The ambiguous role of the popular, society and public order Police in Sudan, 1983-2011

This article addresses a number of obscurities surrounding the role of the various Sudanese police units often referred to as the ‘religious police’ or ‘morality police’. These include the Popular Police, Society Police and Public Order Police. Although these units have often been analysed as agents of ‘Arabization’, ‘Islamization’ and the cultural domination of peripheral groups by the hegemonic northern riverain faction within the state, this article focuses instead primarily on the intra-northern debate over these units, which is suggestive of a variety of internal crises the northern government will need to resolve in the wake of secession. It contends that the Sudanese government has never resolved the ambiguity over whether these units function as local crime fighters or as guardians of religious morality. Although a number of analysts argue that the Sudanese regime has become less ideological and thus scaled back the morality police, this ambiguity remains highly relevant today, to the extent that it causes divisions within the security forces and even the government itself. The article further identifies the centrality of the debate over the public order units to the period of self-questioning that has characterized the ‘post-Islamist’ phase in Sudanese politics. It discusses the ambiguous social status of these units, who have been represented as guardians of urban Sudanese culture by their champions and a threat to it by their detractors