Sudan and the World’s Selective Morality

By Mustafa Abdelhalim Mahmoud
Sudanese Diplomat

Amid Sudan’s protracted crisis, which erupted in April 2023 following an armed rebellion launched by the criminal, outlawed Janjaweed militia against the Sudanese government and its legitimate institutions, observers of the international response are confronted with a stark moral paradox. A troubling gap has widened between official rhetoric and concrete action. Despite repeated talk of protecting civilians and restoring stability, meaningful and effective intervention remains conspicuously absent. This silence persists notwithstanding extensive documentation of atrocities committed by the rebel militia, including mass killings, systematic sexual violence, forced displacement, and the deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure.

To understand this contradiction, it is useful to revisit an idea advanced more than a century ago by the German sociologist and political economist Max Weber (1864–1920), one of the most influential thinkers in shaping modern Western society.

Weber clearly distinguished between two approaches to ethics in political life (Weber, 1919). The first is grounded in moral principles and lofty declarations, giving primacy to pure intentions over outcomes. The second, which he termed the “ethic of responsibility,” holds that political actors must be judged by the foreseeable consequences of their decisions, obliging them to weigh interests, risks, and outcomes before taking action.

In its engagement with Sudan, the international community claims to be guided by the latter logic—the ethic of responsibility. What we are witnessing in practice, however, is not responsible action but rather a pragmatic use of political realism as a convenient pretext for paralysis. Despite recurring statements about civilian protection, support for democratic transition, and securing a ceasefire, international engagement remains hesitant, delayed, and deeply selective. Humanitarian assistance falls far short of the scale of the catastrophe, diplomatic initiatives have stalled, and millions of Sudanese remain exposed to mass displacement and indiscriminate violence.

This sense of disillusionment deepens when compared with the speed and resolve of the international response to other crises, most notably the war in Ukraine, where unprecedented political and military support was mobilized within a remarkably short time. This disparity cannot be explained by differences in values or principles. Rather, it exposes a more unsettling reality: international action is shaped less by the magnitude of human suffering and more by the weight of strategic interests.

Weber explicitly warned against this kind of moral distortion, stressing that political actors should be held accountable not for the nobility of their intentions but for the tangible consequences of their choices. By this standard, the results of international silence on Sudan are plain to see: a state under immense pressure that has nevertheless remained intact; national institutions that have continued to function; and an authority that has resisted fragmentation despite armed rebellion and sustained external neglect.

More broadly, the Sudanese crisis reveals a deeply embedded moral hierarchy within the contemporary international system, dominated by global power centers that determine urgency not on the basis of universal principles but according to calculations of strategic convenience. These powers have hollowed out the notion of collective responsibility, confining decisive intervention to crises that intersect with their geopolitical interests, while consigning others to prolonged neglect. Under this logic, Sudan is not viewed as a sovereign state confronting an armed rebellion that threatens its national cohesion and regional stability, but as a marginal crisis unworthy of sustained international commitment—regardless of the political and humanitarian costs of such calculated indifference.

Ultimately, the Sudanese crisis has become a decisive moral test for the international community—a test that reveals not the weakness of the Sudanese state, but the depth of the world’s abdication of responsibility. It has shown how the language of political realism can slide into strategic indifference, serving as a comfortable cover for hesitation and inertia. Yet, despite this persistent neglect, the Sudanese state has demonstrated notable resilience. Its core institutions have remained standing, its sovereignty intact, and its authority steadfast in confronting a rebel militia seeking to undermine the constitutional order.

Despite prolonged external disregard, the state has neither disintegrated nor collapsed. Instead, it has continued to function, resisted fragmentation, and preserved national cohesion. As Max Weber reminds us, responsibility in politics is not merely a matter of calculating interests, but of bearing the moral consequences of silence. In Sudan’s case, that silence stands in stark contrast to a state that has endured, defended its unity, and preserved its basic foundations under exceptional pressure.

This leaves an urgent and enduring question:

Can the world move beyond its selective morality and address the Sudanese crisis as a humanitarian catastrophe, rather than a mere geopolitical footnote?
Or will the ethics of international politics continue to be invoked only when they align with interests, and set aside when the cost of action rises—leaving a sovereign state to defend its unity, stability, and people largely on its own?