Shafshafa: Destructive Dismantling

Abdullah Ali Ibrahim

Dr. al-Buni recently published a thought-provoking article arguing that analyses of our current war have tended to focus on “tribe” at the expense of “class.” I commented, noting that the absence of class-based analysis is not due to its inapplicability, but rather to the fact that Marxists—who originally introduced this framework into our discourse—have long since abandoned it. Given the importance of al-Buni’s point (war analysis being, after all, a central intellectual endeavor), I am republishing an earlier piece of mine that approached the phenomenon of “Shafshafa” through a class lens.

Summary
Shafshafa is a practice in this war that warrants closer study in light of Sudan’s “Inqaz” regime—not only the country’s longest-serving government since independence in 1956, but one that embedded state, political, and cultural structures likely to endure for years to come.

In various circulated videos, members of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) are seen confronting groups of civilians—labeled “mutafalliteen” (lawless elements)—caught looting markets and neighborhoods. While RSF members themselves have not been immune from theft, the remarks of some of these soldiers in the videos ring with genuine indignation, even religious moralism, at the scenes of plunder unfolding before them. This is despite the RSF leadership’s use of such footage to present itself as combating what it calls “negative phenomena,” a term used to distance the force from the crimes of these “mutafalliteen.” The RSF even created a department dedicated to “combating negative phenomena.”

Looting and the “Negative Citizen”
One video from Wad Madani—occupied by the RSF—shows an RSF recruit scolding impoverished women and children for breaking into and looting market stalls. Filming them and their stolen goods, he remarks that these are ordinary citizens who seized the opportunity to loot, not RSF personnel. His words suggest a broader social picture of the war—one that includes citizens themselves as active “negative phenomena,” quick to take what is not theirs when the chance arises.

This is not new in Islamic historical literature, which records similar urban underclasses: the ayyārūn in Baghdad after the civil strife between al-Amin and al-Ma’mun (809 AD); the zʿār in Egypt following the death of Sultan Barquq (1399), who emerged amid rural revolts and turned to banditry. Modern economists might compare them to the “surplus population” of early capitalist cities—what Marx called the lumpenproletariat, viewing them as reactionary tools rather than revolutionary agents.

In Sudan today, such “negative citizens” often trace their roots to displaced populations from the country’s civil wars—in South Sudan, the Nuba Mountains, and Darfur—who settled in urban peripheries known as the “Black Belt.” The Inqaz regime, ruling in the name of “the state’s repentance to God,” abandoned many state responsibilities, marginalizing these communities and leaving them to survive in the informal economy, while concentrating wealth and opportunities among the ruling elite.

From Corruption to Kleptocracy
Corruption under Inqaz went far beyond the conventional definition. It became structural—a mode of production in itself—transforming the state into a kleptocracy. Political power was systematically converted into personal wealth, through government-owned companies, off-budget revenues (tajneeb), and elaborate patronage networks. By the mid-2010s, hundreds of state-affiliated companies operated beyond the reach of the Finance Ministry, enriching ministers and their families through circular schemes of public asset stripping.

The Meaning of Shafshafa
Sudanese today use the term “shafshafa” to describe opportunistic looting in times of chaos. It is akin to “shalaʿ” (to tear out completely), as in a recent video showing citizens stripping the roof off a house for resale. Folk wisdom phrases it as: “If your father’s house is ruined, take a piece from it.”

This destructive opportunism echoes the state-led “dismantling” (tafkīk) initiated after the 2018 revolution to dismantle the Inqaz regime under the 2019 Dismantling Law. But that effort faltered—undermined by both counter-revolutionary forces and the transitional government’s own mismanagement—until the October 2021 coup halted the process entirely, annulled the committee’s work, and paved the way for today’s collapse. In the ensuing war, the “negative citizen” has taken to shafshafa—claiming a piece from the wreckage of the state.

Shafshafa, then, is not just random looting. It is the grassroots mirror of a long-standing elite practice—an aftershock of kleptocracy—tearing the country apart “bolt by bolt,” to borrow the famous phrase of Wajdi Saleh from the dissolved dismantling committee.