Questions of Formation… and the Delayed Explosion of History (2/2)

As I See 

Adel El-Baz

We continue our engagement with the article by Mr. Obeid Marouh, “Sudan’s Earthquake… Are We Approaching the Formation of the Largest Bloc?”—a piece that sparked a well-deserved debate over the past week for the serious and expansive dialogue it opened.

We concluded the first part of this article with the following passage:
(How do we move from a state that inherited a society it never understood to a state grounded in an accurate knowledge of its structures, grievances, and transformations? How do we build a nation based on mutual recognition, equitable distribution of power and wealth, and a unifying identity? These are the questions we long evaded, and today they return—not as intellectual luxury, but as a condition for survival.)

In his article, Mr. Obeid outlines a vision for managing this transition through two main proposals, both falling under what he terms “transitional founding”—a phase that, as I understand it, precedes the transition itself. In the first proposal, he calls on individuals of insight and sound judgment to convene and lay the foundations of this transitional founding, in a way that simultaneously addresses both foundational and contemporary questions, following a thorough examination of their historical and practical complexities.

This is the first approach he proposes. The second approach, meanwhile, assigns the responsibility to the state leadership itself to initiate such a dialogue on the foundations of transitional founding.

Here, I hope Mr. Obeid will permit me to say that, despite their seriousness, both approaches have been attempted—directly or indirectly—for more than seventy years, yet have unfortunately failed to produce outcomes commensurate with the gravity of the questions at hand. Sudan has witnessed countless conferences, endless dialogues, committees, recommendations, and documents. Yet the end result remains the devastation we see today. The reason is that we have mostly managed the crisis rather than resolved it, negotiating over privileges and power-sharing before agreeing on the very nature and identity of the state.

The Sudanese experience has not suffered from a shortage of conferences, but from a deficit in methodology. Each time we entered a crisis, we resorted to political dialogue that addressed the surface while leaving the roots untouched. These repeated dialogues and conferences were merely attempts to manage a superficial political crisis without delving into its formative roots: How were our multiple identities shaped over centuries? And how did the centralized state, since independence, produce a dominant center that continuously generates marginalized peripheries in opposition to it? These questions failed to occupy the minds of elites, who did not seek to establish a national project capable of addressing questions of identity, culture, society, and economy. Conferences were convened and recommendations issued without being preceded by genuine intellectual effort to explain why Sudan, in the first place, failed to build a cohesive nation and a just state.

For this reason, I fear we may return to repeating what has already been tried. And I fear, Mr. Obeid Marouh, that if we follow the same path, we will once again be overtaken by regret—regret whose bitter taste we are still enduring.

The most dangerous aspect of the Sudanese predicament is that we have consistently searched for quick political exits, while the real crisis lies deeper than politics itself. Why not try a different path—one that may prove more effective?

I do not claim to present a wholly new proposal, but rather to advocate a different approach to addressing the Sudanese question. To that end, I return to a passage from a previous article of mine as a foundation for the vision I consider more appropriate:
(The problem is too complex to be reduced to a single cause or factor. We need a multi-dimensional perspective, for we are dealing with a layered and intertwined issue that cannot be explained solely through social, political, economic, or even cultural and identity-based lenses.)

In short, we need an objective, scientific vision instead of theatrical political conferences. This does not mean abolishing politics or excluding political actors—that is neither possible nor desirable. Rather, it means that the question of foundational reconstruction should not be left to politicians alone. By nature, politicians are preoccupied with immediate possibilities and the pressures of the moment, whereas foundational work requires those who can examine the deep roots of the problem—in history, society, economy, and culture.

We have failed repeatedly because we attempted to solve Sudan’s problems before understanding Sudan itself. We rushed into settlements and power-sharing arrangements before diagnosis, into dividing state authority before agreeing on the meaning of the state itself, and into drafting recommendations before answering the most fundamental question: What, in the first place, went wrong in this entity to produce such recurring crises?

Hence, I argue that we need the input of scholars in Sudan’s social history to examine the questions of formation, understand the causes of our failure to achieve national integration, and propose a new social contract.

Yesterday, the distinguished writer Huweida Shabo published an excellent article titled “Sudan After the War: Toward a New National Social Contract,” in which she called for such a contract, stating:
(Any forthcoming national social contract must bear the signature of all components of the Sudanese people, rather than being the product of secret negotiations among a limited elite. True consultation and the general will both require inclusivity that admits no exception.)

I believe this is the correct direction—but with one indispensable precondition: it must be preceded by a profound foundational intellectual effort. The new social contract envisioned by Ms. Huweida will not merely be a document to sign; it will entail a redefinition of the relationship between citizen and state, and among the country’s diverse components.

In the same vein, we need the input of scholars in political, economic, and cultural history—not to produce recommendations that gather dust in drawers, but to generate the knowledge that will underpin the transition. In other words, we must first arrive at a shared understanding of the nature of Sudan’s crisis in all its dimensions, and then build upon that a consensual vision of a new social contract, alongside a comprehensive outlook on politics, economy, culture, identity, and the structure of the state itself.

“Transitional founding” should therefore be understood not merely as an expanded political dialogue, but as a phase that precedes the transition, aimed at producing the foundational knowledge required for it. That is, we must first reach a consensual diagnosis of all our crises, then agree on governing principles, then establish a new social contract—only after which should transitional political arrangements and institutions follow. To reverse this order—beginning with power-sharing before agreeing on the meaning of the state—is precisely what we have tried before, with the result that the crisis returns each time in more complex and more devastating forms.

If we accomplish this phase with seriousness, emerging with a consensual vision grounded in real knowledge, we will have taken the first correct steps toward building a new nation. Otherwise, we will remain trapped in the cycle of the explosion of deferred history—one that may come again, even more destructive.

My sincere thanks to Mr. Obeid Marouh for making this open and public dialogue possible. I hope others concerned with these issues will join this space of debate.