Capitalism as Empire-Making: Sudan and the UAE Plunder

In this conversation, Nisrin Elamin and Laleh Khalili discuss the intricate relations between capitalism and imperialism from Sudan outward. They examine together how “empire-making” projects bring together new imperial actors like the United Arab Emirates with Western imperialism. They locate how, by following the money in Sudan, looking at the roles of gold, agricultural commodities, cross-border trade, and financial infrastructure, we can understand the current war as embedded in the fabric of colonial capitalism. Finally, they imagine how activists can follow the money, working through mutual aid networks and exposing the financial ties that underscore genocides from Sudan to Palestine.

LALEH KHALILI: I’m going to start by saying that it has always been a pleasure to read your work, in part because you write beautifully, you do amazing research that is intimately connected to the activist sphere in which you work. Part of what I want to do in this conversation is get you to talk to us about how we can push back against some of the things that we’re going to be discussing. For example, the concentration of capital in particular sectors, as it has to do with Sudan, but also Palestine and Congo, these instances, these conflagrations that are taking place at the same time. I want to start with some of these guiding questions, and we can go from there. One of the things that both your work and mine share is a deep awareness of how capitalist relations shape so much of the intimate sphere of work and life, but also the broader geopolitical one, the one that just sits so it ultimately shapes all scales, that is an imperial scale. I really wanted you to sketch this a little bit vis-à-vis Sudan, because Sudan has got this incredibly rich history of anti-colonial struggle, and interestingly, an anti-colonial struggle that was sometimes displaced, for example, to local power centers that wanted to control it. This intimate relationship between the rooting of capitalism and this imperial imposition has continued, but in a different shape. Do you want to talk a little bit about that when it comes to Sudan?

NISRIN ELAMIN: It is a dream come true to be speaking with you Laleh because you have shaped my thinking in so many important ways. Walter Rodney is the one who really taught me how inextricable capitalism and imperialism are.