ABSTRACT
Sudan has presented a challenge to the West and to African and conservative Islamic states, both as a political and military opponent of Western influence, and as a religious and social experiment. Although political instability, poverty, and war in developing countries have hindered the expansion of the new order, perhaps the greatest single challenge to global acceptance of the new, post–Cold War, Western-led order, has been political Islam. The 1881 Mandist revolt against Anglo-Egyptian influence in Sudan was a remarkable attempt to create an Islamic state. “Mediation” in Sudan, since the 1989 coup, and more specifically since the launch of the Islamization program in 1991, has been dominated by the lessons gleaned from the political failures of the country’s post-independence history. After Islamic militants attempted to assassinate President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt in 1995, visa restrictions for all Arabs entering Sudan became tighter.
