The Truth’s Face | Ibrahim Shuklawi Sudan Between the National Project and the Social Contract

Yesterday, Mr. Othman Mirghani addressed, through his column Hadith Al-Madina in Al-Tayar newspaper, a topic titled “The Dervishes of Politics,” noting how certain political concepts—such as the national project, the social contract, and Sudanese–Sudanese dialogue—are turned into tedious phrases, repeated by politicians without thought or substance. Undoubtedly, the observation is accurate; politics without accountability for ideas quickly turns into a vicious circle. Yet the real problem does not lie in understanding definitions, but rather in the political system’s inability to transform concepts into ideas.

The national project is a consensual, inclusive vision that defines the meaning of the state and its purposes. It is based on equal citizenship, the management of diversity, the fair distribution of power and wealth, and the building of a democratic, decentralized state that ends a history of exclusion and wars, transforming Sudan from an arena of conflict into a framework for shared coexistence.

Likewise, the social contract is a political and moral agreement that regulates the relationship between the state and society. It defines the source of legislation and the limits of authority, guarantees equal rights for all citizens without discrimination, and establishes the state’s monopoly over the use of force, as well as accountability and justice, as the foundation upon which the state, the constitution, and the political system are built.

Accordingly, the national project is an existential question: why do we live together in one state? What rules govern coexistence in a diverse society? Without clear answers to this question, politics turns into mere rent-seeking performance, devoid of change or a shared vision. Since independence, Sudan has represented a counter-example to the concept of a national project: a state that preceded national consensus, where power and wealth were concentrated in a single center, while regional peripheries remained marginalized. Political and social violence thus became a substitute for contract and mutual understanding.

The social contract itself, as discussed by Hobbes and Rousseau, is not merely a constitutional text, but a conception of the relationship between authority and society. Hobbes links the legitimacy of the state to its ability to end chaos and provide security, while Rousseau conditions it on the expression of the general will—meaning that the state is activated through the agreement of elites to organize their common affairs.

In Sudan, the state neither provided sustainable security nor represented the general will; hence legitimacy was deficient and the relationship between state and society fragile. Talking about a social contract, therefore, is a foundational necessity for rebuilding trust.

The paradox is that other concepts, such as democratic transition and Sudanese–Sudanese dialogue, are often reduced to closed circles of discussion, turning them into formal performances disconnected from political and social realities. Genuine transition requires institutional reform, regulating civil–military relations, redefining the limits of authority, and binding elites to accountability.

 Comprehensive national dialogue, meanwhile, opens space to discuss pluralism and the causes of conflict.

The relationship between the national project and the social contract is thus dialectical. The national project provides horizon and meaning, while the social contract provides rules and guarantees. The former sets direction; the latter prevents deviation. Without this integration, the state becomes an arena for zero-sum conflict among competing forces, and politics becomes a continuation of war by other means. Rebuilding the Sudanese state therefore requires moving beyond partial reform toward a logic of re-founding, and an explicit acknowledgment of the failure of the centralized state model.

The essence of a new social contract in Sudan must rest on shifting the center of gravity from identity to citizenship, from privilege to right, and from domination to regulation. A state that aligns itself with a single identity in a plural society violates the very principle of contract. By contrast, a state that neutralizes itself from cultural and religious conflicts and guarantees rights on an equal individual basis is the only one capable of transforming diversity from a source of conflict into a resource for stability.

 In this sense, the question is no longer who we are, but how we guarantee our rights regardless of our differences.

This transformation cannot be separated from the redistribution of power and wealth.

Economic marginalization in Sudan was not an incidental outcome of governance imbalances, but part of its structure. The political economy of the state was founded on extreme centralization, reproducing inequality through networks of political loyalty.

Any social contract that fails to address this structural imbalance will remain a formal one, because economic justice is not merely a moral demand, but a prerequisite for political stability.

The true strength of politics lies in its ability to transform concepts into commitments that can be measured and held accountable. Sudan’s failure was never in the abundance of concepts, but in the scarcity of commitment to their meanings, and the absence of a genuine will to implement them.

The national project and the social contract, if restored to their essential meanings, can form a starting point for re-founding the state, away from mobilizing slogans.

In this context, the central question becomes not who governs Sudan, but how to build a state its citizens do not fear; a state that regulates power rather than being controlled by it; a state that transcends narrow identities to guarantee rights for all; a state in which the social contract is an act of collective will, not the outcome of temporary power balances.

The real Sudanese challenge should not be a struggle over authority and chairs, but an affirmation of the value of the state, citizenship, justice, and the rule of law.

Sudan today is in need of a comprehensive national project, not merely a phrase repeated in newspapers and satellite channels—a project that re-employs all these concepts as tools to understand reality and re-found the state, a project grounded in the social contract as the basis of the relationship between authority and society, and one that rebuilds the lost trust between them. This is #TheTruth’sFace: that politics lies in the ability to transform meaning into reality, and that the Sudanese crisis will not be resolved except by rebuilding the contract that binds the state to the people according to a new vision founded on justice, democracy, and the rule of law.

With best wishes for health and well-being.

Thursday, 15 January 2026

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