Fifth conference in the Aula Árabe Universitaria series, to be given

Coinciding with the fourth anniversary of the 2019 coup d'état in Sudan and the country's fall into a third civil war, as of April this year, this fifth conference in the Aula Árabe Universitaria event series is being presented by Roland Marchal, a sociologist at the CNRS and researcher at the CERI (Center for International Studies at Sciences Po).

During his conference, Roland Marchal will discuss the country's social and military restructuring after the fall of the Islamic government of Omar al-Bashir in the Sudanese Revolution of 2018-2019, starting with the mark left behind on society, economy and running of the Sudanese state as a result of the coup d'état in June 1989 and subsequent conflicts thereafter.

According to Marchal, beyond its ideological commitments, those in power, both Islamist and military-based at the same time, without truly being one or the other, then profoundly transformed the foundations of the Sudanese economy, all coupled with the effects of oil revenue produced as of 1999 and South Sudan's independence in 2011.

The population's militarization, initiated in 1989, led to catastrophic repercussions in the form of war in South Sudan and later conflict in Darfur, along with the establishment of militias forming the army in the 2010s.

Omar al-Bashir's overthrow in 2019, despite the originality of the social movement which put an end to the dictatorship, was not the product of a revolution but rather a transition in which the armed forces sought to safeguard their positions of power and wealth within the state, even if it meant sidelining their former allies.

The war that broke out in April 2023 is thus both a power struggle pitting two segments of the State's forces against each other, and at the same time an attempt to restore an alliance between the financial world and military aristocracy, while also firing the flames of social and regional tensions which contributed to the fall of the Islamic military regime.

According to Marchal, this war, which is lasting longer than those involved originally anticipated, highlights the existence of a wide range of scenarios for the country's future, in a system increasingly polarized by regional and international competitiveness.

Organized with the cooperation of the Master's degree program on the "European Union and the Mediterranean: Historical, Cultural, Political, Economic and Social Basis (UCM) and the UAM bachelor's degree program in Philosophy, Politics and Economics; participating in representation of both programs will be Alfonso Casani, a UCM Political Science professor, who will be introducing the event, and Ángel Rodríguez García-Brazales, coordinator of the aforementioned bachelor's degree program and director of the

The conference is available on our YouTube channel, in Spanish: youtube.com/live/q4JZB0z9mXs?feature=share

Further information: https://en.casaarabe.es/event/restructuring-of-society-and-military-in-post-islamic-sudan