The Truth Perspective | Ibrahim Shaglawi Khartoum… A City for Tea Sellers…
During travels between different capitals, from Riyadh to Cairo, from Kuala Lumpur to Nairobi, and from Entebbe to Beijing, one notices that every capital has its own character and identity, and that cities are not read only through their buildings and institutions, but also through their streets, cafés, forums, and public squares, and through the way people interact with the place. A capital is not merely a center of government; it is a civilizational façade that encapsulates the spirit of the state and reveals its level of self-awareness.
In many of these capitals, cafés, forums, and theaters serve as spaces for generating ideas, where the writer meets the politician, the researcher meets the artist, and the journalist meets the citizen, and where discussions emerge that precede major transformations. Many of the ideas that changed societies did not begin in government or academic halls, but in spaces that brought different people together around one question: How do we build a better state and a better future?
As for Khartoum, despite its history, it has continued to suffer from a crisis of inadequate services and weak urban planning. It is a crisis of the city’s function. For decades, the capital has been reduced to being a center of power rather than a center for producing awareness, culture, and dialogue. As a result, the relationship between citizens and the city has often become one of daily utility rather than one of belonging, participation, and shaping the future.
One of the most prominent manifestations of this crisis in Khartoum’s public space is the intersection of economic necessity with the absence of urban planning. The spread of female tea sellers cannot be viewed as a problem associated with women who have found in this activity a means of earning a dignified livelihood. They are part of the complex social landscape and an embodiment of society’s ability to withstand difficult economic circumstances.
What is striking, however, is that the phenomenon has imposed itself even on the discourse of the state leadership. Last week, President Abdel Fattah al-Burhan called on the Governor of Khartoum not to restrict “tea ladies” and cafés, saying: “Do not close the cafés or bother the tea ladies; we want people to come back.” This statement reveals the presence of the informal economy in the life of the capital, but it also raises an important question: How can Khartoum accommodate these activities within new urban planning that preserves people’s right to work without losing its order and civilizational identity? The problem is not the tea seller, but a city that has not yet been designed to accommodate everyone.
Successful capitals are not built by excluding manifestations of popular life, but by managing them within an aware and attentive urban vision that balances the economy, culture, public order, and human dignity. At its core, the issue is not merely about organizing an everyday scene; rather, it reflects the state’s ability to manage the city with justice and vision, and to transform popular activity from a marginal phenomenon into an organized economic and social resource that integrates into the identity of the capital rather than becoming a substitute for urban planning.
The visual disorder that Khartoum suffers from is not merely an aesthetic issue; it reflects a crisis in the way we think about the city. The street is not an abandoned space, the square is not an urban void, and the café is not a place for idleness; rather, all of them are tools for shaping the character of the capital. When vision is absent, public space transforms from a space for social interaction into an arena of disorder, and the city gradually loses its ability to express the level of awareness it represents.
Perhaps one of the causes of our political and intellectual crisis lies in this very vacuum. Sudanese elites often know one another through writings, statements, and media platforms, but they do not meet enough in direct spaces for dialogue. Politics is not made only in meeting rooms, but also through human encounters that allow people to understand one another, hear the pulse of society, and build trust among its different components.
Societies that lack spaces for dialogue become more vulnerable to polarization, because ideas do not converge, the necessary interaction between them does not occur, stereotypes are not reconsidered, and the distance between elites and ordinary people grows wider. Perhaps the absence of such spaces is one of the reasons why Sudanese political discourse has tended so strongly toward conflict, while direct interaction capable of creating national consensus has diminished.
Therefore, rebuilding Khartoum after the war should not be merely about restoring buildings, but about restoring civic life: a capital that makes room for cultural cafés, forums, theaters, parks, libraries, and dialogue, where the journalist meets the writer, the artist meets the researcher, and young people come together to create a new public consciousness. Writers, artists, and journalists are not spectators of Khartoum; they are partners in shaping its spirit. A capital that does not produce its own ideas is destined to consume the ideas of others.
According to #The_Truth_Perspective, the battle for Khartoum today is the rebuilding of the meaning of the capital: from a city in which power is concentrated into a city in which the state itself is shaped, and where society, culture, and the economy meet. Khartoum possesses something that cannot be created through planning alone: a unique location at the confluence of the two Niles, a location over which major capitals have long competed. But it needs a vision that transforms this location from beautiful geography into civilizational, economic, and cultural value. The Khartoum we want is not a restoration of the past, but a capital that invests in its location, memory, and diversity to create its future, and to become a gateway to a new Sudan that is more aware and attentive.
Wishing you continued health and well-being.
Wednesday, August 19, 2026
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