Darfur: As a failure of the nation-state model in Sudan: Education, Law, and Military: the apparatuses of hegemony and oppression

Degree Name

MA in Intercultural Service, Leadership, and Management

First Advisor

Janaki Natarajan

Abstract

In post-colonial Sudan, issues of violent conflicts, development, and state formation have been discussed extensively from by activists and scholars. Yet, fewer scholars had approached the issue of the state formation in the context of colonial effects. The state formation in Sudan was based on the euro-centric nation-state model. This nation-state model has contributed greatly to policies of marginalization and alienation of the vast majority of the Sudanese peoples. Moreover, these policies have produced the seeds of violence in the past and in today’s Darfur conflict.

Further, the examination of colonial affects, state’s apparatus, and stagnation of the decolonization process has been overlooked when arguments are laid out to understand what went wrong with the Sudanese State since independence. Therefore, this case study argues that it is almost impossible to understand the flaws in the Sudanese State and the constant state of violent conflicts that marked the State since independence without shifting gears in our approach. Therefore, the study attempts to explore the issue of the Darfur’s conflict through lens of class analysis. The aim is to examine the ideology of the local elite and their approach to issues of political economy, cultural diversity, and national identity. Understanding the elite’s ideological framework in regard to nation building and national identity will better allow understanding of the origin and motives of violent conflicts in Sudan. To achieve that, the study will explore the role of the State’s apparatus to facilitate and perpetuate political, cultural, and economic injustices in Sudan. In particular, the study attempts to explore the State’s apparatus (the educational system, the law, and the military) and their historical role in the making of such an oppressive and violent state.

Through interviews and focus groups sessions, conducted among Sudanese (in Sudan and in the diaspora) of different ethnic backgrounds, professions, age, and gender, the study’s data has been collected. The aim is to explore the views of various Sudanese in regard to issues of national identity, root causes of Darfur’s conflict and the nature of the State.

Disciplines

Peace and Conflict Studies | Political Science | Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies

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