On both trips I saw the aftermath of violence. Sudan is now in its third year of a civil war that seems to have no point, no purpose, and no end. Like a tsunami or a hurricane, the war has left wide swathes of physical wreckage in its wake, and human damage too. Food is scarce. The education system has collapsed. Millions of people have been displaced, inside the country and across the region.
But none of this is happening in a vacuum. Over the past decade, I’ve traveled in America, Europe, Russia, and Ukraine, describing and analyzing the breakdown of international norms, the scrapping of treaties, the weakening of the UN, the hollowing out of the institutions that used to promote peace and human rights. Sudan represents the endgame of this process. When you take away the liberal world order, as it turns out, you don’t get something better. Instead, you get anarchy, nihilism, a war fueled by outsiders—Saudi, Emirati, Turkish, Egyptian, Russian, Iranian—and a scramble for Sudanese gold.
The best hope for Sudan is the Sudanese themselves. In the last part of the article, I write about the civilian volunteers who have spent the past three years helping people survive, building a movement known as the Emergency Response Rooms. The volunteers talk about democracy and human rights, not because they have been influenced by outsiders but because they have seen what the world looks like without these things. Also, one of them told me, in the midst of destruction, the only possible response is to build.
I learned a lot while reporting and writing this article, and I hope readers do too. I found that the effort it took to understand Sudan also helps me understand some of the processes unfolding in the United States and Europe, and I hope readers see that themselves. After all, this is the kind of project that can be carried out only by an organization like The Atlantic, supported by dedicated subscribers. To help make more journalism like this possible, I urge you to subscribe to The Atlantic today.
Anne Applebaum
Staff Writer
