Sudan is the largest African country, geographically; it covers an area of 967 500 square miles (2 056 000 square kilometers). It is almost double the size of Botswana and shares borders with eight other countries, from Egypt in the North to Uganda in the South and Ethiopia in the East and Chad in the West. From the time of its independence, Sudan was polarised by religious polarity. The North is largely Islamic, while the South is interspersed with Christianity and Animism, apparently the religion of the majority who believe in the ancestral spirits like most Africans still do, including those who may have adopted alien religions like Christianity, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism. In fact, it is alleged the majority in the South of Sudan are Animists.
Quite a number of things endanger political unity - ethnicity, class, race and colour, but nothing polarises populations like religion. Religion contrary to its fundamental element of subsuming the origins of the human race as creatures of the one eternal, omnipotent, omniscient and the omnipresent God, religion is by any count the biggest enemy of peace and social tolerance, indirectly or directly. You have heard of political mergers and pacts, community organisations across ethnicity and class but you seldom hear of religious solidarity between religious sects or between different faiths, for example Christianity, Judaism, Islam, or whatever religion under the sun and you begin to wonder whether religion is not the basis of all our earthly woes! Nowadays we hear a lot about Muslim fundamentalism and you are tempted to ask, 'Hey, but aren't all religions fundamentalist?'
