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Ethnic Group Conflict Sudan William Hall Cross Cultural Psychology/PSY450 April 11, 2010 Professor Anne Vagras-Leveriza, M. S. Ethnic Group Conflict Sudan The social conflict current to the Sudan is traceable to the start of the Christian era at which time the Sudan exist as a collection of independent kingdoms often as small principalities in the geographic location of Northern Africa, bordering the Red Sea, between Egypt and Eritrea.
In Sudan two distinct major cultures exists viewing the Arab’s, and Black African’s within the two dives are hundreds of ethnic and tribal groups creating multiple language groups effectively making collaboration between each culture a major problem. The divide separating Sudan exists in the Northern and Southern regions of the country the North consists of the majority of the 22 million Sudanese the Arabic speaking Muslims.
The Southern region contains around 6 million Sudanese mainly the Black African tribes living in the rural and economically underdeveloped region of the country refer as the indigenous traditional beliefs albeit an influence of the Christian missionaries attaches the Christian faith to the South (Global Security, 2010). The civil wars of Sudan began after the country gain independents in 1956 from a proclaimed condominium under a British and Egyptian administration.
However, under an Egyptian “occupation” during most of the 19th century Egypt never establish any form of effective control in the Southern regions of Sudan a result of the fragmentations of the indigenous African tribes and effectively the same conditions exists in the current conflict for the same reasons today (Global Security, 2010). Social Conformity of the Northern Region The application of social conformity to the northern regions must describe and explain the characteristics of the social lives of individuals within a society.
The reason for conformity is the most obvious the manifestation of social control education, religion, law, and government which create patterns of behavior that govern the norms that limits each class relative to other classes. The National Congress Party with roots that reach back into Egypt in the 1940s, the being of the National Islamic Front originating from the Muslim Brotherhood a student group that constructs organization within student groups from the major universities during the 1940s.
The expansion of the Islam Nation dictates that Islam should be the ruling government and impose Islamic law or rule over the nations the religion gains access into assimilating the members of each society into the Nation of Islam thereby the non-assimilation creates conflict with Islam (Global Security, 2010). Military regimes that favor Islamic governments have held domination over the people of Sudan since independence of the British government in 1956.
The conflicts roots began with the Northern economic, political, and social domination of the non-Muslim, non-Arab Southern regions of Sudan. The North traditionally with held development of the Southern region of Sudan basing ideology on lack of historical control of the indigenous Black African population relative to the Christian faith and Western influences attaching the North’s perceptions of the social ills of the South to the perception of opposition from the Western World and its Faith (Global Security, 2010). Social Conformity of the Southern Region
The Southern regions of the Sudan consisting of multiple indigenous Black African tribes and principalities perceptions lie with the natural world the genesis of sociology states that conformity and stability is the assumption of order in nature and the ability to explain, describe, and discover the order characteristic of the social life within a society. In the indigenous Southern region the multiple tribes base human history on the natural cycles or rhythms of moving through time a spiritual connection of the land and of the people.
Shiraev and Levy (2010) state that time relative to Central Africans consist of “sasa” and “zamani,” “The first one stands for the present and generates a sense of immediacy. The second indicates the past, but not merely a “warehouse” of time. It is also a connector of individual souls” (page 105). One must consider the objective opinion that the indigenous African tribes rejection of the strict subjectively imposition of the Islamic religion to much of a change from the social norms of the tribal societies timeless conception of his or her connection with he collective soul of the people. The missionaries were not treats to a timeless concept of the people as there was no forceful measures place onto the indigenous tribal communities, only a teaching of what each missionary’s beliefs were as he or she spent time living, working, and sharing the social norms of the guest society. The Relationship of Social Perception and Social Cognition The relationship between the North and the South each share a set of common beliefs with a basis of the intent of the other group.
The majority of the Northern Arab Muslim people have in place a substandard perception of the indigenous Black African tribe members as not capable or intelligent enough to acquire the spiritual beliefs of Islam. There is further stereotyping of the Southern regions population basic level of life viewing the historical record of the inability to control the multiple existing and diverse complexity that the Northern people see as a substandard life style.
The relationship between the South and the North also contains a set of common beliefs viewing the Northern population as more advanced and higher educated controlling the wealth of the countries assets, the oil reserves. However the perceptions of the Southern population are not without merit the Northern population had withheld technological development of the Southern region and not providing economic development or infrastructure development of the Southern population. Errors of the Religious Government
In February of 2010 by orders of the International Criminal Court at The Hague issued for the first time an arrest warrant for the political leader of Sudan. The first time since conception a sitting president faced an arrest order for crimes against humanity, Omar Hassan al-Bashir is being charged with war crimes in the Darfur region of Sudan for genocide (Simons, 2010). Omar Hassan al-Bashir to provide a gesture of sympathy in the world has traveled outside of Sudan however to Arabic countries sympathy to the Islamic ruler’s rights to use force within his country to carry out Islamic law.
Omar Hassan al-Bashir has stopped travel into countries that would legally be forced into arresting the Islamic president thereby extraditing the leader to The Hague to face criminal trial (Simons, 2010). Arab Leaders Unite for Sudan’s Chief The Arab leaders gathering for their annual summit meeting in Doha, Qatar came to the defense of the Sudan presidents and to support that the Courts actions over the arrest warrant were revealing as the West’s double standards compromising the sovereignty of Sudan’s Islamic government (Slackman & Worth, 2009).
Slackman and Worth (2009) stated that, The leaders position is their own self-defense, because they don’t want to open the door to an International tribunal of any kind that will open the file of any crimes they committed against humanity or against their own people, said Saad al-Ajmi, a former Kuwaiti minister of information. Most of the regimes are actually dictatorships, and most of them have their hands smeared with the blood of their own people. Slackman ; Worth, 2009, page 2) Court Redraws Disputed Area in Sudan The international tribunal steps in to redefine the borders of the disputed regions between the north and the south for control of the oil rich region. The ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague was seen as defusing the most divide between the north and south. The ruling gave the North undisputed rights to the rich oil deposits that had under protest after they were assign to the South (Otterman, 2009).
The South received a portion of the oil reserves and both sides for the time being are set to end the civil war that dives the country. For the resolution to work effectively both ethnic groups must change social perceptions of the other group. Acting as a nation of a united population with the health and welfare of all as a primary concern. However for the Islamic government to keep in true fashion towards the assimilation of the total population into the Islamic faith, only time will reveal the true intent of the government.
Reference Global Security (2010). Sudan Civil War. Retrieved from, http://www. globalsecurity. org/military/world/war/sudan. htm Global Security (2010). Sudan Political Groups. Retrieved from, http://www. globalsecurity. org/military/world/war/sudan-political-groups. htm Otterman, S. (2009). Court Redraws Disputes Area in Sudan. http://www. nytimes. com/2009/07/23/world/africa/23sudan. html? _r=1 Slackman, M. , ; Worth R. , F. (2009).
Often Split, Arab Leaders Unite for Sudan’s Chief. Retrieved from, http://www. nytimes. com/2009/03/31/world/africa/31arab. html? fta=y Shiraev, E. B. , & Levy, D. A. (2010). Cross-cultural psychology: Critical thinking and contemporary applications. (4th ed. ). Boston: Pearson/Allyn Bacon Simons, M. (2010). Sudan’s Leader May Be Accused of Genocide. Retrieved from, http://www. nytimes. com/2010/02/04/world/africa/04bashir. html? scp=8;sq=;st=nyt