The Decline and Fall of Sudan
January 4, 2025 5:06 PM Subscribe
The Story of Sudan. In the 1950s, Sudan was ranked 4th in Africa in GDP per capita. As of 2024, Sudan has the largest population of internal refugees, the highest number of people facing famine and it is the country which has the most mass death in the modern day. In four posts (links in the FPP), learn about the history of Sudan from pre-colonial times to the modern day. Learn how it has led to the current crisis.
"The story of Sudan is long and vast. The Kerma Kingdom, the oldest known centralized civilization in Sub-Saharan Africa, predates Damot in Ethiopia/Eritrea or Wagadou-Ghana in modern day Mali/Mauritania. Sudan's history includes being a slave reservoir, a conqueror, an enemy, an extension, and a trading partner of Egypt. Like Egypt, Sudan once had pyramids and was predominantly Christian until Islam spread in the 6th century AD. Through trade, slavery, and migration, Sudan gradually became Arabized & Islamized.
Before the Ottoman Turco-Egyptian conquest, Sudan was multiple states like Funj, Darfur, and various southern tribes. African Arabs enslaved non-Arab Africans in the west and south, and later, the British took over from Turkish-Egyptian colonialism and exacerbated divisions between Afro-Arab Sudan and non-Arab Afro-Sudan. After independence, Northern Afro-Arabs committed mass atrocities against non-Arabs in the south and west (Darfur) until the 2010s. Now, internal conflicts among Northern Arabs persist."
"The story of Sudan is long and vast. The Kerma Kingdom, the oldest known centralized civilization in Sub-Saharan Africa, predates Damot in Ethiopia/Eritrea or Wagadou-Ghana in modern day Mali/Mauritania. Sudan's history includes being a slave reservoir, a conqueror, an enemy, an extension, and a trading partner of Egypt. Like Egypt, Sudan once had pyramids and was predominantly Christian until Islam spread in the 6th century AD. Through trade, slavery, and migration, Sudan gradually became Arabized & Islamized.
Before the Ottoman Turco-Egyptian conquest, Sudan was multiple states like Funj, Darfur, and various southern tribes. African Arabs enslaved non-Arab Africans in the west and south, and later, the British took over from Turkish-Egyptian colonialism and exacerbated divisions between Afro-Arab Sudan and non-Arab Afro-Sudan. After independence, Northern Afro-Arabs committed mass atrocities against non-Arabs in the south and west (Darfur) until the 2010s. Now, internal conflicts among Northern Arabs persist."
I spent several weeks in Sudan around 1990 or 91 -- driving in a truck from Wadi Halfa, through Khartoum and Nyala, to the Central African Republic. I remember beautiful sights, like the pyramids at Meroe and the general loveliness of the Nubian Desert. But what I remember most of all is just how insanely friendly everyone was. These were terrible times in some parts of the country, I don't want to minimize that, but everywhere we stopped, folks wanted to say hi or shake hands. When I got lost in Khartoum once, I asked some people on the street and they stopped what they were doing to take me to the correct bus stop, and then addressed the bus driver when he arrived, asking him to look after us and tell us where to get off. Every day was like that.
At one point we were camped in the middle of nowhere and some kids wandered over to say hi. But of course we had no shared language, so via a series of improvised hand signals and starts and stops, I was able to communicate that I'd sing a song and they should sing one back to me. I went with easy ones like the ABCs and Happy Birthday, and then I'd gesture to them and they'd sing me something. One song clearly had a structure akin to the 12 Days of Christmas - a short list that got longer with each verse. There were smiles all around.
Anyway, all I want to say is this is a human place, full of people just like us. Mostly good, mostly just wanting to get along, mostly just wanting to live in peace.
posted by BlahLaLa at 6:44 PM on January 4 [59 favorites]
At one point we were camped in the middle of nowhere and some kids wandered over to say hi. But of course we had no shared language, so via a series of improvised hand signals and starts and stops, I was able to communicate that I'd sing a song and they should sing one back to me. I went with easy ones like the ABCs and Happy Birthday, and then I'd gesture to them and they'd sing me something. One song clearly had a structure akin to the 12 Days of Christmas - a short list that got longer with each verse. There were smiles all around.
Anyway, all I want to say is this is a human place, full of people just like us. Mostly good, mostly just wanting to get along, mostly just wanting to live in peace.
posted by BlahLaLa at 6:44 PM on January 4 [59 favorites]
Thank you for highlighting an author from the African diaspora here.
The current deadly conflict is exacerbated by interference from imperialists like the rulers of the UAE, who sadly seek to profit at the expense of their Black Muslim brethren.
Consider donating to grassroots mutual-aid organizations among the Sudanese diaspora, like Sudan Solidarity Collective at the University of Toronto. In their own words, they "seek to resource grassroots civil society formations at the frontlines of relief efforts in those parts of Sudan that have been hardest hit by militarised state violence. Comprised of a group of Sudanese undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, and community members, the collective also aims to develop spaces for the Sudanese community at UofT and beyond, to come together in solidarity to facilitate avenues for collaboration around political education, advocacy, collective healing, mutual aid and community-building."
Most recently, the SSC has posted to X about their support for Gezira + Managil Farmers Alliance's We Must Plant Campaign, which apparently grows food in areas that are relatively "safe". Your donations go to helping provide seeds, inputs and cleaning irrigation canals.
posted by rabia.elizabeth at 11:57 PM on January 4 [11 favorites]
The current deadly conflict is exacerbated by interference from imperialists like the rulers of the UAE, who sadly seek to profit at the expense of their Black Muslim brethren.
Consider donating to grassroots mutual-aid organizations among the Sudanese diaspora, like Sudan Solidarity Collective at the University of Toronto. In their own words, they "seek to resource grassroots civil society formations at the frontlines of relief efforts in those parts of Sudan that have been hardest hit by militarised state violence. Comprised of a group of Sudanese undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, and community members, the collective also aims to develop spaces for the Sudanese community at UofT and beyond, to come together in solidarity to facilitate avenues for collaboration around political education, advocacy, collective healing, mutual aid and community-building."
Most recently, the SSC has posted to X about their support for Gezira + Managil Farmers Alliance's We Must Plant Campaign, which apparently grows food in areas that are relatively "safe". Your donations go to helping provide seeds, inputs and cleaning irrigation canals.
posted by rabia.elizabeth at 11:57 PM on January 4 [11 favorites]
BlahLaLa ❤️ and that checks out with how Sudanese people have helped each other.
TNH: In Sudan, host families take the strain of the world’s largest displacement crisis
‘We shared everything, and we became like one family.’
TNH: In Sudan, host families take the strain of the world’s largest displacement crisis
‘We shared everything, and we became like one family.’
With only two bedrooms, a hallway, and a single bathroom, 47-year-old Karar’s humble home in the town of Gedaref, in southeastern Sudan, can be crowded at the best of times.posted by away for regrooving at 12:45 AM on January 5 [6 favorites]
Yet limited space hasn’t stopped Karar from opening his door to 40 people across six families, all driven from their homes by the still-expanding war that has gutted Sudan’s cities and produced the world’s largest displacement and hunger crises.
“We feel that any person in Sudan can go through this humiliation, so solidarity is our duty in order to relieve each other,” Karar told The New Humanitarian, asking for only his first name to be used. “I continue to host, and I cannot abandon them.”
...
Sudanese communities have shouldered the burden of the humanitarian response over the past year, forming mutual aid groups that draw from a rich heritage of social solidarity, best represented in the local tradition of nafeer (“a call to mobilise”).
Grassroots groups have set up community kitchens, alternative education programmes, and women’s cooperatives that are serving millions of people in conflict-affected areas that international aid agencies have failed to consistently access.
Mod note: [We've added BlahLaLa's comment and this post to the sidebar and Best Of blog. Thank you for sharing.]
posted by taz (staff) at 2:26 AM on January 5 [5 favorites]
posted by taz (staff) at 2:26 AM on January 5 [5 favorites]
I started Grad School in Boston in 1979. My boss had spent the last several years doing field work in the Near/Middle East - Greece, Turkey, the Shah's Iran, Tunisia, Egypt and Sudan. He was still talking about what a great time he'd had in Khartoum, where he'd been gathering data with an Israeli colleague, several years later. They were both offered faculty positions in one of the local Universities, I'm not sure how quixotically. But I guess I'm glad The Gaffer didn't take them up on it, because two roads diverged in a yellow wood . Whatevs, it's not about me, just adding another [proxy] time-point for before Sudan became soooo troubled.
posted by BobTheScientist at 12:32 PM on January 5
posted by BobTheScientist at 12:32 PM on January 5
That's a long and depressing read with an almost perfectly awful confluence of internal and external factors to impoverish the region, strip it of resources (including people), and then use it as one of the many proxy battlefields for the last 70 years. It's clear that the Sudanese state made many poor decisions, but all them were exacerbated by external regional and global forces looking to take advantage of a divided state.
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:17 PM on January 5
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:17 PM on January 5
How did we get this far in without mentioning climate change?
The latest report from the UN Convention to Combat Desertification states "Among world nations, South Sudan and Tanzania have seen the largest portion of their land transformed to drylands from nondrylands".
Unstable climates lead to unstable countries. This is only going to get worse and ignoring climate change as a driver of instability isn't going to help.
posted by happyinmotion at 11:54 PM on January 5 [1 favorite]
The latest report from the UN Convention to Combat Desertification states "Among world nations, South Sudan and Tanzania have seen the largest portion of their land transformed to drylands from nondrylands".
Unstable climates lead to unstable countries. This is only going to get worse and ignoring climate change as a driver of instability isn't going to help.
posted by happyinmotion at 11:54 PM on January 5 [1 favorite]
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I guess it's expected that we pay less attention to issues across the globe when they aren't geopolitically important. But it's no less sad and I can't imagine what any given Sudanese citizen goes through.
posted by LSK at 6:26 PM on January 4