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Acknowledgments

A book that has emerged slowly over twenty years has accumulated many, many people worthy of my deepest thanks. The enduring hospitality and patience of the brothers and sisters of the Republican Brotherhood movement was of course paramount in making possible the completion of this memoir. I’ll single out Abdullahi An-Na’im, Khalid Mohamed El Hassan, and Mustafa El Jaili for their particular assistance in my getting the facts straight—although any misperception is my own. Many other brothers and sisters were eager to help me understand by sharing their understanding, and they are mentioned in the book as well. The Republican brothers and sisters have been the most important teachers in my life.

I also have relied (heavily!) on patient friends in the United States who have listened to me (and listened to me and listened to me) talk about what I was trying to represent with this book. The advice over the many years from Lidwien Kapteijns, Ghirmai Negash, Elizabeth Collins, and Jay Spaulding has been critical in the production of this memoir. My many students who have listened to me talk about this movement and have added their impressions of it—often providing other African examples—have provided a great learning experience for me as well. I am deeply in debt to the marvelous Gill Berchowitz for her tireless championing of Africanist scholarship and my work on this book, as she patiently steered it toward publication. I am also very grateful to Professor Francis Nyamnjoh at the University of Cape Town for providing me time and an office, with a view of Table Mountain, so that I could finally pull this book together.

I dedicate this book to my own siblings, Kathy, Rosemary, and Peter, in hopes that they gain a greater understanding of what their older brother has been up to for a long time.

South Sudan Independent from 2011. Map by Nick Kroncke.