Ethics and politics at the time of cholera – the face of truth – ✍️ Ibrahim Shaqlawi
When we studied political philosophy and the philosophy of morality at university, ideas were like a mirror in which we see each other, our aspirations and our dreams which are not limited to a ceiling. Socrates, Ibn Khaldun, Adam Smith, Al -Ghazali, Rousseau and other thinkers of history, were tags that kicked out faith in us that politics could be a moral work, not just a game of interests.
We have learned that justice is the essence of the state and that politics is not easy unless it is placed on the railway of values. At that time, we brought the violence of young people, and we thought that we are the generation that is capable of redefining political practice according to the ethical national foundations, clean and free of close affiliation and blind subordination.
But we quickly collided with a completely different reality. As soon as we have gone from the space of theory to the scene of political action, we found ourselves before a scene governed by the logic of domination, and managed by opportunism and gain. The parties which are supposed to be tools of change and conducive to the national vision of the university are unable to overcome close calculations, involved in a zero discourse that the citizen sees only a means of pressure, and the tragedy sees only a platform for the recording of points. The shock was great, because the policy we dreamed of is not what we had to face; He remained an open struggle without reference, without brands, without obligations.
And when cholera came these days, it was not only an urgent epidemic, but rather a mirror of failure in political morality. At a time when human priorities had to progress, the health disaster has turned into a new opportunity for political attraction. To arouse the anger of people and intimidate them, between an appeal made by Dr. Abdullah Hamdouk, who became in Sudan, except the opportunity he lost when he underwent an extortion from the interior and the ambition from the outside by controlling the country.
Man appeared by the “samed” coalition, warning of a healthy and imminent collapse as if he did not know the war which was one of his plans of developed allies. This call revealed a political scene which sees in human pain only an article which can be compromised or marketed. The call, according to observers, was not an invitation to help, but rather a tactic of pressure and blackmail, and a political investment in a tragic moment.
On the other hand, some official authorities have tried to reduce the disaster, denying the figures, confirming control, speaking in a bureaucratic language without human sense. The debate on the disease was not, but rather on the veracity of discourse, on those who have the most worthy novel. Thus, the citizen was placed between two contradictory speeches: one of them is alarming, and the other is reassured without clear tools. In this gap, the truth has been lost and the human right to protection has been lost.
It is not possible to talk about politics as a responsible act in the light of this blatant separation of morality? When we are surrounded by epidemics and diseases, suffering increases and the facts are refused to satisfy an official image, we are not only in the face of a health crisis, but before a complete collapse of the moral and political contract. The cholera of organic disease has turned into an ethical fall. The health system affected by the militia war and its premises and regionalists have not paid attention, but rather exposed the fragility of the value and the moral system of all.
Cholera was a moment of revelation with distinction, because it put us before a compound question. Was it in politics to be able to be ethical? Is it always a weight in his equations? Politicians were not required to be angels, but rather to face disaster as national responsibility, not as a conflict tool. But instead of unifying the speech, we have seen a victory in visions and a minimum lack of consensus, even with regard to citizen’s right to life and dignity.
In this scene, it seems that what we have lost does not only threaten the spirits, but we have lost the compass which links theory and practice, between what we have learned in the rooms of philosophy, and what we see in the spaces of political reality. The morals on which we have grown up, today, you do not find a place in a courtyard where the elite turns its difficulties on the remains of people and makes the epidemic an opportunity to bid.
And if it is the state of politics at the time of the disaster, then how can we trust the moments of construction? The policy that does not judge morality produces only more exhaustion and ruin, whatever the beauty of the slogans or fortified in institutions. The more we delay the restoration of the values as a rule of political action, the more we are in a vicious circle, where each disease turns into a pulpit, and each tragedy is in a means, and each death in a speech.
Consequently, what we face today is not limited to a health crisis that passes, but rather an ethical examination for all political practice. The most dangerous of the disease is to accept its exploitation. The greatest danger of the absence of services is the lack of conscience. Politics that do not exalt human beings does not deserve to be practiced. It is the face of truth.
You are fine and well.
Wednesday May 28, 2025 ad shglawi55@gmail.com
