By Abdullah Ali Ibrahim
There is a quote attributed to Winston Churchill that says, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” The ongoing war in Sudan is a tragedy for us, but you might say that it is a crisis that presents an opportunity for reflection on its potential to build a modern national state—if we slightly overlook its heavy human cost. Nations wage wars, and wars build nations, as said by American political sociologist Charles Tilly, who attributed the rise of the nation-state in early modern Europe to the endless wars of that time.
However, one fears that our political elite might squander this critical opportunity presented by the war, leaving us with nothing but to be “ground like wheat between the millstones,” as the poet Zuhair bin Abi Salma once said. The signs of this squandering are already apparent. For instance, Ms. Najat Talha resigned from the Communist Party after serving for six decades, resigning in a way inspired by her femininity. She condemned the party for adopting neutrality between the armed forces and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) during the war, claiming that the military, as per its mandate, was repelling an assault on “the dignity and resources of Sudan.”
Ms. Nemat Malik, wife of the late Abdul Khaleq Mahjoub, founder of the Communist Party in 1949, challenged her stance, reminding her that the first instance of the use of rape as a weapon in 2021 was by the very army Najat is calling to stand with. This is an unfortunate descent into what is known as “whataboutism.” One wonders why a crime as heinous as rape cancels itself out just because it was committed by two parties equally detested by the people? Did the Communist Party refrain from condemning the army’s rapes in the past only to stop condemning today’s rapes in the name of fairness? What is the political and ethical justification for such neutrality?
We Are Poor at Making Comparisons Between Ourselves and the World
Another major way we waste the potential for war to leave its mark in building a modern state is our weakness in comparing the situation in Sudan with other countries. This weakness is a bitter fruit of our political elite’s preoccupation with opposing the various dictatorial regimes that have ruled the country for 53 out of our 67 years of independence. Whenever they compare Sudan to another country, they quickly conclude—based on pure oppositionist sentiment—that Sudan does not measure up, and lately, they’ve resigned themselves to comparing Sudan with Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Somalia. This comparison is valid only in the sense that all of these countries experienced war after revolutions and widespread destruction, and their futures seemed grim.
But when it comes to the specific conditions of those countries versus Sudan, the situation is quite different. Wars in these countries happened after they had already lost their national armies, while in Sudan, the armed forces still exist, regardless of one’s opinion of them. The Yemeni revolution happened while the army was split between Ali Abdullah Saleh and Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, followed by the rise of the Houthis. In Syria, the Alawite-dominated Fourth Armored Division marginalized the national army, which had been composed of various Syrian Sunni groups. Gaddafi did the same in Libya by forming his Republican Guard from his own kin to sideline the armed forces. Libyans came to hate their national military so much that they abandoned it entirely, relying instead on militias in Tripoli, let alone Haftar’s militias in Benghazi. In Somalia, when President Siad Barre was ousted in 1990, the national army dissolved into various factions, and militias took over.
This is different from Sudan, where the armed forces are still engaged in their national duties against the “Rebel Forces” (Rapid Support Forces).
If a comparison of Sudan’s war situation is valid, it is with Iraq and Haiti. In both cases, the national army disbanded as part of a strategy by those opposing the dictatorial regimes, accusing the army of serving those regimes excessively. The opponents of the Ba’ath regime in Iraq were the ones behind the dissolution of the Iraqi army as part of dismantling the Ba’ath state, a plan that neither the Pentagon nor the CIA favored. The U.S. suffered greatly from this dissolution, as it left trained soldiers to join the armed insurgency against them.
As for Haiti, it is even more comparable to Sudan, considering the deep resentment that a significant portion of the political elite harbored against the army, leading to its dissolution, much like what some in Sudanese circles are proposing. Both elites grew tired of their army, which either ruled the country directly or served a dictator.
The Haitian army staged its last coup against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in September 1991. President Bill Clinton warned the coup leaders to step down by July 15, 1994, due to their human rights violations and the growing migration crisis from Haiti to the U.S., which Clinton feared would impact the 1994 midterm elections. A U.N. force entered the island without resistance, as the coup leaders surrendered. One of the U.N. mission’s objectives was to professionalize the army. The international force began disarming the army’s heavy and light weaponry. As part of a policy to diminish the army’s political influence, they implemented a downsizing program, discharging many soldiers to be retrained for civilian jobs. However, Aristide, upon returning to power from exile, decided to dissolve the army in January 1996, a decision that the Pentagon did not agree with. The Pentagon believed that part of the army should be retained to secure the borders, and they feared that widespread discharge would lead to unrest if the government failed to reintegrate the discharged soldiers into civilian life. Aristide ignored these warnings, and his supporters, who were deeply resentful of the army, even suggested amending the constitution to remove the army from the state’s structure.
To be continued…
