British Imperialism During The 1886 Congress Of South Sudan

The colonial legacy of Britain and the core peripheral world structure has caused economic, political, and social disorder in South Sudan, resulting in domestic conflict and disfunctionality. British imperial power triggered major issues because of the redrawing of borders during the 1886 Congress of Berlin. It is important to note that before the 19th century, the conflict in Sudan was between the Arab north and the African south. Britain implemented the divide and rule policy that was used in many colonized regions of Africa. This policy was created to generate distrust and conflict amongst the colonized and not towards the colonizers (Lobban 2010). Ayers discusses the long lasting effects of colonialism and how this system was a catalyst to recent divisions in …show more content…
She argues that, “colonial rule and its attendant processes of capitalist accumulation spawned the profound inequalities of wealth, nascent class formation, factional conflict, sectarianism and ‘retribalization’ of state and society, uneven development, problems of regional integrity and disunity of the ‘nation’, that characterise modern Sudan”(Ayers 2012, 266). The plan of this policy was to enable separation from the rest of the country and hinder their economic and social development because they argued that the south was ill fit and unwilling to “open up to the modern world” (Heleta 2008). Thus, British began investing and modernizing in the north through liberalizing political and economic institutions and improving basic infrastructure. They did little if anything to help sustain and grow the south. When the British imperial power withdrew power, this triggered a struggle for power between the North and