Is It Not Time to Return? Khartoum May Fall Ill, But It Does Not Die

Dr Haitham Al-Kindi Yousif
O Khartoum, whose beauty is a Garden of Paradise,
In all my life, I have never seen an equal to you anywhere.
I have chosen the above lines from a wonderful song by the Egyptian poet Ibrahim Ragab, written during his service with the Egyptian educational mission in Khartoum and beautifully performed by the Sudanese artist Sayed Khalifa. The song, Ya Balad Ahbabi (O Land of My Beloved), provides the perfect opening for this article, capturing the feelings I experienced upon returning to Khartoum after such a long absence.
Mine was a forced exile, but it was always a physical separation, never a spiritual one. Khartoum is the city closest to my heart. I was born there, and it was the playground of my youth, where I grew up and came of age. I rarely left it, and when I did, it was only briefly, for no more than a few nights at a time — for I often resisted the allure of expatriate life, its promises of wealth and its deceptive comforts.
I know its streets and neighbourhoods. I have walked through its markets and bought goods from its shops. I learned in its schools and graduated from its universities. I belonged to its sporting and cultural clubs, played in its open spaces, swam in both the White and Blue Niles and drank from their waters. I wandered through its lanes. Khartoum lives within me, and I within it. It is home to my friends, family and loved ones.
And so I returned to her with the longing of a deeply enamoured lover, seeking to tell her of the fire of my yearning and sorrow. Yet I found that she, too, had grievances: she complained to me of the separation from those she loved and of the injustice inflicted upon her by those closest to her.
It was as though she were asking me: “Did you not miss me?”
Yes, I did. We exchanged words, perhaps hoping to ease the pain weighing on us both. Among the things she said was: “Is it not time to return?”
I replied: “But the services have not yet been restored. How can we return?”
She caught me off guard: “Did you not say that you loved me?”
Without hesitation, I said: “Yes, I love you dearly.”
Then she struck me with a question that left me speechless: “Can a lover abandon the one he loves when she falls ill or when hardship befalls her?”
My God! What a reproach.
For a moment, I had no answer. The force of her reasoning and the clarity of her argument defeated me. But, as we often do when searching for excuses, I recovered and said: “We shall return, God willing, once the children have finished school.”
I realised that I was not truly certain that I would return, and that I was merely inventing excuses to postpone the decision. She simply replied: “In any case, you will find me waiting for you.”
Is it really true that we are postponing our return? Or do we simply not want to return?
Why is it that every time the moment comes, we set another date, only for that date to arrive and be replaced by yet another? Do we want a loved one to die when they fall ill, or do we rush to treat them and nurse them back to health, enduring whatever exhaustion, distress and hardship that may come our way?
Here, we must express our gratitude and appreciation to those who gave their sweat, blood and lives in the battle to liberate Khartoum and its sister cities. May God accept their efforts and sacrifice. Let that sacrifice inspire us as we embark on the battle of reconstruction and restore what the war has destroyed.
And we must ask: who will restore Khartoum to what it once was, if not her own sons and daughters?
Why do we hesitate instead of moving forward? Everyone is waiting for someone else to take the initiative. If matters continue in this fashion, what Khartoum whispered into my ear at the end of our conversation will never come to pass:
“I may fall ill, but I do not die.”
And rightly so. How could it be otherwise, when upon her rock the dreams of tyrants and the schemes of despots and occupiers have been shattered throughout the ages?
This is a call to the true sons and daughters of Khartoum — those whom she gathered, with a mother’s tenderness, from every corner of Sudan without discrimination, making the city their home and homeland.
We must roll up our sleeves, get down to serious work and make bold decisions instead of remaining trapped in the endless chicken-and-egg debate.
Our loyalty to Khartoum must not remain merely an emotion. We must transform it into a “jihad of reconstruction” — a collective effort that requires each of us to pack our bags and take a step forward.
The return of essential services, which we use as an excuse for staying away, will not happen by chance. We must create those services with our own hands. The people of Khartoum, in their various professions and fields, can take the following initiatives:
Doctors and healthcare professionals:
Return to reopen clinics and hospitals and provide medical services, even at a basic level. Khartoum can begin to heal when the wise and compassionate among her people return to care for her.
Teachers and university lecturers:
The responsibility for reviving the beacons of knowledge and breathing life back into schools and universities rests upon you. Let us prevent the loss of our children’s future and create the very environment whose absence we currently cite as a reason not to return.
Engineers, architects and skilled tradespeople:
Who else can rebuild Khartoum’s physical fabric? Who will restore its homes and make its furnishings and necessities? This is the role expected of you, and you are more than capable of fulfilling it.
Traders and business owners:
You must restore the pulse of the markets, reopen shops, and work to bring factories back to life. In doing so, you will help revive the local economy and create employment opportunities for those who remain and those who return.
Popular and community-based solidarity efforts:
This can take the form of organised community mobilisation, bringing together young people’s energies to rehabilitate neighbourhoods, repair water and electricity networks through local efforts, and plant trees along the streets once again, in an attempt to wipe the dust of sorrow from the city’s face.
In this way, we can repay at least some of what Khartoum has given us and apologise for our neglect. Perhaps this will absolve us of the betrayal she accused me of during our conversation — even if, out of modesty, she refrained from saying so openly. For she is, after all, a shy and well-mannered city.
We must therefore repay her loyalty with loyalty.
And we should say to her:
“By God, you are the dearest of lands to us. Had circumstances not forced us, we would never have left you.”
And now we are returning to you, Khartoum, to shape our circumstances with our own hands, to tend your wounds and help you become once again what you have always been:
a Garden of Paradise.

Shortlink: https://sudanhorizon.com/?p=17492