{"id":59079,"date":"2025-12-23T22:49:49","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T19:49:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/?p=59079"},"modified":"2025-12-23T22:49:49","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T19:49:49","slug":"the-revolution-in-the-third-person-when-radicalism-becomes-an-art-of-evasion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/23\/the-revolution-in-the-third-person-when-radicalism-becomes-an-art-of-evasion\/","title":{"rendered":"The Revolution in the Third Person: When Radicalism Becomes an Art of Evasion"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Abdelaziz Yaqoub<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u2014who pays it in blood, who survives, and who raises slogans only to disappear when the bill comes due.<\/p>\n

Radicalism, at its core, is a beautiful promise.
\nA promise that says the flaw lies in the roots, that trimming from the top is not enough, and that justice cannot be parceled out.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

We were sitting in an old caf\u00e9\u2014its 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.<\/p>\n

Vendors, laborers, tired faces, eyes that knew politics here was not a theory but a matter of survival.<\/p>\n

I said to my leftist friend, watching the movement of people:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe disagree because we think as if we were a stable country, while we are a country living on the edge since independence.\u201d<\/p>\n

He smiled\u2014that smile suspended between faith and denial.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the revolution came to change all of this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, the revolution came,\u201d I replied. \u201cBut the state did not come after it. Every time a revolution erupts, the state disappears afterward.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2014it recognizes survival.<\/p>\n

After a brief silence, I said:<\/p>\n

\u201cRadicalism emerged from experiences where the state already existed\u2014elsewhere.
\nHere, we are trying to uproot foundations while the soil itself is collapsing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you mean it doesn\u2019t work?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt works as a dream,\u201d I said. \u201cBut dreams, without feet, remain suspended in the air.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2014it is not convinced by slogans alone.<\/p>\n

I added:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why it enters smart alliances,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt enters them, yes\u2014but without signing clearly,\u201d I replied.
\n\u201cIt enters through other fronts, under borrowed names, with moralistic language that conceals its real position.
\nIt is inside blocs in practice, but outside them officially.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen things succeed, it gestures to its shadow and says: we were here, we were the spirit of the work.
\nAnd when they fail, it steps back and says: we were not part of it; it did not represent the revolution\u2019s program.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is how radicalism shifts from a courageous stance to a skillful art of evasion and shirking responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a pause, I spoke more directly, as one pressing a finger into a wound:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem was not only criticizing \u2018soft landing\u2019 compromises, but splitting the ranks.
\nWhen you announced the Radical Change Bloc against alliances that actually possessed the street and the base, you weakened not just your rivals\u2014you weakened the transition itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

I continued:<\/p>\n

\u201cAll effort could have been directed toward building the state and institutions of constitutional legitimacy: a political parties law, a population census, a supreme court\u2014mechanisms that turn revolution into system and state.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a silence, I added:<\/p>\n

\u201cBut 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\u2014until time eroded and collapse advanced step by step.\u201d<\/p>\n

He sighed.<\/p>\n

\u201cPolitics is complicated; accusations are easy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d I replied. \u201cBut complexity does not absolve anyone of responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Sudan, alliances were not necessarily betrayal.
\nThey were a desperate attempt to manage an impossible reality:<\/p>\n

A military that holds the weapons,
\nParties that hold history,
\nAnd a street that holds anger\u2014but not the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut they failed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey failed because they were fragile, yes,\u201d I answered.
\n\u201cBut they also failed because some raised the \u0633\u0642\u0641 of demands, then refused to stand beneath it when it began to collapse.\u201d<\/p>\n

I pointed toward the distant Nile and said:<\/p>\n

\u201cLook at other experiences.
\nIn Italy, communists allied with the conservative Christian Democrats\u2014the historic compromise\u2014and did not dissolve; they achieved major successes.
\nIn Chile, they played the game through multiple alliances over sixty years without losing their identity.
\nIn South Africa, they chose gradual transition because the country mattered more than ideological purity or partisan alignment.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere, in Sudan, radicalism needs to learn how to walk before it tries to fly.
\nTo understand that justice is not achieved by volume alone, but by patience, endurance, responsibility, and the willingness to pay the price.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a low voice, he said:<\/p>\n

\u201cSo either we are fully inside the battle, or clearly outside it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cExactly,\u201d I replied.
\n\u201cBecause the worst position in Sudanese politics is to be present in decision-making and absent from its consequences\u2014to remain in the gray zone.\u201d<\/p>\n

We left the caf\u00e9.<\/p>\n

And the street, as always, was more honest than all debates.<\/p>\n

People walking, selling, arguing, living without the luxury of slogans.<\/p>\n

In the end, the truth that ideologies dislike and reality cannot escape:<\/p>\n

No revolution without responsibility.
\nNo radicalism without a broad popular base.
\nAnd no ethical politics without readiness to pay its costs.<\/p>\n

In Sudan, whoever wants to be radical must be present when decisions are written,
\nWhen experiments are held accountable,
\nAnd when the ceiling collapses onto people\u2019s heads.<\/p>\n

As for those who insist on being inside without signing,
\nAnd outside without opposing,
\nThey will keep writing the revolution in the third person\u2014<\/p>\n

Until history writes their name in the language of failure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2014who 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. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47444,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59079"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59079\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59080,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59079\/revisions\/59080"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}