The Face of Truth | Ibrahim Shaglawi The No-Advice Committee

In our village, there was a group that people jokingly called the “No-Advice Committee.” It did not advise anyone, nor did it possess a magic formula for resolving disputes. Its idea was simpler and more cunning: whenever a dispute between two parties reached the committee, both parties became responsible for providing the committee with food and refreshments throughout the period of the conflict. The longer the dispute lasted, the greater the expense, and the more costly it became to continue the quarrel. Thus, without telling the disputants, “Reconcile,” the committee made them discover for themselves that reconciliation was less costly than stubbornness.

The story may seem amusing, but it carries a social logic that can serve as an entry point to a larger question facing our country today: How can we make hatred costly and dialogue possible?

The Sudanese-Sudanese dialogue should not be another political meeting in which elites exchange positions, only for the sessions to end in statements. Its true value lies in breaking polarization, rebuilding trust, opening the door to coexistence among all, and placing Sudan on the path to peace, state reconstruction, and elections. Its success is not measured by the number of people sitting around the table, but by its ability to move Sudanese people from the logic of conflict to a national partnership that accommodates everyone.

Here, hate speech becomes a direct threat to dialogue. You cannot ask Sudanese people to sit at one table while political, media, and social platforms continue to produce language that places some of them in renewed hostility, strips a Sudanese group of its right to national belonging, or transforms political disagreement into an open-ended social conflict.

For this reason, the Ministry of Justice’s call for the press conference expected today on decisions to prepare the environment for dialogue acquires particular importance. Legal, political, and security guarantees for participants are necessary to build trust, but preparing the environment for dialogue should be broader than protecting the participants; it should also include the environment of public discourse. If the conference is to establish a legal framework for preparing the climate, it is important that it clearly open the issue of legislation against hate speech, within a fair law that distinguishes between freedom of opinion and incitement to violence and negative discrimination in all its forms.

The state should not act as a police force over ideas, but neither can it stand by as a spectator when words become instruments for mobilizing violence. Its responsibility is to protect freedom of expression while, at the same time, protecting society from incitement that threatens civil peace and the unity of the state. What is therefore required is general and clear legislation that applies to everyone, along with strict enforcement that is not subject to personal whim or political judgment.

Here, politics meets philosophy. Karl Popper, one of the foremost philosophers of political thought, reminds us that unlimited tolerance may give hatred the opportunity to destroy the tolerant society. Jürgen Habermas, meanwhile, makes dialogue and rational communication the foundation for managing differences and building public opinion. Between these two ideas, our Sudanese need becomes clear: we cannot open the door to dialogue while leaving the door to hate speech open at the same time. Dialogue requires an environment that protects differences, the law must contain incitement, and society must regain its capacity for coexistence.

In this sense, combating hate speech is not an issue concerning the Ministry of Justice alone, nor the media alone, nor the political elites alone. It is an integrated national project. Legislation sets the boundaries, the state ensures fair enforcement, the media refuses to turn incitement into material for circulation, political elites abandon the exploitation of division, and society imposes a moral and social cost on hatred.

Here, the “No-Advice Committee” returns to the scene. It made the continuation of conflict costly, until the disputants discovered the value of reconciliation and coexistence within a village community governed by human and social bonds. Sudan today needs the same idea in a democratic form: hate speech should become costly under the law, without compromising freedom of opinion and expression, and people should be encouraged toward dialogue and coexistence rather than allowing hatred to lead them toward further division.

Today, our battle is not merely to end the war, but to prevent its return through new tools. The guns may fall silent, but hate speech may transfer the war to the media, electronic platforms, and public platforms, and then to society and future generations. Here lies the responsibility of the media, elites, and society to dry up the sources of incitement and entrench a culture of difference and coexistence, because building peace does not begin only by silencing the bullets, but also by reforming the language that produced them.

According to #The_Face_of_Truth, the battle facing our country today is not only about rebuilding cities and institutions, but also about rebuilding the national conscience. This begins with a law that deters hate speech, media that does not turn division into fuel, elites that manage differences wisely, and a society that restores a culture of coexistence and reconciliation. Just as the “No-Advice Committee” made conflict costly until those involved chose reconciliation, we must today make hatred costly and dialogue less costly. The war may end on the battlefield, but the state will not be stable unless it also ends in discourse and consciousness.

Wishing you continued well-being and good health.

Tuesday, September 1, 2026.

Shglawi55@gmail.com