While most of the world focused on the atrocities happening in Gaza, despite the Sudan conflict predating it, I watched young Sudanese social media influencers struggle to gain their footing over the years. Most Americans had never even heard of Sudan unlike Palestine, which is understood to hold religious significance to even the most ignorant Americans. Israel is clearly the villain in Gaza and their crippling grip on U.S. politicians, media, business people, and intelligence agencies has been exposed. Unfortunately, the villains in the Sudan crisis were largely nameless and faceless until recently and it suffered the stigma of being “just another African conflict” that average Americans are helpless to solve.

Occasionally, misguided African American social media influencers would mention the Sudan (often in the same breath as the Congo) in a lame attempt to appear pro-black. While they rightly highlighted the racial dynamics with regards to international solidarity, they also effectively discouraged people from taking action on either of these causes, which I suspect is their mission.

I am a rare breed of African American Muslims who has lived in the Sudan for an extended period of time. Therefore, the Sudan crisis has been personal for me. I lived, learned, loved, and lamented in the Sudan for three years. Since, I published my memoirs from my sojourn, Thoughts From Sudan: An American Muslim Experience in 2022, I found it difficult to return to the words in my book. The years I spent in the Sudan from 2008 to 2011 seems so far removed from the current news I’ve been hearing about the Sudan, it might as well be Mars. But it’s not. And a friend of mine who has been trapped in Khartoum throughout the conflict has constantly reminded me that it’s the same Sudan. The problems I observed and wrote about in my memoirs are exactly the same problems we are seeing manifest on our social media feeds but the conflict is not as simple as we might think.

As someone raised in the ways of Black political consciousness, Afrocentrism, and African American Islam, I was able to make some pertinent observations in my book. And as someone who had acquired a level of proficiency in Arabic, I was able to interpret and articulate aspects of Sudanese culture and society in a way that is digestible to Black American audiences. I say this not to make some grandiose claim to authority, but to distinguish myself from the myriad of chatter from misinformed African Americans who have spoken publicly about the crisis in the Sudan. In this post and its follow-up, I will address some of the misinformation regarding Sudan emanating from the Black American community.

The Pro-Black Deception

When the Umar Johnson types make benign statements like “why doesn’t anyone talk about Sudan?” rarely is it followed up with a proper background and analysis of the situation. They are content to mic drop and high five each other for championing some sort of redneck-in-black-face sentiment, while leaving their ignorant followers in the dark about what is actually happening in the Sudan and Congo. Such disingenuous mumbo jumbo should not be taken seriously. They offer no information and no solutions; not even the innocuous “thoughts and prayers.” Additionally, some ill-informed Afrocentric historians, whose latest update on Sudan pertains to events that happened a thousand years ago, have popped up on the web to appear relevant and promote their inaccurate views of history. It is better for such people to remain silent, because their reactionary diatribes are counterproductive.

Until now, I have deferred to the international Sudanese diaspora to educate the public and advocate for their own solutions in public. The most notable analysis on the Sudan has come from journalist Ahmad Kaballo of the pan-African media organization Africa Stream, now “de-platformed.” I would also recommend the work of UK-based journalist Nesrine Malik. The strategy of most Sudanese youth in the West has been to target the government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for their support of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) who have been responsible for the genocidal killings in Darfur and Kordofan that we have been witnessing lately.

The RSF, who were better known as the Janjaweed (Horseback Jinns) in the early 2000s, were also the so-called Arab militia the deposed president Omar Bashir used to subdue dissent in the Dar Fur region. The Arab identity of some RSF members has caused some race-conscious African Americans to conclude that the conflict is a concerted Arab genocide against Africans in the Sudan. They often conflate the Dar Fur conflict with the north’s dissension with South Sudan but interestingly they had nothing to say when South Sudan was suffering from its own civil war following their succession. In both situations, the main issue was not Arab vs. African or Muslim vs. non-Muslim and seeing it this way only obscures the real problems. In fact, the RSF brands themselves as being anti-Islamist, accusing the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) as being led by the Muslim Brotherhood. I caution African Americans from approaching issues in Sudan and elsewhere through an Americanized lens that sees race as the only motivating factor in conflict between people, especially when they do not know what they are talking about.

Race & Ethnicity in Sudan

Sudan is an African country populated by African people. However, like many places in Africa, it is made up of a diverse conglomerate of people who, prior to European colonialism, never saw themselves as one people. They spoke different languages and had different ancestral lineages. They did not always get along with each other but there was some coexistence in the absence of firearms. There were many kingdoms and civilizations that persisted for hundreds of years, even beyond the well-known ancient civilizations of Kush and Nubia.

African Americans are sensitive to words that signify racial division: African, Arab, slavery, invasion, etc. However, understanding them only according to American and European sensibilities will not yield an accurate understanding of Sudanese ethnic conflicts. It was Africans’ contact with Europeans that made them one nation-state and one continent. In order for us to truly understand Africa, the African people, and their current events, we must understand them as they are and not as we imagine them to be.

Many associate north Sudan with Arabs, but the country covers a wide swathe of land consisting of many different ethnic groups. Sudan consists of the Red Sea Hills in the east, the Nile Valley, and the highlands in the west, which include the Nuba mountains and Dar Fur. The east consists of non-Arab Hamitic people like the Beja. The Nile Valley consists of the various Nubian tribes some of whom are the main propagators of Arabization in Sudan. In the west are Fur people and the other Nuba (who are considered African and distantly related to the Nubians of the Nile Valley). The Fur people are more closely related to the people of Chad and West Africa, but some consider themselves Arab. There are also states like Maiurno and Sennār that have significant Hausa and Fulbe speaking populations and Gaḍārif, and Kasala with large Tigray and Tigrinya speaking populations. Almost all of them are Muslims.

All Sudanese are Africans, but some of them also identify as Arabs. Arab identity is contested and debated among the Sudanese themselves. Arabness is defined as speaking Arabic as one’s first language and the absence of a raṭānah (an epithet for local African languages). There are real and imagined Arab identities in the Sudan. Some like the Rashāyidah only migrated within the borders of Sudan in the 19th century, while others like the Juhaynah and the Rufāʿah started to migrate there as early as the 15th century. While these groups are by necessity minorities in the Sudan, we can say that the primary ethnic group in North Sudan is Nubian. Among them there are families and sub-clans who intermarried with Arabs. Most Arabized Nubians trace their Arab ancestry to Ibrāhīm Jaʿal, who is said to be a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad’s uncle al-ʿAbbās. (Holt, 2011, p. 4) Hence, the name of one of the most powerful ethnic groups in the Sudan, the Jaʿalīyyah, to which former president Omar Bashir belongs.

While slavery had been practiced by the indigenous African populations in the Sudan, which included the Nubians the descendants of Kush, the Ottoman Turks (Central Asians/East Europeans) sought to acquire enslaved people for their armies under Muhammad ʿAli Pasha as his previous Albanian (Eastern European) servicemen were insubordinate. Since the Turks ruled Egypt, and the British eventually ruled the Turks, they sought incursions into current-day Sudan for economic and political reasons. The Sudanese saw all European-looking people as Turks (Khawājah), whether they were British or Albanian.(Holt, 2011, pp. 35-37)

Under the British-run Anglo-Egyptian Condominium (1899–1955), the English sought to exacerbate the tensions between the north and south by allowing missionaries to spread Christianity in the south in a way that fomented hatred against Muslims and Arabs.(Mahdi, 1965, p. 150) In the meanwhile, the north formed its own prejudices against the South. In post-independent Sudan, doctrines of Islamism, Arabism, and anti-African sentiment began to spread in the north culminating with Omar Bashir and the Muslim Brotherhood taking power in a 1989 coup. Contrary to popular belief, Jaʿfar Nimeiri, an initially socialist and Pan-Arab leaning president, imposed so-called “sharīʿah law” on all Sudanese in 1983, north and south, six years before Bashir took power.(Holt, 2011, p. 134)

Conclusion

In summary, the current conflict in Sudan is not Arab vs. African or Muslim vs. non-Muslim. Furthermore, we should not reduce Sudanese ethnicity to a simple Arab vs. African dichotomy. This erases the Sudanese people’s agency in defining themselves, which will not match pervading American concepts of race, which most Americans find difficult to let go. We as conscious Black Americans should avoid projecting our racial constructs onto other societies. The situation in Sudan is bad enough without mucking it up with lies and personal agendas.

I do not deny that the fighting and killing happening in the Sudan is a political conflict with ethnic components. Yet, if we only look at the ethnic components, we will not see the problem in its entirety. And if we only look at the political aspects, we will not fully see the real problems. We must look at the full picture of what is happening in Africa and the world to reach viable solutions. In my next post, I will discuss Sudanese politics, the African gold rush, and the complex web of actors fueling this conflict.

References

Holt, P. M. (2011). A History of the Sudan: From the Coming of Islam to the Present Day (6th ed.). Routledge Taylor & Francis Group.

Mahdi, M. E. (1965). A short history of the Sudan. Oxford University Press.