The Face of Truth: The War on National Memory and History

Ibrahim Shiglawi

The war in Sudan, in one of its most dangerous manifestations, has revealed a battle unfolding over memory, identity, and history. The systematic targeting of antiquities, museums, and archival institutions was not a random act, but rather a link in a chain aimed at stripping the state of its human history and severing the bond between society and its civilizational roots, paving the way for reshaping consciousness outside the national context.

In this regard, the process of recovering (570) Sudanese antiquities, and the accompanying official positions issued by the Ministries of Finance, Culture, and Information, the General Intelligence Service, and with regional and international presence represented by UNESCO, carries a significance that goes beyond its ceremonial dimension to become a political event in the fullest sense. It re-raises the question of the state at a moment of the collapse of meaning: Is the state merely an authority that manages the present, or an entity that guards the past and secures the future?

The statements of the Minister of Finance, Dr. Jibril Ibrahim, in which he emphasized a comprehensive inventory of looted antiquities and the launch of a national campaign to raise awareness of their value, reflect an advanced understanding of the nature of the ongoing conflict. Antiquities are not merely historical witnesses, but a strategic asset of national identity and a component of cultural national security. Their targeting during the war was nothing but a deliberate attempt to erase Sudan’s historical narrative and re-present it as a land without roots, easily reshaped according to external interests and ambitions.

This understanding intersects with what was affirmed by the Minister of Culture, Information, and Tourism, Khalid Al-Aisir, when he placed the protection of antiquities among the ranks of sovereign battles. Defending memory is no less important than defending the land.

Sovereignty, in its modern meaning, is no longer confined to geography and weapons, but extends to protecting symbols, meanings, and the stock of collective memory that grants the state its moral and historical legitimacy.

From a developmental perspective, the recovery of antiquities represents a foundational condition for any project aimed at rebuilding the state after the war.

Development does not begin solely with roads and services, but with repairing the relationship between society and its history, and restoring the sense of civilizational continuity. A state without memory is a state without a compass, regardless of how many resources it possesses.

What the Sudan National Museum has been subjected to, housing one of the largest Nubian collections in the world, mummies dating back to before 2500 BC, and artifacts from the kingdoms of Kush, Alwa, and others, reveals that the war has gone beyond greed for gold and resources to targeting the very essence of the state and its civilizational heritage.

Looting, smuggling, and the appearance of some artifacts on electronic markets or beyond the borders do not represent merely a cultural crime, but a direct assault on the right of Sudanese people to know their history and shape their future based upon it. It is an assault linked to regional and international networks that benefit from the war economy and treat heritage as a commodity devoid of human memory.

The danger of this targeting increases when placed in the context of Sudan hosting sites inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List, such as Jebel Barkal, Meroe, Naqa, and Musawwarat.

Threatening these sites does not affect Sudan alone, but strikes at the heritage of humanity as a whole. The painful paradox, however, lies in the fact that these crimes did not receive sufficient regional and national media attention at the time they occurred, as if public awareness had not yet realized that what is being stolen here is not statues and stones, but the very idea of the homeland itself and its history.

Sudan’s previous experience in rescuing Nubian antiquities during the construction of the High Dam, and later during the establishment of the Merowe Dam, offers a model of a state that understood that modernity is not built on the ruins of memory, but in parallel with it. Those scientific committees composed of experts were not an academic luxury, but an expression of political awareness that considered history as one of the foundations of development.

What occurred during this war in terms of looting museums and the National Records Office, and attempts to smuggle antiquities across borders, reveals that the targeting was not only internal, but part of a known pattern in modern wars of fragmentation, where memory is struck in preparation for controlling consciousness. Here, the importance of the role played by the General Intelligence Service emerges as an actor in the battle to protect identity, not merely as a traditional security apparatus.

UNESCO’s entry into the line of support and documentation places the issue within its global human dimension and affirms that Sudanese civilizational heritage is part of humanity’s shared memory. An assault against it is a transnational crime that touches the human conscience before it touches a specific state.

Politically, these realities impose a direct responsibility on all national forces. Protecting memory must transform into a national consensus that transcends polarization, because a state that fails to protect its history loses its ability to build a unifying narrative and leaves a vacuum filled by projects of fragmentation and alienation.

According to #The_Face_of_Truth, this war reveals its deeply rooted reality: a war on the existence of the state, not merely a military coup that slid into war, supported by regional and local forces. The recovery of antiquities, however late it may seem, represents the beginning of the battle of awareness necessary for building post-war Sudan. Development without memory is an illusion, and a state without history is a fragile entity. The decisive question is not only how we rebuild, but: what kind of homeland do we want to rebuild?

Wishing you continued well-being and good health.

Wednesday, January 14, 2026

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