Civil War Sudan Has No Inclusive National Identity

 By Henry Srebrnik, Saint John Telegraph-Journal

Sudan has struggled to construct an inclusive national identity in the postcolonial era, but ethnic marginalization, uneven development, and authoritarian governance have fragmented the national project. It involves the lack of a cohesive postcolonial vision and the suppression of cultural diversity under Arab-Islamic narratives.

Sudan’s 50 million people are mainly Sudanese Arabs, who are one of 19 major ethnic groups and over 597 ethnic subgroups, speaking more than 100 languages and dialects. There are elements within Sudanese society that view Black people with disfavor. The country is dominated by an Arab elite, while sub-Saharan Africans often face oppression and marginalization. It is common for newspapers to publish racial slurs, including the word “slave.”  

This is the background to the civil war Sudan was plunged into back in April 2023, after a vicious struggle for power broke out between its army and a powerful paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The latter are the military descendants of the Janjaweed militias that terrorized non-Arab African peoples in Darfur in the early 2000s. That led to a famine and claims of a genocide in the western Darfur region. The group committed brutal crimes, including mass displacement, sexual violence, and kidnapping. The loosely coordinated Janjaweed was then formally organized under the RSF banner in 2013.

The current war started with a coup in October 2021, staged by the two men at the centre of today’s conflict: General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the head of the armed forces and in effect the country’s president, and his then deputy, RSF leader General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti.

The main sticking points were plans to incorporate the 100,000-strong RSF into the army, and who would then lead the new force. The suspicions were that both generals wanted to hang on to their positions of power, unwilling to lose wealth and influence.

Shooting between the two sides began on April 15, 2023, following days of tension as members of the RSF were redeployed around the country in a move that the army saw as a threat.

In early June 2025, the RSF achieved a major victory when it took control of territory along Sudan's border with Libya and Egypt. This was followed by the capture of the city of el-Fasher in late October that year, meaning the RSF controls almost all of Darfur and much of neighbouring Kordofan. The military controls most of the north and the east, including the capital, Khartoum.

The RSF has denied committing genocide in Darfur in this civil war, but United Nations investigators said they had received testimony that RSF fighters have taunted non-Arab women during sex attacks with racist slurs, saying they will be forced to have “Arab babies.” Director General of the World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has stated that “I think race is in play here.”

More than 150,000 people have died in the conflict across the country, and about 14 million have fled their homes in what the UN has called the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. With no end in sight, tens of millions of Sudanese people are facing an historic humanitarian crisis of “industrial proportions.”

Food has also been weaponized. Both sides have blocked aid convoys, destroyed food supplies, and restricted access to fertile farmland in areas already facing drought and economic collapse. The RSF intentionally razed rural farming communities near el-Fasher. Their attacks substantially reduced these communities’ agricultural output, contributing to an already severe humanitarian situation in which more than twenty-one million people across the country are acutely food insecure.

Richard Data, the International Rescue Committee’s Sudan director, emphasized that “This is not just a conflict, it is a collapse of an entire country and a crisis that is rapidly engulfing the region.” The incalculable violence, atrocities, and depth of the humanitarian crisis facing Sudan’s population continue to accelerate. 

“Three years of war have already cost Sudan immeasurably,” warned Amande Bazerolle, Sudan lead for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). “Allowing this trajectory to continue risks condemning an entire generation.” Yet despite the humanitarian toll of Sudan’s Civil War, the conflict has received remarkably little international media coverage.

Mediation efforts have stalled as top officials in both warring camps refuse to halt their violence, and regional and international actors continue to fund and arm both belligerents. Sudan has accused Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) of playing a role in the recent drone attacks on the country, warning that the aggression will not be “met with silence.”

In early May, the Sudanese government recalled its ambassador from Ethiopia, accusing Addis Ababa and the UAE of being behind an attack on Khartoum International Airport that forced authorities to suspend operations for three days. The RSF has also received support from an armed group in Libya tied to eastern Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar.

Abdel Fattah al-Burhan has accused “mercenaries and traitors” of seeking to hijack the Sudanese state. Alan Boswell, the Horn of Africa director at the International Crisis Group (ICG), warned that Sudan’s accusation against Ethiopia marks a dangerous new phase in a conflict already destabilising the region.

Clearly, a viable Sudanese identity would require a commitment to equitable development and inclusive governance. Can an Arab elite serve as a foundation for a more inclusive national identity? It’s very doubtful.

 

American Graduation Speakers Deliver Antizionist Views

 

By Henry Srebrnik, Jewish Post, Winnipeg

Colleges and universities in the United States have hosted and encouraged a surge of radical and pervasive antisemitism in recent years. Graduation commencement ceremonies (known as convocations in Canada) have been a source of tensions over Israel since Oct. 7, 2023.  Multiple schools have disciplined students who made pro-Palestinian comments in their speeches. 

But professors have also fanned the flames. Faculty members have played a significant role in legitimizing and amplifying antisemitism on college campuses. They have shown a propensity to whitewash Hamas and vilify Israel rather than examine the conflict dispassionately.

University of Michigan professor Derek Peterson praised campus pro-Palestinian student protesters during his commencement speech in Ann Arbor on May 2. The History and African-American studies academic and outgoing faculty senate chair told the graduates to “Sing for the pro-Palestinian student activists who have, over these past two years, opened our hearts to the injustice and inhumanity of Israel’s war in Gaza.” His remarks received loud applause. 

 “We regret the pain this has caused on a day devoted to celebration and accomplishment. For this, the university apologizes,” Michigan’s interim president, Domenico Grasso, responded. Michigan’s campus Hillel also condemned Peterson’s speech. “Commencement is a celebration of every graduate. It is not a stage for political statements that alienate the Jewish community,” it asserted. On campus, however, an open letter rebuking Grasso and defending Peterson’s speech had been signed by more than 1,100 faculty members, staff and students in less than 24 hours.

Protesters at the university have also vandalized the home of Jordan Acker, a Jewish member of the university’s board of regents. He will no longer serve on the board, while the attorney who defended the university’s encampment participants from some state-level charges received the Michigan Democratic Party’s nomination for Acker’s seat. 

Amir Makled won the backing despite social media posts that praised Hezbollah and included antisemitic memes. Makled posted retweets of far-right antisemitic conspiracy theorist Candace Owens and referred to Hassan Nasrallah as a martyr after he was killed by Israeli strikes in 2024.

Administrators at Rutgers University in New Jersey canceled a commencement speaker on May 15, citing an “inflammatory claim” he tweeted about Israel. Rami Elghandour, a Rutgers alumnus, had his invitation rescinded when his April 20 tweet, which accused Israel of genocide and claimed that Israelis were “running dungeons where they train dogs to sexually assault prisoners,” was uncovered. 

“They decided that the feelings of a handful of students who said that my social media posts ‘opposed their beliefs,’ were more important than the experience of the entire graduating class, the reputation of the school, the dignity and belonging of Arab and Muslim students, and the First Amendment,” Elghandour wrote. Rutgers Alumnus Christopher Markus, an Emmy Award-winning screenwriter, delivered the address instead, on May 17.  

At Georgetown University, a law professor who disparaged legal efforts to curb pro-Palestinian student activism replaced Morton Schapiro, a pro-Israel Jewish economist and former Northwestern University president, at the commencement, after students launched a petition calling for Schapiro’s removal. The replacement, David Cole, is the former national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union. In that role, Cole issued a statement soon after the Hamas attack in which he criticized Jewish groups for what he said were calls to “investigate, disband, or penalize pro-Palestinian student groups for exercising their free speech rights.” He compared Congressional investigations on campus antisemitism to McCarthyism.

Cornell University’s Student Assembly on March 12 voted to cut ties with Israel’s Technion University and condemned the university for hosting center-left Israeli politician Tzipi Livni, part of the school’s campus anti-Israel activism. She was accused of being “implicated in war crimes.”

The university’s Jewish president was involved in a recent campus altercation with pro-Palestinian protesters who had surrounded his car following a campus debate on Israel. The Ivy League school’s Board of Trustees issued a statement of support for Michael Kotlikoff following an investigation into the April 30 incident. “President Kotlikoff has shown a steadfast commitment to Cornell’s values and principles, and we are confident he will continue to lead with integrity.” 

Following the talk, members of the protest group Students for a Democratic Cornell followed the president to his car and appeared to try to block its path. When he did edge his way out of his parking spot, they said he bumped some of the protesters with his vehicle. Despite all that, President Kotlikoff was himself the speaker at the university’s May 23 commencement. 

A flag with swastikas surrounding the Star of David flew briefly atop a New York University building during a graduation event May 13, as hundreds gathered for an outdoor celebration called “Grad Alley” on West Fourth Street. “We are shocked and deeply troubled that this hateful symbol expressing antisemitism was raised on a flagpole overlooking Washington Square Park,” said NYU spokesperson Wiley Norvell. 

Student government leaders at the university had objected to the selection of Jonathan Haidt as the graduation speaker at Yankee Stadium May 14, calling it “deeply unsettling.” An NYU social psychologist and author, he has been highly critical of the culture in which many young adults today are raised.

A network of anti-Israel activist groups coordinated “Nakba 78” protests across the United States the weekend of May 15, with organizers using the anniversary of Israel’s founding to challenge the Jewish state’s right to exist. University of California campuses have faced an antisemitism crisis, with dramatic increases in harassment, intimidation, and exclusionary conduct targeting Jewish students and others labeled “Zionist” or “pro-Israel.”  Among many events, University of California, Berkeley lecturer Hatem Bazian spoke at a three-day “Islam, Memory and the Nakba” conference in Burlingame, Oakland and Los Gatos.

Even the UCLA campus Hillel was targeted. The Undergraduate Students Association Council condemned an April 14 Yom HaShoah event organized by Hillel featuring freed Israeli hostage Omer Shem Tov. He was kidnapped from the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023, and held hostage in Gaza until his release in a prisoner exchange in February 2025.

“While we affirm the humanity of all people impacted by violence, we reject the selective platforming of narratives that obscure the broader reality of ongoing state violence,” they stated. “Israel is currently continuing to carry out what has been widely identified by human rights advocates as a genocide in Gaza, while also expanding its illegal military campaign into Lebanon.”

This has become part of an effort to delegitimize Hillel chapters, long seen as the main address for Jewish life on most American campuses. Hillel International asks all its affiliate chapters to maintain an unwavering commitment and support for Israel, discouraging criticism of the Israeli state. 

The New School, a university in New York City, on May 2 rejected a student government vote to defund and cut ties with the campus chapter of Hillel. The student senate a day earlier had voted to strip funding and stop collaboration with the campus chapter of the Jewish student organization, claiming violations of “international law” due to volunteer opportunities it has offered with the Israel Defence Forces. They also cited Hillel’s promotion of 10-day Birthright trips and other programs in Israel. Hillel International and other Jewish groups have said that efforts to shut down the Jewish student organization are antisemitic.

But it seems to be working. Swarthmore College in 2015 became the first campus to break with Hillel International. They began to call themselves an “Open Hillel,” then rebranded entirely after the parent organization threatened legal action over a civil rights panel it deemed too critical of Israel. Now, the student leaders of the campus Hillel at Middlebury College have voted to rename its student group, moving to distance it from an international organization they say is too pro-Israel. It was renamed the Jewish Association at Middlebury. Might others follow?