need help with this PLZZZ-history?

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CAN u please help me im not sure what really happened
did all this happened because of the government?
or was this just a fight between Muslims and Christan's?

With the exception of a brief period of peace between 1972 and 1983,Sudan has been torn apart by civil war since independence in
1956. Warfare,drought and war-related famine have left more than 6 million Sudanese displaced. To describe the war as a fight
between north and south,Muslim and Christian,Arab and African is an oversimplification. It has spread to conflict between various
ethnic groups of the south. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is an umbrella coalition of 10 opposition parties and military
groups from north and south,including the SPLM/A and these groups regularly clash with government forces2. Muslims and
Christians fight on both sides of a conflict,but the main battles occur predominantly between the Government of Sudan (GoS) and
the Sudanese People Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A).


Before 1956,British colonial power dictated the preservation and respect of Islamic and Arab values in the north and introduced
Christianity to the African south. Leo Kwarten,an Arabist and anthropologist,has described three phases of the Sudanese conflict.
Phase one,which lasted from 1955 to 1972,was characterised by the economic,political,and cultural domination of South Sudan by a
northern elite. Southerners fought for independence and over half a million people died.



The third phase of civil war identified by Kwarten began in 1983,as southerners formed the SPLA and Nimeiri imposed sharia law on
all Sudanese. This phase has been the most destructive in Sudan’s history and continues to the present time. The fighting between
SPLA and the GoS has been complicated by splits within warring southern groups. In 1991,several southern factions broke ranks with
SPLA,leading to ethnic-based fighting between these factions from the south. Northern opposition parties also separated from the government in 1989 and formed the NDA. The number of conflicting factions,the influx of arms,and the involvement of neighbour-ing countries with vested interests have further aggravated Sudan’s civil war.
 
ok bucko. i took the time to read all the way through your dissertation. now what is the question? the prose you have written answers your original question by stating that there are a lot more factors than religion
 
To be honest you seem to have your history pretty well summed up there. I know very little about the conflict.

I do know though that the British mandate in Egypt was rapidly wound up during the revolution and the Rise of Nasser, and pretty much all development plans in the Sudan were dropped on the spot. Egypt thoroughly expected to inherit the critically underdeveloped Sudan as a protectorate from Britain in 1956, however in a semi-spiteful parting shot, Britain made Sudan an independent nation on departure from Egypt. It could by no means have been judged to be a nation ready for independence, and in a way begins as an early victim of the world stage squabble between Nasser and Eden.

Whether the Sudan would have been in a better position under the yolk of the Egyptians, I'm not sure. It could perhaps have made Egypt sink time and resources it didn't really have in keeping the region stable.

As with all such conflicts it was likely a manifestation of regional political power misusing religious support to its own ends. Religions cause more friction in peoples emotions than mere politics so making your opponents heathens as well as ideological opponents is a double whammy - God makes a useful ally in war.
Certainly in the case of the Northern Ireland troubles it was sometimes hard to ascertain whether it was political drive for unification or just Catholics vs Protestants. In the end probably both.

In the Sudan we've now reached a stage where all generation after generation know is hate for the other side, and certainly it seems that the flames of religion are the ones currently being fanned the most. There's a strong element of racism involved in what amounts to an Arabic refusal to treat the black south with any respect.

Usually politics begin the fight, but religion continues it.
 
I'm not an expert but I did follow the conflict back in the 80s. I never read that christians were fighting with the gov. One component that doesn't seem to be stressed enough is the racial component... The northerners are arabs, the southerners are not. Also, you may want to point out that in terms of loss of life/property/freedom, what's happening in darfur pales in comparison to what the sudani gov. did to the christians/animists in the south (65,000 vs. 2 million people affected), and they sold numerous christian children as slaves, something I don't believe they're doing wholesale with the darfuris.
 
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