Founding or Building? Clarifying the Concept Without Erasing History

Al-Wathiq Kameir

Introduction
The term “state founding” has not been the subject of broad public debate within Sudan’s political sphere, despite the fact that a group of civilian actors—engaged in articulating a vision for post-war Sudan—had long aspired to open a serious discussion on the meaning of “founding” and its relevance to addressing the national crisis (Al-Wathiq Kameir, “Post-War Sudan: Elements of a Vision,” Sudanile, December 10, 2023).

It was the article by Dr. Makki Al-Shibli that brought the term to the forefront of public debate, through legitimate critical questions regarding its use by certain armed actors—most notably the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), alongside allied armed movements and political figures, even if they were not explicitly named (Makki Al-Shibli, “Founding or Building? On the Fallacy of ‘Founding’ Sudan and the Problem of Erasing History in the Discourse of Arms,” Sudanile, January 16, 2026).

What prompted this intervention is not an objection to that critique, but rather a clarification: the usage criticized by Dr. Makki bears no relation to the meaning intended in my earlier article, where the concept was invoked in a civilian and analytical context. Nor does it have anything to do with the projects of armed actors or their attempts to impose legitimacy by force. The purpose here is to enrich the debate and refine the concept by distinguishing between the use of “founding” as a tool to justify authority imposed by arms, and its use as a framework for understanding the crisis of the modern Sudanese state—without erasing history or “founding Sudan on the ruins of its memory,” as Dr. Makki aptly put it.

Founding: Civilian or Armed?
In this context, it is essential to clearly distinguish between two fundamentally different levels of usage of the term. The “founding” intended here refers to a civilian–political process that addresses the deferred structural questions of the Sudanese state through dialogue, constitutional processes, and consensual legitimacy, culminating in electoral legitimacy. By contrast, the use of “founding” by armed actors to justify the creation of parallel authorities or to impose constitutional and institutional arrangements by force and without mandate represents a different usage altogether—one rooted in the logic of domination rather than that of the state. Such usage reproduces the crisis of legitimacy instead of resolving it.

First: Founding as a Tool to Legitimize Armed Power
At this first level, the Rapid Support Forces employed the term to legitimize the declaration of a full-fledged sovereign project and a “secular” state, including the drafting of a constitution, the formation of a presidential council and an executive government, the delineation of regions, and the appointment of their governors—entirely bypassing political, societal, and traditional forces. Here, “founding” ceases to be an analytical concept and becomes instead an instrument of coercive political legitimization, a cover for redefining the state through the logic of arms. This usage warrants firm objection and critique, not because it distorts language or the concept per se, but because it transforms it into a means of erasing society in all its diversity and monopolizing the definition of legitimacy.

This exclusionary use becomes even more troubling when read in the context of the war’s systematic destruction of national memory: attacks on the National Museum, the looting of Sultan Ali Dinar’s Museum, and the destruction or theft of historical possessions belonging to Sudanese families. These acts cannot be understood merely as collateral damage of war; rather, they constitute an assault on the historical foundations of society and a prelude to imposing a false narrative of “founding Sudan” on the ruins of its memory. In this sense, “founding” becomes an act of erasure, not a national project.

Second: Founding as a Response to the Crisis of the Modern State
This understanding, however, bears no relation to the civilian use of the concept as articulated in “Elements of a Vision for Post-War Sudan,” nor as employed in my article published less than six weeks after the outbreak of the war (“The April War: A Pivotal Moment in the Trajectory of Sudanese State-Building,” Sudanile, June 4, 2023).

In that context, the discussion was not about founding Sudan as a civilizational or social entity, nor about denying its deep historical roots. Rather, it was about describing a revealing political moment that exposed the failure of the modern Sudanese state—since independence in 1956—to resolve its foundational constitutional questions.

Indeed, Sudan, as a society, history, and civilization, is not a newly emergent entity in need of founding, nor a historical vacuum to be filled by a political declaration. Yet, as a modern state, it has failed to establish a stable social, political, and constitutional contract. For decades, core issues have remained unresolved: the nature of the system of governance; the relationship between the center and the regions; the role of the military institution in power; the relationship between religion and the state; the foundations of transitional justice; and the sharing of power and wealth—issues that are central to the founding of any modern state.

Instead of confronting these foundational questions, political elites repeatedly slid into managing short-sighted power transitions, preoccupied with transitional arrangements and executive positions, while neglecting the roots of the crisis. The result was a series of vicious cycles—coups, uprisings, and fragile transitions—until the crisis reached its apex in the April 2023 war.

From this perspective, speaking of “founding” does not imply a rupture with history or the erasure of civilizational accumulation. Rather, it signifies a shift from the logic of “power transition” to that of “state founding” in its political and constitutional sense—that is, addressing the issues that have prevented the emergence of a stable state since independence, and building a new legitimacy grounded in national consensus and citizenship, not domination.

In this context, the concept of “building” (or construction) does not stand in opposition to what is meant here, but rather complements it. “Building” accurately captures the civilizational and social accumulation of Sudanese society; however, this accumulation has not been translated into a completed political and constitutional construction of the modern state. Hence the need for a civilian founding moment that addresses this imbalance without denying or bypassing history.

Conclusion
The problem, then, lies not in the term itself, but in its context and usage. When “founding” is monopolized by an armed actor and used to impose authority or erase memory, it becomes a threat to both state and society. When it is articulated within a civilian, peaceful, and consensual framework, however, it opens a necessary horizon for breaking the vicious cycle that has obstructed the emergence of a stable state in Sudan since 1956.

The aim of this response is neither to defend a term nor to engage in a purely linguistic or historical polemic, but to contribute to clarifying the concept and situating it correctly. The real challenge facing Sudan after this war is not merely who governs, but how the relationship between state and society is reconstituted. Between reducing politics to a mere transfer of power and founding a state that neither erases its history nor is imposed upon its people lies the essence of the dialogue Sudan urgently needs today.