The Disintegration of Sudan: Between the Laws of Action and Reaction and the Views of Dhimmis and Mawalis
Unrest, fighting, and strife have proliferated between the commander of the Sudanese army, Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, and the commander of the Rapid Support Forces (formerly known as Janjaweed), Lieutenant General Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo, known as “Hemedti” from Khartoum to other provinces in Sudan.
The national and religious strife is rearing its ugly head between the different nations, nationalities, and tribes of these states. The consequence of their divergent and antagonistic interests, origins, and principles is the disintegration and division of Sudan into several geopolitical circles. It was driven by the difference and dissonance between the original socio-cultural groups from which Sudan arose starting in 1821 AD during the campaign of Muhammad Ali Pasha, and that continued with the English colonization in 1896, when the current geopolitical structure of Sudan was established.
Sudan’s many crises since its independence from Britain in 1956 are, in fact, one quantum political situation of great complexity and composition to which traditional classical political analysis does not apply.
Sudan is an ideal case study to research and scrutinize because what applies to it also applies to most Middle Eastern, African, and Asian countries. This study will utilize a toolbox of several research methods and methodologies available for political analysis and harness them to analyze the Sudanese status quo. The ultimate aim of this study is to generalize this analysis over other countries. What drains Sudan’s capabilities in its geopolitical crises, the enmity between its different ethnicities, the animus between the followers of its religions, the antagonisms between its nations and peoples, and its various sects, and tribes also afflicts Iraq, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Libya, Chad, Mali, Nigeria, Egypt, and others.
In Sudan, there is a geopolitical difference between its many provinces. The provinces of Darfur, South Kordofan, Blue Nile, and Abyei favor secession, self-determination, or federal rule in the weakest political realities. Ethnic hostility and antagonism prevail between Arabs in the north, the Beja in the east, and Africans in the south and west, while religious strife endures between Muslims and Christians spread in the southern states.
The regional competition over Sudan between Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, the Emirates, Iran, and Turkey is not a mystery to political observers. Sudan is located within the vital sphere of Egypt, Ethiopia, and Saudi Arabia. It is also within the emerging geopolitical circle of Emirati, Iranian, and Turkish national security. The strategic interests differ between these forces, borders on contradiction and discord, although these discrepancies were not apparent at the beginning of the crisis. When the crisis in Sudan intensifies, and its danger increases, the contradictions between these forces will reveal themselves. Efforts are being made to keep them covert because of the conflict resolution and reconciliation climate between Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the UAE, as well as between Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the Emirates. However, the hostility and incongruent interests cannot remain hidden when strife spreads in Sudan, and the war expands to other provinces and turns into a civil war of an ethnic, religious, and tribal character. Egypt will seek to support a group in the north to protect its national security and interests in the Nile. Saudi Arabia will seek to support a group on the shores of the Red Sea to preserve strategic stability in the Red Sea Basin and the Bab al-Mandab Strait and maintain stability in its western region and the vicinity of the NEOM project (in which the Saudi Public Investment Fund poured more than five hundred billion dollars). Turkey will likely sympathize with the Sudanese army and the Muslim Brotherhood. In contrast, Iran will sympathize with the Rapid Support Forces, led by General Hamidti, due to the Iranian-Russian partnership and the Russian Wagner Group’s support for the Rapid Support Forces, supplying them with weapons and ammunition. And Saudi Arabia and the UAE – having lost hope in establishing permanent peace in Sudan – will have to support the Rapid Support Forces who had fought within the Saudi-Emirati coalition offensive launched against Yemen in March 2015. General Hamdan Dagalo sent thousands of Janjaweed and Rapid Support Forces to fight with the coalition in Yemen. Ethiopia and Chad also have vital interests in Sudan that are inconsistent with Egypt’s interests. These political facts will lead to reconfiguring geopolitical relations in the Middle East. Egypt will find itself compelled to cooperate with Turkey in supporting the Sudanese army to confront Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the Emirates supporting the Rapid Support Forces in extraordinary quantum political alignment that defies traditional political reasoning.
The conflict of interests between the United States, China, Russia, and Israel in Sudan is also apparent. Sudan was the gateway through which China infiltrated Africa when it employed its first investments in clearing and paving roads connecting the Sudanese interior to Port Sudan on the Red Sea and working on the Jonglei Canal in the south since the end of the last century. When China loses hope for peace in Sudan, it will support the army and the armed forces where its interests and investments lie because of their greater control over political facts. Meanwhile, Russia will decide to side with the Rapid Support Forces under pressure from the Wagner Group, despite Russia’s likely losses in its revenues from gold extraction through the partnership between Russian Meroe Gold Co. and the Sudanese Al-Solag Company.
US strategy aims to deprive Russia of a foothold to establish a military and logistical base in Port Sudan on the Red Sea capable of docking nuclear-powered ships and submarines. The establishment of this base was agreed upon during the visit of now-deposed Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir to Moscow in 2017, while Abdel Fattah Al Burhan hesitated on whether to complete or cancel his visit in 2020. Another United States strategy is blocking the Wagner Group in Africa and elsewhere using sanctions and economic and strategic tools. It placed harsh sanctions on its leader in Mali, Ivan Maslov, for supplying surface-to-air missiles to the Rapid Support Forces during its fight against the Sudanese army in May 2023. Israel follows a dual strategy in Sudan. The Israeli army command and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs remain in contact with Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan to protect the Abraham Agreement and the reconciliation with Khartoum and to preserve channels of communication and diplomatic relations. Simultaneously, Israeli intelligence services maintain a rapport with the commander of the Rapid Support Forces, General Hamdan Dagalo, with out of fear that Iran and its allies infiltrate the Sudanese geopolitical sphere, stationing in it and establishing military and security bases to besiege Israel from the side of the Red Sea and threaten the maritime shipping lines leading to its ports in Eilat and the Mediterranean.
This incident is essentially an incident in quantum politics. Specifically, when Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Israel, and Russia are in political or intelligence contact with the same side inside Sudan, despite their differences and contradicting principles, interests, and strategies.
Despite its richness, the traditional political analysis does not possess sufficient tools to interpret the surrounding regional and international political facts in Sudan and the internal political incidents and relations. Conventional analysis is limited to identifying the factors of crises, strife, and continuous and successive wars. It is content with describing the failure of the successive Sudanese civil and military governments to achieve equitable development and prosperity between the center and the periphery and its inability to achieve equal political representation between Khartoum and the northern provinces and the southern and western states.
It is implausible to argue that traditional political analysis is capable of interpreting the facts of Sudan and explaining its crises since its independence and until today. Had this style of analysis been able to, it would have offered Sudan solutions sparing it the detrimental consequences of ongoing geopolitical disintegration and division. The continuation of Sudan’s crises and wars, most recently between the Sudanese Army and the Rapid Support Forces, is evidence of the impotence of traditional political solutions and analyses in which the Sudanese political forces and regional and international political forces have drowned.
Accordingly, it is inevitable to mention the facts and factors driving the geopolitical crises and the Sudanese internal wars, as it is imperative to mention the facts by concealing or exposing them.
Sudan is an artificial geopolitical entity founded forcefully to serve colonial purposes, like many other Middle Eastern, African, and Asian countries. Muhammad Ali Pasha, ruling Egypt at the beginning of the 19thcentury, and his successors after him, wanted Sudan to be a reservoir for supplying the empire that they resolved to establish with food, raw materials, soldiers, and fighters. The British Empire needed Sudan, along with India, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, as an additional reserve of resources to sustain its vast empire and other assets and resources that were the factors and reasons for the survival and endurance of the empire. Therefore, Egypt and Britain hoped to establish Sudan since the 19th century. The Sudanese lands between the Blue and White Niles provided wheat and cotton, fertile plains and pastures with livestock supplying Egypt and Britain with meat in the First and Second World Wars and substantial amounts of wood and minerals needed. Britain maintained Sudan’s status as a unified state for imperial goals to sustain its empire despite the many factors of division and disintegration it forcibly confronted and thwarted.
With the decline of the British Empire, the necessity to preserve Sudan as a unified state waned. After its independence in 1956 from the British Crown, the factors of division and disintegration appeared clearly. They threatened to cause the demise of the Sudanese geopolitical entity, despite the keen efforts of successive governments to preserve and sustain it in every way possible. However, they failed to create the strategies needed for its preservation. Instead, many consecutive administrations of Sudan took measures contradictory to their objectives, especially during the rule of Sudan by military regimes for more than fifty years since 1958.
The law of geopolitical action and reaction presses hard towards dividing, dismantling, and terminating Sudan as a formation. This law will remain in action until the disappearance of Sudan from the map of African geopolitics and its division into four hostile entities: Darfur, Blue Nile in the East, South Kordofan in the South, and the North on the borders of Egypt.
The geopolitical struggle between North and South Sudan has endured since Muhammad Ali Pasha and the Egyptian rule over Sudan, the Mahdist State between1881-1896, and the British colonial era. It intensified since its independence in 1956, especially during the military regimes. Periods of civil democratic rules have temporarily quelled power struggles because these governments leaned toward and accepted a federalist state.Soon after, geopolitical action and reaction reemerged between the northern Darfur provinces in the west since the 1980s. These events escalated to a geopolitical disintegration in 2003 when Khartoum started a war against these areas to coerce them to remain attached to the center. The situation will remain unchanged until this coercive bond is dissolved and Darfur separates from Khartoum. The geopolitical tensions also became more apparent between the center and the provinces of the Beja in the east since 2002. The Beja tribes have sought federal rule and self-government in their geopolitical regions after they developed an alphabet specific to their language twenty years ago, which they started teaching their people, adopting in their education system, and popularizing it alongside the primary Arabic language. The eastern states did not partake in the Transitional Sovereignty Council proceedings after the removal of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir in 2019. They also abstained from participating in the Addis Ababa and the Abuja Agreements between the army and the opposition movements. Likewise, geopolitical tensions with Khartoum flared in the states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile since 2013, and they claimed federalism and self-rule since then, intensifying pressure on it from the Northern states.
The law of geopolitical action’s historical action and reaction that started since the independence in Sudan is unstoppable until it realizes its purpose: dismantling Sudan, returning it to its original geopolitical makeup, and initiating new geopolitical structures and equations also stretching to the Red Sea and East Africa, and perhaps to the Sahel, the Sahara, and Central Africa.
International or regional schemes are a major obstacle. Global powers are keen to suppress the infighting in Sudan, preserve truce, and broker peace between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces, with a joint American-Saudi initiative agreed upon in Jeddah in May 2023. However, historical facts and the law of action and geopolitical repercussions are more potent than the keenness and determination of regional and global powers.
The successive governments of Sudan fueled its internal geopolitical discord because it did not transcend the historical political tradition and the classic Islamic political legacy that divides the state’s subjects and inhabitants into Dhimmis and Mawali, whereby they do not benefit from the same rights granted to Muslims of Arab descent (see The Principles of Politics and Governance in Islam where these topics are expanded on).
The three internal dynamics interacting in Sudan (the law of action and geopolitical repercussions, treating Christians in the South as Dhimmis and non-Arab African Muslims in Darfur, Kordofan, and the Blue Nile, in the East as Mawalis) have driven the development of political facts in Sudan since its inception. These dynamics caused an escalation and an intensification of conflict, bringing Sudan to the brink of geopolitical disintegration and demise since its independence.
It is not plausible to claim a global conspiracy for the division of Sudan, to blame American orientalist Bernard Lewis’ plan to divide the Middle East, or any other conspiracy theories. These are not tools suitable for political analysis: what has been happening in Sudan for a century now is driven by internal dynamics.
The ruling Sudanese political elite in Sudan went too far in its contempt for all groups other than Arab Muslims in the North, who are of diverse ethnic origins, religious groups, and tribal affiliations. Since the rule of Muhammad Ahmad al-Mahdi, this elite considered the south as the birthplace of servants because of their conversion to Christianity, and they assimilated them only either as Dhimmis (second-degree subjects) or idol-worshippers, therefore enslaving them and giving them no rights. This led to the rise of a Sudanese nationalist movement that seeks to expunge Islamic tendencies and their associated classical intellectual heritage from the political, intellectual structure and circumscribe it to the Sudanese cultural heritage preceding Islam.
Likewise, this ruling elite in Khartoum excessively humiliated non-Arab Muslim Africans based on the ideals of Arab nationalism held by this ruling elite. Since the 1980s, these tendencies intensified, and the ruling Arab-Muslim elites took the Non-Arab Muslim tribes and ethnic groups of Darfur, Kordofan, Beja, and Blue Nile as Mawali (citizens of a lower status, like they had been in Islamic history). In response, Africanist tendencies emerged, presenting African cultural heritage and political thought as superior to the Arab national, cultural, and intellectual heritage.
Internal policies have oscillated between these two tendencies, and the successive Sudanese governments have fluctuated between them when it comes to their political relationships with the southern provinces (Bahr el-Ghazal, Upper Nile, and Equatoria), Darfur, the eastern provinces, South Kordofan, and the Blue Nile. From 1956, these two tendencies would weaken under civil governments that leaned toward a civil democratic thought, and separatist claims would calm down and retreat for a while in the south before its separation from the North. However, soon after, Arab-Islamic tendencies translated themselves into military coups fueled by nationalism (Ibrahim Abboud’s coup in 1958 against the government of Ahmed Al-Khalil, the coup of Jaafar Al-Nimeiri against the government of Ismail Al-Azhari in 1969, and the coup of Omar Hassan Al-Bashir and the nationalist Islamic movement led by Hassan Al-Turabi against the government of Sadiq Al-Mahdi in 1989).
Policies classifying people of Dhimmis and Mawali are, consequently, reinforced in governments, administrative systems, and public institutions in their relationship to the residents of the Southern, Western, and Eastern provinces. This motivates ethnic groups and tribes in these regions and provinces to seek secession and federalism, flaring up wars and separatist sentiments. Warring movements mobilize their supporters and popular bases to prepare for long fights. Subsequently, the Sudanese army calls for the jihad to spread Islam in retaliation, aligning people behind the army’s already existent strategic objectives to eradicate movements in the South, Darfur, and elsewhere.
Because of the geopolitical discord, the Independence Charter of 1956 included a clause promising the establishment of a federation in the states of the south, which Ahmed Al-Khalil’s government fulfilled. This was ended by the military coup led by Ibrahim Abboud in 1958, who ruled until 1964. People rose against Abboud and deposed him, after which parliamentary elections took place, and several democratic governments came to power. A military coup led by Jaafar al-Numeiri in 1969 ended democratic succession. At the beginning of his reign, the war in the south intensified, driven by a leftist Arab nationalist tendency sweeping the Arab countries at the time. A reconciliation was reached between Khartoum and the Anya-Nya movement in 1972, laying the foundations for self-rule in the south. The situation remained unchanged until the regime of Jaafar al-Numeiri started to weaken. He wanted to rally people behind his rule, so he allied with So the policies of the people of the dhimmis and loyalists become entrenched in the behavior of governments, administrative systems, and public institutions with the residents of the states of the south, west, and east, so the motives move and energize the determination of the peoples, nations, and tribes of those regions and states towards separation or federalism, wars rage, separatist feelings flare up, fighting movements mobilize their supporters, and mobilize their popular bases to fight long wars, So the Sudanese army declares war on it and calls for jihad, mobilization and fighting in order to spread Islam to mobilize people and mobilize them behind its existing strategic objectives in eradicating the green movements in the south, Darfur and others.
Geopolitical dissonance prompted a promise in the Independence Charter in 1956 to establish a federation in the states of the south, and the government of Ahmed Al-Khalil fulfilled that, so the military coup that was led by Ibrahim Abboud took place in 1958 and he ruled until 1964. With a military coup led by Jaafar al-Numeiri in 1969, and at the beginning of his reign, the war in the south intensified, driven by a leftist Arab nationalist tendency that was sweeping the Arab countries at the time. A reconciliation was concluded between Khartoum and the Anania movement in 1972, laying the foundations and rules for self-rule for the south. And this continued until the regime of Jaafar al-Numeiri weakened, so he wanted to mobilize the people behind his rule, so he allied with the Islamic Charter Front, naming its leader, Dr. Hassan Abdullah Al-Turabi (1932-2006), as minister of justice. He declared Shari’a law, allowing Islamic verdicts such as stoning men and women, amputating limbs, and whipping people in public squares in Juba, the capital of the South, Khartoum, and other Sudanese towns and cities. Christians were ruled as Dhimmis, having to pay jizya[i]for subjects and kharaj for lands[ii]. Al-Numeiri brought the south back under central rule, and its provinces returned to war, with John Garang leading the rebels. The World Council of Churches took their plea to international forums. In 1985, Field Marshal Abd al-Rahman Suwar al-Dahab led military coup against the Nimeiri regime and handed power after a one-year transitional period to a civilian coalition government. It was led by Sadiq al-Mahdi, leader of the Umma Party in 1986, along with with the Democratic Unionist Party led by Muhammad Othman al-Mirghani, after their electoral victory that year. The National Islamic Front led by Hassan al-Turabi took opposition seats. The government signed a reconciliation agreement with the popular movement led by Garang under pressure from their partner in the coalition government, the Democratic Unionist Party. The Islamic movement conspired with Al-Bashir to implement the July 1989 coup, and they seized power, filling institutions, departments, and state apparatuses with their followers and supporters.They declared jihad against the states of the south, and declared Sudan a land of Islam. Islamists from all over the globe emigrated to Sudan, including Usama Bin Laden (1991-1996), and Dr. Omar bin Abd al-Rahman, leader the Egypt Muslim Group who issued a fatwa for the blood of the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. It is there where they orchestrated the attempt to assassinate the ousted President Hosni Mubarak in Addis Ababa in 1995. Fighting intensified in the southern provinces, and they called for jihad in the cities and towns of the northern provinces. A geopolitical rift fell over Sudan, enduring until the 1999 severe dispute between Dr. Hassan al-Turabi, Speaker of the Sudanese Parliament, and President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir and his deputy, Ali Othman Muhammad Taha. They deposed Al-Turabi from the presidency of Parliament and imprisoned him. Al-Bashir’s regime became aware of its inability to subjugate the South. Ali Osman Taha entered into negotiations with John Garang, which ended with the signing of the Machakos agreement in 2002 and the Naivasha agreement in 2005, which led to a referendum in 2011 and the declaration of the secession of the southern provinces into an independent, self-contained state.
How the political elite of the North saw the Christian population in the South (as Dhimmis and second-class subjects of the state) led to the first geopolitical change in Sudan.
The political view in Khartoum classifying the people of Darfur and the non-Arab Muslims of Darfur as Mawalis, led to the control exerted by the Arab Janjaweed raiding indigenous people (the Fur African tribe), safe in their homes and farms, violating their sanctities since 2003, killing between 300 to 400 thousand people in Darfur, and displacing millions of them to neighboring countries. It also led to the emergence of the Sudan Liberation Movement, the Justice and Equality Movement, and other separatist movements in the Darfur provinces. Many rounds of negotiations and the signing of several peace agreements in Juba, Addis Ababa, Abuja, and Doha did not end the war or find a permanent solution to the Darfur crisis as a result of the ruling elite in Khartoum regarding its population as Mawalis, and generalizing this view to include the residents of South Kordofan, Blue Nile, and the people of Beja in Eastern Sudan. This drives the geopolitical strife and division in Sudan, not external conspiracies and international interests in Sudan’s great resources.
One of two things will happen in Sudan:
The first would be the adoption of a democratic, secular, civil rule based on the principle of equal citizenship and an inclusive Sudanese national identity that guarantees equal rights for the entire population of Sudan, regardless of their ethnic, religious, tribal, or regional affiliations, and letting go of considering Christians to be Dhimmis and Africans to be Mawalis, and building a just national state on sound foundations where all people are equal before the law and the constitution.
The second is to drown Sudan in a fierce internal war called for by the supporters of the Islamic Movement and the former ruling National Congress Party, where Ali Karti and Ibrahim Ghandour mobilized their supporters to prevent the signing of the framework agreement between civilians and the military in early 2023 that enshrines a constitutional democratic civil rule. They caused issues between the Sudanese army and The Rapid Support Forces, igniting an unstoppable internal war destroying the pillars of the Sudanese state and causing its disintegration into several hostile geopolitical spheres.
In Ibn Saad’s “Al-Tabaqat al-Kubra,” Imam Amer al-Sha’bi (who died in 103 AH/723 AD) called the Mawalis in Kufa “Sa’afiqah” and “Banu Astha” until they revolted and hostilities broke out between the Arab Muslims and the non-Arab Muslims.
The state of affairs in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia will not be rectified except with the establishment of the rule of law and the constitution and the consolidation of civil citizenship and national identity that unites citizens, rendering them equal before the law. It is also necessary to repudiate and eradicate all forms of sectarianism and national, religious, and tribal fanaticism.
The destruction and disintegration of Sudan are the results of the law of action and geopolitical repercussions, the principle of Dhimmis and Mawalis. May this be a warning for other countries not to follow a path similar to Sudan’s.
[i] Jizyah, also spelled jizya, historically a tax (the term is often incorrectly translated as a “head tax” or “poll tax”) paid by non-Muslim populations to their Muslim rulers. (Britannica)
[ii] Under Islāmic law, only original Muslims or converts to Islām could own land. Thus, there was incentive for non-Muslim cultivators to convert to Islām so that they could maintain their agricultural holdings. Upon conversion, the cultivators were required to pay the ʿushr (or tithe), a tax equivalent to one-tenth of their produce. (Britannica)
