Claiming that war has its benefits is indecent, especially as it rages on. Indeed, dozens of Sudanese fighting on both sides, and scores of peaceful civilians on both sides, are dying on a daily basis. Every morning, the people count the number of steps that Sudan is taking backward, as its infrastructure, services, industrial and productive capacity, and educational and medical institutions are eviscerated. In light of the havoc being wreaked by this war, such claims become unnecessary and insensitive.
Nonetheless, we can say that, amid the devastation, there are lessons to be learned and built upon, about war and its ramifications. The importance of facing up to the hard facts, like those of this war, and the need to see reality for what it is, not what we want it to be.
Sudanese society is constantly lauded as a peaceful and tolerant society with an aversion to violence. This image remains ingrained in the minds of the Sudanese, so much so that contradicting this claim is seen as heresy, treachery, and an assault on the nation's values, even though Sudan has been in civil war since 1955, with only brief intervals of peace ensured by short-lived armistices. Even when the truce was not so brief following the Addis Ababa Agreement of 1971, signed with the southern Anyanya rebel movement, it ended around ten years later, when former Sudanese president Jaafar Nimeiri walked back on the agreement he engineered in 1983.
Early on during the rule of the Revolutionary Command Council for National Salvation, in the early 1990s, renowned Sudanese author Tayeb Salih wrote a famous article in his regular column for Al-Majalla magazine. The Sudanese have memorized and continue to repeat the question posed by its title: "Where did these people come from?" With high prose, he discussed the mass human rights violations the Revolutionary Command Council for National Salvation committed against Sudanese citizens, its wanton repression, and its heinous torture of opponents. The question he chose for his headline is a nod to the idea that their actions deviate from the norms of Sudan and the Sudanese.
Indirectly responding to him, Sudanese thinker and writer Abdullah Bola presented a paper at a human rights conference he called "On the Ghoul’s Genealogy Tree: Why the Ghoul Did not Descend from the Skies." As the title suggests, Bola argued that violence is rooted in Sudanese society and did not fall upon it from the sky, and he explains that confronting them is better than denial.
Indeed, this denial persists to this day, even as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) commit atrocities against citizens, looting their property, cars, and homes, as well as assaulting women. Moreover, we have seen several instances of civilians looting factories, shops, and banks en masse. Everyone is trying to push the narrative that foreigners, or the RSF fighters from elsewhere in Africa are behind these actions. More than that, the war government sources called the ongoing conflict between the armed forces and the RSF a "foreign incursion" or a Zionist imperialist plot against Sudan.
The fact of the matter is that the RSF draws most of its fighters from Sudanese tribes, and it had been committing similar atrocities in Darfur, when it was acting on the orders of the previous government. State media and supporters of the government were complicit, saying nothing about these practices. Some army units also committed similar acts, and its human rights violations during the war against the South are well documented.
The Sudanese are similarly shocked by the political economy of war, which the people of the center and the north are witnessing for the first time. True, many positive practices can be seen. For example, many extended families are hosting their kin at home, and local communities are supporting the displaced through centers established in cities across the country. However, in many of the cities that Khartoum’s residents have fled to, rents have soared by over 400 percent, and transportation costs have also skyrocketed at similar rates, while speculation has spiked commodity prices.
Evidently, this is natural and can be seen in any society undergoing conflict, but many Sudanese seem to have taken aback, as these actions contradict the image they have of themselves and of their values.
Despite the cruelty and abhorrence of this war, its most important lesson is that we must break whatever illusions we may have about ourselves and others. The war offers nations and peoples an opportunity to look at themselves in the mirror and confront reality, to see themselves in different circumstances, thereby generating an image of society that includes both its positives and negatives. This opportunity must be taken to avoid turning this war into another missed opportunity to learn from history, of which there are many.
