As Sudan referendum nears, the south isn't only place facing changes

[Valin]

Christian Science Monitor:

While the referendum portends huge changes for South Sudan, which is likely to become independent, it will also bring political changes to the north, including a possible return to sharia law.
Amanda Hsiao
January 7, 2011


A southern Sudanese man dances during a rally in Juba Jan. 7. Most analysts expect the south to secede after a January 9 referendum which is the result of a 2005 peace deal ending Africa's longest civil war.
Goran Tomasevic/Reuters

As the international spotlight on South Sudan’s referendum shines even brighter at two days and counting, little attention has been directed at the political posturing that escalated in the North over the holidays. As stakeholders in the North imagine the possible political reconfigurations in a post-secession Sudan, it should be remembered that the political relations that emerge in a new northern state have everything to do with the future of marginalized areas – Darfur, Blue Nile, South Kordofan, the East – and the potential for the resumption of mass violence across the country.

Questions of the type of state the North will become in the event of secession were brought to the fore when, in mid-December, President Omar al-Bashir said, according to The New York Times: “We’ll change the Constitution. Shariah and Islam will be the main source for the Constitution, Islam the official religion and Arabic the official language.”

He also said, alarmingly: “If South Sudan secedes, we will change the Constitution, and at that time there will be no time to speak of diversity of culture and ethnicity.”

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(Snip)