A complex web: politics and conflict in Sudan
Atta el-Battahani (2006)
Atta el-Battahani reviews the history of Sudan's conflicts, tracing their causes from Sudan's formation as a colonial state to the present day. Since independence, leaders drawn from a narrow section of the population have vied with each other, manipulated conflicts, and sought to create a Sudanese national identity on the basis of Arabic culture and Islam. In his analysis, el-Battahani argues that the causes of conflict in Sudan have economic, environmental and ethnic dimensions that interweave with each other, but all are underpinned by fundamental political problems. Sudan has not evolved an effective political answer to the problem of diversity and pluralism.