The Face of Truth | Ibrahim Shaglawi Not Only Religious Discourse…
The Ministry of Religious Affairs and Endowments announced on Thursday a new package of directives to regulate religious discourse, aimed at promoting the values of moderation and tolerance, and curbing negative phenomena in the field of religious outreach, in a way that contributes to protecting social unity and stability.
The directives cover all platforms—from mosques to universities to publishing channels—and emphasize the prohibition of hate speech, excommunication, and incitement to discord.
These directives, which encompass various platforms from mosques to universities to the media, reflect the state’s intent to define what is “acceptable” and “unacceptable” in religious discourse. They represent an attempt to restore the concepts of moderation and centrist balance, not only as moral values but also as a political and security necessity to ensure social cohesion in a volatile environment.
In this context, the German philosopher Schopenhauer’s statement gains particular significance when he says: “Hatred stems more from weakness of intellect than from intensity of emotion.” This perspective is directly reflected in the Sudanese reality, where the fragility of discourse manifests in everyday practices within the media sphere.
The spread of hate speech across multiple spaces does not reflect the strength of positions as much as it reveals a weakness in intellectual and political structure, where incitement replaces argument, and exclusion replaces dialogue.
In a telling indication of the depth of this weakness, the General Union of Sudanese Journalists announced yesterday its condemnation of what it described as “disgraceful bickering” in the media sphere, pointing to a state of “decline and dramatic collapse,” with the involvement of some within the profession and others posing as such in exchanges that have reached the level of defamation and moral accusation. This has prompted the union to begin activating the press law, warning of strict penalties that may reach membership revocation and legal prosecution, in an attempt to contain a breakdown that threatens the ethical structure of the profession.
More dangerously, this collapse has extended to all forms of discourse. The media, which is supposed to function as an instrument of enlightenment and awareness, has in many of its spaces turned into a platform for perpetuating conflict and rumor instead of deconstructing it, and for rushing to judgment rather than verification.
However, the core of the problem does not lie in religious discourse alone; it is embodied in the disintegration of the overall system of public discourse, where the religious, political, and media spheres intersect within a vacuum lacking a unified official narrative to regulate meaning and frame differences.
In this vacuum, sources do not merely multiply; they become equal in the perception of the audience. The distinctions between professional information and rumor, between institutional narrative and leaks, and between analysis and agenda dissolve, creating a gray environment where truth blends with its reproduction. Platforms, in their varying forms, thus become direct contributors to feeding ambiguity—and perhaps even to producing hate speech itself.
In this context, the issue of military media becomes a vivid example rather than an exception. Military information is not just public news; it is an element of national security. Yet the multiplicity of statements, the lack of discipline in media appearances, and the leakage of information through unofficial channels reveal a flaw in managing the most sensitive type of discourse: that which is directly linked to war.
All armies in the world, without exception, understand that military information is not managed through individual discretion, but through a single official spokesperson or a tightly controlled communication system. Because multiple narratives in this domain create a collapse of trust and open the door to the reproduction of rumor as an alternative truth.
International experiences, from Rwanda to Lebanon, confirm that hate speech is not merely a reflection of conflict, but one of its main drivers. In Rwanda, radio broadcasts turned into direct tools of incitement that helped pave the way for genocide, before reconstruction began through the suppression and regulation of such discourse.
In Lebanon, sectarian discourse played a central role in fragmenting society and prolonging the civil war. These examples do not imply identical contexts, but they reveal a recurring pattern: when discourse breaks loose from its restraints, it either precedes violence or accompanies it.
Sudan today stands at a similar crossroads, where victory on the battlefield alone is not enough if the internal front remains weak. A state that does not possess disciplined discourse gradually loses its ability to guide its society, leaving a vacuum filled by multiple forces—some hostile, others unaware of the consequences of what they promote. In this vacuum, rumor becomes truth, and division becomes normalized.
From this perspective, addressing the crisis requires more than regulating religious discourse, despite its importance. It demands a comprehensive project to rebuild public discourse based on three pillars: centrality of the official narrative through institutions without monopolizing it, professionalism in media without politicization, and the qualification of actors across religious, political, and media platforms to understand the complexities the country is facing. The problem is not the multiplicity of voices, but the absence of a framework that organizes them.
According to #The_Face_of_Truth, confronting hate speech cannot be reduced to legal prohibition alone; it requires the production of an alternative discourse capable of restoring meaning and building a unifying narrative that transcends divisions. For words, when left to chaos, produce compounded chaos—but when guided wisely, they become a tool for building peace.
Wishing you continued well-being and health.
Sunday, April 26, 2026
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