The Great Sudanese Distraction: How Elite Point-Scoring Consumed a Nation

By Adel Al-Rifai Abu Al-Hassan
Sudan’s crisis does not lie in a lack of resources or in the weakness of its human potential. Rather, it lies in the fact that, for decades, a large section of its political elite has been more preoccupied with managing conflict than with building the state.
Since independence, Sudanese political life has remained captive to a culture of obstruction, provocation and mutual accusation. One person responds to another, another claims to have silenced his opponent, while a third celebrates victory in a media forum or political speech. The ability to rebut and overpower others has come to resemble a political achievement, while the more important question has remained unanswered:
What has actually been achieved for the country?
The culture of retorts has become a dominant pattern of public debate, as though success were measured by who delivers the strongest words or the sharpest response, rather than by who presents the best idea or the project most capable of building the future.
Considerable energy has therefore been expended in proving others wrong rather than being directed towards production, development and state-building.
Nations do not rise through a culture of retorts, but through a culture of achievement. Political competition should therefore have centred on building institutions, improving education, revitalising agriculture and industry, developing infrastructure and creating a future for coming generations.
Instead, a large share of the country’s national effort has been diverted into political struggles that have contributed far too little to the project of national advancement.
One of the chronic problems that has affected Sudan’s development has been the absence of a culture of institutional continuity and cumulative progress.
We have too often treated the experiences of the state as though they belonged to particular individuals or regimes, rather than recognising them as part of the nation’s history and accumulated experience.
States are not built by each government or political system demolishing everything that came before it. They are built by preserving what already exists, improving it and enabling it to grow.
The time lost in dismantling previous experiences and beginning again from nothing is taken from the life of the nation itself. It often results in the same problems being reproduced, because knowledge and experience are not transferred from one generation to the next.
Every human endeavour contains both successes and failures. Wisdom lies neither in glorifying it nor in rejecting it in its entirety, but in treating it as part of the country’s national experience: developing what succeeded, correcting what failed and building upon what was achieved.
No nation that respects its history seeks to erase its past experiences or destroy the achievements of its people. The history of a nation does not belong to one political party or government; it is a national asset inherited by successive generations.
The problem, however, is not confined to politics. At times, the culture of conflict has also spread into society.
Difference has come to be viewed as confrontation, while those who hold opposing views are treated as enemies who must be defeated rather than as partners capable of enriching the national landscape.
Differences of opinion are not a crisis. When properly managed, they are a source of strength for nations. Through the diversity of perspectives, societies arrive at better choices and then unite behind what serves the public interest.
Where shortcomings emerge in any experience, the answer should be review, improvement and reform, not destruction and erasure.
When a political opponent is transformed into an enemy, the danger no longer threatens one side alone; it threatens the state itself.
Among the gravest mistakes any group can make is to believe that its failure to attain power gives it the right to place the country at risk, or to enlist an armed force to remove a political rival.
Governments change, and politicians come and go, but when the state is weakened, everyone pays the price.
The consequences Sudan has endured during its latest crisis require little explanation. They have included killing, destruction, displacement, mass flight, damage to institutions and the loss of national resources.
The citizen has been left seeking the restoration of the country itself before pursuing any political gain.
In fairness, major crises are never created by a single factor. They result from an accumulation of positions, decisions and practices: those who participated directly, those who contributed indirectly, and those who placed narrow calculations above the national interest.
The central lesson, however, is that weakening the state can never be a path towards building a better future.
Here, the fundamental principle becomes clear:
The state stands above political power.
Political power is a means of serving the state; it is not an end for which the state should be destroyed.
Parties and leaders change, but the state remains the framework that protects everyone.
Sudan today needs a profound national reassessment that views its experience since independence as one continuous journey: drawing upon its successes, learning from its failures and preserving what is positive, rather than returning to the starting point each time.
The time has come to move from obstruction and political point-scoring to construction, and from the question, “Who won the argument?”, to the far more important question:
“What have we achieved for Sudan?”
Responsibility rests with everyone: political parties, social forces, universities, research centres, the media and all those who contribute to shaping national consciousness.
There can be no renaissance without cost, and no construction without patience. Sudan’s path towards the future requires a clear formula:
National will, a coherent strategy, capable institutions and patience in implementation.
When politics is transformed from a battle to exclude others into a means of building the state, difference becomes a source of strength, diversity becomes an asset, and the future becomes possible.
Nations are not lost because their people disagree. They are lost when defeating one another becomes more important than securing victory for the country, and when a culture of conflict replaces a culture of achievement.

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