On April 23rd, 2023, two conflicting parties faced each other in a continuing bloody war on Sudanese lands. One side of the conflict is represented by the “Sudanese Armed Forces” (SAF) led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan; the other side is the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), including other allies (e.g., Janjaweed), which are led by Hemedti. Mutual accusations from both parties, alongside horrific documented details of crimes committed by various factions, reflect a deepening crisis. It is paramount that our focus remains on the circumstances and details surrounding the plight of the victims—the Sudanese people, who are paying a heavy price in this war. In addition, the fragmentation of the Sudanese nation, which suffers in the absence of strong initiatives, is particularly critical. It is widely believed that there are external forces that are taking advantage of this internal fragmentation, regardless of the scale of the disaster that is present within Sudan’s borders and the enormous tragedy from which recovery will take a long time.

An Associated Press report published on Tuesday cites the U.N.’s numbers for the war in Sudan. The U.N. reports a death toll of 24,000 people thus far, as well as the displacement of more than 14 million people. Additionally, almost 3.2 million people have fled to countries neighboring Sudan. These horrific facts are part of the reality that still fails to capture the great loss and unimaginable destruction in Sudan, in addition to the psychological toll on the Sudanese, who have been suffering the trauma of the war for some time.

This article, therefore, aims to focus and carefully examine the circumstances and narrative of the Sudanese people, rather than focusing on the specifics of military arsenals and the capabilities of any involved party. It seeks to move beyond speculations about who will dominate what, how the division of territories among the factions might take shape, and whether the agreement will entail the participation of all in governance.

While it is undeniable that some of these details, especially concerning the dynamics of power relations, are critical to consider when we think about peace-building, the current focus should be on exploring mechanisms to change the internal situation through the community itself. This is crucial in light of the repeated failure of many initiatives and attempts to halt the war. We need to establish an alternative way of influencing the war parties, which is by reunifying the Sudanese people, including activists and intellectuals against the war, whether they are currently residing within or outside of Sudan.

Inspired by the role of those intellectuals and philosophers who strongly opposed the wars during World War I and II, I seek to re-propose this role as an alternative, peaceful approach to peace-building. This is applicable to the positions of Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Rosa Luxembourg, who were active during these times and reflect a strong willingness to oppose these wars.

In his autobiography published in 1975, Bertrand Russell expressed how he “discovered to [his] amazement that average men and women were delighted at the prospect of war.” During his life, Russell faced several accusations, such as his work being an “anti-conscription pamphlet” or “insulting an ally.” If these policies that were taken against him prove anything, they would prove, above all, that his method of opposing the war was influential and carried weight. Rosa Luxembourg is another prominent figure in this context. She used her intellectualism and scholarly thought of opposition against exploitation in her activism and practical stances. Intriguingly, in her 1913 book The Accumulation of Capital, she criticized militarism, an interrelated component of the connection between capitalism and colonialism in the early 20th century.

Militarism has been turned into a political philosophy that is undefined and reflects an advanced level of the desire to control. Technologizing this desire to control has created a competition between different powers that seek to own means of violence. Since these powers and armed groups naturally have various, and sometimes conflicting, interests and political ambitions of expanding their zone of control, it makes sense that these ambitions will eventually clash. This situation has become a law in our contemporary world: the law of the survival of the most powerful forces, including states and non-state organizations (e.g., mercenaries), to struggle to own more advanced means of violence and destruction to be used to assert their ambitions. Once these means are plentiful and accessible to large parts of the world, going to war becomes only a matter of time.

By thinking of James Scott’s concept of “the weapons of the weak,” one should highly value the available tools of oppressed people to resist, including sabotage, feigned ignorance, false compliance, and dissimulation. This leads to proposing the beginning of a new initiative led by the Sudanese people, supervised by Sudanese intellectuals and thinkers, and supported by concerned thinkers, academics, scholars, and all those who wish to support the Sudanese people opposing the war. The effectiveness of this initiative requires widening it into regional and global levels with different networks. Widening this initiative recognizes the importance of external support amid the current political chaos in the world.

The Sudanese war can end when the fighting parties witness a large-scale condemnation, but since the Sudanese have faced marginalization and difficulties in documentation, attempts at organizing large-scale resistance have been hindered.

In fact, the intellectuals of Sudan possess the guiding light that could illuminate the path towards ending the war, and no one can deny that there have been previous initiatives made by such groups, but continuity and working on a large scale are necessary to ensure their success. This is applicable to the following considerations: consistent documentation and publishing by establishing journals; organizing worldwide events about the situation; regulating regular official visits to neighboring countries to coordinate means of pressure on the conflicting parties; and mobilizing groups and organizations in these countries to think about the mechanisms required. It is anticipated that some of these mechanisms will emerge over time once this initiative has been started. This initiative is extremely crucial in creating a new way of opposing wars and spreading it globally to make the image of war more horrifying and difficult for regimes to engage in wars.