The Second-Generation Liberation Movement in Southern Sudan: Anti-Colonialism as a Set of Practices

A remarkable feature of the Southern Sudanese liberation movement during the First Sudanese Civil War was its use of anti-colonial discourse and tactics. Soon into their struggle, the Southern Sudanese movement came to depict the Southern population as colonised by the Muslim-Arab Northern elite in Khartoum. This depiction served as the background to the Southern guerrilla campaign against the Sudanese government. As I argue in this paper, the Southern Sudanese movement’s adoption of anti-colonial identity and practices was the outcome of Southern Sudanese engagement and interaction with neighbouring Arab and African first-generation liberation movements, through which the future leaders of the Southern Sudanese liberation movement observed and absorbed the practices used against European colonialism. When the Southern Sudanese launched their liberation struggle, these practices served as their default background knowledge, which instructed the Southern Sudanese leaders on what a liberation struggle should look like, and how it can be justified. As one of the pioneering second-generation liberation movements, and affording us a vast range of primary sources into the movement, its leadership and their ideas, studying the Southern Sudanese liberation struggle enriches our understanding of post-colonial liberation wars and their evolution.