Between Justice and the Priority of Preserving the State... In Light of the Dialogue Between Kamir and Kudi.

Sudanese Elites and the Periphery: Between Justice and the Priority of Preserving the State... In Light of the Dialogue Between Kamir and Kudi. By Omar Elbushary. Khaled Kudi's response to El-Wathig Kamir regarding the Sudanese dialogue initiative is important and deserves serious discussion, as it is a discourse that transcends the immediate political positions—as Kamir intended—to the roots of the Sudanese crisis and the nature of the state that we have been struggling over since independence. El-Wathig Kamir, Mohamed Jalal Hashim, Qusay Hamrour, Hossam Osman Mahjoub, Mutasim El-Agra, Abdullah Ali Ibrahim, Amr Salih Yassin, Ahmed Shamoukh, and other leftists and liberals who aligned with the army in this war, defending their position under the slogan of protecting the national state and confronting the Rapid Support Forces, find themselves today in a position of political contradiction where their discourse and positions align with the forces of political Islam, which they had opposed until just before the Sudanese war that erupted on the morning of April 15, 2023. The fundamental question posed by Kudi is: what state do they want to protect from the parallel governing system that was established in the areas controlled by the forces of the periphery under the name of the 'Tassis' (Foundation) coalition government, and for whose benefit does this state operate? In my estimation, we are facing a group of intellectuals whose positions are governed by ideology and political and social interests linked, to varying degrees, to the interests of the elites that have dominated the Sudanese state since they inherited it from colonialism, replacing the British in managing it, directing its resources, and determining the nature of its relationship with different population groups. Our problem with these elites, we who are from the periphery, is not merely a dispute over power or the identity of the ruler, but is, in essence, a problem of justice: justice in the distribution of power and wealth, justice in recognizing diversity, justice in building state institutions, and justice in determining the relationship of Sudanese groups with each other within a single homeland... justice in the share of the peripheries in productive development and the services necessary to advance people's lives in safety, peace, and prosperity, through working and interacting with natural resources in a positive way that achieves sustainability, balance, and justice, moving us beyond the reality of political instability, wars, and developmental failure that we have been fluctuating between since the dawn of independence. Simply put, our demand is to establish a state that can resolve conflicts between Sudanese population groups, not through military force or cultural hegemony, but through a system of governance that achieves justice, guarantees rights, and accommodates diversity. First: An Old Crisis, A Renewed Demand. This demand did not appear with the Rapid Support Forces, did not begin with 'Tassis', and was not a political invention dictated by the current war. It has been raised since the Torit mutiny in 1955, and continued through the Anyanya movement, then the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), and the armed Darfur movements, passing through political and advocacy movements in Eastern Sudan, the Nuba Mountains, Darfur, and others. Naturally, the demands took different forms; some took the path of armed rebellion, such as Anyanya, the parent SPLM, and later the SPLM-North in Blue Nile and the Nuba Mountains, and the armed Darfur movements. Others took the path of peaceful political action, as seen in the Sudan African National Union (SANU), the Beja Congress, the General Union of the Nuba Mountains, the Darfur Front, and other advocacy organizations and movements. The means changed, the leaders and slogans shifted, but the fundamental question remained: how can a national state be built where no specific social group monopolizes power, wealth, and decision-making, and in which other groups are not forced to take up arms just to have their rights recognized? These groups have used peaceful and violent means, to varying degrees, to attempt to reform the imbalances of the Sudanese state. However, the dominant elites have often dealt with these demands as a threat to the country's unity, rather than viewing them as opportunities to reform the state and save its unity. Second: From Anyanya to Garang, and from Darfur to December. Let us look at the southern experience as a clear example of this dilemma. In the beginning, southern forces raised demands related to justice and federalism, which appeared through Anyanya and SANU, and then in the Round Table discussions after the October 1964 revolution. But many of those who demanded this were met with accusations of separatism, as if demanding the reorganization of the state and the distribution of power could only come from enemies of unity. Then John Garang came with the New Sudan project, raising the slogan of unity based on rebuilding the state and achieving equality among Sudanese. However, his project was not always discussed in light of its political content, but was surrounded by shifting accusations; sometimes it was portrayed as affiliated with communism, Russia, and the Mengistu regime in Ethiopia, and at other times as a secular project linked to the West. While the narratives changed, the war continued, until the path ended with the separation of the South in 2011. In Darfur, the Nuba Mountains, Kordofan in general, Blue Nile, and the East, patterns of dealing with political and social demands were repeated; movements were reduced to ready-made descriptions, such as racism, regionalism, and being agents, instead of subjecting their demands related to power, wealth, and rights to a serious political discussion. Then the December 2018 revolution came, making freedom, peace, and justice central slogans in the project of change. The Hamdok government and the Forces of Freedom and Change sought to achieve some of these demands through a gradual civilian and peaceful path, despite the failures and contradictions that obstructed their experience... It could have been given patience as it served as an opening to address Sudanese political and social problems through peaceful means and within the civil space, and it would have strengthened political practice at the expense of the current militarization that threatens the existence of the state. But that path was aborted by the October 25, 2021 coup, in the context of which multiple calculations and interests participated, and from which forces that feared the consequences of civil transition benefited. The military component or the political forces that supported the coup should not be exempted from their responsibilities, just as what happened should not be reduced to one factor or to the ambitions of the Al-Dagalo family and its external ties alone. After that, with the faltering of the political path, the return of competition between power centers, and the outbreak of war on April 15, 2023, we found ourselves facing a new stage of conflict over the nature of the state and its future, after a stage in which some civilian and military forces approached an agreement on the Framework Agreement as an exit from the coup tunnel. Then the balance of interests and calculations shifted, the war broke out, and the conflict began to be presented in many discourses as a battle between a national army and rebels at first, then they developed the narrative into a story of foreign agency and aggression by the UAE, while questions related to the origin of the crisis and the structure of the state retreated to the background and were enveloped in thick shadows. This was accompanied by an exclusionary social discourse that affected entire population groups, using derogatory descriptions such as 'guests' children,' 'amko'kat,' 'West African locusts,' and 'diaspora Arabs.' This language does not solve the state crisis, but rather deepens divisions and turns political disagreement into enmity with human groups based on origin and identity. Thus, narratives multiply, but the old question returns again: are we ready to rebuild the state on the basis of justice, or do we just want to regain control over the state itself while maintaining its imbalances? The answer to this question is the difference between the approach of Kudi and Kamir in looking at the current issue of dialogue. Kamir gives priority to regaining control of the state and not threatening its unity over rebuilding it on the basis of justice, while Kudi, through his criticism of Kamir, seeks the opposite. Third: The Tilted Ride and Getting Rid of Excess Cargo. The Sudanese state can be likened to a pack animal carrying an unbalanced load; power, wealth, and privileges are concentrated on one side, while other groups bear the burdens of marginalization, war, poverty, and exclusion. When those affected demand a redistribution of the load and the achievement of balance, their demands are not viewed as a necessity for fixing the country's path, but as a threat to its unity and safety. Even worse, some elites prefer the 'tilted ride' to continue, while trying to get rid of the 'excess cargo' through policies of exclusion, separation, or abandoning areas and groups they see as a burden, instead of addressing the causes of the imbalance... It is enough for you to see trends like the river and sea (Nahr wa Bahr) and the philosophy of the Hamdi Triangle as evidence. Therefore, the stated keenness of these 'statist' (Dawlajiya) elites for the entity of the state and its unity needs a practical test: are they keen on unity based on citizenship, justice, and equality, or on the survival of the inherited state with its imbalanced structure, even if it ends in the separation of new parts of it? There is a big difference between defending the unity of the homeland and defending the monopoly of the state under bright, big, and deceptive slogans that cloak themselves in the cover of defending it against external aggression. Unity is not just the survival of borders on a map, but a political and social contract that makes all Sudanese equal partners in the homeland and the state, who feel a sense of belonging to it and are sincere in sacrificing for it because it represents the interests of the vast majority of them, if not all of them, and not our current reality, which is marred by division, conflict, and social tearing regarding its nature and role in our lives. Fourth: Tassis and Sudanese Unity. In this context, one should read El-Wathig Kamir's warning about the participation of 'Tassis' in a government or organization linked to the Rapid Support Forces, and the concerns he raises regarding the establishment of a parallel government and the possibilities of separation. It is anyone's right to discuss the legitimacy of 'Tassis,' its relationship with the Rapid Support Forces, the nature of its political project, its position on the war, and the extent of its ability to adhere to its slogans. Likewise, the dangers of establishing parallel authorities and the disintegration of state institutions are not issues that can be ignored. But what is not correct is for these concerns to turn into a means of closing the discussion on the demands for justice raised by the social and political forces affiliated with this project, or to assume in advance that the demand to re-found the state necessarily means seeking to divide Sudan. The 'Tassis' documents, according to what has been announced of them, confirm adherence to the unity of Sudan, but on the basis of political conditions related to justice, the right to self-determination, secularism, and federalism. These demands, in principle, are not strange to the literature of the left and liberalism, but rather intersect with many concepts of the democratic state that is based on equal citizenship, the recognition of diversity, and the right of communities to participate in managing their affairs and even determining their fate. Of course, this does not exempt us from the need to distinguish between slogans and reality, and between what documents stipulate and what political and military forces practice on the ground. For not everyone who raised the slogan of justice is just, nor is everyone who spoke about unity committed to it, nor does everyone who criticized the existing state necessarily possess a valid alternative project. But... the criterion, in the end, is the extent to which the project is consistent with its principles, its position on citizens' rights, its ability to stop the war, reject violations, and build democratic civil institutions that are not subject to the hegemony of weapons... And these issues still require 'Tassis' to review itself regarding them and evaluate its short experience, which has been marred by more than a few failures that the world has witnessed and condemned. Fifth: The Ideological Position When it Collides with Interest. Here we reach the essence of the contradiction that deserves discussion... after we have laid out the general background of the complex reality with all transparency and clarity... and the central questions here are: How can a leftist or liberal intellectual defend justice, equality, and civil rights, and then refuse to discuss the demands of federalism, secularism, and the redistribution of power, just because the forces that raise them today stand in a political camp he does not prefer? And how can one defend the national state as an absolute value, without questioning the nature of this state, the parties that monopolized its decision-making, and the groups that bore the cost of this monopoly? The problem is not that the intellectual rejects 'Tassis' or opposes the Rapid Support Forces; he has the right to do so, and he may even have valid reasons as we have shown. The problem begins when opposing a political party becomes a justification for suspending the principles he is supposed to defend, or when fears of separation, agency, chaos, and claims of external aggression are used to justify the continuation of the old structure of the state. At that point, ideology seems as if it is being invoked to explain positions after they have been taken, not to be a fixed standard for judging them. If justice is an original value, it should be defended whether raised by allies or opponents. If unity is a national goal, it should be a just unity, not just a unity imposed by the balance of power. If democracy is a principle, it cannot be reduced to the identity of the forces we prefer or to the interests of the elites we trust. Conclusion: Sudan's crisis is not just a struggle between the army and the Rapid Support Forces, nor between Islamists and their opponents, nor between the center and the periphery in their geographic sense alone. It is also a crisis of a state that has not succeeded since independence in building a just national contract that accommodates the diversity of society and gives its citizens equal opportunities in power, wealth, and dignity. Hence, what is required of intellectuals is not blind alignment behind this camp or that, but subjecting everyone to one standard: justice, citizenship, democracy, human rights, and the country's unity on a voluntary and just basis... For that is the solid, firm foundation for building the modern national state that is sustainable and strives to achieve development through peace, justice, and freedom. If the forces that raise the re-founding project truly want a democratic, unified state, they must prove it through practice and reject violations, military hegemony, and exclusion based on clan, tribe, region, race, color, or any other social attributes... And if the elites who defend the existing state are truly keen on the unity of Sudan, they must accept its rebuilding on new foundations that end historical privileges and guarantee equal partnership. As for rejecting the demands of the periphery whenever they are raised, then accusing their owners of separatism when they take up arms, and rejecting them again when they return to politics, that is not defending unity, but re-producing the same crisis. Peaceful demands have been tried, armed movements have been tried, and revolutions, agreements, coups, and wars have followed one another, and the question remains: why is it difficult for Sudanese elites to accept a just state, even if the price of justice is to relinquish some of their historical privileges? This is the issue that Sudanese intellectuals should be occupied with, not just settling for judging political opponents, nor turning the defense of the state into a defense of its imbalances. For Sudan does not need elites (like those we mentioned) who win the battle for control of the inherited state, but rather a national project that refounds it so that it becomes the property of all its citizens, not a historical privilege for one group over another. elbusharyomer@gmail.com The post Between Justice and the Priority of Preserving the State... In Light of the Dialogue Between Kamir and Kudi. appeared first on Sudanile.