Muslims and Christians united for nonviolence in Sudan

Written by Martin Smedjeback

Friday, 08 September 2006

Muslim girl from Sudan - photo: Martin Smedjeback

The peace agreement between the North and the South of Sudan was signed more than one and a half years ago. Still there remains a lot of suspicion between Muslims and Christians in the country. But the Sudanese nonviolence organization SONAD is breaking new ground by inviting Christians and Muslims to joint nonviolence workshops. Can this be the seed for a new nonviolence movement in Sudan?

From hate to friendship
Badge of muslim girl: still against war - photo: Martin Smedjeback

Badge of muslim girl: still against war - photo: Martin Smedjeback

My colleague, Sara Lindblom, and I arrived in Sudan on the 7th of August. Our goal was to have joint workshops and plan the next step in a project which SweFOR (Swedish Fellowship of Reconciliation = Kristna Fredsrörelsen) and SONAD (Sudanese Organisation for Nonviolence and Development) initiated together more than 7 years ago. We were promptly taken to the SONAD office to meet some of the people who would be participating in the nonviolence workshop that would begin the next day. The first person I sat down to talk with was Flora, a Christian woman in her 30s from Western Equatoria in the south of Sudan. Later I heard that she has been both arrested and tortured during the 21-year long civil war between the south and the north of Sudan. She was eager to tell me how the SONAD workshops she had attended had changed her life. "I used to hate the Muslims, the northerners," she confessed. "We were taught from childhood to hate them. But at the workshops I met so many good northerners so I could no longer hate them. Now Rafaat is one of my best friends," she said, stroking the shoulder of the curly-haired and bespectacled man beside her. Obviously SONAD had done some great ground work for us: here sat a Nubian man from the North with a Christian southerner, their warm smiles evidence of the friendship of which she spoke.

The challenges of multi-faith workshops
We started out with a three-day basic nonviolence training. Among the 30 participants there were 20 organisations represented, a slight majority of Muslims and a slight majority of women. George Tadu, the chair person of SONAD, gave one of the opening speeches. "This is a historic occasion. This is the first time SONAD has had participants from all over Sudan; Muslims and Christians, from North and South, East and West. Some in this room have had a brother or maybe a husband or wife killed, but we have to begin anew. We have to forgive one another."

Workshop - photo: Martin Smedjeback

From the basic workshop SONAD selected 16 persons for the 10-day Training of Trainers (ToT), which was facilitated by Lee McKenna duCharme from Canada and myself. Having a multi-faith workshop offers its own challenges. One of the questions we asked ourselves was: Would it be okay for the Muslims to have the workshop on the premises of the Diocese of Khartoum of the Episcopal Church? It turned out to be no problem as long as we offered twenty minutes in the middle of the day for prayers and a clean area for them to pray in. A staff member of SONAD quickly went out to get a large woven mat and the problem was solved. We also could use it to sit on when we had lunch. It felt like going for a picnic!

Surprising commonality in Islam and Christianity
Religion turned out to be a frequent topic of heated debate in the ToT. Some harsh criticism was directed at each other's religion – but also a lot of interest and curiosity about the faith and practice of the other. There was surprisingly little knowledge of each other's religions in a country were Islam and Christianity have co-existed for a very long time. "Are we allowed into a mosque, for instance to have a nonviolence workshop?" asked Flora. "Do we have to wash ourselves in the Mosque, like you do?" Both Christians and Muslims got to present the most important aspects of their respective faith and tradition. When the Muslims did their presentation we were told a story about the Prophet Mohammed. He once had a Jewish neighbour who used to throw his garbage right outside Mohammed's house. One day there was no garbage. This made Mohammed worried about his neighbour so he went to his house asking if he were sick and if he could do something. His neighbour was very surprised by his caring.
"I did not know that Islam and Christianity shared so many texts" commented William, the pastor in the group. "I thought that Islam was a terror-focused and forceful religion, but discovered otherwise." We talked about the fact that more than 50 prophets and figures are common to both Islam and Christianity.

Group photo from Sudan

Who's doing the dishes?
One more thing that Islam and Christianity have in common is that traditionally women have been treated as inferior. Women in the Bible are either invisible or seen as a problem. The issue of inequality between men and women came up again and again in different exercises and discussions. In an exercise called the Hassle line (a kind of a role play) we set up a situation were the daughter in a family refused to wash her father's dishes. There were many creative solutions on how this could be done. It also highlighted the fear men in Sudan have of being seen as a woman if they are seen by others doing "women's duties". Who takes care of the dirty dishes can seem like a tiny issue but it can be huge, Lee reminded us. While the women are busy in the kitchen men have the time to have tea in the market, go to important meetings and make decisions. As long as women are caught up by duties in the kitchen they have little voice in society.

How much focus should be put on reconciliation?
I was very surprised to see how quickly the participants in the workshop emotionally connected to one another. After 21 years of civil war and a year and a half of fragile and fragmented peace between North and South I would have expected more hostility and suspicion between northerners and southerners, Muslims and Christians. After five days in the workshops Inas, a young Muslim medical doctor, said: "Coming to this workshop with all of you is like coming home!" Reconciliation is a vital part of any peace process and it takes time and efforts. But having watched the participants in this workshop I am hopeful that reconciliation is possible. My mind goes to all of the dialogue meetings between Palestinians and Israelis that took place in the 1980s and 1990s. I listened to a Palestinian woman this summer at a meeting with War Resisters International. She claimed that all of these dialogue meetings were "a total waste of time and money". When Palestinians came back to their occupied territories after the dialogue meetings they still had Israeli tanks outside their window. The reconciliatory meetings didn't stop the occupation. Sudan needs reconciliation, so I don't believe that this process is a waste; but it is not the only thing that the country needs to keep the peace.

Workshop - photo: Martin Smedjeback

Nonviolent actions for justice
In Sudan there is no foreign occupation, but there is a massive inequity in the distribution of power and resources. Sudan's most valuable natural resource is oil and almost all of it is located in the south. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the regime in Khartoum and the SPLM (Sudan People's Liberation Movement) provides for a referendum in 2011 at which time the people of the South will be able to decide for or against independence. As you read this, Chinese oil companies are aggressively extracting as much oil as possible from the South in advance of the referendum. The regime in Khartoum is, of course, very afraid of loosing this valuable asset. The next four and a half years leading up to the referendum will be crucial. It will decide whether the peace will hold or not. If the injustices and inequities remain, the risk is great that civil war will flare up again and democracy's prospects in the country will diminish once more. Oil companies would be unlikely to object as "it is easier to do business with a dictatorship than a democracy," as one employee of Lundin Oil once said. If the regime of Khartoum acts the way they have before, it is not unlikely that they would prefer a continuation of the civil war to a loss of the South. An equal distribution of power and resources will obviously not happen by itself. It will take a strong civil society to make sure that the politicians live up to their agreements. It will probably also take some nonviolent actions. George Tadu seems to be supportive of this in his speech saying: "We as nonviolence activists must think about how we can minimize poverty. Most violence is related to hunger."

The risk of action and passivity
My guess it that the lead-up years to the referendum will probably be the least risky time for nonviolent actions in Sudan. The regime in Khartoum wants to show a new face for the Southerners so that they could imagine voting for a joint Sudan, with both the North and the South intact. This may mean that the government will use less ruthless methods in response to nonviolent campaigns. Still, nonviolent actions in Sudan will remain risky; however risk could be mitigated by the presence of an international accompaniment team, an idea we discussed at one of our meetings with SONAD and international agencies in Sudan. There is of course also a huge risk in being passive for the Sudanese people. Even now in peace time people die of poverty every day. A few days ago we had heavy rains in Khartoum. For my colleague and me it meant a small flooding that almost ruined a phone and diary. But for 12 people in Khartoum it meant their death that night. Their houses collapsed under the weight of rainwater. Of course if the war erupts again because of failed promises it could mean the deaths of thousands of people.

Aiming at the elephant
Sudan is still a very militarized country. This is true both in the continuing huge resource allocation of the military but equally true in the minds of the people. The guerrilla movement in the south has shown that violence can produce results. It took 21-years of civil war for the SPLA (Sudan People's Liberation Army; SPLM’s armed branch) but now they are in the government. But one could easily argue that the lack of democracy and unjust power distribution are only different aspects of violence. So how effective is it really to try to fight one kind of violence with another kind of violence? Elham, a young Nubian Muslim from the north who keeps her hijab together with a pin saying "Still Against the War", told me a Sudanese proverb: "Don't spear the elephant's shadow. Go and spear the elephant itself." I think Sudan's elephant is the violence; all kinds of violence. Sudan can not afford to be aiming at shadows. Perhaps the time has come for a movement that challenges all violence with nonviolent action. A nonviolence movement comprised of Muslims and Christians, from the North and the South, women and men, armed with a common goal, nonviolent principles and a will to act for a better Sudan, would indeed be a strong force in Sudan. From what I have seen and heard from the participants of the workshops with SONAD I believe that it can happen in Sudan.

Martin Smedjeback on the left