Strikingly consistent across all of the battles in Sudan's history has been a fundamental conflict over what are and what are not seen as legitimate aspects of Sudanese identity.

For sure I see so much in Sudan that is wonderful, normal life - young entrepreneurs starting up NGO projects, kids mucking around and being kids. Everything else that happens in normal life in any part of the world, and we never get that in our media coverage. We only talk about Sudan once it's in crisis, so we end up with a distorted sense of what daily life is like for a lot of people.

It's best to think of these as two things - they're related, but there's different dynamics going on with each of them. A key difference is Abyei is contested territory. We still do not know whether Abyei is going to belong to the new country of South Sudan or effectively the new country of Sudan, the northern part. That was supposed to be decided by a referendum in January; that referendum never happened, so it was being dealt with through political negotiations.

Strikingly consistent across all of the battles in Sudan's history has been a fundamental conflict over what are and what are not seen as legitimate aspects of Sudanese identity.

Every indication is that the Sudanese government will be defining it as an Arab, Muslim country. But there are also a lot of Christians and a lot of people, like the Nuba, who are not Arab. And that is why it is going to be problematic that Sudan will be defined in this way.

I feel really uncomfortable writing about Sudan when I'm not there. It always looks different. When you're outside Sudan it's easy to lose sight of how much of what happens is driven by local politics. And when you're in America in particular, there's this sense that what D.C. has to say is the only thing that counts.

What's really interesting, though, is that some people in the Messirya are starting to see Darfuri rebels - so non-Arab, [from the] Justice and Equality Movement - have moved over into Southern Kordofan, which is supposed to be a Messirya stronghold, and started recruiting Messirya to go and fight against the Khartoum government in Darfur. Just another example of how everything in Sudan is interlinked.