A Reading In Political Anatomy
The Book “The Sudanese Elite And The Addiction Of Failure” By The Late Dr. Mansour Khalid Stands Not Merely As A Historical Document Recounting Past Events, But As A Surgeon’s Scalpel Diving Into The Complexities Of The Sudanese Political Mind, Attempting To Dissect The Deep Roots Of The Crises That Have Ravaged And Continue To Ravage The Modern Sudanese State. Entering The World Of This Book Requires A Full Recall Of The Complexities Of The Sudanese Political Economy, The Dynamics Of Internal Conflict, And The Accumulations Of National And Political Debts That Have Burdened The Country. These Are The Very Issues The Author Addresses From A Strict Critical Perspective, Deconstructing The Structure Of The “Elite” That Has Led The Scene Since The Dawn Of Independence. Mansour Khalid Begins This Massive Journey With A Bitter Confession That Touches The Heart, Describing The Frustrating Feeling That Overcame Him As He Started Writing These Articles, Likening It To The Feeling Of One Living The “Ordeal Of Sisyphus”; That Mythical Hero Condemned To Roll A Rock To The Top Of The Mountain, Only For It To Roll Back Down In A Cycle Of Absurdity And Futility. This Brilliant Analogy Does Not Only Summarize The Personal Frustration Of The Author, But It Embodies With Extreme Precision The Path Of The Sudanese State, Where Every Attempt At Rise And Construction Is Followed By Destructive Setbacks That Return The Country To Square One, As If Failure Has Transformed Into A Structural Addiction Rooted In The Body Of The Ruling Elite And The Opposition Alike.
The Author Chose To Distance Himself From The Noise Of The Daily Political Struggle And Public Work Within The System, Traveling To Washington And Dedicating Himself To Documentary Recording And Patient Objective Research Regarding The Contemporary Sudan Crisis. In This Context, Mansour Khalid Emphasizes The Necessity Of Moving Beyond The Short-Sighted Impressionistic Judgments That Have Long Led The Sudanese Into The Paths Of Wandering, Calling For Reliance On Serious Scientific Research, Objectivity In Analysis, And Documented Citation In Argumentation; Because The Absence Of This Methodology Is What Led To Random Confusion In Managing Public Affairs. Through His Precise Induction, The Author Presents His Central Thesis That The Crisis Of Sudan, In Its Original Essence, Is Not Merely A Crisis Of Governance Or A Struggle For Power, But Is An “Crisis Of Vision” For Which The Sudanese Elite Bears Full Responsibility. By Elite Here, He Means That Strategic Minority Of Educated People Or “Effendiya” That Assumed For Itself The Right To Decision-Making And Determining The Fate Of The Country By Virtue Of Its Control Over The Joints Of Governance, Money, And Education, And Which Inherited The State Institutions From The Colonizer Without Possessing A Comprehensive National Project Capable Of Managing Diversity And Establishing A Sustainable Political Economy That Meets The Ambitions Of The Masses.
The Deeper Diagnosis That Mansour Khalid Presents For This Elite Is Summarized In The Concept Of “Self-Fracture,” Which Is That Blatant Contradiction And Deep Gap Between Thought And Practice, And Between What The Politician Says And What He Does On The Ground. This Psychological And Intellectual Fracture Drives The Elite To Wear Loose Ideological Robes, Whether Nationalist, Marxist-Leftist, Or Islamic, To Make Of Them Shields Behind Which It Hides, Escaping Direct Political Accountability For The Real Achievements That Affect The Daily Life Of The Citizen. The True Criterion For The Success Of Any Theory Or Party, As The Author Sees It, Must Be Measured By Concrete Material Indicators, Such As The Number Of Kilometers Of Paved Roads, The Real Employment Opportunities Created, Rates Of Literacy Decline, The Volume Of Expansion In Health Services, And The Development Of Irrigated Agricultural Lands To Solve Food Security Dilemmas, And Not Through Raising Flashy Slogans And Enthusiastic Chants That Lack Any Executive Content. Instead Of Facing Development Challenges And Stopping The Economic Collapse And Desertification, The Elite Is Preoccupied With Ideological Bidding And Verbal Battles, Which Reflects A State Of Acute Schizophrenia Between Ambitions Hanging In The Air And A Total Inability To Manage The Complex Reality On The Ground.
The Book Dives Further Than That, To Reveal How This Elite, Which Claims Modernity And Enlightenment, Is Still A Prisoner In Its Thinking To “Oral Culture” (Taga Al-Hank), And Submits To The Logic Of The Patriarchal, Pastoral, And Guardianship Society, Where Its Internal Values Contradict The Rationality And Individualism Required By Building The Modern State. This Dependency On Traditional Culture Makes The Elite’s Discourse Merely “Chanting Slogans” And Agitation Lacking Methodology, Which Leads To Falsifying Public Awareness And Consuming National Energies In Absurd Conflicts That Lead Nowhere. The Author Gives Decisive Examples Of The October 1964 Uprising, Which, Despite Its Importance As A Turning Point, Embodied The Most Profound Images Of Elite Failure In Translating Popular Momentum Into Practical Political And Administrative Programs, Where Radical Slogans Turned Into Merely A Cover For Scrambling For Power, And Political Opportunism Manifested In Its Ugliest Images When The Language Of Progressive Discourse Turned Into Contradictions That Aborted The Strategic Vision For Change, And Bequeathed To The Country A Vortex Of Instability That Paved The Way For Successive Military Coups, Which Recycled Crises In More Severe Forms, Leading Up To The Complexities Of The Military And Political Scene That Produced Structural Deformities In The Structure Of The Sudanese State.
Dr. Mansour Khalid Moves In His Deep Anatomy Of The History Of Sudanese Political Disappointment Toward A Pivotal Stage That Framed The Form Of The Modern State, Which Is The Era Of The October Uprising In The Year 1964 And The Subsequent Repercussions That Led To The May Regime In 1969. The Careful Reading Of The Path Of These Events Reveals Clearly The Distortion Of Strategic Vision Among The Advocates Of Radical Change, Who Distracted Themselves With Situational Struggle And Slogans Instead Of Achieving The Historical Victory Aimed At Structural Change. The Real Crisis Was Never The Absence Of Popular Enthusiasm Or The Street’s Poverty Of Revolution, But Rather Represented In The Elite Leadership’s Lack Of A Unified Common Vision For Sudan’s Pivotal Issues, Where The Leadership Of Revolutions Always Ended Up To What The Author Calls “Accidental Politicians”; They Are Men Whom The People Agree On Only Because They Represent A Lowest Common Denominator That Does Not Provoke Anyone, And At The Same Time Do Not Possess The True Ability To Give Or Lead. This Leadership And Intellectual Vacuum Led To The Imbalance Of The Language Of Progressive Political Discourse To Become Full Of Contradictions That Do Not Lead To Certainty, And The Transformation Of Serious Revolutionary Action Into Merely “Chanting Slogans” And Emotional Agitation Absent Of A Methodological Plan For Development, Replaced By Enthusiasms Governed By A Political Pedagogy Consistent In Appearance And Hollow In Essence, Unable To Distinguish Between The Fleeting Surge And Sustainable Social And Political Change.
In The Exhibition Of His Analysis Of The Crisis Of Governance Through The Three Political Schools That Followed The Sudanese Scene, The Author Places His Hand On The Deep Wound Represented In Two Pivotal Issues That Were Not Dealt With With The Necessary Seriousness: The Issue Of National Unity, And The Issue Of Development Or Exit From The Yoke Of Underdevelopment. The Sudanese Elite Has Failed Miserably In Finding A Balanced Formula For Managing Diversity, As Successive Regimes, With Their Civilians And Military, Failed To Resolve The Issue Of National Fusion Until The Bond Of Citizenship Becomes The Firm Handhold That Gathers The Sons Of The One Homeland. Instead Of That, The Concept Of Unity Was Reduced Into Narrow Ideological Projects, Whether Through Imposing Forced Arabization Or Islamizing The State By The Force Of Power, Ignoring Thereby The Original Ethnic And Cultural Pluralism That Characterizes Sudan, And Trying To Erase Local Identities In Favor Of Imposed Identities That Do Not Reflect The Complex Demographic Reality. This Strategic Failure Necessarily Led To Igniting And Fueling The Destructive Civil Wars In The South And The Periphery, And Deepening Social Rifts, Where State Institutions Became A Tool Of Oppression In The Hands Of A Specific Group Seeking To Pattern Society According To Its Unitary Molds, Which Deepened The Historical Sense Of Marginalization, And Turned The Country Into A Powder Keg Always Ready To Explode In Complete Absence Of Any Proactive Vision To Address The Roots Of Conflict And Distribute Wealth And Power With Justice.
Mansour Khalid’s Methodological Critique Does Not Stop At The Limits Of Political Failure Related To Identity, But Extends To Include The Terrible Developmental And Economic Failure, Where He Exposes How The Sudanese Political Forces Dealt With The Economy As A Secondary Attachment To Ideological Bickering And Not As A Nerve For Building The State. The Elite Has Been Engulfed In Theoretical Byzantine Debate About Imported Economic Models, Without Bothering Itself With The Trouble Of Devising Policies That Suit The Unique Agricultural And Pastoral Reality Of Sudan. Talking About Development In The Agenda Of This Elite Did Not Exceed The Ceiling Of Slogans Raised In Demonstrations, Where Practical Realistic Plans To Provide The Basic Necessities Of Life For Citizens Were Absent, And To Stop The Terrifying Environmental Collapse, And To Address The Phenomenon Of Desertification That Devoured Vast Areas Of Productive Lands, In Addition To Limiting The Terrible Service Deterioration In The Cities That Aged In Their Youth. Instead Of Directing Scarce Resources Toward Production And Developing Infrastructure And Agricultural Mechanization, They Were Drained In Financing The Civil War Machine, And Lavish Spending On Bloated Bureaucratic Apparatuses That Lack Efficiency, For The Inevitable Result To Become The Collapse Of The Rural Economy, The Ruralization Of Cities, And The Spread Of Tragic Famines That Exposed The Inability Of The Elite Mind To Provide Real Answers To The Suffering Of The Simple Citizen, Who Found Himself Paying Expensive Bills For The Adventures Of Politicians Who Possess No Management Skills Other Than The Ability To Orate And Formulate Ringing Statements.
The Great Disaster Which The Book Details In This Context, And Which Contributed To Perpetuating Underdevelopment, Is Represented In The Phenomenon Of “Religionalizing Politics” And Politicizing Religion, Which Is The Phenomenon That Was Used As A Tool For Intellectual Oppression And Terrorizing Political Opponents. Some Currents, Especially The Forces Of The New Right Described As Religious Mania, Have Intended To Turn Sacred Texts Into Political Barricades To Confiscate The Freedom Of Thought, And Justify The Terrible Administrative And Economic Failure By Referring All Worldly Failures Resulting From Mismanagement To Divine Afflictions That Require The People To Be Patient And Comply. This Deliberate And Opportunistic Mixing Between Theology And Human Affairs Led To The Total Absence Of Critical Mind, And Contributed To Spreading A Culture Of Submissiveness, Where Rational Political Dialogue Built On Numbers And Plans Became A Kind Of Impossibility In Front Of The Torrent Of Fatwas And Ready-Made Accusations Of Takfir Or Treason For Those Who Disagree In Opinion. Instead Of Presenting Electoral Programs And Economic Plans Measurable And Accountable To Society, Gelatinous Slogans Were Raised That Exempt The Ruler From Any Worldly Responsibility And Grant Him An Aura Of Sanctity, For The General Discourse To Turn Into A State Of Political Dervishism That Cancels The Role Of The Human In Creating His Present, Which Solidifies The Fact That The Ruling Elite Did Not Only Become Addicted To Failure, But Manufactured Its Ideological Mechanisms And Legitimized Its Continuity By Various Means.
On The Other Bank Of The Political River, The “Marxist Left” Does Not Escape The Scalpel Of Mansour Khalid’s Harsh Critical Anatomy, As He Refutes How These Progressive Forces Fell Into The Trap Of Literal Transfer And Dogmatic Stagnation, Cloning The Experiences Of Other Nations With Different Industrial And Historical Contexts, Without Any Consideration For The Specificity Of The Social And Economic Composition Of Sudan. Some Leftist Elites Dealt With Marxism As Closed Sacred Texts That Do Not Accept Adaptation Or Ijtihad, Which Made It Sing Outside The Flock And Isolate Itself From The Concerns Of The Real Masses It Long Claimed To Represent In Its Literature. Instead Of Diving Into Analyzing The Complex Relations Of Production In A Pastoral And Agricultural Society Governed By Deep-Rooted Tribal And Sectarian Ties, Leftist Theorists Contented Themselves With Repeating Ready-Made Sayings About Class Struggle And The Inevitability Of Historical Development, Which Are Sayings That Seemed Strange, Even Arrogant, To Simple Collective Consciousness. This Disconnection From Reality Led The Leftist Forces To Adopt Political Positions Characterized By Sharpness And Uncalculated Adventure, Which Provided Golden Pretexts For Traditional And Conservative Forces To Pounce On It And Eliminate It, As Happened Bloodily In Many Crucial Historical Turning Points That Followed The October Uprising, For The Country To Lose Thereby Young Intellectual And Organizational Energies That Could Have Contributed To Crystallizing A National Project For Modernization, Had It Been Liberated From The Dogma Of Ideology And Opened Up To The Living Reality With Flexibility And Political Pragmatism That Absorbs The Complexities Of Society.
As For The Traditional And Sectarian Forces, Which Formed And Still Form The Cornerstone In The Sudanese Political Scene By Virtue Of Their Inherited Spiritual And Mass Influence, Their Share Of Critique Was The Deepest, As The Author Considers Them The Greatest Obstacle Before Any Serious Attempt To Restructure Society And Modernize State Institutions. These Forces That Invested For Decades In Tribal And Sectarian Loyalties To Maintain Their Historical Gains, Viewed The State And Its Institutions As Electoral Spoils And Shares Divided According To Their Traditional Weights, Without Possessing Ever Any Real Developmental Program That Meets The Needs Of The Countryside Which Forms Their Permanent Human Reservoir And The Source Of Their Legitimacy In The Ballot Boxes. The Supreme Interest Of These Leaders Lay Exclusively In Keeping The Existing Situation As It Is, And Fighting Any National Orientation Toward Industrialization, Or Modern Qualitative Education, Or Radical Land Reform; Because That Would Liberate The Citizen From The Chains Of Blind Dependency, And Create A Rational Middle Class Capable Of Accountability And Auditing And Rejecting Paternal Guardianship. Thus, Traditional Forces Stood In The Way Of All Radical Change Calls Produced By The October Revolution, And Colluded Strongly In Order To Abort Its Decisions That Called For Liquidating The Worn-Out Native Administration And Modernizing The Structures Of Governance, To Confirm Thereby That They Do Not Know Except The Art Of Surviving In Power At Any Price, Even If This Price Is The Sliding Of All Of Sudan Into The Bottom Of Underdevelopment, Economic Stagnation, And Social Tearing.
Perhaps The Final And Destructive Outcome Of This Political Absurdity Which Was Managed By These Three Schools With All Their Contradictions And Zero-Sum Conflicts, Is Emptying The Democratic Process Of Its Social And Economic Content, And Turning It Into Merely A Formal Electoral “Game” That Changes Nothing Of The Reality Of Misery And Underdevelopment. The Sudanese Voter Was Driven To The Ballot Boxes Based On Narrow Tribal, Sectarian, And Regional Affiliations, To Grant A Mandate Similar To The Divine Mandate To Leaders Who Do Not Commit To Any Clear National Program, And Consider Merely Holding Them Politically Accountable A Kind Of Encroachment On Sacred Positions. This Deep Structural Deformity In The Structure Of Sudanese Democracy Is What Made Military Coups An Expected Option, Even Welcomed In Many Times By Wide Sectors Of The People Who Disbelieved In Parties And Their False Promises, Which Opened The Door Wide Before Military Adventures, Starting From The Coup Of General Ibrahim Abboud, Passing Through The May Regime Of Jaafar Nimeiri, And Ending With The Extended Disasters That Followed That, In A Historical Succession Confirming Without Leaving Room For Doubt That The Sudanese Elite Was Not A Victim Of Sudden External Circumstances, But Was The First Architect Of Its Self-Destruction, And The Real Assassin Of The Dreams Of Development And Stability On The Altar Of Political Selfishness And Intellectual Narrowness.
Dr. Mansour Khalid Continues His Investigative Analysis By Diving Into The Complexities Of The “National State” That The Elite Inherited, Clarifying How The Administrative And Institutional Apparatus Of The State Transformed From A Tool For Providing Services And Building Development, Into Something Resembling The “Exorbitant Tax” That The Citizen Pays Merely To Survive, In The Shadow Of Functional Flabbiness Produced By Political Quotas. The Concept Of The “State” In The Sudanese Elite Mind, According To The Author’s Vision, Has Been Misunderstood Radically; Instead Of The State Being An Expression Of The Social Contract That Guarantees Rights And Duties, It Became The Great Spoils And The Sole Source Of Wealth And Influence. This Narrow Utilitarian Perception Is What Fed The Tendency Of Arrogance In The Public Employee, Who Does Not See In His Position A Task To Serve The Public, But A Power For Domination And Blackmail, Which Created A Deep Gap Of Estrangement And Hidden Hostility Between The “Center” With Its Bloated Institutions And The “Periphery” Which Suffers From The Absence Of The Simplest Components Of A Decent Life. The Author Describes This State With Skill, Using Tools Of Political And Social Analysis, To Clarify How Dependency On Old Colonial Administration Is Perpetuated, Which Established A System Of Governance Based On Separation And Discrimination, Without The National Elite Succeeding In Dismantling These Inherited Structures, But On The Contrary, It Intended To Reproduce And Develop Them To Protect Its Factional Interests, Which Made The Modern State Apparatus In Sudan A Structure Strange To The Nature Of The Pluralistic Sudanese Society, And Incapable Of Absorbing Its Developmental Ambitions.
In The Exhibition Of Addressing The Cultural Issue, Mansour Khalid Opens A Wide Window On The “Identity Crisis” That Tore The National Fabric, Confirming That The Elite Was Not Merely Unable To Formulate A Cultural Project Reconciled With The Self, But Was Responsible For “Falsifying Awareness” Comprehensive Through Promoting One-Sided Narratives That Exclude Basic Components Of Sudanese Identity. The Author Clarifies How The Elite Identified With Cultural Centralism That Links “Sudanese-ness” To Narrow Arab-Islamic Affiliation, Marginalizing Thereby The Ethnic And Cultural Diversity In Different Regions Of Sudan, Which Created A Feeling Of Inferiority At The Edges Of The Country, And Summoned Consequently Radical Resistance Movements That Demanded Recognition Of Plundered Cultural And Political Rights. These Identity Conflicts Were Not A Coincidence, But Were A Direct Result Of Directed Educational, Media, And Cultural Policies, Aiming To Melt Diversity In One Forced Crucible, Which Generated Reverse Resistance That Led To The Outbreak Of Wars That Tore The Country. Mansour Khalid Sees That The Absence Of A Comprehensive Vision To Deal With This Plurality Is What Made Sudan A Permanent Arena For Ethnic Conflicts, Where Identity Became A Tool For Political Mobilization, And A Gun In The Hands Of War Lords, Instead Of Being A Bridge For Peaceful Coexistence That Builds The State Of Citizenship That Does Not Discriminate Between Its Citizens On The Basis Of Religion, Race, Or Color.
On The Level Of Economy, The Author Moves To Critiquing The Policies Of “Distorted Development” Which The Elite Adopted Since Independence, And Which Focused On Establishing Large Projects Of A Central Nature That Serve The Circles Of Influence In Khartoum, And Ignore The Needs Of The Regions And Simple Rural Production Which Represents The Nerve Of The Sudanese Economy. The Author Explains How Economic Planning Was Overpowered By “Spectacular” Tendency, Where Lavish Spending On Huge Facilities That Do Not Serve The Real Economy, While Rain-Fed And Traditional Agriculture -Which The Majority Of The Population Depends On- Were Left Suffering From Scarcity Of Resources, Deterioration Of Services, And Attacks Of Desertification. This Class And Spatial Bias In Economic Policies Is What Led To Wide Migration From The Countryside To Cities, And The Swelling Of Slums Which Became Foci For Poverty And Social Extremism, Which Created An Explosive Economic And Social Reality That Cannot Be Addressed Merely By Flashy Promises. Mansour Khalid Here Places His Hand On The Origin Of The Disease: The Absence Of Participatory Democracy In Setting Economic Policies, Where The Fate Of State Resources Is Decided By A Narrow Group That Does Not Possess A Comprehensive Developmental Vision, But Aims To Accumulate Wealth And Influence, Which Led To The Spread Of Institutional Corruption, And The Loss Of National Resources, Which Made The Sudanese Economy A Hostage To External Debts And International Political Fluctuations.
The Anatomy Is Not Complete Without Touching On The Regional And International Role That The Elite Played In The Framework Of Its Internal Conflicts, Where The Author Analyzes How The National Decision Turned Into A Hostage To External Alliances, And How The Elite, In Its Feverish Pursuit To Reach Power Or Maintain It, Did Not Hesitate To Exploit Regional Conflicts, And Summon External Powers To Intervene In Sudanese Affairs. Mansour Khalid Shows Clearly How This “External Inwardness” Was A Means Among The Means Of Weakening The Internal Front, Where The State Began To Act According To The Agendas Of International Or Regional Powers, Ignoring Thereby The Supreme Strategic Interests Of The Homeland. This Policy Which Relies On “Internationalizing” Local Crises Was, According To The Author’s Vision, The Last Nail In The Coffin Of National Sovereignty, Where The State Lost Its Ability To Make Its Independent Decisions, And Became An Arena For Settling International Accounts, Which Complicated Political Solutions To National Crises And Prolonged The Duration Of Wars And Conflicts, And Made Peaceful Political Solutions Out Of Reach, In The Shadow Of The Absence Of Any National Strategic Vision Capable Of Protecting The Homeland From External Interventions That Exploit Elite Division To Serve Their Special Interests At The Expense Of Dismantling The Unity Of The Country.
The Author Emphasizes The Fact That Exiting From This Dark Tunnel Does Not Require Merely A Change In Persons Or Regimes, But Requires A Comprehensive “Knowledge Revolution” That Rebuilds The Elite Mind, And Exposes It To The Delusions Of Greatness And Domination. Mansour Khalid Sees That The Road Toward The Future Begins With Possessing The Courage To Face The Self Honestly, And Admitting That All The Failures Which Sudan Witnessed Are A Direct Result Of The Absence Of Critical Awareness And The Shallowness Of National Projects. “Addiction To Failure” Is Not A Fatalistic Fate, But Is A Mental And Political State That Can Be Liberated From Through Adopting The Values Of Modernity, Pluralism, And True Democracy That Is Based On Accountability, Transparency, And Commitment To Principles Of Human Rights. The Author’s Call Is A Call To Restore The Spirit Of “The New Sudan” That Accommodates Everyone, A State Based On The Basis Of Citizenship, Social Justice, And Balanced Development, Which Is The Vision That Mansour Khalid Dedicated His Life And Thought To Defend, Not As A Utopian Idea, But As A Practical Political Project That Can Be Achieved If The Sincere Will And The Necessary Awareness Of The Challenges Of The Historical Stage That Sudan Is Passing Through Are Available. This Sober Analysis Places The Reader Before His Historical Responsibilities, Confirming That History Does Not Have Mercy On Elites That Do Not Learn From The Lessons Of The Past, And Repeat The Same Mistakes In Every Turn, Turning The Homeland Into A Permanent Laboratory For Failed Experiments And Repeated Tragedies.
