Background to Sudan's Economic WoesSudan: State, Capital and Transformation by Tony Barnett; Abbas Abdel KarimReview by: Babiker KhalifaAfrica Today, Vol. 36, No. 3/4, Shari'a Law and Strife in the Sudan: Is Peace Possible? (3rdQtr. - 4th Qtr., 1989), p. 89Published by: Indiana University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4186593 .

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Background to Sudan's Economic Woes

Babiker Khalifa

Tony Barnett and Abbas Abdel Karim, eds., SUDAN: State, Capital and Transfor mation (Croom Helm, Ltd., 1988: U.S. distr., Routledge Chapman and Hall), pp. 213, US $59.00; Can $83.00.

This book examines the complex economic and social processes which led to the current socio-economic and political crisis in the Sudan. It emphasizes the role played by the state. A multi-disciplinary analysis of Sudan in the post-colonial era is combined with a consideration of possibilities for the future. The title and contents both originate from a seminar held in July 1984 at the School of Development Studies, University of East Anglia, Norwich, England.

Sudan is predominantly an agricultural country. Thus much of what was discussed had to do directly or indirectly with agrarian policy and the changes occurring in rural society. The focus is the Nimeiri era which began in 1969 and was drawing to a close at the time of the conference. Like many Third World countries, Sudan was in crisis, with mounting debts, civil war and famine, and with a government trying ever more desperate strategies to remain in power.

As the title suggests, Sudan: State, Capital and lransfonnation, recognizes the state as a major actor and holds that its policies express the interests of different factions of capital, both national and international. The authors maintain that the form of society and economy which will determine the lives of most Sudanese in the last decade of the twentieth century is now being struggled over in many areas, ranging through forms of labor contract, changes in land tenure, and the organization of the labor process, to the interpretation of popular Islam, the introduction of Islamic law and banking, and the shape of agricultural policy. In the struggle, the form and legitimacy of the Sudanese state and of Sudanese identity itself are in question.

The first paper in the book, by Taisier Mohammed Ahmed Ali, analyzes agricultural policies as the key to understanding the nature of the Sudanese state. The state is analyzed an arena of class struggle in which the fundamental divisions, conflicts, compromises and forms of domination in society are worked out.

A second chapter in the first section, by Hassan Gadkarim, takes up another aspect of this question by discussing the state's attitudes to foreign private investment. In a third paper, Mohammed Nureldin Hussein examines an important aspect of public foreign investment, taking up the question of the impact of the condition that the IMF has attached to its loans in relation to the Sudanese case.

The second part of the book presents some case studies. These deal with various aspects of the changes and shifts in policies discussed in the first part. Especially important are studies of the contrast between government and Dinka views of the Jonglei Canal by George Tombi Zaro, and of Islamic Banking by Elfadih Shaaeldin and Richard Brown.

In my opinion, the book is an excellent intellectual analysis of the crisis of the Sudan. The contributors are well-qualified scholars with progressive views, most of them Sudanese.

A similar seminar in the near future to discuss reasons for the failure of the democratic government which emerged after the ouster of Nimeiri, and the impact of military rule in the process of development and unity in Sudan, would be a most welcome follow up, especially if the papers and findings could be published promptly.

Babiker Khalifa is a Ph.D. candidate at the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver. Until recently, he has been in the Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and has represented the Sudan at the United Nations.

3rd & 4th Quarte, 1989 89

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