Origins and Politics of Sudan's Proxy War with Isma'il Kushkush (Episode 61)

Neither Settler Nor Native-Making and Unmaking of Permanent Minorities with Mahmoud Mamdani. ( Episode 62 )

This episode explores how colonial states and nation-states have been mutually constructed through the deliberate politicization of religious or ethnic majorities at the expense of manufactured minorities. The discussion traces this destructive pattern from its American origins—where genocide and reservation systems created permanent native minorities—to its adoption by both Nazi Germany and Allied forces in Europe, and its contemporary manifestations from Israel to Sudan. The conversation challenges conventional approaches to addressing political violence, arguing that legal frameworks like those attempted at Nuremberg have inherent limitations and that true resolution requires political rather than criminal solutions. Join host Sahar Aziz [https://saharazizlaw.com/] in conversation with Dr. Mahmood Mamdani [https://anthropology.columbia.edu/content/mahmood-mamdani], about his provocative new book “Neither Settler Nor Native—Making and Unmaking of Permanent Minorities [https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674278608]” argues for delinking the nation from the state to ensure equal political rights for all residents, moving beyond permanent political identities of settler and native. Biography Mahmood Mamdani is the Herbert Lehman Professor of Government at Columbia University and former Executive Director of Makerere Institute of Social Research in Uganda. With a PhD from Harvard and an expertise spanning histories of Western imperialist projects, anti-colonialist movements, and decolonization, Dr. Mamdani has spent decades examining the intersection of politics and culture through comparative colonial studies, civil war and genocide in Africa, and the politics of knowledge production. Recommended Reading Mahmood Mamdani,Neither Settler Nor Native: The Making and Unmaking of Permanent Minorities [https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674278608](Harvard 2022) Mahmood Mamdani,Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror [https://www.labyrinthbooks.com/good-muslim-bad-muslim/](Bantam 2005) #Israel #Palestine #HumanRights #Colonialism #Anticolonialism #SouthAfrica #Mamdani #Settler Support the show [https://give.rutgersfoundation.org/csrr-support/20046.html] Support the Center for Security, Race and Rights [https://csrr.rutgers.edu/] by following us and making a donation: Donate: https://give.rutgersfoundation.org/csrr-support/20046.html [https://give.rutgersfoundation.org/csrr-support/20046.html]  Subscribe to our Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEbUfYcWGZapBNYvCObiCpp3qtxgH_jFy  [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEbUfYcWGZapBNYvCObiCpp3qtxgH_jFy] Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rucsrr [https://twitter.com/rucsrr]  Follow us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/rutgerscsrr [https://instagram.com/rutgerscsrr]  Follow us on Threads: https://threads.com/rutgerscsrr [https://threads.com/rutgerscsrr]  Follow us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/rucsrr [https://facebook.com/rucsrr]  Follow us on TikTok: https://tiktok.com/rucsrr [https://tiktok.com/rucsrr]

Origins and Politics of Sudan's Proxy War with Isma'il Kushkush (Episode 61)

In this episode, Professor Sahar Aziz is in conversation with award winning journalist Isma’il Kuskush about the complex origins, multiple domestic and foreign actors, and human rights crisis of Sudan’s war. The ongoing power struggle between rival military elites is rooted in decades of militarization, failed democratic transition, and unresolved ethnic conflict. Its humanitarian consequences—mass displacement, famine risk, and widespread atrocities—have elevated it into one of the most severe human rights crises globally. The current war in Sudan began in April 2023, when fighting erupted between two factions of the country’s security forces: the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The immediate trigger was a dispute over integrating the RSF into the national army as part of a planned transition to civilian rule after years of military dominance. A critical turning point occurred in 2019, when longtime dictator Omar al-Bashir was overthrown. A fragile civilian–military transition followed, but in October 2021, the SAF and RSF jointly staged a coup that derailed democratic reforms. Tensions between the two leaders then escalated into open conflict as both sought control over the state, economic resources (especially gold), and the future political system. The devastating war in Sudan has produced what many international organizations describe as the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. Millions of civilians have been displaced, and basic infrastructure—healthcare, food distribution, and education—has collapsed in many regions. Biography Isma’il Kushkush is a Sudanese-American journalist who was based in Khartoum, Sudan, for eight years, where he contributed to The New York Times, CNN, Voice of America and Al Jazeera English. For two three-month periods in 2014 and again in 2015, he was acting bureau chief for The New York Times in East Africa based in Nairobi. He has covered political, economic, social and cultural stories from Sudan, South Sudan, Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, Burundi, Sweden and the United States. He has also worked as a fixer, translator and interpreter. Kushkush grew up in the United States, Sudan, Syria and Kuwait. He received a master of arts degree in journalism from Columbia Journalism School in New York with a focus on politics and global affairs. He is a fluent Arabic-speaker. Recommended Readings Isma’il Kushkush,Leaving Khartoum [https://www.nybooks.com/online/2025/12/30/leaving-khartoum/](The New York Review 2025) Isma’il Kuskkush,Sudan’s Journalists Risk Everything to Cover a War the World Ignores [https://niemanreports.org/sudan-civil-war-journalists-underreported-press-freedom-ismail-kushkush/](Neiman Reports 2026) Isma’il Kushkush,Sudan’s Uprising, Bashir’s Fall, and My Father’s Passing [https://www.newyorker.com/culture/personal-history/sudans-uprising-bashirs-fall-and-my-fathers-passing](The New Yorker 2019) #Sudan #HumanRights #Khartoum #CivilWar #UAE #Egypt Support the show [https://give.rutgersfoundation.org/csrr-support/20046.html] Support the Center for Security, Race and Rights [https://csrr.rutgers.edu/] by following us and making a donation: Donate: https://give.rutgersfoundation.org/csrr-support/20046.html [https://give.rutgersfoundation.org/csrr-support/20046.html]  Subscribe to our Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEbUfYcWGZapBNYvCObiCpp3qtxgH_jFy  [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEbUfYcWGZapBNYvCObiCpp3qtxgH_jFy] Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rucsrr [https://twitter.com/rucsrr]  Follow us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/rutgerscsrr [https://instagram.com/rutgerscsrr]  Follow us on Threads: https://threads.com/rutgerscsrr [https://threads.com/rutgerscsrr]  Follow us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/rucsrr [https://facebook.com/rucsrr]  Follow us on TikTok: https://tiktok.com/rucsrr [https://tiktok.com/rucsrr]

Genealogy of African Islamic Modernity with Wendell Marsh (Episode 60)

African Islamic modernity is a complex and ongoing historical project—our guest’s scholarship illuminates the intricate entanglements between African racial identities, Islamic ways of living, and modernity as the dominant global framework for social, economic, and political organization. Using Senegal as a focal point, Professor Wendell Marsh [https://www.wendellmarsh.com/bio] explores how a society with a millennium of Islamic presence and over five centuries of integration into the global economy—shaped sequentially by the trans-Atlantic slave trade, colonization, and neoliberal structural adjustment—has consistently escaped both Africanist and Orientalist scholarly constructions.   Wendell Marsh's expertise in African-Arabic textuality and the intellectual history of Islam in Africa provides essential insight into how Islamic scholarly traditions in places like Senegal have produced sophisticated theological and political responses to colonial domination and global economic integration. His research on figures like Shaykh Musa Kamara demonstrates how African Muslim intellectuals developed complex theoretical frameworks that simultaneously engaged with global Islamic thought, resisted colonial epistemologies, and articulated distinctly African forms of Islamic modernity.  This scholarly approach reveals how African Islamic modernity represents not simply a reaction to Western modernity, but rather an alternative genealogy of modern thought that emerges from the intersection of Islamic intellectual traditions, African social structures, and the historical experience of slavery, colonialism, and contemporary global capitalism.  The episode draws on cutting-edge scholarship in Africana Studies that challenges conventional academic boundaries between African Studies, Islamic Studies, and colonial history to reveal how African Islamic societies have created unique pathways to modernity.  Biography Wendell Marsh is an Associate Professor of African Humanities at Mohammed VI Polytechnic University in Ben Guérir, Morocco. He researches and teaches at the intersections of African and diasporic intellectual history, comparative literature, religious studies, and the politics of knowledge production. Professor Marsh’s scholarship foregrounds African contributions to global intellectual traditions—especially through Arabic-language sources—and examines how race, religion, and language shape the humanities and public discourse. Recommended Readings Wendell Marsh, Textual Life: Islam, Africa, and the Fate of the Humanities ( [https://cup.columbia.edu/book/textual-life/9780231558556/]Columbia University Press, 2025) #Islam #Africa #IslamicModernity #Muslims #Humanities #Slavery #Colonialism Support the show [https://give.rutgersfoundation.org/csrr-support/20046.html] Support the Center for Security, Race and Rights [https://csrr.rutgers.edu/] by following us and making a donation: Donate: https://give.rutgersfoundation.org/csrr-support/20046.html [https://give.rutgersfoundation.org/csrr-support/20046.html]  Subscribe to our Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEbUfYcWGZapBNYvCObiCpp3qtxgH_jFy  [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEbUfYcWGZapBNYvCObiCpp3qtxgH_jFy] Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rucsrr [https://twitter.com/rucsrr]  Follow us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/rutgerscsrr [https://instagram.com/rutgerscsrr]  Follow us on Threads: https://threads.com/rutgerscsrr [https://threads.com/rutgerscsrr]  Follow us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/rucsrr [https://facebook.com/rucsrr]  Follow us on TikTok: https://tiktok.com/rucsrr [https://tiktok.com/rucsrr]

Justice For Some: Law and the Question for Palestine with Noura Erakat (Episode 59)

How has international law been strategically deployed to shape the Palestinian struggle for freedom across a century-long arc, from the Balfour Declaration in 1917 to present-day wars in Gaza.  Join host Sahar Aziz [https://saharazizlaw.com/] in conversation with Noura Erakat about the promise and risk of international law in the pursuit of Palestinian freedom and the broader relationship between law and liberation.  Our discussion examines the concept of "legal work"—the deliberate efforts by powerful actors to bend legal doctrine to their objectives—and how this has transformed international law to advance certain interests over others. We delve into the "sovereign exception" framework that has enabled the creation of exceptional legal categories excluding Palestinians from otherwise applicable protections, from the British Mandate period through Israeli occupation and colonization. Legal strategies have been used to consolidate territorial control, facilitate dispossession, and legitimize military tactics that compromise civilian protections globally, while also exploring moments when weaker actors have leveraged law's emancipatory potential through strategic and tactical ingenuity.  Professor Noura Erakat’s groundbreaking work demonstrates that the law's current outcomes were never inevitable—that law is politics, and its meaning depends on political intervention by states and people alike. Through original interviews with principals from Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and comprehensive historical analysis, she reveals how Palestinian leaders gained significant legal victories at the UN before eventually exchanging hard-won international recognition for a bilateral peace process that accelerated their dispossession. Her work shows both the profound limitations of international law when serving the powerful and its counterintuitive utility when mobilized in support of political movements seeking liberation.  Biography Noura Erakat is Professor of Africana Studies and Criminal Justice at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. She is the author of Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine (Stanford University Press, 2019), which received the Palestine Book Award and the Bronze Medal for the Independent Publishers Book Award in Current Events/Foreign Affairs. She is a legal scholar with research interests in humanitarian law, human rights law, critical race theory, national security law, and Palestinian Studies. She has published over two dozen academic articles and book chapters, including in the American Journal of International Law, American Quarterly, and the Oxford Bibliographies in International Law.  Recommended Reading Noura Erakat, Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine [https://www.sup.org/books/middle-east-studies/justice-some] (Stanford 2019) Rashid Khalidi, The One Hundred Years’ War on Palestine [https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781627798556/thehundredyearswaronpalestine/] (MacMillan 2020) #Israel #Palestine #Gaza #Genocide #ICC #HumanRights #InternationalLaw Support the show [https://give.rutgersfoundation.org/csrr-support/20046.html] Support the Center for Security, Race and Rights [https://csrr.rutgers.edu/] by following us and making a donation: Donate: https://give.rutgersfoundation.org/csrr-support/20046.html [https://give.rutgersfoundation.org/csrr-support/20046.html]  Subscribe to our Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEbUfYcWGZapBNYvCObiCpp3qtxgH_jFy  [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEbUfYcWGZapBNYvCObiCpp3qtxgH_jFy] Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rucsrr [https://twitter.com/rucsrr]  Follow us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/rutgerscsrr [https://instagram.com/rutgerscsrr]  Follow us on Threads: https://threads.com/rutgerscsrr [https://threads.com/rutgerscsrr]  Follow us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/rucsrr [https://facebook.com/rucsrr]  Follow us on TikTok: https://tiktok.com/rucsrr [https://tiktok.com/rucsrr]

Dying While Black—Intergenerational Impact of Racism and Segregation (Episode 58)

In this episode, Professor Vernellia Randall [https://udayton.academia.edu/VernelliaRandall] presents a groundbreaking analysis of how centuries of systemic racism have created and perpetuated devastating health disparities within African American communities. Drawing from extensive research, she traces the direct lineage from the "slave health deficit" established during slavery through Jim Crow segregation to today's persistent health inequalities, revealing how African Americans continue to experience disproportionately higher rates of disease, infant mortality, and premature death. Her work demonstrates that these disparities are not coincidental but represent the ongoing legacy of institutionalized racism that has never been adequately addressed through legal or policy interventions.  Professor Randall's work extends beyond documenting health disparities to exploring the systemic barriers within healthcare delivery itself, including discriminatory access to hospitals, nursing homes, and quality medical care. She argues that current health disparities represent an unrepaired historical injustice that requires more than incremental reform—instead calling for a comprehensive reparations framework that addresses both the root causes and continuing manifestations of racial health inequality. Her proposed solution involves equitable rather than merely compensatory reparations, including transformative healthcare civil rights legislation designed to repair, not just acknowledge, centuries of harm to Black health and wellbeing.  Biography Vernellia Randall is Professor Emerita of Law at the University of Dayton School of Law.  She is the founder and editor of Race, Racism and the Law [https://racism.org/].  Professor Randall is a recipient of the Chairman’s Award from the Ohio Commission on Minority Health and has been honored by a Commendation from the Ohio House of Representatives. Randall is an accomplished webmaster and has received awards for her website development. Some of her sites include: “Race, Health Care and the Law” and “Gender and the Law”.  Recommended Readings Vernellia Randall, Dying While Black [https://www.amazon.com/Dying-While-Black-Vernellia-Randall/dp/0977916006] (2006). #Racism #Segregation #Black #Health #Inequality Support the show [https://give.rutgersfoundation.org/csrr-support/20046.html] Support the Center for Security, Race and Rights [https://csrr.rutgers.edu/] by following us and making a donation: Donate: https://give.rutgersfoundation.org/csrr-support/20046.html [https://give.rutgersfoundation.org/csrr-support/20046.html]  Subscribe to our Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEbUfYcWGZapBNYvCObiCpp3qtxgH_jFy  [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEbUfYcWGZapBNYvCObiCpp3qtxgH_jFy] Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rucsrr [https://twitter.com/rucsrr]  Follow us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/rutgerscsrr [https://instagram.com/rutgerscsrr]  Follow us on Threads: https://threads.com/rutgerscsrr [https://threads.com/rutgerscsrr]  Follow us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/rucsrr [https://facebook.com/rucsrr]  Follow us on TikTok: https://tiktok.com/rucsrr [https://tiktok.com/rucsrr]