Sudan's Seven Decades to Nowhere

Jan 3 , 2026. By Abdul Mohammed ( Abdul Mohammed (bati101@gmail.com) is a former senior AU and UN official with extensive experience in mediation in the Horn of Africa, particularly in Sudan and South Sudan. He served as Chief of Staff and senior political adviser to the African Union High-Level Implementation Panel for Sudan, South Sudan, and the Horn of Africa, chaired by former President Thabo Mbeki, and most recently as Head of Office of the UN Special Envoy for Sudan. )

Sudan’s predicament cannot be remedied by reverting to failed ideologies or procedural fixes. The crisis, 70 years in the making, reflects cycles of militarisation, exclusion, and broken democratic promise, yet the people have consistently demonstrated resistance and self-organisation. The challenge remains to craft a political order that finally matches the integrity and resilience of the Sudanese populace, requiring honesty, new thinking, and a break from formulaic responses.

Last week marked 70 years since Sudan emerged from colonial rule in 1956 with immense hope for dignity, justice, and a state that would serve its people rather than dominate them.

Seven decades later, Sudan is at war with itself. But it is essential to say this clearly, especially on such a symbolic date. This war does not reflect the character of the Sudanese people. Anyone who has spent time among Sudanese communities knows this. Sudanese society is marked by generosity, civic solidarity, humour in the face of hardship, and an instinctive care for others.

Even during this devastating war, ordinary people have shared what little they have, sheltered strangers, organised neighbourhood aid, and protected one another across ethnic, religious, and regional lines. The humanitarian work of the emergency response rooms speaks volumes about the character and spirit of the Sudanese people. This civic spirit deeply impressed President Thabo Mbeki during his years leading the African Union (AU) mediation on Sudan. After travelling widely across the country and engaging communities far beyond negotiating halls, he once remarked: “I hope and pray that one day Sudanese will have a government that is as good as them.”

That hope still matters. It matters because Sudan’s tragedy is not a failure of its people. It is a failure of politics.

I recently read a book called "Zero Point" by Slavoj Žižek. I did not read it looking for answers about Sudan, and I am not an academic. I am an African political activist and mediator. I read widely because reading sometimes helps me find language for realities that are difficult to name. Žižek writes about moments when societies reach a point where the old order has already collapsed, yet everyone continues to behave as if it still exists. Governments are recognised, institutions function in name, negotiations continue, and official language remains confident, but none of this connects with lived reality anymore.

He calls this moment a “zero point.”

It is not the end of politics. It is more dangerous than that. It is the moment when the ground under politics gives way, but we keep using the same words, tools, and assumptions as if nothing fundamental has changed. The state exists, but no longer governs.

Sudan officially has a government led by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). It is recognised internationally. Ministries exist. Flags fly. But recognition is not the same as responsibility. The state does not protect civilians at scale. It barely provides services. It does not organise social life beyond survival and coercion. It offers no shared national vision capable of commanding consent.

On the other side, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) control large parts of the country. Their leaders claim to be dismantling the unjust “1956 state,” a message that resonates with Sudanese at the peripheries who were excluded for decades. But what exists under RSF control is not reform or governance. It is a rule by extreme uncertainty, displacement, and atrocity.

Much international engagement with Sudan treats the war as a setback. A failed transition, a power struggle between two generals, a crisis that can be managed with enough pressure and patience. This is a profound misreading of the destructive nature of the war dynamic and its hostility to political settlement. Defeat implies recovery. Disaster destroys the conditions of recovery.

In Sudan today, violence is not a breakdown of order. It is the order. Atrocity is not accidental. It is how control is exercised. Fear, hunger, and displacement are tools of power.

One of the most destructive features of Sudan’s war is polarisation, not as a social by-product, but as a political strategy. Polarisation narrows political space until only existential camps remain. Compromise becomes betrayal. Politics becomes war by other means. Even if guns fall silent, politics cannot resume because trust and shared language have been destroyed.

The key lesson from "Zero Point" is that when societies reach a zero point, repeating old formulas becomes part of the problem. Reformist language, procedural optimism, and technical fixes no longer illuminate reality. They obscure it. At the zero point, the choice is not between good and bad options. It is between thinking honestly and surrendering to catastrophe.

This warning resonates deeply with African political thought, especially the work of Mahmood Mamdani and his recent book, "Slow Poison."

Mamdani argues that many postcolonial crises are not sudden failures but the result of long-term and incremental damage, the slow hollowing out of political institutions, civic life, and popular sovereignty. His critique of neoliberal governance is especially relevant. Neoliberalism weakens the state’s social foundations while strengthening its coercive arm. Over time, politics is emptied of meaning, leaving force to fill the vacuum.

Sudan’s collapse fits this pattern. Sudan cannot be rebuilt within old ideological binaries. Islamism failed to build inclusive politics. Neoliberalism failed to build a socially rooted state. New thinking should move beyond both. This does not negate the need for negotiation or the urgency of stopping the war immediately. Ending the war is a moral imperative. But without new thinking, a ceasefire risks freezing disaster in place.

Seventy years after independence, Sudan stands at a painful crossroads. One could describe this history as 70 years to nowhere, a cycle of militarisation, exclusion, and aborted democratic promise. But Sudan’s people have not failed. They have resisted, organised, and cared for one another. The failure lies in political systems that never rose to their level.

Undoubtedly, the Sudanese people deserve a government as good as they are. Politics is still possible, but only if we are willing to think differently and rebuild from the truth.

PUBLISHED ON Jan 03,2026 [ VOL 26 , NO 1340]