament images of a God who stands with his chosen people in war in which the land is very central.

And I think many Christians who I know are caught between those and would tend to say our necessary stance is that of defense of our land, of our life, of our right to worship as we will, but not to impose my faith by force on anyone else is what I hear consistently in the midst of the battle.

So the word "fundamentalist," I think we've got to be very careful how we imply the connotations it carries.
The churches as centers of dissent. I suppose, again, there are great diversities of what's taking place in various communities. In the north, in the towns of the south, I think the churches are very much places of solidarity, of holding together, of preserving ourselves. I'm not certain how much a voice, how open it is for vocal dissent.

I'm more aware of the issue in the churches I relate to not being one of power, but of survival. Where is the presence of some power greater than ourselves -- okay. Maybe it is power -- as we are struggling against our peoples being wiped off the face of the earth, as has happened in western Baragaza, as has happened in war areas, as has happened in Nuba Mountains? How can we survive through this?

And the dialogue with Christian faith is part of that. Part of it is a sense that perhaps those powers have betrayed us is a line that I hear a lot in the areas that I relate to, the old powers.

But the forum for dissent I'm not sure is there in many contexts.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Francis?

MR. DENG: Well, Sulayman Nyang might have intended to ask a question when he directed his comment towards me, but he ended up making a statement that I entirely agree with. So I have no comment.
(Laughter.)

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Bona?

MR. MALWAL: Well, again, Sulayman, I just want to emphasize the fact that, you know, dialoguing and communicating on the wider, you know, Afro-Arab or, you know, Anglo-African context, I have no problem with that, but, you know, that does not remove the problem that I sit in on the Sudan, and that is the problem of power.
And I think that we have to resolve this, you know, in very clear terms, quite different from this, you know, very broad, you know, flowery Africanism or Arab-Africanism. It doesn't apply.

There is a particular problem within the Sudan which, you know, one section with a set of culture and religious, you know, persuasion has barricaded itself into the state power and is expecting me to accept that. I'm not accepting that.
We have to resolve that, you know, whether we communicate as Africans or don't communicate as Africans, and my thesis to that is that given the situation as we have it in the Sudan, there are no discernable compromises.
The best compromise -- I repeat again -- the best compromise in the context of the Sudan is in my mind -- and that may even, you know, enhance and promote the dialogue you are thinking of -- I think the best compromise in the present context of the Sudan, since those who have taken power actually not by their intelligence or anything, but colonialism, you know, just gave it to them, and they have so misused it against the people. I think that the best compromise I see is the break-up of the country called the Sudan, and we will probably better communicate and better dialogue as a result of that solution.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: We have now 15 minutes left, and I think we can allow some open discussion. Let's proceed as we did this morning with lining up at either microphone if you please, and let's do try to focus our comments on the subject of this particular session, which has to do with religion and identity in the south.

Yes, sir.

MR. SHABOR: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

My name is Eltijani Shabor, and I'm Sudanese by nationality. I'm working at present as academic advisor of the Royal Embassy of Sudan in Washington, D.C.

First of all, I would like to start by thanking the Peace Institute for organizing this session. It's very knowledgeable, and we thank they very much for that, and also for the publications that I receive regularly at my home.
Now, it seems to me that the immediate problem of Sudan right now is this bloodshed that's going on in our country right now, and we would like to see some Sudanese, distinguished Sudanese scholars, like Dr. Francis Deng, to get involved more aggressively in the peace initiatives that could stop this bloodshed in our country.
And it seems to me that only after stopping this bloodshed that we could establish a ground on which we can sit down and talk and see some common grounds on which we can build our unified country.

Of course, as Dr. Francis Deng indicated earlier, there are those people who believe that religion is for God and nation is for all, but still the fact remains that there are some people who believe that religion is for God and the state is for God, too, and even our lives belong to God, who could terminate it at any time.

But still, we could find some backgrounds on which we could find some denominators, as some of our friends here said, by which we can go ahead with our country and make it live in peace.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Thank you.

Let's do take a number of comments and questions, and then we'll give a chance if needed to respond.

Yes, sir.

PARTICIPANT: Yes. In fact, my question is directed to Reverend Nikkel and Francis Deng. I'm just afraid with Christianity, which he is talking about right now, because we have been participating in the Sudan rabbi (phonetic), during the colonialism, in fact, the missionaries were going there not because of one particular religion into the southern Sudan, but to exploit the southern Sudanese resources, and this thing was discovered later by the people.
And I wish that you this time can really take religion with you, mean to say that people are struggling their way to heaven, which a person, me personally. I don't know.

And the other things to Francis. Francis in his experience, he pick out Dinka as an example, and he could not even remind the floor that Sudan is comprised of about 56 tribes, as we are in tribes, and that is estimate, and southern Sudan alone have got about 36 tribes. Dinka is one of the tribes. Nuer is the second of the tribes within the (inaudible).

So by saying that the southern Sudan netted (phonetic) the Dinka, which means all of the southern Sudan has had Dinka and those problems are creating the business (phonetic) within the southern Sudanese, as well as I will give example.
We have the (inaudible) and it is creating problem within the southern, which means Francis Deng is solving it halfway and is adding more soy (phonetic) to the problem, insulting and injuring. While he's trying to solve it, he's trying to confuse it even more.

Why don't you be realistic by at least go ahead and solve the problem, and if the people are counting on you, then you go ahead and solve the problem. This I let the world know. I'm going to ask him more than five to six people have asked it. You are a Dinka from where? I'm not a Dinka. I'm a Kakwa. I don't say that Dinka is bad. Dinka is good, but I have to accept that I am Kakwa. I'm not a Dinka.

So if you are telling to the world, tell them that there's 36 tribes. Dinka is one of the tribes. Be sincere. Let the world know how many tribes are there.

And according to the religion it differs. In Thambor, let me say Upper Nile, in Upper Nile --

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Could you conclude? I think your point is clear.

PARTICIPANT: Yeah. There is something I want to point out. In the religion of southern Sudan, because I'm a son of southern Sudan. I'm born there. I grew up there. Religion in the Upper Nile is a little below the Christianity even. In Ecuatoria, it's a little bit high. Up in Bahagazal is divided. Islam and Christianity hare half-half.

So these are things that need to be pointed out. We need to be honest because we are looking for something that can bring into common good. Yeah.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Thank you.

PARTICIPANT: That is my point.

Thank you.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Yes, sir.

PARTICIPANT: Yeah, I just want to make a little comment. I'm actually one of the Christian converts from southern Sudan. I come from Yuba in Ecuatoria, and I belong to the Bari ethnic community. I'm not saying that to be divisive. I'm just saying there are a level, I think, of religious foundations in the Sudan. Religion, of course, came through the colonial forces. The missionaries came along with the British at that time, with other missionaries. The Catholic missionaries at least came there a little bit earlier in the last century by themselves, and I think the acceptance of Christianity in the south, those of us who have followed it a little bit closely, in the very early years, the native people rejected Christianity because Christianity was viewed as well as a part of the colonial system, and therefore, seeing the people naturally wants to be free as Dr. Francis Deng has pointed out, and had a great regard of their own cultures, of their own identities, of their own spiritual values, they rejected. They kept themselves aloof from the missionaries, Christian missionaries.
And of course, because of the colonial situations, some of our young people in the early 20s were taken by force, the children of the chief or the children of the nobilities, and taken to the missions to be educated because the British system, of course, at that time didn't want to do anything in the south. They did whatever they wanted to do through the missionaries.

And so some of these people who received faith almost by accident of political situation little by little did develop their own faith, and I can say that for myself as a Christian today. When I went to the Catholic school, I think my intentions were not very clear. Yes, there was something in Christianity that seemed to move me. At the same time, what brought me to become a Christian was the fact that also I wanted education, as it was already stated by the people there.
But during the course of these years of my life, I have come to appreciate what Christianity as a religious system offers, and therefore, I personally can say for myself today that I make a choice to be a Christian because I believe there is something in Christianity that is in agreement with my traditional belief system, which has been described very, very well, and has been written by Dr. Francis Deng.

Although there are differences in the south, in the religious beliefs and practices and so on, basically when you study the southern communities, you will find out that they are basically religiously following the same religious values.
We believe in a creator, God. We believe in the afterlife. We --

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Could you conclude, sir? I think that's a very helpful point, but we are short of time.

PARTICIPANT: Right. Okay. What I'm trying to says is basically the two people who have said what they said, the Reverend up there, is saying the truth because the people in the south don't take religion only just as a political tool. They take religion because they have also belief in the message the Christianity offers, and many of them see that their survival today, their political survival, cultural survival also is founded in their identity as a community of faith, of Christian faith.

At the same time I agree with Bona Malwal that religion, of course, has become a point of unity for us. Me as a body can relate to it. Dinka can relate to it because we can sit together, and I have sat together, by the way, back home in Juba in the Sudan Council of Churches with my brothers and sisters from the different faiths' point of view, and of course, those of us who are interested in the Sudan and want to have a Sudan that is peaceful, that is developing, we would also like to sit together with our brothers and sisters, Muslims.

But unfortunately the intolerance that seems to exist both in Christianity and in Islam and in Judaism because they claim to be religions revealed by God, and you are philosophers here and you are political scientists here. When you can claim a direct line to God, I think there is going to be intolerance because who is going to have that direct line, me, you, he, who, and so on? And so how are you going to relate? How are you going to relate?

So what I'm saying is that the situation as I see it in this room, unless my brothers and sisters in the north would respect to the tradition of Islam by the way some members of my family, my own relatives are Muslims. Some of you will remember Ibrahim Al-Sole, you know, a liberation man for us in the south. He was a Muslim, very strong Muslim. He believed in Islam. He also respected my faith, and we could sit together in the same family and because we understood Islam and Christianity exactly as Dr. Deng was saying, incarcerating it into our traditional basis of view.
I am not rejecting my religion. My religion is the foundation of my Christianity.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: I think you have really made your point, and it's a very important one, but may I just ask for -- would it be all right if we --

PARTICIPANT: Well, I've already actually finished.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Right.

PARTICIPANT: What I'm saying simply is that --
(Laughter.)

PARTICIPANT: -- is going on in the south.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: I think I'll take one more comment or question, if you please, because of our time and that goes over. I'm sorry to have to cut you off.

Yes, sir.

PARTICIPANT: You can take two because I will be very brief.
Even if you ask Francis Deng in his own house --

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Could you speak up, sir? We can't really hear.

PARTICIPANT: If you ask Francis Deng in his own household, you have a Muslim brother. Therefore, I hope people here will separate between Islam as religion and Islam as a few people controlling power in Khartoum or anywhere else.
Something else if I direct my speak to or conversation with the Reverend, the priest. You said when evil retreats, holiness advance. The same thing happened in the northern Sudan. They are saying the same thing.

Something else. When you teach people in the south and tell them you have to be connected to the land, and you are a teacher and telling them that, nobody questioned where you come from. They didn't tell you why you are not connected to your own land.

I am not insulting here, but when I teach people or group of people in community service, try to teach them from the local scene, local material. I don't bring something from our side to try to teach them, and when I tell my own people in Sudan be connected to the land, maybe they will listen to me, but if somebody else will come and tell them, "Hold the land. Be connected to the land," that is always a big question mark. Why has this gentleman left his land and came here?

Thank you.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Thank you.

Those are some very interesting questions and points, and let's give each of the speakers and also Mr. El-Affendi wanted a chance to say a few words at the end. So we'll start with Bona and then Marc and Francis and Mr. El-Affendi.

MR. MALWAL: I have nothing.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: All right. Marc.

MR. NIKKEL: This last statement, why one leaves their land, what I was referring to regarding the land was a song that's one of many liberation songs that is composed by people in their own area speaking of the land, holding the land up with personality.

That wasn't me that was teaching that, but it's what I'm hearing from indigenous music as a major theme in the present conflict.

Why I've left my land? I suppose because my ancestors were refugees for 300 years.

The question on exploitation of missionaries, my own experience is that in the church that I relate to and others, we're not there by our own initiative. I'm there because a bishop in Sudan invited me to come and work with him and offer support there. I'm going to proclaim or going to do a work to people there so much as responding to an invitation, and I suppose feeling very much after these years part of that community.

There was something about comparing various areas in terms of Christian experience between Upper Nile and Ecuatoria and so forth. I think one of the interesting things looking very generally is that Ecuatoria was especially in upheaval during the first segment of civil war in the '60s. You had what, 300,000 that went to Uganda and other areas as well? And that was a period of a great deal of reworking in terms of religious allegiance.

During this era you find a similar process going on with the great upheaval that's taken place among the Nilotic peoples, the Nuer, the Jing groups, very unlike the first civil war.

So there are very different stages, different periods of what's happening in different areas during the two phases of this war, as well.

Thank you.

MR. DENG: There was a reference about my focusing on the Dinka, and I think I said in passing that some of the things I was saying applied to the traditional religions in general, but I wanted to be specific about the people I had studied.
The problem with dealing with kinds of diversity is, on the one hand, we speak of the importance and the richness of diversity. On the other hand, we don't want to be specific about mentioning any group because then we are suspected of being tribalistic, and it's a dilemma because he's quite right. If I am seen talking about the Dinka, the impression given is that I am a Dinka, writing about the Dinka, therefore exalting the Dinka.
But if nobody does anything about anybody, including the Dinka, how do we learn about these people, you know?
(Laughter.)

MR. DENG: I certainly did not mean to say that the whole southern Sudan was inhabited only by the Dinka, nor do I mean to say that the others are not worthy of studying, but if I'm going to be concrete about what I know, and I have studied a particular group, then that is the source of information that I want to share without diminishing from anybody at all.
Thank you.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Mr. El-Affendi.

MR. EL-AFFENDI: I think the significance of this last session has focused on religion as the source of strength and spiritual vitality, and it is unfortunate that this morning we had to focus on the negative sides of Islamic policy for obvious reasons, but probably a presenter who was less spiritually challenged than us would have also spoken about Islam as the source of spiritual strength in the north or in the south, as well.

And the question this poses for the theme of our conference is how does religion as a source of strength, as an exhortation to sacrifice and self-denial, become part of the conflict and also supporting acquisition and, as Bona said, entrenching people who are in power?

And I hope that later interventions would probably answer these questions, but one thing to answer would be that second word "nationalism" would suggest something in this regard because the way religion is used to buttress either northern or southern nationalism work with factors which are ante to the spirit of sacrifice which is inherent to religion.

The second is policies, which is also the thing we have tried to concentrate on. The fact that people could believe that the use of the power of a state could further Islam or any other region, for that matter, has been counterproductive, and this probably illustrates for those who still didn't understand what I was trying to say this morning what we are trying to point to.

In a paper which for those of you who are interested in it, in Francis' latest book, The Brother's Keeper, in which I mention particularly what Reverend Nikkel said, that Christianity has experienced a revival in the south and in the north as well, among southerners who are in the north, because of government policies.

And we tried to point that to people in government, that their policies are counterproductive, and I think there is a challenge for intellectuals which we are trying to rise to in Sudan to try to, without falling into the trap of secularizing the region, which I won't again, is to try to emphasize in religion what is positive and what unites and not what divides.
Thank you.

PARTICIPANT: Mr. Chairman, I'm not going to take too much time.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Oh, I'm sorry.

PARTICIPANT: I need about only three minutes, if you may.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Why do you need --

PARTICIPANT: I just want to remind the people here that the train of thought that has just been explained here, that the missionaries are the ones that are responsible for the war in the south, that is, the southerners do not do anything by themselves, but it is because the missionaries when they are there, they are the people that are telling the southerners to fight, and that is the thought that I really would like to remind these people, that that is the thing that every northerner that has ever been born and educated, that is what they think.

Now, when John Garang came, John Garang said that, "Where does this man come from? We never heard him before," and otherwise it was because he was a Sudanese, he wouldn't been saying that. They were missionaries.
But unfortunately John was educated here. They say that he had an American education, and the northerners do not quite think that the southerner can think for what is his future, and what about they do, it is done on that pretext.
And I'm just remind this panel --

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Right.

PARTICIPANT: -- that that is the trend that it is.
Thank you very much.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: The point is taken. Thank you very much, indeed.
Marc Nikkel wanted one last, brief word, as I understand it before the break.

MR. NIKKEL: This is an advertisement. There's no much published on Christianity in Sudan, at least not in this
contemporary phase. There are two books that are coming out next month from Pauline's Press in Nairobi. They won't be published here, but one will be called Land of Promise, Church Growth in the Sudan at War and the other Seeing an Open Society, Interfaith Relations and Dialogue in Sudan Today, and both of those might be worthy to people concerned with this area of religion in the Sudan.

PARTICIPANT: Author?

MR. NIKKEL: They're collections of papers.

CHAIRMAN LITTLE: Thank you. Thank you very much.
No, I'm afraid I'm going to have to cut it off now.

I wanted to thank our presenters, Bona, Marc, and Francis, and the conversation it seems to me has been a very interesting one, indeed, a good session.

Let's break now for 15 minutes and return at about ten after four for our last session.

(Whereupon, the foregoing matter went off the record at 3:57 p.m. and went back on the record at 4:20 p.m.)

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