Sudan Conflict Rooted In Colonialism

[DR OSMAN]

@Nilotic it is well known in tribal societies when one tribe comes to power, he will empower his tribe n location, he will isolate other tribes as 'enemies', he will ensure no economic development goes there also, if their not using the state to outright HARM u thru 'violence', they use it to 'isolate' you so your weak. This is the Somali experience with state, and Im pretty damn sure it's a similar narrative across the continent. So as africans we need to discuss how do we VIEW the state and craft systems to support our VIEW of it.

 

[GemState]

That's fair, but I don't want a Dinka State; I want something greater than even a Nilotic ethno-State; I want to integrate with our Niger-Congo cousins as well and interact with larger Nations as a single bloc.

Unifiying these groups will continue to be difficult, but reverting back to tribal Nations is regressive and would make us all weaker and more vulnerable.

I don't get the EAC hype. People thinking it's gonna be an African version of ASEAN are gonna be disappointed. It's just gonna be another version of ECOWAS.

The only time you'll get these grand Unions/Nations is through conquest, and the time for that ended by the late 19th century. Africa now is too highly populated and the identites too set in to go through a real restructuring that would improve things. It's similar to the Middle East in that respect.

 

[Nilotic]

I don't get the EAC hype. People thinking it's gonna be an African version of ASEAN are gonna be disappointed. It's just gonna be another version of ECOWAS.

The only time you'll get these grand Unions/Nations is through conquest, and the time for that ended by the late 19th century. Africa now is too highly populated and the identites too set in to go through a real restructuring that would improve things. It's similar to the Middle East in that respect.

Other than conquest, the only other way to create a coherent and functional grand union is through significant soft power of the economic kind; a stable and economically powerful Nation (like Germany & France) is is required in order to create such a union, and no African Country is even remotely close to fulfilling that role.

 

[DR OSMAN]

Other than conquest, the only other way to create a coherent and functional grand union is through significant soft power of the economic kind; a stable and economically powerful Nation (like Germany & France) is is required in order to create such a union, and no African Country is even remotely close to fulfilling that role.

ppl don't talk about the effectiveness of soft power thru economics. U can set up foreign companies, hire ppl, push ur values so it becomes sub conscious into ur workers which Somalis should be doing with their businesses in africa but they don't.

Same with setting up western schools so they go thru it and generates a new generation. Other soft power techniques is thru tourism-scholarships-sports. It takes longer but way better then hard option @GemState 19th century style, becuz the ppl will see u as an enemy/invader and begin rebellions or insurgencies, in-fact it may even help their bad leaders get support. Hard diplomacy only time it ever worked is in Japan, the rest 99% attempts have been abysmall failures.

But investment is so hard in africa becuz of the lack of nation building physical and social infrastructure >>>> linked to IMF/World bank ratings making them to risky to access nation building loans >>>> so their only hope is relying on 'foreign aid, ngo, charities' which is a circular economy where their dependence doesnt end becuz if they cured poverty it wud end their aid-ngo-charity in-house economy n supply chains. For every dollar u get, they make 10 dollars going to inhouse costs n supply chains.

 

[Step a side]

Sudan like every african country is artifically created, it didn't exist prior to colonialism. The north should've been put with the other 'falaheen' farmers of egypt and in particular south egypt. They share much more in common under the egyptian class system which is the 'fellahin' peasant farmers, the mulkiyeen those who became educated under colonialism, and the qibtiyeen, the pre-existing educated class pre-colonialism. Egypt still suffers from this class war.

Where-as Sudan they cut off parts of Chad which western sudan share more in common with. They cut off south sudan from Uganda. The eastern Sudan seem like the only group that is a stand-alone ethnicity, because they don't belong with Eritrea-Ethiopia.

Then you have Sudan post colonial where they were stuck with a military junta who had independent power to control a puppet civilian govt. The Omar Bashir kept the military junta power and eliminated the civilian puppet govt and he was smart by ensuring military junta are split and not centralized so he can use one wing against another untill the unthinkable happened the two wings(north and west) got rid of him.

Reminds me of 91 opposition faction in Somalia who couldn't agree post siyad barre in 91, now these two opposition generals(west and north) can't agree to power and enjoying a new civil war. These guys should've agreed on post-omar future way before they took military action against him, not leave this important political settlement post omar. They should've Let the system exist and work and only replace it once you agreed to the new system before taking any military action.

The struggle between the west-north general isn't playin out thru thin-air, their is on-ground hostilities between the two communities. As the north views the west sudanese as uncivilized and similar to the hotu in rwanda or the hawiye in Somalia, while the west views the north as concentrating power within themselves the 'fellahin' communities who should be apart of egypt.

Every colonial country has either pre-existing ruling class or a ruling class developed thru colonialism, this social layer exists in all colonial nations, whether it's asia-africa-mid-east. Plus their borders are usually artificial and never existed prior and their nationalism would be very fragile or w

The Easter part of Sudan do fit with Eritrea. In fact you can’t tell the difference between the Beni Amir and Tigre.

 

[Nilo-Saharan]

Sudan like every african country is artifically created, it didn't exist prior to colonialism. The north should've been put with the other 'falaheen' farmers of egypt and in particular south egypt. They share much more in common under the egyptian class system which is the 'fellahin' peasant farmers, the mulkiyeen those who became educated under colonialism, and the qibtiyeen, the pre-existing educated class pre-colonialism. Egypt still suffers from this class war.

If we were proposing hypothetical boundaries that are better suited to maintaining cultural continuity between groups as an alternative to colonial borders, this is just as bad a proposition as the British deciding to expand The Sudan as far south as bordering Uganda. Sure there are cultural similarities between Nubians and Egyptians but these two groups are so distinct and have a long history of distinguishing themselves from each other despite their similarities. I find it odd you believe the East of Sudan is distinct enough from Eritrea and Ethiopia that they deserve their own separate state but the North is too diluted with Egyptian influence and so should just become an extension of Egypt. I also want to say there should be capitalization and bold text on "should" because right now, it would be anything but wise to try to modify these current borders. Sudan is better off going with what it has now unless reasons that suggest an advantageous alternative come into play here which at the moment we have not seen.

Where-as Sudan they cut off parts of Chad which western sudan share more in common with. They cut off south sudan from Uganda. The eastern Sudan seem like the only group that is a stand-alone ethnicity, because they don't belong with Eritrea-Ethiopia.

This is actually just a myth a lot of Sudanese people like to propagate for some reason when really its truth is overly exaggerated. Darfur is not "cut-off parts of Chad". Darfur was independent of French control for all of its existence. Could it have maybe been a part of Chad? Yes, but the French attempts to bring it into their empire failed and Darfur resisted strongly against this. Eventually, the Anglo-Egyptian conquest of Sudan saw the dissolution of the Fur Sultanate and Darfur coming to be incorporated into this new territory. Sudanese people make the illusion that Darfur has always existed separate from the rest of Sudan and been generally disconnected from what has happened elsewhere across the land but this just isn't true. Darfur has a lot of cultural continuity with Chad but most of these cultural similarities were brought about through much more recent happenings as opposed to the more traditional form of Cultural similarities arising that most of Sudan is familiar with defined by thousands of years of cultural development observed between groups of similar origin and an eventual rise to cultures of various similarities. Darfur is also diverse so I can't really speak for every example of culture in Darfur because some Darfuris are sedentary Sudanese groups that came under the rule of Pre-colonial Islamic powers that rose from Chad, and these groups were culturally influenced, i.e the Fur, whereas some Darfuris are the literal embodiments of Chadian Ethnic expansions into Sudan such as the Masalit or specific Arab clans in the region.

The struggle between the west-north general isn't playin out thru thin-air, their is on-ground hostilities between the two communities. As the north views the west sudanese as uncivilized and similar to the hotu in rwanda or the hawiye in Somalia, while the west views the north as concentrating power within themselves the 'fellahin' communities who should be apart of egypt.

Every colonial country has either pre-existing ruling class or a ruling class developed thru colonialism, this social layer exists in all colonial nations, whether it's asia-africa-mid-east. Plus their borders are usually artificial and never existed prior and their nationalism would be very fragile or weak

While there definitely is some presence of Ethnic association to the split between the RSF and SAF, you grossly oversimplify it by assuming it's a solely regional divide of West-North. It isn't. Both of these regions are not homogenous either and have extremely complex demographics, social structures, tribal-ethnic lines, histories of intra-regional tension, and inbalance of power distribution at the hands of an Ethnically selective central power. I argue the West more so than the North.

The RSF is mainly made up of Western Arabs, the SAF is much more diverse consisting of people from all over Sudan. The RSF is in simplicity your paramilitary version of a Sudanese Arab's ethno-nationalist dream of an Arab paradise. The RSF has a select few Non-Arabs too but it's very clearly dominated by and has its origins in the various Arab tribes of Darfur.

The divide at a societal level also very obviously isn't West-North. People from the West like the Fur, Zaghawa, Birgid, and Borgu, all stand in opposition to the Western Affiliated RSF and actually stand at a preference towards the SAF alongside Northerners like the Nubians. Sudanese Arabs of the North see some diversity in opinion but the overwhelming majority take the side of the SAF with minorities choosing the RSF because of "Muh Arab supremacy".

And outside of this conflict there has been history of a West-North regional tension but it's almost entirely limited to a societal level and has never been and I doubt will ever be something of significance at a political or military degree. Though this West-North divide is not at all comparable to the Hutu-Tutsi divide.

Every colonial country has either pre-existing ruling class or a ruling class developed thru colonialism, this social layer exists in all colonial nations, whether it's asia-africa-mid-east. Plus their borders are usually artificial and never existed prior and their nationalism would be very fragile or weak

This would make sense if Sudan actually had one pre-existing ruling class consisting majorly of one specific ethnic group throughout most of history. But it hasn't. Sudan has had several "ruling classes" dominating different corners of the country at very different time periods. Darfur alone has seen various drastic changes in the ruling classes and the demographics that compose them in the time span of just a few centuries at most.

I argue for Sudan, despite artificial borders, the people across the board generally, and relative to Africa, share a lot with each other due to various reasons tied to both Sudan's recent pre-colonial history and much earlier history of contact with outsiders such as Arabs. I think it's plausible to agree that Sudanese people generally have more in common as opposed to how much Nigerians or Kenyans have in common with each other. With Kenya and Nigeria, you have various ethnic entities divided by language, culture and in many instances origin. The same goes for Sudan but this is compensated by things that tie these distinct peoples together, whether it's Arab culture, language, Islam, or even the continuity of an earlier Indigenous culture keeping several distinct groups continuously linked together throughout history until today. Sudan is better off just going with what it has now unless some ethnic groups march down to Khartoum in mass and demand independence from Sudan which I then believe it should be granted.

 

[Nilo-Saharan]

Chad-Mali which western sudanese report to the great sultanates of the Moors and where the timbuktu libraries of the Moors were, they are not going to tolerate power ceded to a bunch of farming peasant cultures in north sudan who are merely a falaheen extension from egypt.

Your labeling of Nubians and riverine Arabs as Egyptian fellaheen extensions is entirely based on similarities of class systems (which were inevitably going to be brought about considering the earlier Authority of the Ottomans in Nubia and Egypt in difference to their later extension into the rest of Sudan). You completely disregard Linguistic differences, Cultural differences and very obvious and observable Genetic differences, with all 3 types of differences being numerous, and these are disregarded because of a class-system continuity as well as a common widespread lifestyle of Agri-culturalism? Is that what you're saying or have I misunderstood you?

 

[Nilo-Saharan]

Yeah, our identity is essentially a recent by-product of a struggle for survival and territorial integrity; the 64 ethnic groups that comprise South Sudan don't really identify with each other, so it will be very difficult to build a National identity that isn't almost entirely contingent on responding to external threats.

Millions of lives could have been saved if the British had elided us with our own kin in Kenya; this is not to say that there wouldn't have been any problems, however, I think it would have been a more natural fit in racial, religious and cultural terms.

The creation of necessary (but now destructive) armed resistance movements very likely wouldn't have been created if we were part of Kenya.

You guys have it easier than us. Honestly, if the current shit gets dealt with in South Sudan, I see you guys unifying beautifully under one identity and surpassing to new levels the African continent hasn't seen before, all whilst my people are stuck shooting and raping each other because the new family in the neighboring village said they didn't descend from a legendary Arab warrior who was a descendant of our Prophet PBUH.

 

[Nilo-Saharan]

Phenotype unity is imposed on us by colonials doesn't mean it's reality on the ground.

I'd argue that phenotypical unity could be a slight help in bringing national unity as crazy as it sounds.

 

[Nilotic]

You guys have it easier than us. Honestly, if the current shit gets dealt with in South Sudan, I see you guys unifying beautifully under one identity and surpassing to new levels the African continent hasn't seen before, all whilst my people are stuck shooting and raping each other because the new family in the neighboring village said they didn't descend from a legendary Arab warrior who was a descendant of our Prophet PBUH.

I appreciate the positive and encouraging sentiment, however, it will literally take decades to stabilise and unify South Sudan; we are so far behind everybody else that it will take exceptional leadership and Herculean effort just to keep it all together.