The Revolution in the Third Person: When Radicalism Becomes an Art of Evasion

By Abdelaziz Yaqoub

In Sudan, politics does not begin from podiums, but from the street. And the street here does not ask about programs; it asks about the price—who pays it in blood, who survives, and who raises slogans only to disappear when the bill comes due.

Radicalism, at its core, is a beautiful promise.
A promise that says the flaw lies in the roots, that trimming from the top is not enough, and that justice cannot be parceled out.

But promises, when made in a country burdened by wars, change their tone. They become loud in voice and light in weight if they do not find those willing to carry them on their shoulders and walk with them through sand, dirt, and mud.

We were sitting in an old café—its tables wobbling like the state itself, its chairs knowing more than newspapers ever say. The street in front of us was more alive than all political statements combined.

Vendors, laborers, tired faces, eyes that knew politics here was not a theory but a matter of survival.

I said to my leftist friend, watching the movement of people:

“We disagree because we think as if we were a stable country, while we are a country living on the edge since independence.”

He smiled—that smile suspended between faith and denial.

“But the revolution came to change all of this,” he said.

“Yes, the revolution came,” I replied. “But the state did not come after it. Every time a revolution erupts, the state disappears afterward.”

Sudan is not a blank page; it is an old notebook riddled with bloodstains and erasures. A diverse and fragile country, governed less by parties than by accumulated networks of influence: traditional structures, intertwined tribes, a vast primitive economy of interests, and military and security balances whose faces change but whose logic does not. Politics here does not recognize purity—it recognizes survival.

After a brief silence, I said:

“Radicalism emerged from experiences where the state already existed—elsewhere.
Here, we are trying to uproot foundations while the soil itself is collapsing.”

“Do you mean it doesn’t work?” he asked.

“It works as a dream,” I said. “But dreams, without feet, remain suspended in the air.”

Radicalism in Sudan is like a magnificent sermon at a funeral without a coffin: lofty language, rigid morals, but no grip on the ground. And the ground here is stubborn—it is not convinced by slogans alone.

I added:

“The radical party does not have a broad popular base. This is not an insult; it is a political fact. It cannot rule alone, nor lead the transition alone, yet it refuses to be a full partner.”

“That’s why it enters smart alliances,” he said.

“It enters them, yes—but without signing clearly,” I replied.
“It enters through other fronts, under borrowed names, with moralistic language that conceals its real position.
It is inside blocs in practice, but outside them officially.

“When things succeed, it gestures to its shadow and says: we were here, we were the spirit of the work.
And when they fail, it steps back and says: we were not part of it; it did not represent the revolution’s program.

“This is how radicalism shifts from a courageous stance to a skillful art of evasion and shirking responsibility.”

After a pause, I spoke more directly, as one pressing a finger into a wound:

“The problem was not only criticizing ‘soft landing’ compromises, but splitting the ranks.
When you announced the Radical Change Bloc against alliances that actually possessed the street and the base, you weakened not just your rivals—you weakened the transition itself.

“Instead of trying to reconcile forces and pull everyone toward a clear program to strengthen democratic institutions, you entered into conflict with the very components of effective change.”

I continued:

“All effort could have been directed toward building the state and institutions of constitutional legitimacy: a political parties law, a population census, a supreme court—mechanisms that turn revolution into system and state.”

After a silence, I added:

“But the battle slid from confronting reality to an internal confrontation within the same camp. The question was no longer how do we save the transition? but who is more authentic, more radical, more entitled to speak in the name of the revolution—until time eroded and collapse advanced step by step.”

He sighed.

“Politics is complicated; accusations are easy,” he said.

“Yes,” I replied. “But complexity does not absolve anyone of responsibility.”

In Sudan, alliances were not necessarily betrayal.
They were a desperate attempt to manage an impossible reality:

A military that holds the weapons,
Parties that hold history,
And a street that holds anger—but not the state.

“But they failed,” he said.

“They failed because they were fragile, yes,” I answered.
“But they also failed because some raised the سقف of demands, then refused to stand beneath it when it began to collapse.”

I pointed toward the distant Nile and said:

“Look at other experiences.
In Italy, communists allied with the conservative Christian Democrats—the historic compromise—and did not dissolve; they achieved major successes.
In Chile, they played the game through multiple alliances over sixty years without losing their identity.
In South Africa, they chose gradual transition because the country mattered more than ideological purity or partisan alignment.

“Here, in Sudan, radicalism needs to learn how to walk before it tries to fly.
To understand that justice is not achieved by volume alone, but by patience, endurance, responsibility, and the willingness to pay the price.”

In a low voice, he said:

“So either we are fully inside the battle, or clearly outside it?”

“Exactly,” I replied.
“Because the worst position in Sudanese politics is to be present in decision-making and absent from its consequences—to remain in the gray zone.”

We left the café.

And the street, as always, was more honest than all debates.

People walking, selling, arguing, living without the luxury of slogans.

In the end, the truth that ideologies dislike and reality cannot escape:

No revolution without responsibility.
No radicalism without a broad popular base.
And no ethical politics without readiness to pay its costs.

In Sudan, whoever wants to be radical must be present when decisions are written,
When experiments are held accountable,
And when the ceiling collapses onto people’s heads.

As for those who insist on being inside without signing,
And outside without opposing,
They will keep writing the revolution in the third person—

Until history writes their name in the language of failure.