Geocultural Understanding in Abyei: Contested Territories, Proselytization and Evangelists

Abstract

Abyei region represents Sudan and South Sudan (Map-1) in Africa respectively in the contemporary security landscape that has witnessed initial political decolonization, later on economic liberalization and the ongoing Geocultural affirmation. The holistic understanding of Abyei region reveals that existential threats for people and their habitat are not merely physical but also ideational and Geocultural in nature. Historically, the binary world-view of believers vs. non-believers lays the ideational foundation for imperial domination and colonial machination, perpetuating deeper insecurity for nature worshipping people of Africa. While proselytization remains intertwined with imperial expansion, differentiated capitalization of post-conversion belief and worship fault lines consolidates colonial grip in Africa and elsewhere in the world. However, the successive inter-imperial wars make retention of territorial possessions difficult, imposing massive costs in humane and material terms. The principle of self-determination necessarily implies independent statehood only in the context of decolonization. The projected assumption that self-determination and territorial divisions lead to peace, stability, development and democratization in post-colonies has been a mischief. Indeed, geo-cultural interventions have induced secessionist movements and protracted conflicts in post-colonial societies in Abyei region. Keeping the above concerns in perspective, one may raise these fundamental questions. First, is there any meeting point in the process of creating and projecting Abyei as 'contested territory’? Second, what is the relationship between application of Right to Self-Determination principle on the one hand and emergence of contestation in post-colonial territories with special reference to Abyei? This article attempts to respond these questions and other related issues.