ABSTRACT
Introduction Geophysically, modern Sudan is an immense plain through which the Nile snakes from south to north. The Nile, in more than a metaphysical sense, is an umbilical cord that joins the heartland of Africa to the north of the continent and the Mediterranean. To the north, Sudan roughly lies between the capital city, Khartoum, and the Egyptian border, a sparsely inhabited harsh land of desert and semi-desert. To the middle is situated the area which is drained by the two Niles, the Blue and White, and is of a somewhat milder climate. In a general sense, this is the homeland of the Arabicized Northern Sudanese, although the area is also home to other non-Arabicized Muslims: Beja in the East, Fur, Zaghawa, Masalit etc. in the West and Funj tribes in the Southeast. To the South is to be found a wetter, less accessible and swampier region inhabited by the Nilo-Hamitic Sudanese, the majority of whom adhere to African belief systems. In addition, it has to be borne in mind that Sudan is a vast country, the largest in Africa2 and probably the African country with the most extensive racial, religious, cultural and social intermixtures. Sudan, therefore, cannot be deemed to be a product of one culture. Those prolific intermixtures, together with its abounding natural endowments, should have made of Sudan a model country in Africa, if they were harnessed for the good of its people and other peoples in the continent. Woefully, the Sudanese remain a divided people with enduring ethnic, linguistic and cultural dichotomies. For that division, the Sudanese have no body to blame but themselves.
