All of us are a mishmash of various identities, each formed by a combination of local and national, religious and secular, ethnic and social factors in our lives. Usually, this amalgam of identities lurks beneath the surface, at least as long as conflicts between these identities do not rise up.
Identity struggles are especially acute these days in Sudan. Last July, the southern portion of the country, composed primarily of dark skinned, sub-Saharan African Christians voted to secede from the primarily Arab Muslim north following two bloody civil wars. South Sudan became the world’s newest country. In speaking of “the separation,” most outside accounts stress the difference in the two nations as I have above. While these differences are very real, the situation is not quite so simple. No magic line exists dividing the Arab Muslim north from the African Christian south. There is no perforated line for tearing a country apart. Decades of interaction have seen millions of southerners settle in the more affluent and less war-torn north. Many are the product of mixed marriages. For some, it is not a simple matter to define oneself as truly “northern” or “southern.” I spent time today with a man whose commanding height and dark skin signal a southern identity. Yet he was born in Khartoum to parents who had lived for decades in the north. His first language is Arabic, while he struggles to express himself in the tongue of his tribe. He is a Christian living in a predominantly Muslim north. He and his family now face a choice between claiming citizenship in a new nation they barely know or remaining in a familiar place that presents an uncertain future. The trauma of this “separation” has emerged in almost every conversation here. The nation they once knew that blended north and south – however imperfectly – no longer exists. I can’t help but remember conversations with ethnic Russians in eastern and southern Ukraine or a child of a Belarusian father and a Georgian mother in the years immediately after the fall of the Soviet Union. There’s a reason why some people in the former Soviet Union still refer to themselves jokingly as “Soviet.” Sometimes extinguished identities are the only ones that make sense.
These identity questions are especially strong for northern Sudanese Christians. Before the separation, Christians composed a substantial portion of the overall population of the country. The secession of the predominantly Christian south has left a much smaller and more vulnerable Christian community. Recent government announcements and media content seem to convey the sense that Sudan is now a completely Muslim nation, that Christianity has disappeared. This is far from true. Although statistics are hard to come by, Christian leaders suspect that roughly 5-15% of today’s Sudan remains Christian, with the largest percentage living in the Nuba Mountains along the border with South Sudan and in the Khartoum area. These are distributed among Episcopal, Presbyterian, Coptic, Catholic, Pentecostal, and other communities, among whom there is a surprising and encouraging amount of cooperation. Uncertainties were deepened when the government cancelled the national holiday that had been celebrated at Christmas before the separation. The future is uncertain. Although Sudan retains one of the largest and most dynamic Arabic-speaking churches in the Middle East, it is not yet clear what a (northern) Sudanese Christian identity will look like. Although Christians continue to gather openly for worship and Christian institutions like the seminary I visited today function openly and with government recognition, the future is deeply uncertain. Christian leaders are called upon to exercise great wisdom.
It was deeply encouraging to meet church leaders receiving further training in a Protestant seminary, as well as a number of their teachers. These men and women love their nation and their neighbors. As in most of the world where people of various religions rub shoulders, they coexist and enjoy fellowship with people of other faiths, congratulating them on their religious holidays just as their Muslim friends and neighbors visit them to congratulate Christians at Christmas. This is all part of the rich texture of life together.
The world is changing more rapidly by the day. Change is challenging for everyone. It seems to me, however, that few have had to face the kind of changes that “the separation” poses for the people of Sudan.
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