Thread by @daniel_van0

8/ In a tweet pre-dating the war, a RSF soldier wrote about a "champion of Juhayna Chad line” (a reference to Rizeigat tribe), adding, “Long live the struggle of the Arab people." He included flags of 🇸🇩, Chad, Niger, Libya. In the comments he said, "We do not recognize borders."

9/ As I wrote in another thread, this same account promotes a warrior culture and the cultural superiority of “the sons of the desert.” Assertions of cultural superiority of nomadic Arabs over their sedentary Sudanese brethren and non-Arabs are an implicit part of RSF propaganda.

10/ The TikTok account "6ahmed207" features a similar mix of cultural content and military propaganda. The user, a current or former RSF soldier, uses the hashtag “Arabs of Sudan and Chad” on many of his videos (#عرب_السودان_وتشاد). tiktok.com/@6ahmed207

11/ Notably, the RSF soldier tagged several videos with both “Rapid Support” and the names of Darfur Arab tribes, underscoring that for him, tribal identity and the militia’s identity are intertwined. Even cultural videos with no military content were tagged "Rapid Support."

12/ The pro-RSF account refers to the nomadic Arabs of Chad and Darfur as the “red line (lineage)” (خط أحمر). Overall it posted 78 videos since December 2022, the contents of which demonstrate an obsessive preoccupation with race and tribe.

13/ One very odd video highlights the racial anxieties of this particular fighter, as well as the contradictions inherent in the Sahelian Arab Supremacist project of the RSF. It begins with a red flag that says “The Arabs,” with eagle & sword symbols, and a picture of the user.

14/ The text below the flag says, "The Arabs are a red line." The video then cuts immediately to a pile of shit, accompanied by a fart noise, followed by a cut to a photo of the RSF fighter pointing to a darker-skinned fellow tribesman.

15/ The video could be interpreted multiple ways. I interpret it as explicitly racist. Here's the full video. (For background, not all Sudanese nomadic Arabs are light-skinned. Some are very dark).

16/ At this point, a reminder that this is a thread about Arabism and Chadian-Sudanese unionism within the Rapid Support Forces ranks. This thread touches on very sensitive questions of identity and culture. Many others consider these matters too difficult to discuss.
🕊️ 🧕🏾👨🏿‍🦳🧒🏿

17/ However, I believe that racism in any society ultimately fuels injustice and conflict and should not be ignored, especially when killing and raping is happening on a racial basis.

18/ In my opinion, too many observers are focused on the idea that the Sudan conflict is a “power struggle” between two leaders and factions of the same regime. While this is generally true, it ignores or downplays the unfortunate ethnic dimensions of the current conflict.

19/ Think tanks, analysts & media, especially Western ones, are comfortable talking about power, kleptocracy, clientalism. They aren't comfortable talking about ethnicity. So they embraced a "political marketplace" a framework for understanding Sudan that became popular recently.

20/ That framework is valid and important. But it ought not to crowd out the obvious and very uncomfortable truth, namely, that the conflict has spiraled into ethnic violence.

21/ For background, RSF has a predominantly Western Sudanese orientation and power base. Basically it is Sahelian, based in Darfur with strong Chad and Libya ties, whereas SAF's power base historically is the Nile Valley and East.

22/ If Hemedti takes power in Sudan, his regime would fundamentally differ from prior dictatorships built upon the colonial foundation, army, and civil service centered in Nile valley.

23/ Hemedti's Sudan would be, in effect, a Sahelian emirate built upon clientism and tribal ties. Centered in Darfur, it would exert influence or control east to the Nile Valley, west into Chad, north into Libya, and south into the Bahr al Ghazal region of South Sudan.

24/ When I say "emirate," I do not necessarily mean that Hemedti would abandon the trappings of republican democracy. But there are those among his followers who already call him, literally, "emir."

Below: "May God protect the prince (emir) of the country, founder of modern 🇸🇩."

25/ Needless to say, not every Darfur Arab or Chadian Arab supports Hemedti’s project & the RSF, even though the RSF espouses an Arab Supremacist ideology. An example of this was in Nyala last week when tribal leaders, including Darfur Arabs renounced war: facebook.com/madibu1/posts/…

26/ I will continue this 🧵 by providing additional examples and discussion of ideology and identity within the RSF ranks. Here’s a TikTok video created less than 24 hours ago. The text says “Gharaba (Westerner) ya Prophet of Allah, Rizeigat ya my liver (a term of endearment)."

27/ Hashtags include RSF, an RSF slogan, and "Mohamed Hamdan Dagolo." As with the account discussed above (#11) tribal identity & the militia’s identity are intertwined. The term of endearment indicates the video was intended to cultivate the admiration of a girlfriend or crush.

28/ Here is another example of the intermixing of tribal identity and the militia’s identity. The women or girls sing, “Rapid Support will not be humiliated. The Rizeigat will not be humiliated. Umm Hemedti will not be humiliated.”

29/ The preoccupation with ethnic “humiliation” stems from Sudan’s history as a nation of both slaves and slavers, as well as gradations in between. As I have written elsewhere, this legacy has left behind a culture of racial hierarchy rooted in an old master-slave paradigm.

30/ Accidentally I deleted tweet #7 in this thread above, so I'm reposting it:

"7/ Racist screed by a Hemedti supporter who identifies himself as being from Chad and Niger but says that in reality Sudan, Chad, and Niger are one. He says he will fight for Hemedti forever."

31/ Next I will share several videos that give a flavor of the idealized culture that RSF fighters generally celebrate. Key themes include:

a. Nomadic pastoralism
b. Arabism (language, culture, lineage, race)
c. Weaponry and violence
d. Islam
e. Traditional dance and song

32/ This brief video by an RSF fighter (who seems to have spent time at one of Hemedti's gold mines) conveys many of those elements: lineage (Hemedi's is heard saying "I am a son of the desert, "أنا ابن البادية"), the gun, the camel, mobility, traditional dress, etc.

33/ That phrase, "sons of the desert" (أبناء البادِيَة), is a key identity term for the RSF. It encompasses all the disparate Arab tribes of the region (and some non-Arab). It's what connects the RSF culturally more closely with some Chadians than with Arabs of the Nile Valley.

34/ Continuing to share a few cultural videos, here's one of camels racing. The music sings of "the sons of Junaid," a celebrated ancestor of the Rizeigat tribe, and the name of Hemedti's trading and mining company. This was shared on TikTok last year by an RSF fighter.

35/ These are photos shared by Omar Jibril, an official RSF spokesperson whom Hemedti recently praised as "brave and amazing." Again, the themes are nomadism, pastoralism, and traditional culture. Jibril is also a skilled poet. I wrote about him here: miskeen.substack.com/p/the-benevole…

36/ Traditional clothing is another favorite theme. These photos were shared by a Chadian admirer of Hemedti. He posted RSF propaganda both before and after the outbreak of the current conflict, but he is just a boy. He wrote in January 2023, “We are the Janjaweed of Chad.”

37/ Here's a TikTok by another Chadian supporter of the RSF. It features most of the key themes I mentioned before (Arabism, pastoralism, weaponry, etc). It shared many videos of RSF, Gaddafi, and Acyl Ahmat Akhabach. The account is worth exploring. tiktok.com/@bedouin060

38/ The same cultural elements also are present in official RSF propaganda, like this recruitment video published August 2022. It tells of the pride of a father (symbolizing lineage) in traditional dress (Arabism), meeting his son (warrior culture) in a desert (nomadism).

39/ This is a racist statement by an RSF fan account with 78,000 followers: “These of course are the children of the Jellaba (riverine Arabs) in front of the Egyptian Consulate in Halfa, fleeing. They push the children of that group (blacks) to fight on their behalf.”

40/ The racism here is twofold: first against the “Jellaba,” whom he implies are cowardly and decadent (the word Jellaba in Darfur and South Sudan is associated with wealth and the merchant class), second against the unnamed other group.

📷 Traditional jellabiya clothing

41/ The author added a comment linking to a second video (on TikTok) to make clear what he meant by “that group”: darker-skinned Sudanese from such places as Blue Nile, whom the RSF/Janjaweed sometimes call by the racist term "zurug" (meaning blue/black).

RSF have targeted Egyptians & Copts in particular. Their paranoia & hatred toward Egyptian troops in Merowe was an instigating factor in this war. This is a resemblance between the current war & the Mahdist revolt against Turco-Egyptian rule in the 1880s.

43/ Notably, the Facebook account that posted this uses the RSF logo, and the name is "Wandering Bedouin" (ظعن البدو). As I mentioned before, RSF fighters view their own nomadic culture as a superior form of Arabism compared to that of the Egyptians or Jellaba.

44/ The Mahdist movement, of course, began in the Nile Valley but was forced into exile in Kordofan. There it grew in strength and also drew adherents from the Darfur Arab tribes, including the Rizeigat of Hemedti. The Mahdi's khalifa (successor) belonged to the Taisha of Darfur.

45/ Occasionally, I have seen RSF sources evoke the Mahdiyya. An example is their use of the hashtag "Battle of El Obeid" after recent clashes, which recalls the defeat of an Anglo-Egyptian army under Hicks Pasha in 1883. However, this is not a major theme of RSF propaganda.

46/ The larger point is that anti-Egyptian sentiment is deeply rooted. By linking the "Jellaba" with Egyptians, the RSF are suggesting that they are a colonial occupiers of Sudan's peripheries. Note that I have now seen the same post circulating in a variety of iterations.

47/ Therefore the Arabism that the RSF espouse does not really encompass all Arab states, including Egypt. It is not Nasserist, which is overtly secular. It is localized rather than global, Sahelian/Saharan in orientation. 🇹🇩🇸🇩🇳🇪🇱🇾

📷 "حميدتي قائدنا" ("Hemedti is our leader")

👆🏼 The above video celebrates both the Arabs and the Gouran, also called Toubou. The red flag say, “the Arabs.” The yellow & blue flag symbolizes the Toubou. The flaming letters say, “the Gouran.” The caption at 0:33 says “children of Juneid in Chad,” a reference to the Rizeigat.

49/ For those joining this 🧵 midway, it is about the Arab Supremacism of Sudan’s RSF, and its ties with Chad & other Sahelian countries. I have just discussed RSF’s anti-Egyptian bias and its polemics against the “Jellaba” (riverine Arabs) who dominated the old Bashir regime.

50/ In that same vein, here is a video of an RSF soldier denigrating the ancestry of SAF generals Burhan and Kabbashi (who is Nuba). “All the Arabs know (Hemedti’s) history (lineage). But what is their origin? Burham’s uncle is Egyptian, his grandfather is Ethiopian…”

#عنصرية

👆🏼 He also says few SAF officers are from Shaiygi, Ja'ali, or Danagla (riverine Arab tribes). Instead they make others fight for them. This is equivalent to calling them cowards. Indirectly, it is also a way of saying they are not true Arabs (because true Arabs are warriors).

52/ This thread is a very interesting analysis by a Chadian journalist that touches on the same issues of identity in the Rapid Support Forces that I have been writing about 🇸🇩🇹🇩🕊️:

👆🏼 While I do not sympathize with the victim narrative that he describes, it is true that various victim narratives exist within the RSF and the populations that they recruit from. Most perpetrators of atrocities in history saw themselves as victims of historical injustices. /53

54/ The journalist, who wrote a book about the Chadian nation and society, says that if the RSF defeat the Sudanese army, the regime in N’Djamena will also fall.

55/

56/ A new split-screen video on a popular unofficial RSF media account juxtaposes two very different scenes: (1) On the left, RSF soldiers beat a dark-skinned SAF soldier while calling him a dog and demanding that he say “wai,” which is a term used only by women to express pain,… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

57/

58/Below, an important insight from Usama (@simsimt) regarding the racist discourse within RSF toward Sudan's Riverine Arabs. The rhetoric about "colonizers" ties in with what I was writing about earlier about the anti-Egyptian attitudes of the RSF.

@simsimt 59/🧵 Since this thread has gotten very long, a reminder to anyone joining mid-way that it is an effort to document the particular brand of Arabism of Sudan's Rapid Support Forces' ("Janjaweed"), which is Saharan/Sahelian in its orientation and emphasizes the purity and… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

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