Sudan
Sudan, South Sudan and history of Nations
Written, researched and edited by Aan, a special Ignoring Occupation analysis
Author's Note: What's in a name? The origins of countries names are worth a look. How the Republic of Sudan (we'll leave South Sudan out for now) ended up with its current name instead of its ancient name Nubia is fascinating. Keep in mind that the name Sudan actually refers to both the country and a specific region in West Africa. Historically, Sudan was the name of West Africa's Sahel region stretching from Senegal to Chad. (Conrad, p.63) When medieval travelers and diplomats such as Ibn Battuta, Ibn Khaldun, visited the medieval Mali Empire and its cities Timbuktu and Goa, Songhai Empire, Ghanaian Empire, Northern Nigeria particularly Kano and parts of Chad, they referred to the various West African empires and regions as Bilad al Sudan or Bilad as Sudan meaning Land of the Blacks. (Conrad, p.9) The term was referring to the people of West Africa. In the 19th century, the term extended to South Sudan and neighboring East African regions outside the Nile Valley region Egypt and Sudan. Originally, Sudan was known as Nubia, later Kush and various local kingdom names by ancient and later medieval historians and travelers in Arabic, Greek, Persian and Latin. Depending on various diplomatic correspondence, Nubia was replaced by names for the local Sudanese kingdoms and states. Bilad as Sudan until the 19th century referred to West African Sahel region not to the modern-day Republic of the Sudan. And to added to further confusion, when French colonial administration ruled over West Africa, they referred to French speaking West Africa as "French Soudan," excluding the Republic of Sudan in North Africa. An equally curious aspect is that West African cultures and histories were referred to as Sudanic. The name Sudan or Western Sudan for West Africa long used as an academic and historical term stuck with the region well into the mid-20th century. It was the Ottoman administration ruling Nubia in 1820s who first used term Sudan outside of French West Africa for the country of Sudan. (Fay, p.180) The British kept the name Sudan for the North African country when the Anglo Egyptian Sudan condominium was created. The public has often conflated both Sudan and Western Sudan or West African Sahel as one continuous region when the Sahel and Sudan are two entirely separate areas. Today, the name Sudan refers to the Republic of the Sudan and the ancient region of West Sudan (West Africa) is confined to history and academic circles. The distinction still remains today. Enjoy the read.
Once one of the largest Arab and African countries, Sudan is a North African country with multiethnic, cultural and languages diversity similar to Morocco and Mauritania. The Sudanese are known for their hospitality, unique cuisine, centuries old culture and ancient history and being the country where the white and Blue Nile converge at the Sudanese capital Khartoum before coalescing into one and continuing its general upward to Egypt.
Sudan is one of the first cradle of civilizations. Home to prehistoric/Paleolethic Khormusan known for their tool making, Halfan, Sebilian and Qadan cultures and societies beginning in 42,000 BC making it one of the oldest countries in the world. Sudan is also historically important for being the home of several ancient kingdoms i.e., Nubia, Meroe, Kerma, Naqa, Napata, Nabta Playa, Ancient Nubia being the ancestor of Ancient Egypt or Kemet and the Nile Valley civilizations. First ruled by the Nubians, Kushites then the Ancient Egyptians who are cousins of the Sudanese, later the Medieval Christian states of Makuria and Alodia or Alwa, Funj Sultanate based in Sennar. Ancient Nubia covering most of present-day Sudan excluding South Sudan, has interacted with its surrounding neighbors Libya, Ancient Ethiopia is not the same as Modern day Ethiopia, Punt (Somalia) and countries on both sides of the Red Sea for centuries.
Among the most well known ancient Nubian rulers are Taharqa and his father Piye, Shebitqo or Shebiktu, Shabaka known for expanding Nubian rule from Aswan all the way up to Memphis and Palestine and Syria and Tantamani, the last ruler of the 25th dynasty. Kashta the father of Piye, Queen Tiye, Akhenaten's mother and King Tutankuman's grandmother and Queen Amanirenas known as the one eyed Kandaka for fighting against Roman incursion into Nubia and halting Roman troops under Augustus Ceasar from conquering Nubia.
In ancient times, southern regions outside of Ancient Nubia were simply referred to as Ethiopian or "Aethiopia", an ancient Greek term for Africans meaning burnt faces. It also extended to non African, dark skinned peoples in other regions. Aethiopian/Ethiopian was not referring to modern day Ethiopia which was known as Abyssinia for most of history until 1970s, but to North Africa (Ancient Libya), Ancient Egypt and Nubia (Sudan), Yemen, Arabia and ancient India. These regions were what the Greeks knew as the known world featured in Ancient Greek and Roman maps and works of Herodotus, Heliodorus Emesenus, Strabo and Pliny the Elder. Outside the Mediterrenean world, Ancient Persians and Syrians also knew Ancient Sudan as Kush, Nubia or Ethiopia borrowing the term from the Greeks. During the 25th dynasty, the Nubian and Kushite kingdoms' diplomatic and trade relations and rule extended to Achaemenid Empire in Mesopotamia, Palestine and Syria connecting Aswan and Memphis in far North Egypt.
The arrival of Islam in Sudan in the 650s gradually changed Sudan from an indigenous Christian nation into a Muslim majority country. Nubian Christianity followed the teachings of the early Christian church in North Africa orthodox Christianity or Coptic Christianity (differing significantly from Byzantine and later Greek Orthodox) which still exists in Sudan in small numbers today. The larger Coptic Christian population in Egypt and Ethiopian Orthodox church. Nubia was also one of the oldest Christian countries in the world having become Christian in the 5th century. Given the questionable role of Christian missionaries in evangelizing in African countries since Europe's rise a world power in the 16th century, historians, researchers and theology students tend to overlook the fact that Christianity is both a Middle Eastern religion not European and Christian teachings, ancient mission works, theology, philosophy and eschatology began in the Middle East than spread to North and East Africa where Africans played a role in shaping Christian history and thought.
There are several branches of Islam that have coexisted and vied for influences in Sudanese society. Most Sudanese Muslims follow the Sunnah or the teachings and traditions of Prophet Muhammad followed by some 80% of the world's Muslims. Sufism in Arabic Sufiyya or Tasawwuf is popular among ordinary Sudanese known for its zikrs (trance like whirling dance of divine ecstasy), performed by colorful dervishes and members of the Sufi brotherhoods and fellow co religious, somewhat liberal and tolerant teachings and metaphysical spiritual oneness with God has attracted many believers to its popular Qadiriyah, Khatmiyya, Mahdist, Tijaniyah, and Sammaniyah brotherhoods. Sufism is more well known in the West through poetry and teachings of Rumi. Sufis played a crucial role in the rise of the Mahdist state in Sudan. Geopolitically, Sudan has been able to remain independent of both Britain, the US and larger Western strangle hold alliances in the Middle East and Africa. For most of the Cold War, Sudan was part of the non-align movement and was able to balance its foreign policy and geopolitics between the West and Soviet Union. Since the 1990s, Sudan has been ensnared in the US full spectrum dominance policy and has managed to maintain and increase its relationship with China and Russia while shifting alliance and allegiance between the new power house Eastern countries and collapsing hegemonic power the US and its Western NATO allies. This tightrope independence has helped the Sudanese to adjust to the new multipolar world.
The Arab migrations in 14th century but possibly earlier into Sudan would have a large influence on the country that continues today. The Arabs were already trading with Nubia and local Sudanese kingdoms Alodia and Makuria and sultanates such as the Funj Sultanate. (, p43) Similar to Ancient Egypt, when Arabs arrived in Sudan, Ancient Nubia and Meroe had already collapsed and Meroitic language become extinct prior to the 5th century. The King of Axum's invasion of Meroe was nail in the coffin for the ancient empire and super power. Christian Nubia was able to slow the Arab settlement in Sudan for a time and the spread of Islam. The skirmishes and wars between the Nubians and Arabs led to the eventual peace treaty known as the Baqt Treaty which established diplomatic and commercial relations between Nubia and Arabs. (Breidlid, p 42-43) This was followed by the Ottoman Empire who ruled Sudan and Egypt as a single country beginning in the 1500s (Shillington, p452) to 19th Century (Fyle, p79) as part of the Egyptian eyalet than Khedive Egypt, Sudan was later colonized by the British. British rule in Sudan at the time united with Egypt as a singular country, was meant to keep European control of Suez Canal, strategic trade routes along the Nile all the way to its source in Uganda, Red Sea and Indian Ocean routes benefiting the British over their European cousins and connecting distant colonies in Yemen, India, Sudan and Egypt. Sudanese nationalism grew in the late 19th century before and after the 1881-1899 Mahdist War led by Mohammed Abdullah, a Sudanese religious leader who declared himself the Mahdi, an Islamic messiah who was said to return in the end times to usher in a world of justice and prosperity similar to Christian and Jewish eschatology on Christ or any other messiah claiming to be the Christ. The Mahdist war had formed out of Sudanese anger over heavy colonial taxation, the violent conquest by Anglo Egyptian rulers in this case the Ottoman and British rulers in Khartoum (p. 22, Searcy). It lasted for 19 years famed for several crucial battles, the Battle of Omdurman which the British colonial governor Charles Gordon was killed by Mahdist Army, Battle of Abu Klea, British troops attempted to march across the Bayuda Desert to link up with Gordon and his troops in Khartoum as reinforcement and the Battle of Karari. The Klea battle lasted two days leading to the death of 1100 Sudanese soldiers and only 76 British soldiers. The British defeated the Mahdist army in the Klea battle but would arrive too late as reinforcements for Gordon. The British governor was killed in Khartoum by the Mahdist forces who had taken over the capital while the Battle of Klea was ongoing. The reinforcements completed the trip to Khartoum and informed the British army and news of Gordon's death and Mahdist control of Khartoum reached bac to Britain to the shock of the British government and public. Future British Prime Minister Winston Churchill served as a war correspondent (in the modern sense) during the Mahdist war and witness to some of the Mahdist war. Although he never met the Mahdi or had the chance to interview him, his descriptions of battles and reflection on 19th century Sudanese society was published in his book "The River War a historical account of the Reconquest of Sudan." Following the Mahdist war, writers and historians began to refer to it as the first modern Jihadist war that Victorian Britain had to face. It wasn't referred to as a jihad or militant Islam (the world de jour) but fanaticism and religious fervor. The Mahdist war introduced the British public to Islamic revival which began peacefully, dedicated soldiers in the name of God and country and a society that looked to Islam for justice and liberation from a colonial power. The Victorian Britons didn't foresee that a century later, their descendants would still view Khartoum and Sudan along with Egypt as the homelands of Islamic fanaticism. Even in Victorian times, British writers’ sensationalist scenes from the Mahdist war and secondhand reports exaggerated the ferocity of the Mahdist troops. The British public were hoping that Charles Gordon would crush the Mahdist war and become the victor as a way to cement British rule in Sudan and demonstrate the strengthen of British Empire. The Mahdist war has since become a legend in its own right as the first grand fight between Islam and Christianity or the West vs the East. It's often invoked to explain current events in the Middle East and Africa especially when Islamic groups are concerned. It has some parallels with the 1979 Iranian revolution. See Ernest Vizetelly's illustrated book "Gordon and the Mahdi." As successful as the Mahdists were initially and ruling Khartoum with the British forces retreating from Khartoum, Britain returned in full force in 1899 and recaptured Khartoum and Sudan as a whole and would rule it until 1956.
Throughout British rule, the country's main North and South regions' ethnic, cultural and language differences were amplified and harden into rigid national identities. Sudan was and is influenced by Egypt being brotherly nations historically and culturally, Saudi region of Hijaz*, Copts and wider North African culture and languages. There are also Sudanese of Rizeigat, Misseriya, Rashaida, Turkish, Egyptian, Syrian, Yemeni descendant who are grouped into Sudanese Arabs. (Lobban, p.6) Non-Arab African ethnic groups living in the South central provinces of South Kordofan such as Nuba people not the same people as Nubians, Zaghawa, Massalit and Fur in Darfur, Western Sudan with their ethnic cousins in neighboring Chad who have also influenced Sudanese society. Each group have their own separate identities and origins especially along the border between Sudan and South Sudan. In the far Southeast are the Ingessana people and the Funj people (descendants of the medieval Funj Sultanate or Blue Sultanate in Sennar) in Blue Nile Province and the borderland peoples the Gumuz the majority who live in Ethiopia's Benishangul-Gumuz Region and the reminder in Sudan. The mentioned groups are also distinct from and unrelated to the Dinka and Nuer and other peoples from South Sudan despite having interacted with each other throughout history. Notwithstanding the calls for unity and brotherhood prior to South Sudan's 2011 independence (similar to how Yugoslavia kept itself united) , although they were countrymen for most of the 20th century and prior, Sudanese Arabs and Southerners or Junubiin in Arabic, are entirely different from each other. (Lobban, p324) It should be repeated that the Nuba people of South Kordofan including the Hill Nubians (a misnomer) are not related to the Nubian people of North Sudan and Southern Egypt. (Shinnie, p.1-2) See also (Sesana, p26) Nuba is the exonym and unofficial name for the fifty plus local African ethnic groups who each have their own native names for themselves and share cultural similarities with South Sudanese The confusion with the Nuba and Nubians stems from the similar sounding names but completely different ancestries, cultures and languages. (p.79, Nelson) The Nubians are descendants of Ancient Nubia, sometimes referred to as Upper Nubia (Sudan) and Lower Nubia (Egypt). (Rhodes, p34) The Nuba peoples emerged from the South Kordofan region in ancient times and might have traveled to and interacted with Ancient Nubia in Sudan's far North. (Lobban, p5) The Nuba in ancient times were simply referred to as "people from the South" of Nubia and Kush. (Lobban, pp.iii) Ancient historians were unaware that the Nuba and Nubians were and still are two unrelated peoples. The media image and general knowledge of Sudan (both African and Western) has long downplayed the real cultural and ethnic differences between the Arab and African Sudanese across the country, often lumping the diverse ethnicities and peoples together while simplifying Sudanese society and ongoing social problems and the previous conflicts for their audience (who often don't conduct research) at the expense of providing context or in-depth analysis. Even now, Sudanese and South Sudanese are still confused for being the same people (despite the glaring differences) and often times when Sudan is mentioned especially in the English-speaking world, it is often mistaken for South Sudan and Darfur is treated as its own defacto country. Due to African and Western interests in South Sudan, the world's newest country and Sudan especially the Sudanese regions of Darfur, Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile tend to take center stage. Since the public are familiar with the large South Sudanese diaspora in the United States, Australia, Canada, Uganda and Kenya are seen as the default representative of other Sudanese. Diaspora South Sudanese too remain outspoken on issues affecting them and are deeply concerned about their homeland. Ordinary Americans and Europeans continue to be fascinated by South Sudan's growth as a nation and its developments. British rulers of Sudan played on the differences against North and South Sudan throughout its colonial rule until the country gained independence in 1956. The 1947 Juba Conference was the first step in publicly calling for a unification of North and Southern Sudan fielded by a majority Northern Sudanese, British and few South Sudanese delegates. The South Sudanese delegates, local chiefs felt sleight throughout most of the proceedings. The chiefs were unable to comprehend English and semi-illiterate (p.43 Lokosang), their concerns over the rights of South Sudanese and representation were ignored by the British and Northern delegates. When the country became independent in 1956, the British pulled the two distinct North and South regions together to form the united nation of Sudan. It was a feat repeated in Yemen in 1990 when the regions of Northern Yemen and Southern Yemen emerged into one. The British had ruled both regions as separate territories and Nigeria (Northern and Southern Nigeria were separate entities prior to 1900). Sudan had gained its independence nearly nine months before the Suez Canal crisis in Egypt. Many people are still unaware that Sudan was a part of Egypt until 1956. The 2019 Sudanese Revolution that overthrew the former President/dictator Omar al Bashir who originally came to power in 1989 and ruled for the next 30 years. He is blamed for launching Sharia and strict Islamic government and censorship across Sudan and for enforcing but that policy predates him and goes back to Jaafar Nimeiry, the secular president who was attempting to appease the rising Islamic parties in parliament in 1970s. At the head of the Islamic movements and revival was Hassan al Turabi, the influential Islamic scholar and later politician who is regarded as father of the sharia in Sudanese politics and the inspiration behind Sudan's Islamic political system known as the Ingaz government under Bashir.
Until his death in 2016, Turabi was seen as the hidden hand of real government power throughout al Bashir's rule, under the National Islamic Front and the later Umma Party and even responsible for the 1989 Coup that overthrew Ahmed al Mirgani's government. Al Bashir reinforced the policy and took it a step further by launching aggressive wars and wars of attrition against regions the South Kordofan where the Nuba Mountains are located, Blue Nile state, Southern Sudan and the Beja regions of Eastern Sudan who have long supported SPLM North and Beja Revolutionary movements fighting against the government's marginalization, underdevelopment and resisting full cultural assimilation into a homogenized Arab nation and identity. Although 2020 Juba Peace Accords brought most of the splintered Darfur rebel groups fighting to an end, the conflicts in South Kordofan and Darfur have transformed into inter communal violence and displaced civilians are still living in IDP and refugee camps. Most of the refugee camps have since turned into towns. The Rapid Support forces continue to patrol Darfur regions and Nuba Mountains are both treated as military zones as the SPLM North still operates there at the expense of the local civilians.
See Historic background to Sudan's Civil War
A Revolution and war for Identity
South Sudan's connections and influences are tied to East Africa particularly Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and DR Congo, Central Africa. The country has relatively good relations with most of its neighbors. Exception being Sudan. The Dinka, Nuer, Shilluk, Mundari, Azande and some other 60 ethnic groups in South Sudan are made up of the Nilotic peoples and Bantu Central African and their respective cultures are distinct alongside with their world views. There is 30+ languages in South Sudan that are unintelligible with each other even in neighboring regions that have their own unique identities, mythologies, histories and culture. Among the history is the survival of the Shilluk kingdom which has been in existence since the 15th century, with its capital at Fashoda. In 1898 during the height of the Mahdist war, the little town of Fashoda was the scene of a geopolitical clash between France and England for the control of the Nile known as the Fashoda Incident or the Fashoda Crisis. Under the Closed District Ordinances Act (1914-1946), South Sudan was closed off to Northern Sudanese trade, businesses and intermingling between Arabs and Africans and spread of Islam within the then Southern Sudan region were discouraged by the British colonial authorities. The Southern Sudanese were also isolated from modern world and Southern society remained provincial in terms of technology, worldviews were limited to rural life and village instead of expanding to cosmopolitan views, Southerners lagged behind their Northern neighbors in civic involvement, political awareness and civil society groups.(Nyaba, Duplicitous Duality) The British and later post-independence Sudanese governments viewed and treated Southerners as village yokels regarding decision making and future developments. Being the lingua franca of the country, Sudanese Arabic was still used in Southern Sudan for instruction alongside the local languages of Dinka, Nuer, Shilluk, formed into a new Arabic dialect Juba Arabic, (a distinct, creole form of Sudanese Arabic mixed with Nuer, Dinka, Swahili and other languages) which is still used in South Sudan now as a lingua franca along with English. While British policy encouraged the promotion of local languages and English in the South, the physical isolation from Sudan who was more economically, infrastructural and political developed compared to the South, including the post-independence domination of the Khartoum Government and its Arabization and Islamization and forced assimilation into mainstream Sudanese society of Junubiin (Southerners), the long civil war and further destruction of South Sudan and its society, helped to fuel the Southern Sudanese's demands for self-determination after autonomy didn't suffice. It also created a strong anti-Islamic and anti-Arab sentiments among ordinary South Sudanese that continues to this day. (Idris, p27) The irony in this attitude is South Sudan is home to a small Muslim minority that has persisted throughout its history. Christianity is not only popular in South Sudan and a major religion of the country, it has also served as a form of resistance to Arabization and Islamization throughout South Sudanese struggle. And it became a marker of identity. The Sudanese Civil war is often portrayed as a biblical fight against Islamic enemies which made the struggle popular with humanitarian, liberation struggle and Christian groups particularly evangelicals in other African and Western countries among them South African soldier turned missionary Peter Hammond, John Azubillian. When South Sudan achieved independence, human rights groups, long serving missionaries and Christian rights advocates viewed it as divine victory that was ordained by biblical prophecy from the perspective of South Sudanese. Pan Africanists Molefi Asante, the late Bankie F. Bankie, Deng Ajak and Chinweizu have also lamented the lack of interest by ordinary Africans in South Sudan struggle and its destruction during the long war and deaths of innocent man, women and children. Their lament also grew into anger and orientalist sentiments towards Islam, Sudan as a whole and specifically Sudanese Arabs (even civilians) who they condemned as war criminals, sometimes collectively ethnic cleansers or "evil Arabs" of marginalized African Sudanese suffering and equally responsible for the actions of the Khartoum government. Keep in mind most of the critics had rarely or never traveled to Sudan or other North African and Arab countries. Abuse and violence against African migrants in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Arab attitudes toward blackness in a conceptual sense and Africans, few clashes between West African migrants in Libya under Gaddafi in the early 2000s are reiterated by African authors and analysts within academia, media and research. Reports of discrimination against African migrants (Sudanese, Ghanaian, Ethiopia) in Libya and Egypt. The continual flow of migrants from Eritrea, Ghana, Senegal (long touted as political and economically stable), Mali (another destabilized West African country since the Libyan war and Tuareg uprising in 2012) through North Africa to Europe or Middle East while facing violence by smugglers and traffickers and indifference from local police when reporting violence. and Nigeria and more countries with torture, brutal violence, extortion from migrants' families and kidnappings by Libyan police and militiamen. Libya itself remains destabilized since 2011 NATO bombing and overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi and US and European countries often overlook the abuse of migrants in Libya and Tunisia as long as the migrants don't reach European shores i.e., Sicily, Lampedusa an Italian island near Tunisia or Malta and Greece. And the same brutal violence is being used by Moroccan police against Sudanese refugees from Darfur and Nigerian, Ghanaian and Eritrean migrants trying to breach the border fence between Morocco and the Spanish autonomous cities enclaves of Melilla and Ceuta, two Spanish enclaves that are part of Morocco but was not relinquished when Spanish colonial rule ended in Northern Morocco during World War II. The current and ongoing disputes between African and Arab countries concerning access and sharing of the Nile between Sudan, Ethiopia and Egypt as Ethiopia continues to build the Grand Renaissance Dam, also amplify the fears both real and imagined of Arabs seeking to control not only the Nile access but maintaining control of African affairs both internally and externally. Writers such as Chinweizu repeats the latter fears in his articles on what he sees as Africa's ongoing decolonization from Arab influences.
Preserving an African identity was the rally cry of South Sudanese people and SPLM during their long struggle against the Sudanese government. John Garang often invoked the interconnectedness of identity and history in his numerous books and speeches to his men, international audiences and sympathizers to demonstrate South Sudanese were their own separate nation. South Sudanese authors and scholars continue to connect with audiences both publicly and online through news articles, books, social media posts, blogs and websites eager to hear their views, musings and ideas on South Sudanese society and history. Piecing together history for the young nation before the 19th century and colonialism, authors such as Francis Deng, Jok Madut Jok and others with more black conscious and Afrocentrist perspective have tried in vain to link the Dinka people and all South Sudanese to Ancient Kush and Nubia in Sudan or even Ancient Egypt. Other authors and bloggers have used biblical history with its references to Egypt/Kemet, Kush, Nubia and ancient Ethiopia are included in South Sudanese national history despite biblical inconsistencies. The authors highlight the similar sounding names i.e., Tut, Amun, cultural practices and art of the modern Dinka with the ancient Kushites and Egyptians. Authors also rely on Dinka oral history that suggests the Dinka came from a mythological land named Adekdit far north from South Sudan. Adekdit is describes as having a sea with no end and it’s unclear if this northern land is referring to Egypt and the Mediterranean. (Beswick, p.16) Dinka oral history also claim that some of the Dinka groups migrated into South Sudan from the Gezira region in Sudan in the 11th century to escape slave raids and following the collapse of the Alodia kingdom. Dinka scholars have relied on art and sole physical look of the people in the hieroglyphics Egyptian and Meroitic and artwork of the Kushite temples and some monuments to connect the Dinka to the ancient history of North Sudan. American Professor and historian Manu Ampim has reiterated the cultural connections and argues that the genesis of Ancient Kush could be found in the cultures of the Dinka, Shilluk and even the Gumuz peoples living in the borderlands of Ethiopia-Sudan. Imhotep Alkebulan builds on Ampim's southern cultural unity connection between Ancient Egypt/Nubia to other Africans both Bantu and non-Bantu peoples further South in Kenya and Tanzania, all the way to Khoisan people of South Africa. Nevermind how far apart the contrasting ethnic groups live and their unique varying cultures.
The professors, authors and researchers don't take into the account the vast geographical distances, the fact that ancient Nubian and Kushite kingdoms mostly extended from Aswan at the 1st cataract of the Nile up to 6th cataract in modern day Khartoum at the confluence of the White and Blue Niles, limited rapid transportation and they ignore that the Dinkas' neighboring cultural cousins the Nuba are likely the Southern peoples referenced on the walls and texts of the Kushites and Nubians. There is no mention in ancient sources of the Dinka, Shilluk or Nuer in Ancient Egypt and they played no role in Ancient Nubia or Kushite societies as they lived outside of the realms hundreds of miles to the South in modern day South Sudan which had its own local, ancient kingdoms and confederations. Ancestors of the Dinka and Shilluk are said to have migrated from the east and further South. The ancient Dinka and Nuer would've traded with their immediate neighbors possibly the Nuba in Central Sudan and the neighbors would've acted as middlemen for the Dinka in the far North. South Sudanese authors and Dinka scholars are following the footsteps of previous African, African American and Caribbean historians and scholars Chiek Anta Diop, Theophile Obenga, Ali Mazrui, Runoko Rashidi, Ama Mazama, Drusilla Dunjee Houston, Molefi Asante, etc. who decades ago corrected the European view of ancient African history being attributed to foreigners instead of local people. While searching for South Sudan's own ancient history in hopes of connecting it with the ancient Nile Valley civilizations further North, the South Sudanese and Dinka scholars latch onto what Professor Danjuma Bihari calls Romantica Gloriana, the romanticized glorious past of Ancient Nubia, Kush and Egypt which was not part of South Sudanese history.(Muhammad, p.16) Scholars and authors emphasis on history and identity is a method for unifying all South Sudanese by remembering ancestral accomplishments (beyond empire building) and moving forward in confidence in developing the country.(Deng, p75) African identity and Pan African consciousness continues to be common responses by South Sudanese and their Ethiopian and Kenyan neighbors in discussions and issues on North Africa, the relationship between Islam and Christianity in society and African countries relationships and trade with the Middle East and the wider world. South Sudanese and Nuba authors, activists and advocates prior to S. Sudan independence often reiterated Sudan's Africaness while dissociating the country from North Africa and downplaying its Arab identity when discussing Sudanese identity, culture and history especially Ancient Kush and Ancient Nubia.(Amoah, p.336) This Pan African appeal beginning in the 1990s, gradually transformed the Sudanese Civil War from an internal, local issue into a continental concern carried as cause célèbre by African rights groups, activists, and concerned citizens from the Diaspora.(Phares, 261) When South Sudan became independent, its long time supporters, immediate neighbors and most African countries viewed it as South Sudanese having agency in determining their future and realizing Pan Africanist dream of preserving their African identity and society from Arab domination. (p.132-133, Brown) Sudan, Egypt and other Arab countries saw the partition as a great loss for unity and national reconciliation between North and South. South Sudanese supporters assumed independence would be the panacea for the new nation's unresolved social issues, post war society and ethnic cleavages as it foraged a new identity separate from Sudan. (Wambugu, pp.33-35) As of late, preserving African identity has taken on an ethnocentric meaning in South Sudan, among African geopolitical analysts and researchers in relations to Sudan and the wider world.(Amaoh, p. 336) The history of racism and exploiting African resources and the people for the benefit and development of Britain, France, United States et al alongside the fear of globalization drowning out unique cultures and doing away with modern nation states through hyperculture and the push for continental unity and hope of African nations (North and East Africa lead in economic growth) developing to the level of China or West drives the insistence on a puritanical African identity see below.(Paolini, p.6-7) Raising nationalism and the growing anti globalization movement worldwide and Western military interventions to fight "terrorism" in Ethiopia, Mali and Somalia among other countries has also revived the Garveyite view of African identities and an ethnonationalist Pan Africanism to become a popular call by the tech savvy Pan Africanists, content creators, conscious community, Afrocentrists and African/black nationalists in the Diaspora and on the continent. Analysts i.e., Julius Melema, Chinewezu, Obadele Kambon have found growing followers of their perspectives on African geopolitics can be found in a trove of online video lectures and discussions, within their books and articles published in print and online. See also Haiti, Morocco and AU by Obadele Kambon.
Authors Bol Gai Deng and Rwandan journalist Shyaka Kanuma have gone further to dismiss Sudanese Arabs as "not truly Arab" and anomaly in the Arab world, considering Sudanese Arabs do not fit the stereotypical media image of an Arab person from Lebanon or the Persian Gulf i.e. Saudi or Qatari who represent just one portion of the large Arab region. Neither fitting into fixed image of an African person. (p290-91, Khalid) Sudanese Arabs who are descendants of ancient local Arabs, Nubians, Beja and migrants from the Arabian Peninsula. Not to mention other Afro Arabs in in North Africa and the Middle East who are often times are overlooked or ignored by Africans in both the diaspora and in the rest of the continent for not conforming to a singular African identity. Afro Arabs can have multiple identities depending on their personal preferences, experiences, parents or society placed on origins from the Prophet or family links, class and culture. Many Gulf and Levantine countries even Syria have decent sized Afro Arab populations which the Northern Sudanese belong to. Being Arab isn't based on ethnicity alone but on culture and language. Kanuma, writing prior to South Sudanese independence describes the Sudanese Arabs incorrectly as Bantus using the 18th century European "true Negro" archetype of what an African is supposed to look like with supposedly "Negroid features" presenting Sudanese who resemble the Nilotic people of South Sudan, the Nuba peoples and non-Arab Darfuris as the default standard for all Sudanese and by extension the "only true look"Sudanese people have. See also 1000 faces of Sudan for a visual of Sudanese diversity. Many South Sudanese and other Africans have paradoxically adapted the "true Negro" stereotype and emphasize cultural purity to measure Sudan and North Africa's bonafide Africanness.(Muhammad, p92) Genetics have long proven that Sudanese (especially Northerners) have multiple physical looks and phenotypes that aren't limited to a specific region or people group. The same is also true of Arabs and Africans as a whole.
North Africans of all hues including Sudanese Arabs, Nubians and Beja who do not fall into the authentic African label (Adeleke, p.17) are seen as not truly African or written off as [sic]"invaders" in online rants, videos and writings. Pan Africanists, the Conscious community and especially popular content creators have continued to dismiss the diverse ethnic groups, cultures and languages across North Africa i.e. Amazigh or Berbers who are the non-Arab indigenous ethnic group that forms the majority of population in the region, Copts, the Nubians, Touaregs across the Sahara (Algeria, Mali, Niger, Libya, Tunisia) and Toubou of Libya and they view Arab culture influence in North Africa alongside Westernization as a existential threat (Asante, p.119) to the African fight to preserve the “authentic” African identity and self (Mwakikagile, p.155), often unable to see the complexities of identity. South Sudan and many other Africans have absorbed the Western image (Barry, p. 35-36) and views of Arabs subconsciously without much thought or reflection as to why or how Arabs or the Arab countries are viewed a certain way (Salaita, p12-15). See also Reel Bad Arabs.
Note: The late Kenyan, Afro Arab Professor and prolific author Ali Mazrui often discussed, shared and reflected on his own multilayered identity which he called Afrarabia, having lived it himself that gave him a unique, naunced perspective on Afro Arab identity, Islam (beyond religion) and the world from post colonial world order to West and Global South relations.
Despite Sudan being a bridge between the Arab and African worlds, certain ethnic groups have always felt ignored by mainstream Sudanese society. The South Sudanese: Dinka, Nuer, Azande and Shilluk who had long been marginalized and treated as different from the rest of Sudan due to decades of physical isolation, launched the Torit Mutiny in 1955 in Bor, then Southern Sudan that morphed into the Anyanya Movement led by former soldiers from the national army leading to the first Sudanese Civil War that began in 1955-1972. Unlike the later second civil war, the early Sudanese conflict was mostly focused on Southern Sudan region and didn't include the neighboring regions of Nuba Mountains or Darfur. The war had little effect on the larger Northern Sudanese society since most of the heavy fighting was confined to the rural and remote areas of Southern Sudan region and the borderlands and is often footnoted as one of many proxy wars launched during the Cold War. The outside support for the South Sudanese struggle was minimal although weapons were supplied by Israel, US and Soviet Union who was an ally of Sudan at the times. The earlier conflict has often been overshadowed by other conflicts and anti-colonial struggles such as Suez Canal crisis, the Six Day and Yom Kippur between Egypt and Israel. And it must also be remembered that the South Sudanese fight against the Sudanese government under the Anyanya Movement in the 1950s-70s didn't call for the independence of South Sudan. Instead, leaders and advocates such as Lam Akol, Abel Alier and William Deng demanded autonomy for the South where the Southern Sudanese would be able to rule themselves without interference from Khartoum. Supporters of South Sudanese independence tend to forget that the struggle wasn't a traditional liberation struggle that would end in self-determination. The South Sudanese fight was for autonomy and respecting the citizen rights. The 1972 Addis Ababa agreement signed by the Anyanya Movement and the Sudanese government granted the then Southern Sudan region some level of autonomy via an autonomous government, political system and plural society. And it also brought some 11 years of peace allowing Southerners to recover, heal and reconstruct their lives and begin to build a society developed away from the early conflict. The people had hoped the peace would not only last but the earlier grievances, marginalization and development would be addressed. The second Sudanese civil war would make the wider world take notice of Sudan and its internal conflict especially in the 1990s. Underdevelopment in the rural Sudanese states such as Darfur, Blue Nile, South Kordofan and Eastern Sudan in the Beja areas in the form of infrastructure, economics and equal distribution of wealth. The 2002 publication of the Black Book confirmed the <>disproportionate amount of wealth and development given to the Northern region of Sudan including Khartoum at the expense of other regions that further outrage large swaths of Sudanese society particularly rural Sudanese. The anonymous authors were said to have ties to Justice and Equality Movement or JEM, the Darfuri rebel group. The book also encouraged JEM (one of the major fighting groups) and other Darfuri group to popularize the fight against the Khartoum government as one <>fighting for development of the Darfur region. Alongside South Sudan, South Kordofan and Blue Nile regions known as the two areas in Sudan, faced marginalization, massacres and bombings by government forces even before the outbreak of the second Sudanese civil war in 1983. The war in Nuba Mountains greatly increased in the 1980s as hundreds of Nuba joined the SPLM out of sympathy with South Sudanese and Ingessana people of the Blue Nile who had faced discrimination and repression as the Sudanese government suppressed the Nuba identity and denied their cultural rights. (Shurkian, p39-41) The bombings further destroyed the Nuba Mountains' agricultural fields that the Nuba people rely on for their livelihoods. Land is sacred to Nuba identity and is also a metaphorical connection to their ancestors. (Shurkian, p43) Today, the SPLM - North once part of the larger SPLM in the South Kordofan continues to fight on behalf of the Nuba in South Kordofan but its support among the war weary civilians has ebbed over the years as the government bombings and attacks have slowed and, in some cases, stopped. Travel to the Nuba Mountains is still difficult with limited roads and infrastructure. Often forgotten is the low intensity conflict in Nuba Mountains that began in the early 1990s by the Khartoum government against the Sudan People's Liberation Movement North who sympathized with their cousins in the South fighting for a "New Sudan" that would be a secular, Democratic country where all its citizens would have equal rights in government and larger society. The New Sudan concept helped to unite the various SPLM factions and keep internal divisions at bay for a while. As the war dragged on and South Sudanese bore most of the brunt of the war, the factions grew weary and suspicious of the SPLM leadership and the new sudan concept became seen as pipe dream. SPLM factions shifted their goal from changing the government to demanding independence for South Sudan as international support for SPLM grew rapidly in the 1980s.
Allies and soldiers of the Liberation struggle
Christian missionaries representing the various different sects such as Catholicism, Presbyterian, Anglican and especially evangelical and bible literalists have worked in South Sudan for a century. Keep in mind that many South Sudanese also follow animist religions such as the Dinka religion of Nhialic (Jok, p.25) or synchronize with Christianity. Protestantism and Evangelism are popular Christian denominations in South Sudan as in many African countries have been in competition with Islam in South Sudan for decades and still lament the end of Christianity in Sudan. Both local and international Christians have long viewed the Sudanese Civil War as an ideological and religious war on the borderlands of Islam and Christianity. This view predated Samuel Huntington's popular book Clash of Civilization by a decade. South Sudanese dislike and distrust of Islam and Muslims (p 5-6, Griswald) in response to government policies towards them cemented views of a continual Islamic holy war and crusades against Christians not only in Sudan but across Africa and Middle East that started during the Crusades from the perspective of religious leaders and their congregations. Christian aid organizations also used the fear of Christian persecution by Muslims in Sudan to appeal to local community organizations and church members seeking ways to help and connect with Sudanese Christians. Faith based and other religious organizations often provide humanitarian aid and basic social services across the country. Religious organizations had been criticized for originally for taking sides in the conflicts South Sudan. While some schools were repaired, religious organizations were viewed as offering little help to the local South Sudanese long term with infrastructural development instead of only providing alms and just religious texts. The Khartoum government during the Second Civil War, after Omar al Bashir government came to power in 1989, often defined the war in South Sudan as a resource turned religious war. It soon moved beyond Islam vs Christianity to fight over resources chiefly oil, land, cultural/ethnic identities and struggles over marginalization and national rights. When South Sudan became independent, many long serving missionaries and Christian rights advocates viewed it as divine victory.
Triangle of Death: Crisis in Sudan 1993 Journeyman Pictures
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB5eNauNhs4Jewish human rights organizations and Zionist groups were also interested in the Sudanese conflict as they saw common ground with the South Sudanese struggle against Khartoum government and Arab control and likened it to Israel's fight against Arab governments hostility to it due to its long standing treatment of Palestinians and its conflicts with neighboring Lebanon, Egypt and Syria. The Israeli government had long supported and provided weapons for the South Sudanese and the SPLM going back to 1960s quite proudly too in search of African allies and what Israeli foreign policy officials once called "peripheral supporters" of Israel and Zionism, justification for its occupation of Palestine and to clean up its image as an occupier to a supporter of minority rights, Israel's own fight against Pan Arabism and Palestinian struggle. Israelis though not admitting out loud have never felt truly at home in the Middle East and is seen as anomaly, a settler colonial state acting on behalf of the Anglo-American NATO alliance across the Middle East and North Africa. In its quest to win hearts and minds of the ordinary people in South Sudan and other African countries, Israelis began providing humanitarian aid in the 1960s, presenting itself as a partner in medical expertise to the people in its foreign policy outreach beyond the political. At the same time, Israel reached out to Sudan in the late sixties for strategic partnership in hopes of flipping the then Sudanese government to its side away from Egypt and Nasserism. The South Sudanese have not only appreciated Israel's military and political support, but sees Israel in the same light as the dispensationalists who see Israel as biblical prophecy. Currently Israel has diplomatic relations with South Sudan and many Sudanese refugees from South Sudan and Darfur region have taken the dangerous overland trek through Egypt and Sinai in hopes of reaching Israel as a safe haven from the ongoing conflicts their respective home countries. Even more than Israel, the United States joined by Britain and France to a lesser extent have long given weapons, military aid, training and diplomatic support to South Sudan and the SPLM for decades. Diplomatic support and sympathy from policy wonks or hobbyists turned advocates of Sudanese/SPLM struggle Ted Dagne, John Prendergast, Eric Reeves, Roger Miller and Brian D'Silva who was said to be Garang's college friend formed a small think tank meant to act as a PR organization for John Garang and the wider SPLM and focus on the Horn of Africa. John Prendergast would later go on to be a Spokesman and founder of the Enough Project as part of the wider the Save Darfur Coalition and become an outspoken critic of the Sudanese government. Prendergast is one of the few former "Save Darfur" activists who keeps abreast of events in Sudan even commenting on the 2019 Sudanese Revolution and the ouster of Omar al Bashir. The think tank named "the Council," non foreign policy, nonpartisan in theory, began to build itself up as self-proclaim human rights organization for Sudan and the wider Horn of Africa region. The Council would go onto link up with the Council on Foreign Relations and Institute of Peace Studies. long with the group, South Sudanese diaspora across the US, brought great public attention and interest by ordinary Americans to the plight of the South Sudanese especially in 1980s and up to 2005 when the CPA agreement was signed. US media helped to push the South Sudanese struggle and continues to reflect on it through TV shows 7th Heaven's Lost episode, briefly mentioned in NCIS: LA "Breach" episode. Including movies the Good Lie and His House (a psychological horror) and numerous books ranging from novels, memoirs and autobiographies What they meant for evil by Rebecca Deng or Legacy of an African Freedom Fighter by Bol Gai Deng. South Sudanese voices were further amplified by the "Lost Boys of Sudan" thousands of children mostly young orphan boys, many siblings and friends who trekked from various towns across South Sudan to reach refuge in Ethiopia and Kenya at the Kakuma Refugee Camp, still in operation. Author's note: Sudan isn't considered part of the Horn of Africa due to its ethnic, cultural and linguistic differences from its neighbor Ethiopia. Although Sudan and Ethiopia have had diplomatic relations and traded with one another traditionally, the Horn of Africa region is limited to Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, Djibouti. The Horn of Africa reference to Sudan is used more as a geographic reference point by American analysts since they are more familiar with the geopolitics of Ethiopia, Somalia and Djibouti and US involvement in both countries continue to this day.
There remains little Arab perspective on Sudan fictional or nonfiction in English. Overshadowed by the global War on Terror, Sudan and its Arab citizens were lumped into the guilt by association of terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism. Though South Sudanese were stereotyped in American/European media as poor starving people due to Sudan's reoccurring droughts and floods, the image changed as the South Sudanese diaspora and asylum seekers became more outspoken at public events across the world and rallied against the Khartoum government back home beginning in 1990s. The South Sudanese were humanized and their history and culture were highlighted as facing an impending genocide by Khartoum government and at times intolerant Islam and Sharia.
It also opened ordinary people's eyes to the idea that perhaps South Sudanese independence was justified (p25 Deng, War of Visions) since Sudanese Arabs, Nubians, Beja, Nuba, Dinka and Shilluk are not one monolithic people (as explained earlier, see also Lokosang, p110-115) as it has been wrongly and foolishly assumed by outside observers (Sterio, p 162-3) and that North and South Sudan should never had been placed together as one united country in the first place. The same perspective of unique identity facing genocide shifted from South Sudan following the CPA agreement in 2005 to Darfur beginning in 2003. There hasn't hardly been any American or European foreign fighter that joined the battlefield in South Sudan during the civil wars of 80s to the 2000s, the Khartoum government effectively sealed off South Sudan from the outside world, as the war continued
and a lack of strong infrastructure prior to the signing of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement made it difficult for even concerned South Sudanese, curious travelers, journalists and humanitarian workers to reach Juba let alone the mostly rural South Sudanese regions. There are a few opportunist good Samaritans such as Sam Childers, a hot tempered, former drug addict turned preacher and self-proclaim freedom fighters Pastor Peter Hammond a South African former soldier from Zimbabwe's liberation war in 1970s-1980 or as he and fellow veterans call it
Dr. Deng Dongrin Akuany: Depopulation of South Sudan?
The first cause célèbre of the Sudanese conflict: Slavery in Sudan
Prior to the Anglo Egyptian Sudan, Southern Sudan experienced war Dinka, Shilluk along with the Nuba, Funj and Ingessana experienced centuries long conflicts with neighboring Arabs coupled with slavery and slave raids by Northern Sudanese that kidnapped women, children and men and sent Southerners to Khartoum, Cairo (remember Egypt and Sudan were one country) other areas in the North and even the Middle East to Palestine, Syria, Yemen and Saudi Arabia. The slave raids continued until the end of the Mahdiyya state. The Khartoum government was https://www.rt.com/uk/358815-cox-meeting-assad-syria/ still being accused of slavery and slave raids throughout the devastating Sudanese civil war from 1983 - 2005. The anti Slavery movement in the US, UK and other Western countries made it their rally cry to protect and free modern day slaves in Southern Sudan with mixed results. The second Sudanese civil war soon transformed in the Anglo American media into a war based on slavery as oppose to the original reasons and grievances on rights, lack of infrastructural development, representation and the denial of Dinka, Nuer, Shilluk culture and identity which pushed the Southerners to condemn and oppose the Sudanese government often branded as the faceless Khartoum government. American and European Church groups and even parliamentarians such as the former Baroness Caroline Cox, who led the well-known Christian Solidarity International's anti slavery campaign against Sudan following the destructive war in Southern Sudan painted it in crude examples of modern day Arab slave trade and the wicked Arab image against innocent African civilians reared its head into discussions, speeches, movies and tv series. Even well-meaning citizen journalists, smaller aid groups, foreign policy organizations and self-described concerned citizen groups working in DC, London and Sydney didn't hide their anti-Arab and Islam bents while championing South Sudanese struggle. This included right wing, conservative Middle East/Africa experts and organizations who were embraced by South Sudanese on their global outreach for support against Khartoum that helped to legitimized SPLA and heightened South Sudanese voices. They shared personal eyewitness accounts in the context of the righteous vs unjustice pontificating to their audiences and holding up the media image of the Sudan war equaling slavery as proof that their fears and views on Arabs, Islam and societies were justified. During the height of media interest in the Darfur conflict, the Save Darfur movement, Stand with Sudan read Darfur and its reincarnations followed the same media tactics and messaging replacing slavery with "Darfur war equals genocide and ethnic cleansing" and found sympathetic audiences to their cause. (Herr, p.xiii-iv) From 1995 until 2005 peace agreement between Khartoum government and SPLA insurgents, slave redemption and slavery in Sudan was the topic du jour across America and Europe, highlighted by mostly South Sudanese, British and Americans activists, human rights advocates and writers whenever the issue of the Sudanese war and its victims appeared in the media. The renowned independent media radio station Democracy Now hosted by Amy Goodman, even broadcasted a rare three part report on slavery in Sudan in 1996 during the then U.S. elections. At the time, Democracy Now was unknown outside the independent media circles but it and Goodman would become household names when it launched nationwide in 1999. In 1999 the popular family friendly TV series Touched by an Angel broadcasted one of its popular episodes, Such as Times as This on Arab slavery in Sudan that portrayed the conflict in 19th century images of Arabs raiding the Swahili Coast. The main characters a U.S. Senator Kate "Katie" Cooper and her young son Thomas learn about the Sudanese civil war via "slavery in Sudan" from a nameless war correspondent's photos which Thomas shares with his teacher and classmates while Senator Cooper is nudged by lobbyists to speak out for the Sudanese victims. Both mother and son soon find themselves as anti slavery advocates on behalf of South Sudanese, here just simply labeled Sudanese. The episode not only received interest from many curious viewers but helped to raise awareness and donations to the slave redemption cause in Southern Sudan which had been ongoing since 1995. It was discovered a few months later that viewers and school children who donated their funds to "redeem" South Sudanese slaves led by human rights group Christian Solidarity International that the highly televised slave redemptions in South Sudan and reported in news articles were false and had been staged using local people and SPLM members pretending to be victims of Arab slavers. Irish Times writer Declan Walsh reporting from Nairobi, called the Sudanese slave redemption a hoax and scam that played on people's emotions rather than an altruistic endeavor. Often ignored is the fact that the redemption process was controlled at times by the SPLA not the Khartoum government nor by any Northern officials or representative as South Sudan was still a warzone. Even Jim Jacobson President of Christian Freedom International and a former slave redeemer, explained how he had to work with the SPLA as the SPLA members were often the ones helping to find village children, and their parents as interviewees who were supposed to be recently freed slaves. Jacobson is a former Reagan White House analyst turned Christian missionary focus on persecuted Christians who had worked in Southern Sudan a few years before slave redemptions reached the public eye. He further warned that the slave redemptions were incentivizing the vicious cycle of continual kidnappings of war victims and poor South Sudanese as desperate people sought out US dollars to enrich themselves. This ensnared local villagers into a war and human trade beyond their control. Jacobson later published his experiences in Southern Sudan in his book, "Remember the Persecuted: The Story of Jim Jacobson and Christian Freedom International."School children and their teacher in Aurora, Colorado donating their allowances for slave redemptions in Southern Sudan - CBS Evening News with Dan Rather February 1999
The redemptions also featured Christian human rights activist John Eibner, the CEO of Christian Solidarity International. Eibner had become a celebrity since 1995 participating and garnering support for donations and public interest for the Sudanese slave redemptions. From 1995 onwards, Eibner was known and recognized by Christian and secular groups for making passionate pleas, sharing heart string pulling horror stories and video interviews of mostly South Sudanese survivors and war victims caught up in "slave" raids by Khartoum backed Baggara militia operating in then Southern Sudan. He continued to speak on slavery in Sudan and testified in Congress during the Helsinki Commission Hearing on Sudan in June, 2011, a month before South Sudan's independence. In spite of its name, the Helsinki Commission is under the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, a US congressional government organization working with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and tied to the House Foreign Affairs Committee focused on human rights, military security and economics in Eurasia and North America. The CSCE's actions lean more towards national security concerns and interests reminiscent of a more diplomatic NATO. Through diplomatic channels, the Helsinki Commission hearings tend to follow the media topics and outspoken advocates ie Eibner as it relates to US and European Foreign interests. Downplaying the government connection to Eibner, Christian Solidarity International continued to amplify South Sudanese slave stories working with the media who unquestionably churned out eyewitness reports and initially lauded the slave redemptions as a commendable, humanitarian act. Critics of CSI motives and the CBS report on slavery in Sudan saw the redemptions as a media stunt to increase public outrage against the Sudanese government whilecontributing to Western funding to SPLA. The slave redemptions had been part of a wider appeal to British and American audiences to unconsciously support their governments' respective foreign policy decisions on isolating Sudan as a country while maintaining economic sanctions in the name of human rights abuses (Masud, p.24) and instead of supporting interfaith dialog; it fueled the rift between Muslims and Christians and delegitimizing the Khartoum government. The American public's silence on the 1998 US bombing of the Al Shifa Pharmaceutical Factory and Afghanistan didn't come as a surprise. The bombing had occurred in the suburbs of Khartoum in the name of fighting states supporting or harboring terror groups. It was also viewed unofficially as protecting rights and empathizing with the fight of South Sudanese in the form of support to the SPLA's insurgency that continued until 2005. The hagiographic treatment given to SPLA by its Western allies turned a blind eye to SPLA's own internal conflicts and abuses against civilians they had originally claimed to protect. This was done indirectly through local aid groups and various international organizations who reassured the public that the funds would go to healing and aiding the "redeemed" or freed South Sudanese civilians. Given that international orgs and NGOs tend to split their received funds to staff and overhead costs, normally don't reach the most vulnerable of South Sudanese citizens. Nowadays, CSI insists that slavery still exists in Sudan despite there being no reports of it and ignoring the larger ongoing social issues and political crisis in the country. Even child abductions by government backed murahileen militias throughout the Sudanese civil war was mistaken for slavery instead of forced abductions which does occur in war zones. Ignored by the Western media and SPLA sympathizers was the documented forced conscription of refugee children including some of the Lost Boys into the SPLA and it Red Army unit to the horror of the children and their parents and families who tried to protect them from being dragged into the grown up battlefield. In most cases, the children's fathers had joined the SPLA convinced that winning the war would lead to a better society especially in Southern Sudan. The children were recruited from refugee camps in Southern Ethiopia on the border with Sudan. Local South Sudanese American and Australian authors and rights advocates David Ayual Mayom, Ayik Chut Deng, David Jal, Emmanuel Jal (no relations), share their experiences of the utter confusion with being forced to fight as SPLA child soldiers and how it was justified by older soldiers for the greater good and liberating the people of South Sudan under the banner of Garang and fighting for the rights of South Sudanese. The kidnappings continued during the recent South Sudanese civil war.Authors, scholars and observers on Sudan also lumped the conflict in Sudan with wider "Arab Slavery against Africans" associating all Arab and North African countries with the brutal and historical crime and more recent reports of racism, abuse and discrimination against some dark-skinned Arabs and African expats and migrants in these countries. The Arab slave trade actually the Indian Ocean Trade affected Kenya, Tanzania and Zanzibar and to a lesser extent Mozambique via raids for war prisoners.(Muhammad, p. 128-29) By the time of the Omani Sultanate ruled over Swahili Coast in the 1600s, the Ottoman Empire ruled most of North Africa including Sudan, parts of Eritrea, Middle East and the Arabian Peninsula and Eastern Europe Balkans until 1800s. In modern times, Libya has been condemned for conducting open slave markets based on vague YouTube videos following 2011 war and Libyan militia groups' brutal treatment of Sudanese migrants mainly from Darfur. Anti-slavery and African human rights activists have long decried how the Arab Slave trade technically the Indian Ocean slave trade is rarely studied or discuss compared to the European Slave Trade in Africans. The Transatlantic Slave Trade still remains one of the most brutal in history that impacted both the development of African countries, African Diaspora and population. Its effects are still being felt 500 years after. South Sudanese American activists such as Francis Bok perhaps the most famous of former Sudanese slaves, whose own experience brought attention to modern day slavery in Sudan and worldwide to citizens and launched the anti-slavery campaign against Sudan. They went on a two decades long media campaign across the United States, sharing their stories with school children, community groups, university students and testified in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Bok later became an advocate for independent South Sudan. Other well-known activists followed Bok, Simon Deng and author Bol Gai Deng shared their stories to community activists, rights groups and audiences seeking empathy for the war victims, common ground with ordinary Americans, Australians and British people. The public continued to listen Sudan slaves story right up to 2011. Even local New York area teenager South Sudanese Ker Aleu Deng retold his own emotional story of how he was kidnapped during a militia raid in Southern Sudan and claimed he was blinded by his "slave master" in a brutal attack when he was 12. He was
The most well-known Nuba outside Sudan, UK based Nuba rights activist and author Mande Nezar in her bestselling book, "I am Slave," published in 2002, translated into several languages and made into a movie with the same name recounts Nezar's own story of being kidnapped by militiamen in the Nuba Mountains and being taken to Khartoum and ending up as a domestic servant for a wealthy Sudanese family first in Khartoum and later the family's relatives in London. Nezar used her story of slavery for her asylum claim to remain in the UK. Her book helped to highlight the Nuba people and culture and plight of the war torn South Kordofan region particularly the Nuba Mountains. Local media interests in Nezar's story suggests that Nezar's slavery accusation was aimed at Sudanese diplomat Abdel Mahmoud Al-Koronky, a former charge d affair of the Sudanese embassy. Nezar claimed to have worked at the Al Koronky Residence as an Au Pair for Al Koronky's children. As impactful as Nezar's book was, parts of her memoir are difficult to corroborate as her descriptions are vague in terms of location and people and there is no mention of specific dates for when certain events took place. Going by her birth year mentioned on her foundation's website, her experience began in the 1980s in the Nuba Mountains, South Kordofan as the then Sudanese Civil War expanded into the region and the government collectively punished the Nuba people for supporting the SPLM. As for the people Nezar claims she worked for and later treated her as a domestic slave, many of the book's various characters' real-life names had either been changed to conceal their identities and only generic first names are used. The only character to have their name match an actual person from Nezar's life and case outside her immediate family is Hanin al Koronky, Abdel Mahmoud al Koronky's wife. If Nezar had indeed stayed with Al Koronky relatives in Khartoum, the relatives are not mentioned by name and the reader doesn't learn much about the family beyond their high status and friends. Al Koronky himself doesn't appear in the book at all, even as a fictional character. The Al Koronkys brought a libel suit in 2005 against Nezar for the claims she made in her book of being treated as a slave and locked up most days at their residency. The slavery libel suit as it became known in London was dropped by the high court. Al Koronkys have since returned to Sudan. As for the rest of Nezar's book timeline had to be filled in by rights advocates and reporters familiar with events in Sudan relating to Nezar's life. Nezar has since gone on to speak on the horrors of human trafficking and global slavery in the UK and the broader world. She even met Caroline Cox on her return trip to the Nuba Mountains in 2017 some 22 years after she first left as a child. The meeting wasn't coincidental or by chance, Baroness Cox once served as a trustee on the Mende Nezar Foundation and previously served as a CEO of Christian Solidarity Network working in Nuba Mountains. South Kordofan was still militarily sealed off from outside humanitarian aid and visitors including journalists. Visits had to be conducted clandestinely and by helicopter as roads into the Nuba Mountains are still difficult to traverse. Baroness Cox made a brief public appearance in 2015 when she traveled to Syria to assess the civilian situation on the ground and meet with Bashir Assad. Keeping the South Sudanese struggle in the media spotlight, South Sudanese activists at times over emphasized Arab slavery and racism within Sudanese war and society that led to greater sympathy and concern for South Sudanese across the world. The men and women also shared their personal stories of being innocent bystanders caught up in the war between the SPLA and the national Sudanese army and being kidnapped not as slaves but as war victims and taken to north than forced into domestic servitude depending on their final destinations in Khartoum or other cities. Their harrowing stories resonating with the European and American public's own knowledge of historic and modern slavery and human trafficking. The anti-slavery groups American Anti-Slavery Group saw so called Arab slavery in Sudan as an almost second abolitionist movement similar to the abolitionist movements in 19th century United States and United Kingdom to free African slaves and end slavery following the devastating American civil war. In Britain the motives were based on growing public disgust and outrage from publicized memoirs and eyewitness accounts of formerly enslaved Africans living in Britain beginning in the 1790s. Beyond American borders, the US military remembers the Barbary Wars and War of Tripoli in Libya as a fight to free and rescue the European merchant marines and trades sold as slaves from the 17th - 19th century in Morocco, Libya, Tunisia and Algeria. The Marine Hymn recalls the events. It is worth remembering, historically, many of the slaves taken the Middle East and North Africa, especially Turkey were mostly white Europeans made up of Slavs, Greeks, Albanians, French and British and people from Caucasus i.e., Circassians. The White slave trade is nearly forgotten and ignored with the exception of historians and researchers look into the Mamluks ruling over Egypt being made up of European slave soldiers from around the Ottoman lands. The word "Slave" means Slav who were taken and sold into slavery by the Ottoman Army as prisoners of war or from raids. The large importation of Slavs and other Europeans into Turkey, Lebanon and Syria during Ottoman rule explains why some Turks and Syrians have blond hair and blue eyes.
There seems to be a reoccurring pattern with other war victims such as Bok, Simon Deng and Ker Deng whose childhoods mirrored Mende Nezar's experience with slight differences. They were disrupted by the war, kidnapped by militiamen and turned into slaves arriving North. Once freed and granted asylum in the United States, they go onto unironically to become lobbyists for the rights and freedoms of South Sudanese later Darfur interwoven with support for SPLA and other less peaceful opposition groups back home. The mentioned authors mingle with well-known Christian aid, humanitarian advocates, pro war military interventionists, pro Israel, staunch Zionist and conservative groups who take up their causes of the South Sudanese struggle while fighting against alleged slavery and Christian persecution in Sudan. In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, these groups saw the war in Sudan no different from the wider fight against Al Qaeda and its spider web network. The Khartoum government was associated with faceless Arab and Islamic terrorist groups. South Sudanese refugees and activists emphasized with their American neighbors realizing a shared grief.(Bixler ,p.203-204) The SPLA used the public's fear of terrorism to connect their unrelated struggle in the Sudanese Civil War with the wider War on Terror believing it would lead to SPLA achieving their goals now that Americans had experienced attacks by Arabs that South Sudanese had faced for decades.(Bixler, p.203-204) An early outspoken critic of the Sudanese government in 2001, Simon Deng was joined by Curtis Sliwa founder of Guardian Angels Network to protest alleged modern-day slavery in Sudan outside Sudanese NY consulate in May 2001. Sliwa was also a recent NY candidate for Mayor. For the next decade, media saavy advocate Simon Deng would continue his one-man protest against the government outside various Sudanese consulates and embassies, switching from speaking about slavery and his earlier life, arguing for the rights of Shilluk and other South Sudanese to the war in Darfur to protesting for complete independence for South Sudan. His protest finally accumulated into the 2006 Sudan Freedom from New York to DC spurred on by the events in Darfurand the Save Darfur movement. The walk not only galvanized public's interest, for the first time it combined the two struggles of Darfur and South Sudan into a single theme for the Save Darfur movement. He ended the long trek at a DC rally. He and Francis Bok would replicate the Freedom Walk 2010, meeting with SPLA and South Sudanese supporters applauding his efforts at a rally in DC near Congress. He and Bok made passionate and emotional pleas to the group and supporters present at the United Nations headquarters prior to the Freedom Walk to make the final push to support South Sudan's then January 2011 referendum to gain independence. Both uncritically supported US foreign policy and the US government's action toward Khartoum never mind crushing economic sanctions and its effect on their former countrymen in the North.
When Sudan came under Sharia law, declared by Omar al Bashir in 1989 and became an Islamic state similar in legal system to Iran and Saudi Arabia with some differences in enforcing codes at the street level. Israel, US and Europe's support and sympathy for the South Sudanese struggle against Khartoum increased and Sudan was labeled in 1993 as a supporter of Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism. Sudan's place as a state sponsor of terrorists group was confirmed in the eyes of the US when Saudi billionaire construction owner Osama Bin Laden was stayed in Khartoum from 1991 to 1996 and was expelled by the same government following disagreements. Bin Laden's former house was discrete and unassuming located in Khartoum's affluent Al Riyadh neighborhood on Al Mashtal Street.(Minitier, pp. 47) It was also monitored by CIA assets, one Billy Waugh and Eric Prado. The house has since been demolish and replaced by an multistory apartment building. Bin Laden at the time was known as the leader of the Afghan Mujahedeen (backed by Washington and CIA against the Soviet Union) during 1979-1989 Soviet Afghan war and Al Qaeda originally made up of veterans from the then battlefield of Afghanistan who had set up launching pads and bass of operations in neighboring Pakistan. Bin Laden was known for giving gave cryptic interviews and messages on his next attacks to CNN journalists. Al Qaeda came to the attention of the world following the 1998 US embassy bombings in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Like Pakistan in the early 1980s, Sudan was now accused and blamed for hosting secretive Al Qaeda training camps in Khartoum. Sudan received international attention due to the October 1998 US bombing of the Al Shifa and in a supposed Al Qaeda training camp in war torn Afghanistan. It was the US government's official response to the double embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in August of the same year. Furthermore, the Clinton Administration had accused Sudan of using Al Shifa Pharmaceutical factory located in a civilian Khartoum suburb, to make chemical weapons. Al Shifa's then manager and building engineer Tom Carnaffin condemned the bombing as an egregious act. The German Ambassador to Sudan Werner Daum criticized and condemned the factory's destruction, saying that it was impossible for it to have been used for chemical production. Noam Chomsky, US foreign policy critic referred to Al Shifa attack as an act of state terrorism and connected it to the larger US interests in Middle East and North Africa. The US bombings were protested worldwide though received minimal attention in the mainstream media. Bin Laden would not become public enemy number one until 9/11 attacks. This was the pre–Global War on terror era and the future security state that developed from the paranoia brought on by the exaggerated threat of terror groups lurking behind every security threat and geopolitical event. It was only in 2020, that Sudan was finally removed from the state sponsor of terrorism. The Sudanese government after the Sudanese government agreed to pay some $335 million in compensation to the American victims of 1998 US embassy bombings and their families. The Kenyan victims who had gone uncompensated for many decades, criticized the US Sudanese compensation deal for giving most of the amount to American embassy employees and ignoring the Kenyans who made up the majority of the victims killed. Sudan had also been seeking access to global financing and an end to its economic crisis and increase its cash flow from abroad. The move didn't come organically. The US had placed the recognition of Israel as a required condition for ending the economic sanctions and twisted Khartoum's arm to end its long standing non negotiation with Israel over its occupation of Palestine. In the Arab World, Sudan is known as the country where the famous Khartoum declaration also known as the 3 No's policy adapted by all the Arab countries was signed in 1967 only three months after the Six Day war in response to the capture of the then Palestinian territories remaining 22% of Historical Palestine, Golan Heights and Egyptian Sinai that was returned to Egypt. No recognition of, no peace and no negotiation with Israel.
See Exposing U.S. Agents of Low intensity Warfare particularly focus on Sudan (Sudanese civil war) The New Sudan concept which became a driving force at one point for the various and dispersed rebel movements across Sudan, was spearheaded by the late John Garang, the founder and leader of SPLM from 1983 until 2005. Garang was originally against independence for South Sudan preferring to change the whole of Sudan and fight for all Sudanese. His assassination in July 2005, killed momentum for the New Sudan concept from the larger Sudanese society. Darfur's JEM and Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) do base their fight against the current military transitional government led by Abdelfattah El Burhan on the New Sudan concept but also on guaranteeing the rights of Darfur. But it has not received the same popularity and momentum it did during Garang's lifetime especially before his assassination. The early days of South Sudan's independence in 2011, it did see some interest in the New Sudan concept but it was brief. South Sudan was granted the right to vote for independence and succeeded from Sudan on January 9, 2011 with jubilation and fanfare. Since South Sudan gained independence in July 9, 2011, the new country has faced ongoing political tensions that boiled into a civil war fought between the rivaling President Riak Machar and Salva Kiir both who were former commanders in the SPLA during the early Sudanese civil war (1983-2005) against the Khartoum government and now against the South Sudanese civilians. While the civil war has officially ended, the tensions remain high in Juba and across the country. A mini proxy war between the various splintered opposition forces such as the SPLA-IO, SPLA-Juba and South Sudanese Patriotic Army are also fed by the two leaders and foreign supporters of each side. While the various factions have tried to form joint coalition governments. Similar to the anti-Gaddafi Libyan rebels, the SPLM factions who were singularly united in defeating the Khartoum government in Southern Sudan that paved the way for 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement and self-determination. Once Independence arrived the SPLA/M factions no longer had a unifying goal or lasting vision that could've avoided the war through addressing the internal conflicts within the SPLM that remains a left over the earlier Sudanese Civil War. It's worth remembering that the SPLA had internal problems and disagreements on the direction of the organization even during its conflict with Sudan. While John Garang was the most recognizable and respected leader of the SPLM, ordinary members and soldiers as well as civilians, debated and disagreed with the direction of the SPLM. This is common among revolutionary movements where the question becomes is the struggle for liberation against an oppressive government necessary in the end or should unity be sought? Is the struggle a liberation movement or do we want autonomy instead of self-determination? Who speaks for the people and civilians who don't have a voice or whose struggle isn't well known? The South Sudanese people also disagreed with SPLA tactics including fighting in civilian areas, targeting ethnic groups who were believed to be supported by Khartoum to attack SPLM and SPLA and pushing the nonpolitical, war exhausted S. Sudanese and diaspora to exhaustion. Libya remains under militia control. After no longer having a unifying goal, the armed and power-hungry militias broke up into warring factions once Gaddafi was killed. There has been no foreign intervention in the failed Right to Protect militarized, NATO led humanitarian intervention that has destroyed Libyan society and social cohesion of the nation. South Sudanese society has also suffered the breakdown of social cohesion and an agrarian society that had hoped independence would've led to a prosperous and infrastructural developed country. Many civilians had hoped and worked towards a future that finally brought the traumatized and exhausted society a lifelong peace. South Sudan is Africa's 54th nation. South Sudan's independence movement created a unifying movement transcending ethnic, political and regional differences and gave South Sudanese a sense of solidarity and national identity. But it couldn’t solve the internal conflicts and unresolved issues that didn’t get address during the Sudanese civil war and was pushed to the back burner until society was confronted by post war grievances and old rivalries within the SPLA leadership and ranks boiled to the surface. ongoing social and national destruction. The political chaos and uncertainly they originally fought against and vowed not to let happen to independent South Sudan. Irony aside, South Sudanese who originally left Khartoum in 2011 over the jubilation of an independent South Sudan have return to IDP camps on the outskirts of Khartoum to find safety from the ongoing economic and political problems that continue to plague their homeland South Sudan despite independence, oil wealth and the grand dreams of development.
Ann Garrison Creating South Sudan: Deeper perspective and The Lessons of Carving up Sudan
Regarded as the most remote region of Sudan, Darfur has played a lesser-known role in Sudanese history especially in trade relations in Western Sudan. The Daju, Tunjur and Keira peoples, ruled the region during the time of Ancient Nubia. It's not known if the respective people ever interacted with the Nubians as the Darfuris are outside the Nile Valley and traveling the massive distance from Darfur to Meroe would have been a herculean task for any traveler. All three groups each had their own states around Jebel Marra, Keira State, Daju state and Tunjur Kingdom from 1600s to 1916. It remained was its own independent Sultanate until the British made it into a region of Sudan in 1916. Desertification in Darfur beginning in 1970s and current war in Darfur has brought Sudan to the attention of the world. With the recent outbreak of urban war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and Rapid Support Forces in Khartoum that began on April 15th, has broken out into intense violent bombings and fighting in Darfur once again. Until April 15th, the Sudanese capital Khartoum had been spared from the destructive wars, civilian bombardments and that has plagued Darfur since 2003. Even before 2003 outbreak of War in Darfur between the various Darfuri groups and Sudanese government, Darfuris have unforunately been dragged into conflicts in neighboring countries such as Chad and Libya. Both Arab and African Darfuris were involuntarily pulled into the 1970s war between Libya and Chad over Chad's Aouzou Strip in the country's far north region on the border with Libya. Mamuar Gaddafi had wanted to build a non aligned, independent political, Islamic alliances with its neighboring countries as a way to exert his influence in neighboring countries. Gaddafi saw pro Western leaders and French/ US meddling in neighboring countries as both a challenge and threat to his own government and Libya as France and US used anti comm to intervene in the political affairs of many North and West African countries to halt the spread of communism and socialism as an alternative to American style democracy and the popular anti imperial, third world liberation politics and ideas following the fall of European colonialism across Africa impeded American influences and interests in post colonial states.
Although a cause célèbre in the early 2000s, Darfur doesn't receive much attention today. Recently in Darfur, land disputes between Rizeigat, Fur and Masalit often starting between two neighbors have developed into communal violence in El Geneina and again, inside the Kerenik or Kreinik Refugee camps between the IDPs and Rapid Support Forces or rebranded Janjaweed as the Darfuri IDPs try to integrate back into their villages and towns or till the land they were forced to leave in 2003 at the start of the Darfur conflict between African and Arab civilians. Another element of the intercommunal violence is the presence of non-indigenous residents living in the IDPs' former destroyed villages and towns and operating on their lands. The governors of Darfur states have tried to move on from the war and halt intercommunal violence through peace initiatives. Since 2018, South Darfur state governor, Adam El Faki, has been pushing the IDPs and refugees of Kalma Refugee camp to return home by attempting to close down and dismantle Kalma camp. The North Darfur and South Darfur governors are responding in similar fashion. They argue that the IDP and refugee camps scattered around Darfur states need to be dismantled and IDPs can return home to bring a sense of normalcy back to their lives since the larger intense war between the RSF and Darfur rebel groups ended in 2012. The 2020 Juba Peace Agreement also ended the last of the armed resistance by the Darfuri rebel groups stubbornly holding out to have a seat in Darfur's state governments or integrated into wider Sudanese Army. The fighters in JEM, SLA and armed supporters of Hilu and Suliman Arcua “Minni Minnawi Minni feel that they are owed their seats in the regional and national governments. The rebels' aims have shifted from "fighting for the people" to jostling for government positions despite spending most of their lives as soldiers, fighting in intense battlefields and not experiencing normal civilian life nor having a background in the political theatre or interacting with government officials outside a war zone. Minni Minnawi, a Fur commander of the largest rebel movement Sudan Liberation Army-Minnawi faction became governor of Darfur, one of the stipulations of the Juba Peace Agreement that many Darfuri groups insisted be included in the agreement before they ended their fight. He was appointed by the former Sudanese Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok. Minnawi continues to face criticism from his constituents for caring more about political power and prestige than delivering social services. For the skeptical IDPs who question the intentions of El Faki's promise of normality, he has given them three options and is attempting to turn Kalma into a permanent town for the IDPs who refuse to leave. With unpredictable intercommunal violence, some IDPs and refugees feel safer in the camps than returning Many Darfuris remain IDPS and refugees after 20 years living in IDP and refugee camps that have since grown into large towns scattered around Darfur and in the neighboring country of Chad have grown weary of the various SPLM North, JEM and even Sudan Revolutionary forces based out of Darfur that once fought the Khartoum government in the name of rights and development. Most refugees and IDPs just want to go home and have languished in camps for far long than they could've imagined when they were originally chased out of their homes. Other Darfuris have survived and live in a tense peace in the Jebel Marra Mountains<.a>, one of the most fertile areas in Darfur. It is also said to have important natural resources that the national government has long been interested in. Much like the late 90s broadcasts of Tv shows dedicated to explaining the North vs South Sudanese conflict to the public, TV shows and documentaries also broadcasted episodes meant to encourage its audience to action on the Darfur issue. A whole swath of self-proclaim human rights and online activist groups to protect the Darfuri people that was headlined by local rights activists and celebrities who didn't understand the complex history of Darfur, its social dynamics or even Sudanese society as a whole. For several years, the UN, diplomats, activist groups and online analysts decried the Darfur Conflict as a "genocide" and that the Darfuris made up of the Massalit, Fur and Zaghawa were facing a genocide of epic proportions. Local Darfuris' voices were heard occasionally but Americans became the face of the Save Darfur movement on college campuses, at human rights rallies, church groups, UN discussions, etc. It also became the first viral social media movement of the 21st century. It didn't take long for the social media publicity to fade on the Darfur issue as online interest was at the whims of the public's short attention span for international issues and news. Notwithstanding the initial online interest, social media's fascination with Darfur was critique for its slacktivism where most of the protests became confined to the online space instead of outreach. Sudan became more isolated and economically sanctioned by the global awareness of the conflict. The media reports on Darfur followed the post 9/11 hysteria of seeing "Islamic terrorism" everywhere and in everything. Including in conflicts where both sides are Muslim and the conflict's roots are based on non-religious problems. Islam is evil and Arabs are villains trope, first used during the Sudanese Civil War of the 1990s was used to justify the Right to Protect doctrine of the NATO countries that would be used to bomb Libya in 2011. However, by 2009, the momentum for Darfur had fizzled and the 2010 - 2011 Arab revolts across the Middle East and North Africa including Sudan, completely pushed Darfur from the world's consciousness and the international media moved onto the Libyan and Syrian wars and then the threat of ISIS. Most of the Save Darfur organizations from 15 years ago are now defunct, their leaders have moved on to different issues and conflicts. Their respective websites are archived. Exception being the organizations Enough and the Sentry created by Hollywood legendary actor turned activist George Clooney. Yet, these two organizations have since expanded their operations away from Darfur to other ignored global conflicts such as the Rohingya and Syria. Even than Darfur doesn't occupy the headlines and have only received very few mentions in online news sites commemorating the 20-year anniversary of the ongoing refugee crisis in Darfur. The region's inter communal violence have gotten minimal coverage in 2021. Once, the UNAMID, the joint African Union-United Mission for Darfur that operated in Darfur from 2007 - 2020 pulled its peacekeeping forces completely from the region, even the United Nations had to turn its attention to the ongoing large refugee and asylum crisis across the MENA region and the recently ended Tigray war in Ethiopia. Just as South Sudanese story had caught the world's attention 40 years earlier, the media especially online media and the Internet also played a major role in the early days of the Darfur conflict in garnering the public's attention even quicker than the South Sudanese struggle. The War on Terrorism also pushed Darfur and Sudan into the forefront as many of the earlier supporters of South Sudanese struggle recognized similarities and tried to portray the Darfur conflict as part of the larger War on Terrorism and fight against "Islamic regimes" despite the conflict being between Muslims. It didn't take long for the Save Darfur and Responsibility 2 protect activists i.e. Eric Reeves, advocates and prejudicial analysts to paint the Darfur situation as terrifying Arabs attacking innocent African Muslims. Unlike the earlier Sudanese civil wars between the North and South, the conflict in Darfur wasn't based on religion or Islamization or even Arabization but based on scarcity of resources, marginalization and tensions between different peoples who had once lived peacefully neighbors and had local methods to solving rapid desertification across Darfur and rising social tensions. But in American, European and international media, the conflict was reduced down to ancient tribal hatreds of Arab vs African without the other factors especially land rights mentioned.
Dirty political underbelly of the Darfur Conflict
Worst, prominent journalists perhaps avoiding a much needed deep analysis of the ethnic and cultural aspects in Darfur and life in rural Sudan, tended to amalgamate the Fur, Massalit and Zaghawa, Rizeigat, Misseriya, Humr, Hawazma (part of Baggara Arabs which means cattle herders and are part of the Sudanese Arabs) together as the same people which they are not and often don't understand that the conflict is between nomadic, pastoralists and settled people over the scarcity of water and fertile land in Darfur and which groups have the claims or rights to the land. The Khartoum government favored the Darfuri Arabs and their reliance on fertile grazing lands for cattle and armed them with weapons. The armed militias particularly the Janjaweed were than given a carte blanche to take the land and resources of their Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa neighbors who they had often coexisted with side by side for decades until the conflict broke out in 2003. Professor Mahmood Madani also notes that Darfuri Arabs' voices have been absent and not given thought when the world's attention was on Darfur. The fact that the Darfuri Arabs are poorer than the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa is another aspect that is unknown to most outside the region. Even Rizeigat and other Darfuri Arab civilians were caricatured as part of the Janjaweed and their needs and rights to land and livelihoods went ignored by the media but not the government. Between 2013 - 2015, there were interclan fights between the Rizeigat and Maalia over land and feuds. One of the most popular medical TV dramas, ER (1994-2006) paid homage to the people of Darfur in 2006 at the height of the international media attention on Darfur with Season 12's three-part episode story arc focused on the fictional three field doctors Dr. Pratt, Dr. Carter, and Debbie working in IDP camps in war torn Darfur on patients ranging from children to the elderly. The protagonists work with the Alliance du Medicins Internationals based on the real Medicines sans Frontiers and highlighting the plight faced by IDPS in general. Beginning with Season 12 episode 15 Darfur, connecting to the end of episode 19 No place to run and completing the story arc with episode 20 There are no Angels here, the ER story took viewers on an unflinching journey along the three American doctors through the IDP camps, refugee camps to confrontation with Janjaweed and even dealings with indifferent police. All three episodes brought the attention back to the Darfuri people. While the setting and details were somewhat based in realism, the script left out the complexities and origins of the conflict. Also ignored in the story arc and the wider Save Darfur movement was the role of the various Darfur rebel groups JEM, SLA and the factional fighting between the groups for power, on how to negotiate with the government on peace plans or ending the war once and for all. A year later, German director Uwe Boll's 2007 film Attack on Darfur also hit theaters and was screened in schools again to highlight the brutality of Janjaweed against Darfuri civilians. Although the movie in the first half unfolds as a docudrama with the characters getting acquainted with the Darfuris, it quickly deviates into action fueled storyline. Perhaps inspired by Rambo or other revenge movies, Attack on Darfur not only has journalists as protagonists trying their utmost to protect Darfuri IDPs but even stepping in place of the UN mission chief who is seen as not doing enough to protect the IDPs. One of the younger protagonists even looks to become wannabe soldier ready to face down the Janjaweed. The journalists are living out a fantasy perhaps of the Save Darfur movement where they become the heroes briefly until reality hits that they underestimate the dangerous situation around them. Such a scenario is more inspired by 80s B movies of ordinary Americans turned military trained fighters taking down evil Arabs would've not happened in real life as the ER episodes point out. Recently, the inter communal conflicts in North Darfur, Southern and Eastern Darfur states continue to affect IDPs and town residents that are based on land disputes and IDPs wishing to go home without having foreigners from neighboring Chad squatting on their land and homes. The violence also comes as a consequence of the political instability in Libya and Chad's eastern border shared with Sudan. Darfuri rebels have been recorded fighting in Libya during 2011 civil war and now with Khalifa Haftar's militia and in turn weapons are flowing into Darfur from Libya prolonging JEM and SLM's insurgency to fight against the Sudanese Army. After 20 years of the insurgency, most of the Darfuri IDPs and refugees still look forward to returning home and living in peace including the Darfuri Diaspora in other parts of the world. They still believe in a democratic and equal Sudanese society. But many civilians no longer support JEM and the wider SLA (Sudan Liberation Army/Movement), which have splintered into multiple factional groups much like the once united SPLM North operating in South Kordofan and Blue Nile state. Despite the years of sympathy shown for the African Darfuris by aid and action groups, organizations and NGOs, Darfuris fleeing Sudan still have to battle bureaucratic red tape, Kafkaesque regulations and rules, jump through hoops and loops just to seek asylum abroad. Israel who has always been willing to cozy up to Sudanese minorities have been willing to allow Sudanese refugees and asylum seekers into the country. This includes long time South Sudanese refugees. However, allowing the Sudanese to stay long term has been met with right wing pundits and advocates, ultra and religious nationalists and decrying the refugees as "invaders and infiltrators" into Israeli society. Keep in mind that Israel is a still European settler state and in spite of being located in the Middle East. It comes as no shock to the non-European observers, while refugees who are still in legal limbo with Israeli bureaucracy, that Israeli racism plays a role in determining which asylum seekers receive the warmest welcome and easy integration into Israeli society.
*There's a decent size Sudanese community in Saudi Arabia and many Sudanese pilgrims travel from Port Sudan to Mecca and other parts of Hijaz, despite disagreements over the war in Yemen)