Mohamed Omer ABDIN (University of London/Tokyo University of Foreign Studies)
“The Right to Self-determination: a New Challenge to National Identity in African States”

Since the formation of the OAU in 1963, African states have continued to recognize colonial borders. Despite critiques of the artificial borders between African states, the fathers of independence in Africa preferred to close discussions on the issue of redrawing boundaries. As a result, most African states have inherited multiethnic territories.

The fathers of independence attempted to develop a nation-state model and consider the equality of all citizens—regardless of their ethnic, religious, linguistic, or social background—as the basis for citizenship. This model successfully survived for about three decades. However, since the end of the Cold War, many African states have suffered a series of civil wars that were triggered by ethnic rhetoric.

To solve these conflicts, both international and regional organizations introduced a new model of conflict resolution, supported by a sense of the triumph of liberal democratic values. They based this model on the promotion of democratic human rights, and other political and economic reforms. The new framework has been widely known as the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).

Despite the relative success of the CPA’s traditional framework as the basis of conflict resolution, new approaches were inevitable in order to make headway at peace talks. The incorporation of the right to self-determination served to finalize the peace accord between the conflicting Sudanese parties in 2005. The new development of the CPA framework may be considered as a new challenge to the existing borders of African states, as well as the national identities that the fathers of independence maintained over the previous decades.

This presentation will examine the impact of the changing borders on Sudanese national identity, and their implications for the conflict resolution mechanism in other cases.



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