Influence (Supremacy) of Religion on Sudan's Foreign Policy Decision-Making

INFLUENCE

(SUPREMACY) OF RELIGION ON SUDAN’S

FOREIGN POLICY DECISION-MAKING

HASSAN B. ABDELWAHAB

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© 2012 by HASSAN B.ABDELWAHAB. All rights reserved.

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First published by AuthorHouse 01/17/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4678-8317-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4678-8318-4 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012901091

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Contents

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Introduction

Chapter 1 Theoretical Framework and Definitions of Terms

Chapter 2 The Influence of Ancient Religions on Sudanese Foreign Policy

Chapter 3 The Influence of Religion on Sudanese Foreign Policy: The Era of Christianity

Chapter 4 Impact of Islam on Decision-Making in the Funj Sultanate

Chapter 5 The Influence of Islam on al-Mahdist State

Chapter 6 The Influence of Religion on Foreign Policy in the Postindependence Period

Sources and References

About the Author

About the Book

To Dorryia, Dalia, Bashir, and Amira, who suffered the loss of my company during the writing of this book.

Acknowledgments

I am very grateful to all the persons that extended help to me in the writing and editing of this book. My special thanks are extended to Dr. Umar Abdel Magid, Dr. Ahmad al-Amin al-Bashir, Ambassador Khalid Farah, Ambassador Abdul Mahamoud Abdel Halim, Salah al Geneid, Abdel Moniem Mabrouk, and Abdurrahman Dirar for supplying me with references. My thanks also go to Dr. Mahajoub al-Basha of the National Centre for Diplomatic Studies, to the late Ambassador Ahmad Mekki Ahmad, and to Ambassador Awad Muhammad al-Hassan. My special thanks are due to my colleague at the Centre Ali Baba for the valuable help he rendered me. Special thanks go to AuthorHouse editor Joseph J. Fatton for his effort in editing the manuscript.

Prologue

Foreign policy decision-making in the third world in general and in Sudan in particular poses a very complex problem for scholars of international relations. The predictability of what sort of decision would be enacted by the leaders of those third world countries has occupied the minds of both scholars and foreign policy analysts for a long time. Different theories were postulated and hundreds of hypotheses were suggested explaining how and why third world leaders behave the way they do in international arenas. However, studies have shown that the field still lacks sufficient theorizing that could provide a logical explanation of foreign policy behaviour and decision-making. This deficiency in theory brought about the writing of this book, which may shed some light on this complex problem.

As a career diplomat, the author has witnessed the dilemma of decision-making in Sudanese foreign policy and observed the wrangling between pragmatic, professional junior foreign policy experts and the officials in the higher echelons of the Sudanese government. Decisions that were rigorously studied and formulated were watered down or even totally scrapped before being announced. In between the process of bureaucratic and pragmatic decision-making and final approval by political leadership of the country, some unknown factors influence the final decisions. The application of the known determinants of foreign policy does not offer a satisfactory explanation of Sudan’s foreign policy decisions. For instance, most important foreign policy decisions were not based on Sudanese national interest, nor did they take economic or strategic considerations in account (e.g., Sudan’s position on the Gulf War). Religion, as a determinant, was never given its due importance and weight on foreign policy decisions, though it is obvious the immense impact it has on Sudan’s foreign policy decisions. It is assumed that religion could provide an answer as to why the Sudanese leaders adopt the kinds of decisions they usually take.

War is one of the most important foreign policy decisions that a country might enact. There are two reasons behind this choice. Firstly, war is usually a very costly and destructive endeavour, with vast and lasting damaging effects. Secondly, decisions to wage wars are usually made after long and extensive considerations that supposedly weigh the costs and benefits of war, in addition to the fact that almost all governmental apparatus would be involved in the decision-making process.

Introduction

The study of Sudan’s foreign policy has preoccupied my thoughts for the past three decades. I have studied the pattern and continuity in Sudanese foreign policy decisions adopted under different types of governments and regimes and at varying internal and external political circumstances. Therefore, this book investigates the real reasons and the driving forces behind foreign policy decision-making in Sudan. The most important question that is tackled in this book is, what really affects and influences those decisions? In other words, what are the real factors behind foreign policy decisions in the Sudan?

Experts in foreign policy have often turned to the analyses of external and internal determinants of foreign policy. This includes geographical location, strategic position, ideological factors, global and international factors, historical and cultural factors, and sometimes other factors such as national interest, military capability, social sophistication population mobility, economic strength, power, and type of leadership as tools and factors for the explanation of foreign policy decisions.

The long list of the abovementioned factors that were conceived to affect foreign policy decision-making does not include the factor that plays the major role in the process of decision-making in the developing world and in Sudan. One can claim that it plays the same role in other parts of the world, though it is often done behind closed doors and is not very obvious except to the keen observer. Some scholars like Ibn Khaldun, Arnold Toynbee, and other contemporary writers assume that this factor plays a role with varying degree in almost every country. This factor is religion.

For a long time, scholars had singled out power and national interest as very important factors that influence the minds of foreign policy decision-makers, assuming that they act rationally. In my mind, religion has a very important role to play in foreign policy decision-making. That role surpasses the role of national interest in most of the countries of the world and specifically in the third world. Scholars of foreign policy decision-making have underestimated this factor. Most of them do not even mention this factor, while others substitute it with ideology, which differs from religion in its lack of a deity, a church that unifies the believers, and rituals. The aim of this book is to shed light on the role played by religion in the foreign policy of Sudan.

Religion in Sudan has dominated the social, political, and economic life of the Sudanese people from time immemorial. This resulted in a huge religious heritage. Since the dawn of history, the culture of the Nile Valley[1]—Sudan in particular—was influenced by the different religions that developed in this region ever since the reign of Pharaonic Nubia. Egyptian gods like Re, Amoun, Akhenaton, Osiris, and Horus were widely worshiped throughout Lower and Upper Egypt, Nubia, and parts of Palestine and Syria. With the decadence of the empire in Egypt and the rise of the Nebata kingdom in Nubia, the centre of religious activity moved southwards to Jabel al-Barkel.[2] Throughout history, all the major monotheistic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—were successively embraced by the peoples of the Nile Valley and particularly by the Nubians. The result, as expected, was that the values, morals, and religious teachings of all those religions were deeply rooted in the culture and the psyche of the Sudanese people. The effects of centuries of religious teachings were engraved in the Sudanese souls and minds. Religious teachings were interwoven with the indigenous culture, and the result was a social code of behaviour that contains most of the religious teachings from the Phareonic era to Islam. The resulting mixture was stored in the people’s collective memory and the psyche of all the Sudanese.

Long periods of Islamic states during the Funj and Mahdist states left their prints on the political and social fabric of the country and its people. In such an environment, one cannot expect foreign policy to be immune from the influence of the prevailing culture. Most, if not all, the major decisions during the Funj and al-Mahdist states were influenced by religion, reflecting the theocratic nature of these states.

Chapter 1

Theoretical Framework and Definitions of Terms

This chapter is dedicated to define the terms used in this research such as religion, foreign policy, and decision-making. The purpose of defining these terms is to delineate the parameters of the book and set very clearly its boundaries.

1.1. Religion

Religion is a very difficult subject to define. It is an elusive and tremendously complicated phenomenon. This elusiveness has led to different definitions by different scholars. Over the years, students of theology and scholars from varied fields of knowledge offered numerous definitions of religion. Each time such a definition is offered, it appeared that it was lacking in one way or another. The difficulty in arriving at a definite, all-encompassing, and clear definition of religion had its effects on the study of the subject itself and resulted in the different and varying interpretations. Nonetheless, I will attempt here to survey a number of those definitions coined over the centuries by scholars and students of religious studies in order to set the stage for the basic arguments and hypothesis of the research.

Dictionaries attempt to define what is meant by religion linguistically. The Cambridge Encyclopedia (1990) affirms that no single definition will suffice to encompass the varied sets of traditions, practises, and ideas which constitute different religions.

The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines religion as Human recognition of a superhuman controlling power and especially of a personal God entitled to obedience. This definition obviously excludes some religions, like Buddhism, that do not believe in a supernatural being.

Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary’s definition runs as follows: a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith.

Wikipedia defines religion as a system of social coherence based on a common group of beliefs or attributes concerning an object, person, unseen being, or a system of thoughts considered to be supernatural. Sacred, divine, or highest truth and the moral codes, practises, values, institutions, traditions, and rituals associated with such beliefs or system of thought. It is obvious that this definition endeavours to encompass as many characteristics of the religious phenomenon as possible.

The ancient Greek philosophers considered religious phenomenon as a human trait. They considered man (Homo sapiens[3]) as the only talking animal (Aristotle). Therefore, they considered man to be capable of religious practises, as those practises require vocal performance, among other things. Equally, Faras Al Sawah ventured to suggest that man is the only religious animal. Herodotus, the father of history (484-425 BCE), offered a comparison between the gods of ancient Greece and the gods of Egypt and determined that they were essentially the same.

Anthropologists, theologians, psychologists, historians, and political scientists all offered their definitions with greater or lesser degree of assurances, but virtually all of those definitions were found lacking in one way or another. Most definitions of religion are either too narrow to include the whole phenomenon of religion or too wide to incorporate other belief systems, such as witchcraft.[4]

The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries witnessed extensive theorizing about religion in both Europe and America. Two schools of thought emerged: the substantive and functional/reductionist schools.[5] The anthropologists E. Burnett Taylor and James George Frazer[6] were the strongest and most important proponents of the substantive school. The substantive school focused on the contents of religion, while the functionalist school focused on the social or psychological function that religion has for a group or a person.[7] Both schools formulated their own definitions of religion.

Taylor defined religion as belief in the supernatural beings and stated, This belief originated as an explanation to the world.[8] He assumed that the psyche of all peoples of all time are more or less the same and that explanations in cultures and religions tend to grow more sophisticated via monotheist religions, like Christianity and eventually science. This notion of supernatural was used first by Spencer[9] when he defined religion as the belief in the omnipresence of something that goes beyond the intellect.

The French anthropologist Emile Durkheim, who belonged to the functionalist school (1858-1917), described religion in his book The Elementary Forms of Religious Life as containing in itself from the very beginning… all elements which have given rise to the various manifestations of collective life. From myths and legends have issued forth science and poetry; from religious ornamentations and cult of ceremonies have come the plastic arts, from ritual practise were born law and morals. One cannot understand our perception of the world, of life, if one does not know the religious beliefs which are their primordial forms.[10]

Durkheim continues to argue, Individuals submit to religion as a source of the moral law that stands above them. He concludes by asserting, There is something eternal in religion… that is destined to survive all the particular symbols in which religious thoughts has successively cloaked itself. Religion enables humans to express and reaffirm symbolically what they share in common.[11]

The aforementioned lines argue very strongly to the vitality and importance of religion. Durkheim confirms that there is something eternal in religion. This argument constitutes the basis of this research on the importance and supremacy of religion in influencing the actions of the decision-makers in foreign policy.

Durkheim, after rigorous study and compiling data, offered the following definition of religion: A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practises relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and surrounded by prohibitions—beliefs and practises that unite its adherents in a single moral community called a church.[12]

Durkheim’s definition of religion and the importance he assigns to binding the community of believers morally will help the author’s purpose in the analysis of the bonds of religiosity that were assumed to bind the Sudanese community and impact the process of decision-making in foreign policy. The basic assumption in this research is that the Sudanese, after experiencing generations of religious life, had come under very heavy religious influence to the extent that all their actions are now governed by their religious beliefs. Influences from almost all the main religions in the world