Face of Truth | Ibrahim Shaglawi Berlin… A Crisis of Generation or a Defect of Idea?

It is not accurate to reduce Sudan’s predicament to the age of its leaders, nor is it wise to ignore what long years have produced of rigidity in the political idea. The crisis that erupted on April 15, 2023 led the country’s leaders into war as a result of regional and international ambitions.

It was not the product of a moment, but rather the outcome of a political mind that persisted in managing the state with the same tools, reproducing conflicts with the same language, until politics exhausted all its possibilities and opened the way to war.

Within this context, the convening of the Berlin conference yesterday comes as an extension of the deepening Sudanese crisis. The issue is not the place where the conference is held, but the idea that governed it: Are we facing a genuine attempt to re-establish the political process, or merely a rearrangement of an elite that, internally, failed to produce a comprehensive consensus, and therefore moved toward a failed adventure to seize power through a coup?

The paradox is that the same current which once rejected the expansion of participation, considering it an “overflow” of the political process, is the same one that led an selective path abroad—insisting on the same tools and conflict-based backgrounds that do not produce integrity.

This contradiction does not merely reflect duality in positions; it reveals a deep crisis in the understanding of politics itself, where it is not managed as a comprehensive social contract, but as a sphere of influence controlled by who is included and who is excluded.

On the other hand, the rejection of the conference by other parties on the grounds of lack of national representation remains an understandable position, given the importance of national sovereignty and Sudanese-led solutions away from international guardianship. Yet it remains insufficient if it does not transform into an alternative project capable of bringing together the internal political spectrum in all its currents, rather than merely rejecting the external.

Here emerges the question we began with: Is the crisis in the age of leaders, or in the age of ideas? Reality suggests that a significant portion of the Sudanese political elite has become captive to a burdened memory, filled with old disputes, shifting alliances, and deferred grudges. With time, this memory has transformed from experience that could aid solutions into a burden that obstructs every attempt at consensus.

No one approaches the dialogue table without carrying a past they seek to settle, rather than a future they seek to build. When politics turns into the management of the past, war—sooner or later—becomes an open possibility, capable of recurring.

Therefore, hope remains pinned on a new generation of youth, carrying visions free from the burdens of conflict and the legacy of grievances, bearing promising ideas for rebuilding the political process and the nation on different foundations. What is required is a profound transformation in the nature of political action: from exclusion to partnership, from elitism to genuine representation, from reaction to foundational action, and from crisis management to the creation of stability. It is a transformation expected to crystallize through this generation, by reshaping the rules that govern the political sphere and redefining it anew.

Statements by Dr. Kamil Idris yesterday during the press conference regarding the absence of the government from the Berlin conference, and his description of it as a grave mistake, open an important angle. Any political process that excludes the state or society cannot produce a sustainable solution. Likewise, any authority that refuses to engage in peace processes under the pretext of insufficient representation without offering a national alternative remains part of the crisis. Thus, a complex equation is formed: an elite abroad reproducing selectivity, an authority at home rejecting without building, and a people paying the full cost in a recurring manner.

Sudan today does not need a new conference in Berlin or elsewhere as much as it needs a new political mind—one that frees itself from the legacy of zero-sum conflicts and believes that diversity is a source of strength, and consensus a condition for survival. Our country, which has historically learned how to escape external traps, is today required to learn how to prevail—not only militarily, but politically and morally as well—through the victory of idea over improvisation, of project over narrow interests, and of the future over the captivity and betrayal of the past.

According to #Face_of_Truth, the problem appears to lie in the aging of political elites and the stagnation of their renewal, which limits the presence of youth in shaping the future of a nation transformed under the weight of war.

 With the persistence of this stagnation in both idea and generation, “Berlin” and others will remain merely stations repeated in a circle without horizon. And the question remains: Is it a crisis of generation or a defect in the idea?

May you remain well and in good health.

Thursday, April 16, 2026

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