Sudan has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. After decades of civil war, rebel uprisings and power struggles, in 2011 it gave birth to the world’s newest country – South Sudan. But it’s not been an easy transition, and the secession that was meant to pave the path to peace, has plunged the region into further chaos. In this updated edition of his ground-breaking investigation, Jok Madut Jok delves deep into Sudan’s culture and history, isolating the factors that continue to cause its fractured national identity. With moving first-hand testimonies, Jok provides a decisive critique of a region in turmoil, and addresses what must be done to break the tragic cycle of racism, poverty and brutality that grips Sudan and South Sudan.
Slavery has been endemic in Sudan for thousands of years. Today the Sudanese slave trade persists as a complex network of buyers, sellers, and middlemen that operates most actively when times are favorable to the practice. As Jok Madut Jok argues, the present day is one such time, as the Sudanese civil war that resumed in 1983 rages on between the Arab north and the black south. Permitted and even encouraged by the Arab-dominated Khartoum government, the state military has captured countless women and children from the south and sold them into slavery in the north to become concubines, domestic servants, farm laborers, or even soldiers trained to fight against their own people. Also instigated by the Khartoum government, Arab herding groups routinely take and sell the Nilotic peoples of Dinka and Nuer. Jok emphasizes that the contemporary practice of slavery in Sudan is not the result of two decades of civil war, as conventional wisdom in the media would have one believe. Instead he revisits the historic hostilities between the Islamic world to the north and, to the south, the Black African peoples, many of whom are Christian converts. For Arab traders "the nation of the blacks," or Bilad Al-Sudan, has traditionally been the source of slaves. When the slave trade developed into corporate enterprise in the nineteenth century, the slave-takers articulated distinctions based on race, ethnicity, and religion that marked the black, infidel southerners as indisputably inferior and therefore "natural" slaves. Such distinctions have survived for decades and have fueled various forms of oppression of the black south, even during those periods when slavery has not been authorized by the government. When it is authorized, as it is today, slavery then becomes the extreme form of this systemic oppression. War and Slavery in Sudan exposes the enslavement of black peoples in Sudan which has been exacerbated, if not caused, by the circumstance of war. As a black southerner and a member of the Dinka, a group targeted by Arab slave traders, Jok brings an insider's perspective to this highly volatile subject matter. He describes the various methods of capture, explores the heinous experience of captivity, and examines the efforts of slaves to escape. Jok also assesses the efforts of Dinka communities to locate and redeem, or buy back, slaves through middlemen, a strategy that has been supported by Western antislavery groups and church-based humanitarian agencies but has also been the subject of great moral debate. Throughout the book, Jok stresses that the search for settlement of the north-south conflict must be made in conjunction with a campaign to end slavery. He challenges the international community to move beyond diplomatic measures to take more coordinated action against the slave trade and bring liberation to the people of Sudan.
After decades of civil war, the people of southern Sudan voted to secede from the north in an attempt to escape the seemingly endless violence. On declaring independence, South Sudan was one of the least developed places on earth, but with the ability to draw upon significant oil reserves worth $150 million a month, the foundation for a successful future was firmly in place. How, then, did the state of the new nation deteriorate even further, to the point that a new civil war broke out two years later? Today, with both Sudans still hostage to the aspirations of their military and political leaders, how can their people escape the violence that has dominated the two countries’ recent history? By giving voice to those who, after the break-up of Sudan, have had to find ways to live, trade and communicate with one another, Jok Madut Jok provides a moving insight into a crisis that has only rarely made it into our headlines. Breaking Sudan is a meticulous account, analyzing why violence became so deeply entrenched in Sudanese society and exploring what can be done to find peace in two countries ravaged by war.
This book provides a comprehensive analysis of Animism as a religion and a culture of the Nilotic peoples of the Upper River Nile in modern "Southern Sudan". It gives an account of how the animistic ritual performances of the divine chief-priests are strategies in conflict management and resolution. For centuries, the Nilotic peoples have been resisting changes to new religious identities and conservatively remained Animists. Their current interactions with the external world, however, have transformed their religious identities. At present, the Nilotics are Animist-Christians or Animist-Muslims. This does not mean that the converted Nilotics relinquish Animism and become completely assimilated to the new religious prophetic dogmas, instead, they develop compatible religious practices of Animism, Christianity and Islam. New Islamic fundamentalism in Sudan which is sweeping Africa into Islamic religious orthodoxy, where Sharia (Islamic law) is the law of the land, rejects this compatibility and categorises the Nilotics as "heathens" and "apostates". Such characterisation engenders opposing religious categories, with one side urging Sharia and the other for what this study calls "gradable" culture. Kuel Jok is a researcher at the Department of World Cultures at the University of Helsinki. In Sudan, Jok obtained a degree in English Linguistics and Literature and diplomas in Philosophy and Translation. He also studied International Law in Egypt. In Europe, Jok acquired an MA in Sociology from the University of Joensuu, Finland and a PhD in the same field from the University of Helsinki, Finland.
Sudanese Intellectuals in the Global Milieu: Capturing Cultural Capital propels Sudanese intellectuals into the global intellectual milieu and argues for their place in world intellectual history. The contributors posit that Sudan is currently in its most uncertain and perhaps most generative period, as the unrest, conflicts, and upheavals of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries threw Sudanese intellectuals and activists into identity, economic, environmental, religious, and existential crises. Despite these crises, the unrest has created a period of knowledge production and cultural production in Sudan. The contributors to the collection are Sudanese intellectuals who explore the history and evolution of knowledge production, thought, and cultural capital in Sudan.
The star of the television program Beakman's World answers questions, presents amazing facts, and performs experiments on a variety of scientific topics.
Coletech has brought you the future with Projects: Green Life and Hate Breed! Green Life's Jack, the first step in military evolution; a monster that can regenerate lost limbs, and use his appendages to lethal effect! Hate Breed's Jill, the next step in military evolution; an assassin made through a process of abuse. They are cold and calculated killing machines, with no feelings, and no conscience. Two modern miracles of science and military might!Despite all their experimenting and tampering, despite all their propaganda, Coletech has failed. Jack and Jill are still just beaten and shattered humans. Jill has lost everything she has ever cared for, including an unborn child, and has lost the will to live, but her employers won't let her die until she completes one last missionkill the monster Jack! But when Jack finally steps into the Jill's crosshairs everything they've ever known becomes a question mark sending them into a bloody downward spiral to their fates! Jack and Jill went up The Hilland your fairy tale nightmare has come true.
Two towns: one living and one not-quite dead. Westward bound, ex-soldier Seth Collins finds a ruined village named Drytown. Just why is it that everyone in Drytown seems to want to avoid the sun? Before long, Collins find Drytown isn't a village, but a deathtrap. But who's setting it with live human bait? There's no clear answers, and only just barely time to escape to safety in the nearby town of Cedar Creek. The monsters from Drytown are thirsty enough to follow and hunt, even in the sunlight now. Led by their master, Raphael de Medina, the creatures are driven by desire and addiction and will not stop until they've drunk every single drop. Husbands hunt wives, men of faith are shaken, the law provides no safety, and one man's hunt for revenge may doom all the living souls of both towns to a monstrous kind of half-life, to thirst without end."--P. [4] of cover.
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.