{"id":62089,"date":"2026-10-19T16:21:58","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T13:21:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/?p=62089"},"modified":"2026-10-19T16:21:58","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T13:21:58","slug":"the-new-sudan-and-the-legitimacy-of-representation-once-again-with-khalid-kodi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/2026\/10\/19\/the-new-sudan-and-the-legitimacy-of-representation-once-again-with-khalid-kodi\/","title":{"rendered":"The New Sudan and the Legitimacy of Representation: Once Again with Khalid Kodi"},"content":{"rendered":"

Al-Wathig Kameir<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I have read the first part of my brother Khalid Kodi\u2019s latest article, \u201cThe New Sudan Is Not a Seat at the Old Sudan\u2019s Dialogue\u201d (Al-Mada News, October 16, 2026), written in response to my article, \u201cOn \u2018Tasees\u2019 and the New Sudan: A Reply to Khalid Kodi\u201d (Sudanile, October 12, 2026). Despite the article\u2019s considerable length and its references to Frantz Fanon, Frederick Douglass, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., John Rawls, Ronald Dworkin, and others, I found that, in essence, it added little to what Khalid had argued in his previous article and what I addressed in my response.<\/strong><\/p>\n

He continues to reconstruct the disagreement as a conflict between the \u201cOld Sudan\u201d and the \u201cNew Sudan,\u201d and between those who wish to preserve the old state and those who seek to re-found it. I have already explained that this was never the point of disagreement I originally raised. I did not defend the historical structure of the Sudanese state, nor did I argue that it should be repaired or restored. On the contrary, I explicitly called for rebuilding the state and its political compact, and for addressing citizenship, marginalization, the relationship between the center and the regions, justice, identity, religion and the state, and the distribution of power and wealth.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I therefore see little value in revisiting this point for a third time. However, the new article introduces two issues that warrant clarification.<\/strong><\/p>\n

First: Fundamental rights are not the same as the \u201csupra-constitutional principles\u201d stipulated by a particular political organization.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Khalid implicitly attributes to me the position that equality, dignity, and freedom of belief can be placed on the negotiating table. He then asks whether a citizen of the Nuba Mountains or Blue Nile should wait for others to approve their right to equality. Of course not. Absolutely not.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I do not believe that a person’s right to life, dignity, equality before the law, or freedom of belief becomes a right only when a political majority votes in its favor. These are fundamental rights that should not be subject to bargaining. But this is one thing; claiming that everything a particular political project classifies as \u201csupra-constitutional principles\u201d must be binding on Sudanese people before the constitutional process even begins is something entirely different.<\/strong><\/p>\n

When we move beyond equality, non-discrimination, and human rights to issues such as a specific form of secularism, a particular conception of voluntary unity, or self-determination\u2014including its scope, the entities entitled to exercise it, and the mechanisms through which it is implemented\u2014we have moved from universal rights to constitutional and political choices that require definition and agreement.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The question here is not whether Sudanese people are equal. It is how equality should be translated into institutions and constitutional rules. What, precisely, should the relationship between religion and the state be? What form should the state take, and what system of government should it adopt? What does self-determination mean, who is entitled to exercise it, under what circumstances, and through what mechanisms?<\/strong><\/p>\n

These are political and constitutional questions that cannot be settled simply because one party labels its preferred answers \u201csupra-constitutional.\u201d Otherwise, we would move from rejecting the tutelage of the \u201cOld Sudan\u201d to granting another political project the authority to determine what Sudanese people may or may not discuss before the national process itself has even begun.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Second: Embracing the New Sudan project does not confer governmental status.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Khalid repeatedly argues that \u201cTasees\u201d embraces equal citizenship, secularism, decentralization, and other principles of the New Sudan. He then moves from that assertion to defending the \u201cpolitical and institutional existence\u201d of its government. Here, the question I raised remains unanswered.<\/strong><\/p>\n

There is no dispute that the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), or any other political force, has the right to embrace the New Sudan project, defend it, organize itself around it, and bring it to any national political process. But how does that fact lead to a different conclusion\u2014that a government established by a political-military alliance during wartime should be treated as a government in its own right?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Adopting a political idea does not make the organization that embraces it a legitimate government. Nor does the justice of some of a movement’s demands automatically make every institutional structure it establishes during a war a representative of those demands.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Khalid himself acknowledges that \u201cTasees\u201d lacks a democratic mandate to represent the entire Sudanese people. If so, what is the source of the governmental status he wants it to bring into the political process? Is it the intellectual project it espouses? Control over territory? Or the military strength of the alliance under whose auspices it emerged?<\/strong><\/p>\n

If the answer is the first, no intellectual project confers governmental status. If the answer is the second or third, we return to the problem I have raised from the outset: turning the realities of war into a political and institutional arrangement.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is also why invoking the history of liberation movements, from Algeria to South Africa, does not settle the issue before us. There may be just causes for which people have taken up arms in their defense, and historical circumstances in which armed struggle became part of resistance to oppression. But even if we accept all of that, the question remains: Does the justice of a cause entitle those bearing arms to establish a government during a war and then demand that other political forces deal with it in that capacity? This is precisely where our disagreement lies.<\/strong><\/p>\n

As for the distinction between \u201crevolutionary arms\u201d and \u201carms of privilege,\u201d I have already clarified my position. The point is not to equate all wars or deny history, but to reject the idea that any party can unilaterally determine the legitimacy of its own use of arms and then derive additional political rights from that self-serving judgment. The justice of political demands is one thing; the right to exercise governmental authority by virtue of military power is another.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I experienced the New Sudan project, discussed it, and wrote about it from within the SPLM itself, and I worked closely with its late leader, Dr. John Garang. I therefore do not need to discover today that the Sudanese state requires profound change or that equal citizenship lies at the heart of that transformation. Our disagreement is not about these principles.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Our disagreement concerns the path toward achieving them. Do we build the new state through an open national process in which all Sudanese enjoy equal rights in determining the form of their state? Or does the process begin by recognizing the authorities and alliances created by war, after which others are expected to negotiate with them over the country’s future?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Perhaps the experience of the original SPLM itself is worth recalling here. Under Dr. John Garang’s leadership, the movement waged a long war, administered extensive areas beyond Khartoum’s control, and advanced the New Sudan project as a vision for rebuilding the entire country. Yet it did not make the establishment of a parallel Sudanese government a prerequisite for articulating or securing recognition of that project.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I make this point from direct experience as well. At various times, some movement leaders and their allies pushed for taking control of Juba when the city was under military siege. Dr. John, however, understood that controlling a major city meant more than a military victory. It also entailed responsibility for governance, administration, and public services\u2014responsibilities that should not be assumed merely because the balance of power makes it possible.<\/strong><\/p>\n

He treated the government in Khartoum as the other party within the state and negotiated with it over restructuring the foundations of governance and the state, rather than proceeding on the basis that two parallel Sudanese governments should exist.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This experience is important because it demonstrates that advancing a radical project to rebuild the state\u2014even while administering areas outside government control during a war\u2014does not necessarily lead to the conversion of military control into parallel governmental status. I therefore do not believe that invoking the history of the SPLM or the New Sudan project automatically settles the question of the governmental status of \u201cTasees.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

For this reason, after the second article, I do not believe the substance of our disagreement has changed significantly. Khalid continues to discuss the justice of the New Sudan project, whereas I am asking in what capacity the forces that embrace it enter the political process, and what relationship exists between arms and the right to govern. These are two different questions.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Perhaps we could continue exchanging articles on the history of the New Sudan, the legitimacy of revolution, and the experiences of liberation movements indefinitely. But the simpler question will remain before us:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cDoes the justice of a political project automatically entitle its proponents to transform an authority created by the realities of war into a political or governmental entity whose status must be recognized in the national process?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

If the answer is yes, then this is our real disagreement. If the answer is no, the gap between us is much narrower than this lengthy series of articles might suggest.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Al-Wathig Kameir I have read the first part of my brother Khalid Kodi\u2019s latest article, \u201cThe New Sudan Is Not a Seat at the Old Sudan\u2019s Dialogue\u201d (Al-Mada News, October 16, 2026), written in response to my article, \u201cOn \u2018Tasees\u2019 and the New Sudan: A Reply to Khalid Kodi\u201d (Sudanile, October 12, 2026). Despite the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54587,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62089","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\/62089","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=62089"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62089\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62090,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62089\/revisions\/62090"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}