One of the most common questions I am asked about the two year long war in Sudan is why it is a ‘forgotten’ conflict, why the world chooses to ‘ignore’ it.
On my kinder days, I have thoughtful, intellectual answers to provide. The attention of leaders and the public are stretched, I say. It is difficult to get reportage from the ground.The legacy of imperialism and anti-Black sentiment. Centuries of storytelling by European colonisers depicting the ‘dark continent’ as one rife with violence and barbarity, as if it weren’t the Europeans visiting such depravity to our shores to begin with. That’s why, at least in part.
There is truth to all these answers, of course. I do my best to respond with grace, with compassion, out of a desire to educate and to shed light on what everyone, everyone, knows is a terrible situation. The worst humanitarian crisis in the world, in fact.
But what I don’t get to say, what I wish I could but really would never dare, is this:
Who the fuck says it’s ‘forgotten’?
Forgotten by whom?
I’ve certainly not forgotten it. Not a day has gone past since the 15th of April 2023 that I haven’t thought of the war in Sudan, the famine our people have experienced, the sexual violence and torture used as weapons of war against a populace who simply want to live lives of freedom, peace and justice.
Sudanese people have not forgotten it.We have not forgotten that our country is being held hostage by a military industrial complex that is eating itself alive, by regional powers that see Sudan not as a collection of peoples and nations worthy of respect but instead as a land they can pillage and exploit for their own personal gain.We have not forgotten that at its heart, this is not truly a civil war but a counter-revolutionary one, a war against the people, a war punishing the Sudanese populace for daring, daring to dream of a better life, a better nation, a better future.
It is you who forget. It is you who forget and then turn to us and dare to ask us why. The question should be this:
Why have you forgotten Sudan?
Why do we not matter enough?
I ask, not even from a place of accusation, but for you to reckon with your own biases, your own intentions, your own internal prejudice. Do you ignore our conflict because it is ‘too complicated’, as if the other conflicts in the world you pay attention to are so simple? Do you ignore our conflict because it seems like it is ‘just another civil war’ (as one leader of an international NGO said to me in a public forum), despite it being a cautionary tale for when the international community chooses to ignore the will of the people and negotiate a ‘peace deal’ with the same military the people deposed in the first place? Do you forget us because our suffering is not enough? Do you, at some level, think we deserve it? We brought it on ourselves? Is this why you turn away?
I don’t know the answers to why you may not pay attention.That is between you and your conscience. I do not write this to shame, or to judge. I simply turn the question around because I don’t think I, or Sudanese people, are the ones with the answers. We have not forgotten the war. We never will.
Will you?
