The Face of Truth: Morality and Politics in the Time of Cholera
Ibrahim Shglawi
When we studied political philosophy and ethics at university, the ideas we encountered felt like mirrors—reflecting our dreams, aspirations, and the boundless belief that politics could be a moral endeavor, not merely a game of interests. Thinkers like Socrates, Ibn Khaldun, Adam Smith, Al-Ghazali, Rousseau, and many others were beacons of hope, igniting in us the conviction that justice was not a luxury but the foundation of any state, and that politics could only be upright if it moved along the tracks of values.
In those days, we carried the idealism of youth and believed we were the generation capable of redefining political practice—on ethical, patriotic, and clean foundations, free from narrow affiliations and blind allegiance.
But once we stepped from the realm of theory into the arena of practice, we encountered a very different reality. We found ourselves in a landscape governed by the logic of domination, driven by opportunism and personal gain. Political parties, which were supposed to be tools for change and centers of collective national vision, had become mired in narrow calculations and locked in zero-sum rhetoric—seeing citizens merely as pressure points and tragedies as stages for point-scoring. The shock was profound: the politics we had envisioned bore little resemblance to the politics we were now facing—a chaotic struggle with no reference point, no restraint, and no sense of obligation.
When cholera recently struck, it was not just a passing epidemic. It became a mirror reflecting a deep ethical failure in political life. At a moment when human priorities should have taken precedence above all else, the health disaster was turned into yet another occasion for political sparring and public fearmongering.
Dr. Abdalla Hamdok, appearing through the “Samood” coalition, issued a warning of imminent health collapse, as if forgetting that the ongoing war was partially the product of his allies’ well-crafted strategies. According to many observers, this plea was less a genuine call for help and more a calculated move—a political investment in tragedy, a tool of pressure and blackmail.
On the other side, some official bodies attempted to downplay the disaster, denying statistics and asserting control with cold bureaucratic language lacking any human sensitivity. The debate became less about the illness and more about the credibility of narratives: who holds the more believable version of the truth? Citizens were caught between two contradictory discourses—one sounding the alarm, the other offering baseless reassurance. In the gap between them, truth was lost—and with it, the right of people to safety.
Can we still speak of politics as a responsible endeavor amid such a stark separation from ethics? When epidemics surround us, suffering intensifies, and facts are denied for the sake of official image, we are not merely facing a health crisis—we are confronting a total collapse of the ethical and political contract. Cholera, in this sense, transformed from a biological disease to a moral failure. It not only exposed a fragile health system, already reeling from the militia war and its local and regional sponsors—it also laid bare the fragility of our collective moral framework.
Cholera became a deeply revealing moment, placing us face to face with a fundamental question: is there still room for ethics in politics? Does the individual still matter in political equations? No one expected politicians to be saints—but they were expected to treat catastrophe as a national responsibility, not a political bargaining chip. Yet instead of unifying discourse, we witnessed widening rifts and an absence of even the most basic consensus—even regarding the citizen’s right to life and dignity.
What we’ve lost is not only lives under threat but also the compass that once linked theory to practice—what we learned in the philosophy halls with what we experience in the political sphere. The morals we grew up with now seem absent from a field where elites conduct their battles over the suffering of others, turning epidemics into opportunities for one-upmanship.
And if this is the state of politics in times of crisis, how can we trust it in times of reconstruction? Politics unmoored from ethics produces nothing but further exhaustion and destruction—no matter how noble its slogans or robust its institutions may appear. The longer we delay reinstating values as the foundation of political practice, the more we trap ourselves in a vicious cycle where every disease becomes a platform, every tragedy a tool, and every death a headline.
What we face today is not a fleeting health crisis, but a moral test of the entire political system. Worse than the disease itself is the willingness to exploit it. More dangerous than the absence of services is the absence of conscience. A politics that does not place the human being at its core is a politics unworthy of being practiced.
And this is the face of truth.
Wishing you all health and well-being,
Wednesday, May 28, 2025
Shglawi55@gmail.com