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Last month, The Atlantic published a cover story about the ongoing war in Sudan. It was richly reported—its author, Anne Applebaum, traveled to Khartoum and West Darfur, witnessing the tragic fallout from the war and the collapse of the state. Photographer Lynsey Addario captured scenes of sorrow and despair at hospitals and food distribution centers.

But for some readers, the headline on the cover of the magazine’s September print issue—“The War About Nothing”—didn’t sit right. Lydia Namubiru, the editor in chief of The Continent, a digital newspaper based in South Africa, felt the framing erased the lives and struggles at the heart of the crisis; the cover’s subtitle, “Sudan and the world America left behind,” seemed to further compress the conflict into a mere by-product of US foreign policy. Writing on LinkedIn, Namubiru said, “‘The war about nothing’? How about gold at a time of record shattering prices? How about the inherent risks in creating a militia to do the dirty work of a 40-year dictatorship? How about the fragility that comes from a state being under western sanctions for decades?… If anything, it’s the war about everything.”

Namubiru put out a call for submissions by Sudanese writers about their own experiences of the war and published them in a special issue of The Continent, with the headline “The War About Everything in Sudan.” The Continent was founded in 2020 with a mission of publishing journalism about Africa by Africans; it circulates for free via WhatsApp and Signal, and is said to be Africa’s most widely distributed newspaper. “We let African journalists, people living the realities, drive coverage,” Namubiru said. “Over time, reading our journalism gives a sense of the continent’s texture, what is still developing, what has momentum, and what is flourishing.” Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

MO: What did you think when you first saw that Atlantic cover headline?  

LN: The phrase “war about nothing” really struck me, because there is no such thing. People do not take up arms because they are bored. Behind every war is a real pursuit. To call it “about nothing,” just because it does not make sense to you, is baffling. Someone later explained to me that it referenced a Western philosophical frame, but even so, if you are writing for audiences outside the region, it is very easy to be flippant and reduce people. You end up talking about them, not to them, without recognizing their agency. 

Calling Sudan’s war “about nothing” is also simply inaccurate. A country under autocratic rule for thirty years is, by definition, fragile. Sudan’s dictatorship was also at odds with the liberal world order and lived under sanctions for decades. Sanctions break economies. They distort societies and create parallel economies, like gold smuggling, which empowered warlords and deepened instability. Then you had a popular revolution that unseated a dictator. Revolutions are never tidy, and of course the military did not go quietly. What we are seeing now is, at its core, a counterrevolutionary war, an attempt to undo the fact that civilians took back power. And Sudan, like many African states, was created by colonialism, which left behind contradictions and systems of divide-and-rule that still shape politics today. To look at all that complexity and dismiss it as “nothing” is not just inaccurate, it is offensive. 

Of course, an article is more than just its headline. Is it really fair to judge this one that way?

It is not fair to judge an article only by its headline, and when I first reacted I was like, I hope the story is better than the headline. In some ways it was. For example, it does acknowledge gold, and it mentions the UAE. It also includes the obligatory Western media frame of asking where Russia and Ukraine fit into this. But ultimately, I still felt the article fails, because it uses Sudan as a narrative device to argue about the liberal world order, when Sudan is a terrible example for that.

This is a country that has been under Islamist autocratic rule for thirty years. When was it ever part of the liberal world order? There were moments, like after the genocide or with international sanctions, when you could argue Sudan had been part of the liberal world order. But those sanctions broke the economy and created a large informal sector, especially in gold. That drew in players such as the UAE, which profits from loosely regulated gold markets across Africa, including in Sudan. So to use Sudan as the case study for what happens when the liberal world order collapses is strange, and in my view inaccurate.

[In a statement to CJR, Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic’s editor in chief, said: “The suggestion that our work is somehow erasing this humanitarian catastrophe is absurd. The headline, “The War About Nothing” refers to the nihilism of warring leaders who cause chaos and death across Sudan, and not to the Sudanese people who are suffering so terribly. As Anne and Lynsey documented over the course of repeated trips to Sudan, the retreat of USAID has only exacerbated a terrible situation. Anne writes that the collapse of the liberal world order creates a vacuum, with nothing to replace it. A plain reading of our cover story would cause any fair-minded reader to thank Anne and Lynsey for bringing much-needed, and humane, attention to a horrible war.”]

What are some of the things you see Western media get wrong or leave out when covering conflicts and wars in Africa?

Often, the problem with Western media is that it’s looking in from a distance. And it’s not really looking in from a position of intellectual curiosity. It’s more like: “Let’s see what’s happening over there.” Which is a terrible place from which to do journalism. There has been some improvement. There are more African journalists working for international media. But I think the bigger change that has to happen is at the audience level. Even if Africans are a smaller audience, writing with them in mind lifts the quality of the journalism for everyone. Because when you’re writing for an audience that has some foundational knowledge of a situation, you can’t be lazy, you can’t gloss over, you can’t be misleading. You have to do the work. Whereas if you’re writing for somebody who is very distant, then it can be very easy to kind of gloss over. 

You have written that part of The Continent’s purpose is to resist the “flattening of African realities.” What do you mean by that?

I think it’s about texture. It’s being open to the texture of Africa. There are two competing schools of thought on how journalism should cover the continent. One assumes Western journalistic methods are universal. You apply professional standards, objectivity, and expertise to Africa because that’s how journalism is done. You have nothing to learn, only to apply what you already know. This often leads to broad-brush, oversimplified, external perspectives. The other approach reacts to that by saying African journalism should be done by African journalists and should brand Africa positively, showing growth, innovation, and progress. But both approaches can end up flattening realities. Even efforts to save Africa for external audiences, like telling the world “we are not the little guys you think we are,” still position Africa for someone else. 

At The Continent, we try to navigate the middle ground. We let African journalists, people living the realities, drive coverage. They pitch stories from the cities, subcultures, or sectors they are part of. Freelance contributors are central to what appears in the paper. Ideally, they live in the city they are reporting from and are nationals of the country. That ensures investment in the truths and aspirations of the place, which an outsider cannot fully adopt. 

What did you learn from the Sudanese writers you invited to contribute their perspectives on the conflict in their own country?

From reading these contributions, I understood the historical levers that are giving the RSF [Rapid Support Forces] its power even though it is known for atrocities. I understood those better, both in the sense of the colonial history around identity and marginalization, and ongoing marginalization through the postcolonial Sudanese state. I understood a lot better why anyone would side with the RSF and how it has any base at all. Understanding that ethnic, historical polarization helps explain what the war is about.

I feel that it also explained more recent economic history around gold and informal smuggling. Reading these stories, and connecting them with our coverage of Tigray and how the UAE is active there because of informal gold mining, and coverage of Ghana, I understood what the UAE is trying to preserve or create in its interests. I also understood better how the leader of the RSF became such a major political player. It’s funny, though, that some Sudanese feel like this war is about nothing. They are just regular people trying to get on with their lives while armed actors take over. There’s no ideology. It’s just political actors trying to survive. I found that interesting.

That is interesting! It suggests some of your own assumptions can sometimes be challenged.

There will be weeks when we run stories, and people will feel, “This is the continuation of the old negative reporting on Africa.” I imagine the sum total of The Continent under my editorship will not make Africa seem universally positive. Like all journalism, it highlights where things are wrong and doesn’t always pay attention to everything that is going well. But we don’t see ourselves primarily as a narrative engine. We think audience criticism of Africa coverage is valid, but the response isn’t in narrative—it’s in practicing journalism differently. It is still journalism. We hope we are getting it right, but we don’t know for sure.

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