The Challenge of Cultural, Ethnic and Religious Diversity in Peacebuilding and Constitution-Making in Post-Conflict Sudan

Abstract

Cultural, ethnic and religious diversity is central to understanding the aetiology of civil war and violent conflict in Africa, sustaining peace and laying down pillars for constitution-making and good governance based on the will of people. Although there are competing viewpoints about the role of social diversity in the causation of violent conflict and civil war, the ruling elite in Sudan opted to see such diversity as a curse and a threat to unity and strove to eliminate it by adopting the Arab-Islamic paradigm as a framework for ensuring national unity. This paradigm instead of unifying the country has haunted Sudan and created division and deep sense of marginalisation and exclusion that forced the rural Sudan to wage violent conflict against the centre and ruling elite. The Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement has provided a golden opportunity for ending the violent conflict and a new basis for defining national identity, citizenship, recognition of cultural and religious diversity as a virtue and a basis for constitution-making, peace building, citizenship and legal pluralism. The challenge for sustaining peace in the Sudan will entirely rest on how the new government of the Sudan recognises cultural, ethnic and religious diversity as a foundation for national cohesion and strength and a new nation-building based on citizenship and free will of the people.