It is hard to overestimate the damage that the world suffered because of the British Empire. There’s a book to be written about this. If you look at the world’s trouble spots, you can almost always find that the root lies in British colonial policy. In a nutshell, these hot spots emerge because Britain established its dominance in the global south by interrupting traditional power relationships and choosing winners and losers among the people already living there. Tribal loyalties were ignored (or actively punished) while loyalty to some kind of national entity – usually a colonial government propped up by the British) – took over. The colony was valued only as an economic resource to the empire. Often the only national entity that the colonized people could be part of was a national army – wholly created by Britain. When independence took hold across the African continent in the 1950s and 960s, a population unprepared for governing turned to this national military force to maintain order. The succession of military coups (and the poverty and underdevelopment endemic to former member states under the British Empire) are a predictable consequence of British colonial policy. But I digress.
The most recent evidence of this can be seen in the recent unrest in Sudan. Most of us don’t pay much attention to Africa as we go about our daily lives. It seems unmeasurably alien to us. We have some idea of the geography of the county, but little awareness of what’s happening on the ground. As a result, when full-blown crises suddenly emerge as a leading story, we feel blindsided.
A little “modern” history: (this is largely from Wikipedia; it’s not a bad source for general information)
1821-1899 – part of the Ottoman Empire
1899-1956 – part of the British Empire (administered as two essentially separate territories, the north and the south.
1956 – Independence, leading to a 20-year north-south civil war
1989 – Military coup. Bashir government suspended political parties, introduced an Islamic legal code. Sudan becomes a one-party state. US lists Sudan as a state sponsor of terrorism.
2003-2005 – second civil war
2011 – South Sudan secedes
2019 – Sudanese Revolution and transitional government. Sudan begins the path to democracy
2021 – successful military coup; brokered return of the former Prime Minister to power as transition to democracy continues
This brings us to the current moment, which can be understood generally as open conflict between two competing military forces – the Sudanese Army and the paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces. After a week of bloody fighting in Khartoum (the capital city), a shaky cease-fire was negotiated – largely to allow the evacuation of foreign nationals living in Sudan.
One of my go-to newsletters that helps me understand what’s going on is written by historian Heather Cox Richardson (if you don’t already read her Substack newsletter Letters from an American, I recommend that you do so right away). Here are a few things she wrote about Sudan on Monday of this week.
The ceasefire is shaky, but there was hope that the work could begin to negotiate a permanent ceasefire and return Sudan to a path toward democracy.
The size of Sudan complicates the process of evacuating US civilians from the country. The best route seems to be a land evacuation from Khartoum to Port Sudan on the Red Sea, where Americans can get transportation out of the region on naval ships from various countries. The US does not plan to send troops to Sudan.
The issues in Sudan are complicated by Russian expansionism in the Sahel region of Africa. Russia’s paramilitary Wagner Group is working in neighboring Chad to overthrow the government there. The Wagner Group is apparently trying to build a unified confederation of African states across the region, including Burkina Faso, Chad, Eritrea, Guinea, Mali, Niger, and Sudan.
Americans still stuck in an isolationist America-First mindset are working hard to convince Americans that we can “go it alone” in the world. This may have been possible in the 19th century, but it wasn’t possible 50 or 100 years ago and it sure isn’t possible today. The world is too interconnected to allow us to ignore global hot spots. It doesn’t mean we bomb the shit out of anyone we don’t like, but it does mean we try to identify trouble spots and proactively engage to avert violence that might eventually draw us in.
When I taught high school history, I tried to help my students understand the “why” of history, not just the “what.” Events happen for reasons. Unfortunately, we tend to study history from war to war, largely ignoring or simplifying the events that happen between the wars. But wars are always fought for political reasons, and you can’t understand a war until you understand the events that preceded it.
Here’s a quick summary of this graphic.
Economic change is the engine of potential conflict. The word “economic” refers to any alteration in the four factors of production – land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurship. So it includes what we would call technological change – developments that change the way we make or market the things we need.
Economic change leads to social change. Because the way we work changes, our community or personal interactions also change. Just think of the automobile, cell phones, or Zoom if you want a clear picture of this.
Economic and social change lead to demands for political change. Think about the evolution of our understanding of the First Amendment in this context; new forms of communication have raised new questions about how the first amendment freedoms can be maintained under increasingly rapid and complicated technological development.
If the political system isn’t successful in dealing with this cascading set of changes, violence is a likely result. It might not be a full-out international war; it could be as simple as, oh, I don’t know, an insurrection. Just spitballing here.
To the degree that political institutions are unable to adapt to and moderate the economic and social changes in a country, the prospect of violence begins to dominate any concept of the future of the political landscape.
We can see this in the US, as declining trust in our political institutions had led to the rise of militia groups (think about the Sudanese conflict playing out on the streets of Khartoum this week) and the looming prospect of more political violence. In Georgia yesterday, Fani Willis issued a letter to Georgia law enforcement, asking them to be prepared for possible violence later in the summer when she announces indictments in the case against Trump (and others) in the Georgia fake electors scheme. This is not normal in American politics. TFG’s efforts to destabilize all institutions of American governance (including but not limited to the Congress, judiciary, and state legislatures) make the prospect of violence more likely.
I listened to a podcast over the weekend about the situation in Sudan. The commentator said that the best way to understand what’s going on in Sudan is to think of it as the US Marines and the US Army fighting for dominance in the streets of DC. I think it’s also possible to think of this as the paramilitary Proud Boys (currently on criminal trial for their January 6 transgressions) and the Capitol (and other) Policy fighting it out on the steps of the Capitol Building. This is not good for democracy and the rule of law. And just to continue the analogy – the Russians are also working to encourage TFG and his allies (think of the recently shit-canned Tucker Carlson) in destabilizing the United States.
We may be more like Sudan than we think.
Yes! Right on. So true. And thanks for always including maps. I'm reading our book club book--no maps! Ugh. Maps are important. Thanks. I agree with you. Obvs.