Ayman Makarem is joined by two Sudanese commentators, Raga Makawi and Dallia Abdelmoniem, to talk about the war in Sudan. Both guests talk at length about the situation as well as the political, economic, and revolutionary context it exists within. This intimate discussion explores the many ways Sudanese people are reflecting on and struggling against the current war situation. With little to no international attention, these voices are vital to listen to and learn from.
Mentions
- Economy and Class in Sudan – O’Brien, O’Neil
- Beats of the Antanov
- You Will Die at Twenty
- Sudan Music Playlist
Where to listen
All episodes are first released on our Patreon and you can get them on your Podcast feed by copy-pasting the RSS that appears at the bottom of your page when you join (here’s how) as soon as they’re up.
The conversation is available on: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Anchor, Breaker, Amazon Music, Audible, Stitcher, Radio Public, Pocket Casts, Castro and RSS.
How to Support
The Fire These Times is independent and supported by our community of listeners. With even a small amount of $2 a month, you can help keep this project alive and expand into video essays, public panels, newsletters and more.
The best way to do so is through Patreon, which will also give you early access to our episodes, exclusive video episodes, merchandise, monthly hangouts, access to the upcoming book club and more.
You can also support through one-time donations on: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/joeyayoub
Contact
- You can follow The Fire These Times on: Bluesky | Instagram | YouTube | Twitter | Substack
- You can follow Elia on: Website | Instagram | Bluesky | Mastodon, or reach out to him via email at contact@thefirethesetimes.com
- You can follow Raga on: Twitter
- You can follow Dallia on: Twitter | Instagram
Episode Credits
Host: Ayman Makarem
Producer: Ayman Makarem
Music: Rap and Revenge
Main theme design: Wenyi Geng
Sound editor: Ayman Makarem
Episode design: Elia Ayoub
Transcript via Antidote Zine:
It’s a beacon of hope that the resistance committees have continued doing their job even though they’ve been beaten, arrested, tortured, detained; they’ve gone through the whole gamut of abuse by state and nonstate actors. And yet they continue to stand their ground and do their thing. They’ve never budged, never swerved away from their mandate. That is something that should be heralded more.
Raga Makawi: Thanks for having me on your podcast, this is really exciting. My name is Raga Makawi; I am Sudanese-British, based in London. I work as a researcher at the London School of Economics.
Dallia Mohamed Abdelmoniem: Thank you for having me as well. I am Dallia Mohamed Abdelmoniem; I am Sudanese and prior to the war I was a small business owner—that’s now in ashes, and I have stumbled into a new vocation as an analyst and commentator on Sudanese and African politics. I am currently in Cairo. Happy to be here with Raga, let’s see where this goes!
Ayman Makarem: It would be good to start with a brief overview of what’s happening today: the war, how it started, who are the key players, and what are the impacts on people on the ground?
DA: We’re at six months since the war started, and my answer is pretty much the same any time I am asked what the situation is like in Sudan: there’s not much changed, in fact it’s gotten worse. The humanitarian situation is dire; it’s getting worse and worse. There’s no sign of a let up in the fighting between the generals of the Sudanese army and the RSF, the paramilitary group headed by general Hemedti. The international community seems to have taken a step back, not really interested, and doesn’t have much of a say anymore in what’s happening. We’re just biding our time to see what happens next.
It’s very disheartening, because the destruction of the country continues. I can handle the looting of homes, and I can handle war, but the destruction of the production sector of the country, the economic factors, the infrastructure, the hospitals, schools—this is what matters to me. I don’t know how we’re going to be able to rebuild (if we’re ever able to rebuild). Because Sudan before the war was one of the poorest countries in the world; we tick all the boxes when it comes to countries that are considered to be a failure, and this war has just exacerbated the situation.
I watch and read and I see what’s happening, and every time there’s a little spark of hope that maybe something is going to happen, it seems to take a few steps back and the war just erupts even further.
Right now one of the things that’s coming out is the kidnapping of Sudanese civilians by RSF. They go through their phonebook and they call their contacts and demand ransom. We’re talking amounts of a million dollars, a million and a half dollars. This happened to a friend of mine, a friend of hers. The horror stories keep coming out, and they’re getting worse and worse.
There’s no let up. We Sudanese haven’t caught a break since the highs of the revolution of 2019, to the nadir of what we’re going through right now. It’s just one blow after the other. It’s like you’re in the ring with Mike Tyson at his peak and there’s nothing you can do. The blows just keep coming. We’re being hit from everywhere, and it’s taking a toll on all of us—those who are still there, those who managed to leave, and those who were always out but don’t know what to do.It’s depressing, to be honest.
RM: Thank you so much, Dallia. The way you described the blows is so poignant. We’re up against an opponent that we have no way of hitting back or even defending ourselves. I don’t know about you or the rest of the people who have been affected, but I am down. I have been down for a long time, and I can’t take any more blows, but they just keep coming.
Maybe this is something we can touch on later: the mental costs, the mental health toll that is affecting an entire community. Yes, of course we have to think about rebuilding the economy, rebuilding the country. But how about rebuilding our psyche as a community? What does it mean to be a Sudanese after all of this is done?
This war has been in the cards for a long time. The ultra-militarization of Sudan’s polity and economy—they both feed each other. This seems to be an expected ending to how different parties—domestic, regional, and international—have been at each other’s throats, trying to land themselves a bit of the pie, a bit of power at any cost. This is not new. What’s happened in Khartoum is the latest, but this militarization of entire communities and societies for the benefit of certain elites and their polities, who are ready to cut deals and do whatever in order to edge an inch closer to power—Darfur has had more than twenty years of heightened militarization that was a product of the state arming certain groups against each other; it was a fight over resources, over land, to rework land relations for the benefit of certain groups or certain elites.
Obviously in response to that, rebel groups emerged over twenty years, and as a result there was an entire generation of young people who have not received ample education, who were never able to enter the job market properly, and have as a result sought violence or the barrel of the gun as the only means to be able to make a living. This has extended until it reached its ultimate conclusion, which is the seat of power.
AM: Thank you both for sharing your insights. There’s something very strange about the development—it’s very relatable for me; I come from Lebanon, where we had an amazing, elated high in 2019 as well, and ever since it’s been blow after blow. It is very difficult to have any imagination left.
Just as an overview before we really get into it, I’d like to go back to the key players, the specific parties. You mentioned Darfur, and it’s very important—I’ve often heard this discussed in Sudanese circles as a periphery. It’s called “the regions.” This is a space, a place that has experienced genocide for decades. And one of the generals today, Hemedti, rose in the ranks of the Janjaweed in Darfur, and that violence that was developed there came to the seat of power in Khartoum.
How did that come about? What is the specific history between Hemedti and [Abdel-Fattah] Burhan that resulted in the violence we’re seeing today?
DA: One of the common factors between the roles of Burhan and Hemedti is the the role of the Islamists, the Kizan. Don’t forget Hemedti rose to power through the private army of the former president Omar al-Bashir. Bashir used Hemedti and his men as a way to protect himself. Burhan also has a history of violence in Darfur. One of the first conflicts arose in Jebel Marra, and he was the general in charge. So there is that common factor: they both have blood on their hands. It’s not one or the other.
With regard to their actions towards Sudan and Sudanese, maybe one is more “legitimate” than the other because he’s the head of the national army so to speak, but in my book they’re both the same, because both have wreaked havoc, have caused war and destruction on Sudanese, regardless of where you are in the country.
They were bedfellows when it suited them, and once they yanked that power and reached that high pedestal, it became a conflict over who’s going to have what. This is what we’re paying the price for: two men fighting over the megalomania of who’s going to be in power, like Raga said.
It’s funny hearing all of Burhan’s statements. I keep thinking, You shook hands with him, and you committed that coup in October 2021. At one point in time he was your BFF! He lists all these atrocities that RSF has committed, and I’m like, You can list the same thing for the army, but everyone has convenient amnesia when they want it. They’ve forgotten all the past thirty-forty years of conflict and just focus on the past five months. But if you look at our history in Sudan, ever since we gained independence it’s always been conflict or war. It’s never been peaceful, Let’s hold hands and kumbaya. That’s never happened, except for maybe two years during [head of state Gaafar] Nimeiry’s time.
If you’ve read up on and followed Sudan, it’s not a surprise at all what’s happening right now. It was inevitable. There was no way two generals, two separate armies, were going to coexist peacefully together, no matter how much outside regional actors tried to push for that to happen. Even our own local politicians, no matter how hard they tried to push them together, you can’t put a square peg in a round hole so to speak. It had to happen.
We all knew this was going to happen, that this was going to be the end result. But for me personally, I didn’t think it was going to happen so quickly, so soon. I honestly thought there would be more of a duel going on between them before things flare up. But they didn’t go through the preliminary rounds, they went straight into a head-to-head clash. I keep thinking: what can happen or what can be done to somewhat end this conflict? And I keep drawing blanks.
Even if outside actors yank the strings and tell them to hold back, we’ve gone too far down the line for anything to happen. It’s going to be one long-winded conflict. For me personally, I don’t see how or when it can end. It’s a natural progression of the past few years in Sudan, especially since 2013 when the government first put down civilian protests calling for democracy. Since then it’s just been a slow transition into this all-out war that we’re having right now.
RM: I agree completely. Going back to what you said, Ayman, about this concept of the periphery, historically in Sudan the people of the center, the urbanites like ourselves—we have always thought of the periphery as removed from our own realities. And we’ve always had a contentious and contested relationship with it. It oscillates between us vying to defend it—as we did during the early days of the revolution; we proclaimed that All of the Country is Darfur—and blaming them, using the ethnic card to sow divisions, saying, People in Darfur are nothing like us, or These people’s tribal systems are the main reasons why we can’t develop as a society.
We as a political society, at some point, perhaps postwar, need to address the periphery question in a more rigorous way if we are to develop a proper civic project—which we have failed to do in these last four years during the revolution. If anything, this war has proven that the periphery is and always was the locus of Sudanese politics. We tend to always think that it’s the state, that sits in the center with all its professionals and civil servants and political elites, who have the upper hand in deciding what happens, where and how. But the reality is much more complicated than that.
If we were to talk about the ominous relationship between Burhan and Hemedti, it actually flourished within the context of the periphery as an area that’s contested, that’s a battleground. The facilitator of this egregious relationship was the army—or the security sector, the security arena with all its players: the army, military intelligence, the security apparatus in all its forms. That’s where, as Dallia said, these two struck a relationship and became BFFs. The common ground that they were able to achieve, realize, and then build on to transfer their power to the center, developed in the periphery.
DA: When you were talking about postwar and how we need to address how we, those in the center, address the periphery—I think it’s broken. This war has really shown the ugly side of Sudanese society in regards to how we view each other. We see all these caricatures and jokes being made of Hemedti—but I keep telling people: Hemedti was a product of the center. Hemedti was not conjured up like some genie in a bottle. Hemedti was made by the center, because he was a useful tool for their demands.
Now that creation has come to bite all of us in the behind. It’s not just the people of Darfur who are suffering round two of Hemedti and his actions; it’s actually now the rest of the country. But we need to address how we we, those in the center, continue to view the rest of the country. Yes, we’re made up of so many different ethnic groups and tribes and dialects and backgrounds. Some people see it as a point of weakness, that Sudan can’t move forward because of this hybrid mix of people. But for many of us, especially of our age group, we see it as a strong point.
Unfortunately that strong point isn’t being translated when it comes to the time of being seated at the table and discussing it. Even after the revolution and after the coup, the people were still being marginalized. The people at the table were still the same old political dinosaurs who have always been there since the day I was born. There’s been no change. Even with outside actors and regional players and organizations, they kept the same old traditions of keeping those who have been affected the worst by actions of the state and actors of the state, and those who can see and say, No, you need to include all of us, this pie needs to be shared equally by all of us, not eighty percent for so-and-so and crumbs for the remainder of the country—I am from the center; I am from Khartoum, but when we were leaving Khartoum to go to Port Sudan, I was shocked at how infrastructurally behind the rest of the country was.
I’m talking about just an hour out of Khartoum. I’m not even talking about going into the depths of the country. Just going to Medani in Gezira state. I was thinking, I’m not surprised this is happening. Because for so long, people came to Khartoum, the state of Khartoum, because there was nowhere else to go; where they were, there was nothing. They literally had nothing. They still have nothing. And we kept at it; we kept hammering it into them that Khartoum is special, Khartoum, Khartoum.
Will our politicians, will the negotiators and mediators realize that you can’t have talks, you can’t have roundtable discussions, if you don’t include every single person who’s affected? At this moment in time, the ones who are affected by this war are the people of Darfur. The sheer number of Darfurians escaping beats out the number of people from Khartoum who left via Egypt, Ethiopia, and Saudi Arabia or the UAE. That alone says it all, but no one is paying attention to that.
Darfur is still being used as, Oh, Poor Darfur! No. It’s not just poor Darfurians. We keep saying “Never Again.” This phrase is repeated so many times for so many events. And yet these same events keep being repeated time and time again. We never learn. And yes, during the revolution we said We Are All Darfur, but now hear what they are saying about the RSF. There’s a very derogatory term they use to describe people from western Sudan: gharaba. It literally means “from the west,” but the connotations are quite horrible. It’s like, The RSF, they are all gharaba; they’re not Sudanese! They’re from Chad, their origins are Chadian.
Already that conversation is being repeated a lot! So I would like to think we will have this discussion postwar, but honestly I don’t think we will. If anything we’re going to double down, and it’s going to become even worse. Remember we used to say, This person is Islamist, keep away from them; this person is da’ma—whether they are or they aren’t, we’re just going to align them to that group of RSF soldiers. And let’s not forget, the vast majority of these RSF soldiers are kids who know nothing, who have basically been told, Here’s some money, take a gun and go fight.
My sister keeps repeating this and I have to agree: the RSF is a creation of our politics, our policies, us. They didn’t come out of nowhere. They emerged from within us, just like the Islamists emerged from within us. There’s no outside factor here; we’re all Sudanese. But the lines of division have been drawn, and I think when and if this war ever ends, it’s going to get really ugly, and we’re going to see a horrible sight to us as Sudanese.
We’ve always prided ourselves on our being open and welcoming—we’re welcoming to others, but we’re not welcoming for ourselves.
RM: Fascism in Sudan is on the rise. A particular type of populism has emerged, especially in the last two or three months. I see it everywhere on social media: people make proclamations—ethnic proclamations—about certain groups and certain people, in sweeping blanket terms. There is no sense of the danger that this could pose even if the war ended tomorrow, especially in a society as fragilely-knit as the Sudanese one, with all its historic problems.
I’m sorry to say that the majority of these narratives are emerging from people like us. It’s disheartening, because we’re talking about educated middle class people who have gone full-on into reaction mode. I understand they’re angry. They’re scared. They are grieving the loss of everything. But turning your worst on communities that have at some point or other in the long, problematic history of Sudan been at the receiving end of state and structural violence is not the answer.
Yes, a very concerning form of populism is on the rise in Sudan.
AM: There’s a lot to unpack there, and I want to jump in and say there are so many similarities in these discussions of the center and the periphery, and the rise of populism that is focused on marginalized communities (but ultimately their victims will be everybody)—I see this so much in Lebanon. There is so much antagonism, coming from people like me (middle class, educated), against Syrian refugees, who people constitute as an Other.
So much has collapsed in Lebanon; we’re in a situation of complete economic, political, and social collapse. But this has nothing to do with a Syrian refugee! What really scares me (obviously for the well-being of Syrians in Lebanon) is that these things that are mobilized against peripheralized, marginalized people are ultimately going to embolden forces that we then can’t stop. Just yesterday there was a tiny protest for freedom of expression, and the people were violently attacked by a coalition of sectarian gangs.
When I say “coalition,” I mean the whole sectarian makeup. There’s a really powerful quote that I think about a lot by Angela Davis, that pertains to this: If they come for me in the morning, they’ll come for you in the night. To me, this is the imperative of listening to marginalized communities, and not in a virtue-signaling way but because it pertains to all of us.
There’s one expression of this that came out of Sudan that I thought was really incredible: the resistance committees during the revolution. If I’m not mistaken, the first resistance committees to form, politically, were in areas that are considered “the regions.” In their makeup and in the ways that they discussed with each other, and then through the political charters that they all wrote together, it was an attempt to combine these eighteen different states and try to erase the forced dichotomy of center and periphery.
I wonder if you could speak to that? Because coming from Lebanon, there were a lot of people who looked towards the Forces of Freedom and Change as a model but completely ignored the resistance committees that formed the actual grassroots. If we could talk a little bit about that, it’s a really interesting dynamic.
DA: The resistance committees were a natural progression of the social fabric of what made Sudan. When you have someone who’s sick, you’re not the only one who takes care, you’re not the only one who steps in to help. The whole neighborhood, your friends, your family come too. The resistance committees were similar: they took the idea of, Okay, we all help each other because the state provides nothing, so the people have to help and provide for themselves. If you couldn’t do it, someone else would step in and help you out.
The resistance committees were a natural progression of that. They took it in a more structured manner, and they really thought about it and how they can actually implement this, not just on the social level but also on the political and state level. And it worked! It’s working until now. In communities in Khartoum and Darfur, where aid agencies cannot reach or cannot get through, they are the ones providing medical help, logistical help, and financial help. They’re holding food banks and communal food planning to help everyone out.
It goes to show that when you take all the politics out of things, people can actually be more effective, be more proactive, and actually help each other. But what’s sad is that for so long, the resistance committees were brushed to the side. They were heralded as being too young, too naive, too idealistic. It’s not going to work out! We know better! I remember hearing that phrase. They don’t know much, they don’t have the experience. But in reality, they do have the experience, because they grew up getting nothing from no one, so they had to band together to really help.
They just put it on a larger, wider scale. It’s disheartening that until today, even with all that’s happening, the resistance committees are still not being treated as an equal partner, or being given a seat at the table. Then there is the whole social media rumor mill, saying, This group sold out and joined with this political party, or This group is doing this or that. But they’re still doing their job. They’re still in Khartoum, they’re still in Umm Badr, they’re still in all those neighborhoods continuously doing their job. But their position, their status needs to be elevated.
It needs to be elevated by those who can, but they’re not doing it. Just talking in terms of our Sudanese political groups: they’re completely ignoring them. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t see them being involved. They’re going on their African and European tours—where are the resistance committees? They’re doing the job that you, as politicians, failed to do. But they’re not being heralded, they’re not being given that seat at the table.
If you talk to any average Sudanese civilian, they all recognize what they’ve done and what they continue to do. If there is one glimmer of hope, it’s those resistance committees. They’ve shown that there’s no need for these divisions, these lines that we continuously draw and say, This is where you are and where I am and where the rest of us are. They’ve blurred those lines. But will they be taken more seriously? They should.
The NGOs are taking them seriously; they’re using them to make sure that their aid gets through. But the powers that be continue to ignore them, continue to push them to the side. That’s what’s frustrating to me about our political “leaders.” But it’s a beacon of hope that the resistance committees have continued doing their job even though they’ve been beaten, arrested, tortured, detained; they’ve gone through the whole gamut of abuse by state and state actors. And yet they continue to stand their ground and do their thing. They’ve never budged, never swerved away from their mandate. That is something that should be heralded more.
And it should be studied more, because it’s something other communities can learn from, especially in countries where there are a lot of ethnic divisions and political conflict.
RM: To add to what Dallia said: I have the utmost and highest respect for the RCs. I see them as the future, they are the one glimpse of hope in an otherwise dark reality. I’m just wondering how useful it is for a political model like that of the RCs to be brought within the realm of the state. How useful is it to bring them into the fold of power? Will it just corrupt them? Will it create divisions between members of the same committees or across geographical locations?
Because the reality is, we’re dealing with a social movement with particular structures that are not equal but highly combined. If you take the resistance committees in Khartoum state, for example, or in Khartoum the city—Khartoum, like every post-colonial city, is an urban enclave that is divided by class, ethnicity, gender, and other things. These variables speak to power politics. I’ve done a little bit of research on the constituency of the RCs and the materials that they’ve produced, and I’ve noticed that there was a lot of internal contestation—not competition, but contestation—regarding rallying around certain political positions.
There’s no problem with that, right? If we’re debating politics, positionality is key, and people have a right to communicate political positions from their own points of view, or as it affects them. But that didn’t preclude the fact that there were uneven hierarchies that affected how the social movement was able to organize, to be productive, to communicate, to represent itself. And it did create divisions from within, and did affect not just the outcome (which was the charters), but also the process and the timeline. These are really important things that we need to talk about moving forward.
I believe that the resistance committees have managed to form a locus of a political vision and, most importantly, education through experience, through doing. No one is telling them. They’ve gone through lots of trial and error for the last five years, and they’ve paid for it with their lives. This is why I always say, whenever I talk about the RCs, that these people, if I’m going to describe them as something, even if they’re fifteen years old, are political adults. They are more politically mature than the most senior politician in the Freedom and Change Forces, because they have faced the brunt of violence on the street—violence that came from the militias, from the police, from the state, from the army, but also from these hierarchies—and they have persevered, they have prevailed, they have continued, have not quit. But for us to say that the political project or vision that they have is complete or even has materialized might be jumping the gun.
I don’t know if I need to say anything about the Forces of Freedom and Change. Honestly that name doesn’t suit them at all. They are neither a force, nor are they about freedom or change. But if one looks at the long history of political evolution and rupture and different political junctures in Sudan since independence, we have had these revolutionary turns every twenty years. And we have had almost identical elite-led political committees that have emerged as leadership figures at the helm of every revolution. And every time, they have proclaimed certain political values—progressive, democratic, liberal values. However, their actions, and more importantly their history in relation to the political establishment, has been quite problematic.
The Forces for Freedom and Change have come out of another body that was created during the signing of the CPA [2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement]. Do you remember the name, Dallia?
DA: There are so many names, so many committees, it’s ridiculous.
RM: The reason you and I don’t remember is there’s so many of them! This is also a particular tactic. Every time, they want to show themselves, show their reputation, immerse themselves forcefully and illegally into a new political project, and re-huddle and rename themselves.
DA: I call them political dinosaurs. They’ve literally been there since the day I was born. Same faces, same names. Some have passed away; the majority are still there. For some reason they have very long lives, mashallah.
To go back to your point about the RCs being part of the political process: unfortunately, if they continue to be on the grassroots level, in terms of the Sudanese population at large, they won’t be seen or viewed as an entity that needs to be reckoned with. They will give them a pat on the head and tell them, Good job, thank you, but that’s it. Yes, they have their problems and their disagreements, their disputes—that’s part and parcel of the nature of the monster, so to speak. But the reason I have so much faith in the RCs is simply because they represent a demographic that has been hit the worst.
They are the youth, that age bracket between fifteen and forty-five, who haven’t seen anything positive from the state or from this country. They’ve had it the worst—and they’re not disillusioned! They have an idea, and maybe they are a bit too idealistic, but they’ve never wavered from what they believed in. After the coup, I was going out, week-in, week-out, to all the protests, and they never changed their tune. Sitting and talking to them, they never changed—they believe in what they are calling for.
To me, that says a lot. They could have easily been paid off. Some have been paid off, probably. But they want something better for themselves, they want something better for their community, for their country, for their people. And they’re not so hardened by the political reality that many of us see; they still believe that there’s a chance for democracy, for human rights and liberty and so on. For me it’s good to see that, because politics is a horrible monster; it can eat you up and spit you out and you get nothing out of it. But they are sticking to their guns.
A lot of the RC members never left Sudan; they are still there doing what they signed up for. That to me says a lot, that even through all the crap that’s happening right now—maybe their mantra has changed slightly, from Let’s save the country to Let’s try to help the people who we can, but they’re holding onto their beliefs.
I hear what you’re saying about the RCs, but if the past few years have shown anything to me, they’ve stuck to their guns. They’ve never wavered. They’ve called out those who have sold them out; they’ve always been there. We all need that one little thing we can hold on to and say, This is the future for us; this is how we can move on and move forward from this quagmire that we’re in.
Let’s just hope they don’t get disillusioned by the Realpolitik that they will unfortunately, inevitably face.
RM: If anything, they are at a monumental juncture right now, with Burhan and the army opening doors for “popular recruitment“—conscription. Most of the people who have remained in Sudan, the youth, serving age, were probably at some point in the last four or five years either directly members of the RCs or at least involved in the protesting and the revolution. So now, bless them, they are being faced with a monumental decision.
They have to make the choice of defending their homes, their lives, their lands from the incursion of fighters like the RSF, but also at the same time balance the short- and long term politics in relation to what it means to be a recruit in the army, to have to carry a weapon and point it against another member of Sudan’s extended community. Obviously these are questions that will come back postwar, as it relates to [Mahmood] Mamdani’s “[saviors] and survivors” concept.
AM: I see there’s an over-emphasis on geopolitics and talking about international or regional players—but specifically here, I heard a brief lecture you gave, Raga, on the political economy of the Janjaweed (now the RSF), and one thing I didn’t know was that a lot of these young soldiers were mobilized in Yemen. There is also a very strong attachment, for the RSF, to the UAE, who I believe are the predominant buyers of Sudanese gold.
This brings in the question of the material reality that a lot of people are facing. Again I’ll bring my example of Lebanon, wherein the army, especially after the war, really recruits more from peripheral areas, from the north or the south. So there’s this material dilemma, this very real problem wherein all industries have been destroyed, and in the way that the entire country is a market-based neoliberal economy, there really are not many options to sustain oneself.
Could you speak to that a bit more, just in terms of the macro that is reflected in the micro?
RM: It is exactly what you just said. This has to do with the history of post-colonialism, which was meant to be “developmentalist.” Sudan’s earlier relationship with the Gulf was one of developmental loans for agriculture investment. We’re talking about the era of the sixties and seventies, and all these massive, extended developmental projects failed to yield the economic turnaround for the country, but also profits for the global economy.
Since then, the nature of financial flows and financial transactions between countries of the Global South has become somewhat more ominous. Bashir’s thirty years in power had been shored up mostly through what we call “political funding” from the Gulf. In order to maintain his control, especially of urban constituencies, the state has to subsidize a lot of the public services it provides, and that weighs heavily on the economy, especially one that is not productive.
What usually happens is that countries—this is not unique to Sudan, this happens in all the countries of the Global South—then turn to international financial institutions, the World Bank and the IMF, and they ask for loans, but don’t really see that these loans are attached to certain conditionalities. One of them, and the most important one, is that you cannot use this money to continue to subsidize wheat or medicine for the public, and that you have to push austerity measures and force the public to find other means of procuring lifesaving needs.
What Bashir does, or what the Gulf has developed into a sort of regional geopolitical technique, is they build these countries out with political funds: they send them, without any conditionalities or strings attached, sums of money to revive the economy. But obviously this revival process is short-lived, so what happens is the economy is in a nosedive; you receive the political funds and it goes up a little bit; and then it goes down quickly after that.
However, there are costs to these political funds. In the case of the Emirates and Saudi, it was the involvement of RSF fighters, fighters from the periphery, in the Yemen war. Soon after that it became a matter of extending really problematic investment agreements over huge swathes of land in Sudan for the use of these same countries, and shortly after that it then became the ports. It’s almost an extended incursion, literally and physically, over Sudan’s economy. First it’s labor, even if it’s fighting labor, and than it’s land, and then later it’s ports, and so on.
So it’s a certain kind of political economy that is connected to or shares characteristics of a war economy, that has developed as part of the parcel and package of these regional geopolitics. Obviously with the RSF, it’s quite extreme. Because not only are you exporting violence, you also have to contend with the fact that when these wars end, or when these funds that finance these young men end, these men come back with a taste of a lot of dollars, a lot of money, and also with one skill: holding the gun.
That’s what happened in the case of Sudan. There were thousands and thousands of war-trained young men who were still in their prime and who were still looking for a source of income, and the only thing they knew how to do was fight, hold the gun. Also Sudan’s domestic politics complicates things, because the long history of Sudan’s internal wars also means that there have been rebel movements with a political cause who have emerged over different periods but also died down or dissipated because there was no outcome for their mobilization. They also left behind thousands and thousands of young men who were ready to be absorbed into whatever fighting force would pay them the highest.
This is what I talked about earlier: you end up militarizing people at the community level, and all for the cost of a house or a car or the ability to wed. Marriage is a big thing, especially in the periphery. It’s the transition from being a child to an adult (regardless of age). Lots of men, in order to achieve this status of adulthood, would normalize employment under these conditions and in these circumstances, for the sake of bringing back some money to their family, to their mothers, and marrying.
So it’s complicated. It’s not just regional politics driven by an extractive capitalist system, but it’s also domestic politics that is open to receiving such influences.
DA: To add to what Raga was saying: it’s very interesting, because it’s a different way of looking at it. But also resources play a big part, especially in terms of the countries in the Gulf. Yes, they’ve built these modern meccas—maybe that’s the wrong word. Modern Las Vegas-style cities. But they still suffer from lack of resources, and a country like Sudan, with its myriad problems and issues, resources-wise it’s an endless pot, whether it’s agriculture, whether it’s access to the Red Sea, whether it’s the Nile waters, the minerals, the gold, the petrol. You list them, Sudan has it.
So I can see it’s a prized asset to have. And it doesn’t matter how—the means justify the end. So whether they’re supporting the RSF or they’re supporting the SAF, or supporting some unknown rebel group we haven’t heard of yet but they’re creating, they will do that if it means they can guarantee for themselves access to resources that they in their wildest dreams would not have access to.
And it’s not just Sudan, it’s not just the Gulf countries. There are other nations involved. There is leadership that really doesn’t care about what they sell off or what they give out, as long as they can maintain their seat of power. Which is why the role of the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and even Iran is so big in countries like Sudan and Libya, and Syria and Yemen, and will continue to be as long as we have leadership that has no problem selling us out to the highest bidder. It comes down to that, basically.
It’s resources, it’s geopolitics, it’s flexing political-economic muscle. As always it’s the people who end up paying the hefty price. Where’s Bashir now? Bashir and his cronies started this whole Let’s sell off Sudan to the highest bidder—where are they now? They’ve created this mess, they’ve gotten away scot-free, and we’re still here discussing the mess they’ve created and trying to think of ways to clean it up. Every time we make an attempt to clean it up, something happens and the mess gets worse and gets bigger, and we have to rethink, re-plan, go back to square one, and think what we can do.
Unfortunately as well, there is no one out there who actually wants to help. When I say “help,” I don’t mean giving aid or loans or whatever—just helping, as in giving guidance to be able to move forward. No one does that. No one has offered anything. Everything that’s been put on the table is for someone’s benefit, but nothing for us as Sudanese. It’s disheartening to see, and it’s disheartening to realize this is happening.
At the same time I also look at our own people, our own leadership, whether it’s political or businessmen, or people who have had a part to play. Instead of choosing the best part for Sudan, they chose the supporting part for themselves and left us sitting there twiddling our thumbs, not knowing what we can do.
AM: You hit on a really important point, which is something that unifies so many contexts within the Global South, which is this complete lack of internationalism, and the incredible need for internationalism.
I think what Sudan has taught us, and Syria as well, is that this myth of the “international community” is a myth. There’s a lot of talk, and even when there is aid, they talk to specific people but they ignore even more. They are either unable or unwilling to actually assist in progressing our revolutionary demands—which are not just idealistic but necessary for our survival.
When I think about what is missing and what is lacking, it’s not grounded in a real revolutionary internationalism. I have no idea how it forms, but I’ve definitely seen the ways that it doesn’t work, or that it’s lacking. Especially in the case of Syria, for example—which I do want to ask about in terms of Sudan. Syria over the last decade has gotten a lot of international attention, but in many ways that was really harmful. Because a lot of these people, who hypothetically could be international comrades, ended up being some of the most toxic and harmful.
I’m thinking about what are called “alt-imperialists” or “tankies,” people in the West who see Bashar al-Assad as an anti-imperialist figure, and there are all these ridiculous conspiracies and everything. It’s almost like a double-edged sword. I’ve noticed in Sudan, for example, that there isn’t that same international reach, and in some ways that’s good and in some ways that’s bad. I wanted to see if you had any thoughts or opinions on that.
DA: I think there’s conflict fatigue. It’s like donor fatigue. At the same time, I don’t think people know how to box Sudan. Are they an Arab country? Are they east African? What are they? Are they African, are they Christian, are they Muslim? People like to put things in certain boxes. Syria is this and Palestine is that. They don’t know where to put Sudan.
In a way, it’s like, Maybe if we ignore it for a while it will just go away. But to ignore it is to your own detriment, I think. And it’s one of the questions I’ve been asked when I’ve done job interviews: Why should we care about Sudan? Because what happens here doesn’t just affect me or my northern neighbors! It affects literally the whole region. The whole Sahel from the Atlantic coast to the Red Sea is just one long line of coups, and all these different hands and tentacles of outside players having a say in what’s happening.
It’s the same thing in Syria. There was a lot of discourse—I was following the Syria case because I went to Syria a year before the war broke out. It broke my heart to see what was happening. But it was amazing how the narrative was switched and played to suit certain actors—it played into their hands. Even the White Helmets were so bad-mouthed, so politicized, that you couldn’t even mention their name without being attacked. We had people disputing the fact that chemical weapons were being used in Syria. People actually went and said, No, this is not happening, and would make you out to be a liar if you said so.
A change of narrative hasn’t happened to Sudan internationally because we’re doing it ourselves as Sudanese. We really don’t need outside help! Just leave us to our own devices and we will mess it up whatever way we can!
But I honestly think it goes back to fatigue. Syria captivated attention for so long, but then something else came along, and that was Ukraine. We’re talking about blond, white, blue-eyed people “who look like you and me” and they were invaded by big, bad Russia. So that’s completely taken over the entire political arena. One simple example is how many aid donations were given to Ukraine and how much is being given to Sudan, for example. Look at how Western governments treated Ukrainians who left and fled Ukraine for safety, and how Sudanese, Ethiopians, and Syrians are treated when they are attempting to flee for their own safety. We might not have an outside country invading, that’s true—but still, it’s war, it’s conflict. You seek safety.
So it’s a lot of factors coming into play. It’s funny how Bashar [al-Assad] went from being a horrible dictator to being welcomed back with open arms by the Arab League, and by other regional actors. It’s like nothing ever happened. These past ten years do not count. People have selective amnesia. They only remember what they want to remember, and forget what they want to forget. It’s disgusting, actually, how he’s been embraced and welcomed back, and Syrians are still—the war hasn’t stopped; the destruction hasn’t stopped, and Syrians are still refugees, millions of them outside their own country. They still can’t go home.
It’s a sad state of affairs, but this is the reality we’re all living in right now. I don’t say no to any media requests, because as a Sudanese, no one is going to speak for us. We have to speak for ourselves. We can count how many Western Sudanese “experts” there are on one hand. So we have to do it ourselves; we have to gain back control of our own narrative, make sure that our story is being told, that we have a say in what’s being put out there and being reported, and make sure that attention doesn’t move away. It has moved away from Sudan, but whatever little snippet we can get, I personally think we should take it and run with it. Because we have no other choice.
RM: Thank you, Dallia. Going back to the term you used, Ayman—alt-imperialism? The truth is, it does exist in Sudan, it’s just the terms are a bit different. It’s tailored to context. Think of someone like [Abdalla] Hamdok, for example: he was the head of the transitional government; he was vetted not just by members of the international community but also members of high-standing governments with a lot of weight. Until the end and even now, he remains the darling of the international community, the West. No one can say anything about him, they can’t fault him.
Consider what Hamdok represents: a kind of order that befits the West’s understanding of what lacks in the Global South and particularly the African continent. He has come to bring order, to dispel disorder, to “reform” the state, remove politics and patrimonialism from it. He came to “fix” the civil service; he came to fix the economy. He came to sign peace deals. Obviously, at the helm of all these ideas around what ailed Sudan was the need to shore up a faltering economy.
This is the logic of neo-colonialism, which is an economic logic. It’s a logic of state functionalism, just tailored to the particularities of Sudan. The same ideas, the same reactionarism they use in other places like Syria, does exist in Sudan. But in the case of Sudan, it was designed or communicated in the language of professionalism.
There’s an idea among the international community that maybe Sudan’s failure to shore itself up is a product of its own internal ailments. This builds on a long and problematic history of masked-up racism that is in-built into longstanding colonial relations, a history that continues to reproduce itself. The West presents the African continent with a formula of how it’s meant to develop and become “civilized,” and if it doesn’t meet these standards, then it’s “just the way we are”—even if, tried and tested, it doesn’t work.
This leads on to the other point I was going to talk about, which is the external interventions, not just of government institutions but of individuals, in the name of expertise—the crisis of the expert. This has been going on with Sudan not just since the war started, but since the revolution started. Sudan was the latest kid on the block, some refreshing news—and suddenly we had this barrage of experts who could all comment on the state of Sudan and the status of their revolution and what the people want and don’t want and how it should and shouldn’t be. It’s a money-making scheme.
Some of it, yes, is controlled by the institutional standards of “good and rigorous” academic analysis. Some, equally published still, is quite atrocious. And the ethnic narrative is quite strong throughout. These problematic accounts and analyses remain dominant. They come from the outside, they are catering to an international readership, and have nothing to do with the Sudanese people.
That’s why I say kudos, Dallia. When Sudanese people are asked to make a media presence, they should always jump at the opportunity. Because one of Sudan’s many problems is that historically we’ve always had people speaking for us.
AM: Thank you so much. We have to wrap up, but that’s a really great note to end on. Thank you both so much for being here today and sharing your analyses, ideas, and thoughts. There’s one thing that I’m very sorry I forgot to mention: at the end of every episode of The Fire These Times we ask guests for recommendations of books, viewings, anything.
This is going back to what you said earlier, Raga, about the fact that there aren’t that many texts—when I was doing my research, there aren’t that many books on Sudan. One of the best ones was one that you edited, Sudan’s Unfinished Democracy. On that point, if each one of you could suggest any readings or podcasts or films, now is the time.
RM: Okay. Because we are at a moment of ideological crisis, I am directing this at young activists and revolutionary people who are members of the left everywhere, and especially members of the RCs. Go back and read materials that were written about Sudan in the fifties and the sixties. Because back then, the framework and methodology of analysis was historical materialism, it wasn’t the liberal description of political science that we see today.
Particularly, there’s one book called Economy and Class in Sudan by [Jay] O’Brien. It’s an ample text, a bit old—it might be out of print, but it could be sourced. The reason I love this book is because it tells the Sudanese middle class how they are involved firsthand in shoring up the problematic behavior of the Sudanese state through its economic, social, and political policies. It looks at the history of the merchant class, which is my class and your class, Dallia, and how they have historically formed alliance with the army to create the Sudanese state, and continue to push policies that benefit their particular class over everyone else.
DA: I would tell anyone, go listen to Sudanese music, whether it’s old/classic or new/modern. It’s the music of the streets. There are so many new rappers coming up, new singers and artists. The cultural aspect of Sudan is really what’s telling our story. It’s coming directly from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. There are loads of Sudanese documentaries out, loads of films made by Sudanese and with Sudanese. And the music scene is amazing. I learn a lot about the youth culture by listening to this music, even though it’s not my favorite genre.
I can send you a list of artists and documentaries. Talking About Trees and Beats of the Antanov are really good films and documentaries to see. There’s also Goodbye Julia, which has just been put forward for an Oscar. And You Will Die at Twenty. So many films that talk about the culture, politics, economy, and history of Sudan and who we are as Sudanese.
It’s very unique to us, our music sounds and our films and our dialects. That’s my recommendation—keep away from the books! Stick to the music! Blast it on, dance your ass off, and learn something. That’s what I’m doing. I’m missing home so much, I’m just listening to Sudanese music day in and day out. My mother plays the nationalistic songs of Mohammed Wardi and all those people, and I play the youth, the Sudanese who are living abroad. That’s the best thing people can do.
AM: Great! Thank you both so much for being here today.
DA/RM: Thank you for having us, Ayman.
Leave a Reply to Sudan, With Millions At Risk: Music And Listening After One Year Of War – Scandalous BeatsCancel reply