Would Hemedti Drink the Hemlock؟ Socrates, Mahmoud Mohammed Taha and the Test of Power By Dr El-

03:52 PM November, 01 2026

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Would Hemedti Drink the Hemlock؟

Socrates, Mahmoud Mohammed Taha and the Test of Power

By Dr El-Tahir Adam El-Faki

History occasionally presents us with individuals whose final hours raise questions far greater than the circumstances of their deaths. Socrates, the ancient Greek philosopher, and Mahmoud Mohammed Taha, the Sudanese Islamic reformer, belonged to different civilisations and intellectual traditions. Yet their stories converge around a fundamental question: what happens when individual conviction confronts the coercive power of the state؟

Their experiences also offer a provocative framework for examining a contemporary Sudanese question. If Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti, were captured or faced the collapse of his military project, would he accept his fate, submit to justice or continue resisting at any cost؟

The answer cannot be known in advance. But the question invites a deeper examination of power, conscience, survival and accountability in Sudan.

Socrates: The choice between survival and principle

In 399 BC, Socrates was condemned to death by an Athenian court. According to Plato’s Crito, his friends arranged an opportunity for him to escape prison. He refused, reasoning that one must not commit an injustice, even in response to an injustice suffered.

His decision was not an endorsement of every court’s judgment or a declaration that political authority is always legitimate. Rather, Socrates subjected his own actions to a moral test: would escaping be consistent with the principles he had defended throughout his life؟

He ultimately accepted execution by drinking hemlock. His death became a lasting symbol of philosophical integrity, although the precise meaning of his refusal to escape remains a subject of scholarly debate.

For Socrates, survival was not the highest human objective. A life preserved at the expense of one’s deepest convictions could be less valuable than a death consistent with them.

Yet there is an important distinction between accepting death and surrendering to an enemy. Socrates was not a military commander defeated on a battlefield. He was a philosopher facing a judicial sentence, and his decision arose from his understanding of justice rather than from the collapse of a political or military project.

Mahmoud Mohammed Taha: When the state claims the authority of religion

Nearly twenty-four centuries later, Sudan witnessed another confrontation between individual conviction and state power.

Mahmoud Mohammed Taha, founder of the Republican Brotherhood, challenged the religious and political establishment through an interpretation of Islam that emphasised personal freedom, equality and reform. He opposed President Jaafar Nimeiri’s implementation of Islamic laws beginning in 1983, arguing that the government’s approach was oppressive and incompatible with the universal principles of Islam as he understood them.

Taha and his associates publicly challenged the government’s policies. He was arrested in January 1985, tried and sentenced to death. On 18 January 1985, he was publicly hanged at Kober Prison in Khartoum North.

His trial and execution raised profound questions about judicial independence, religious freedom and the political use of law. The proceedings culminated in an apostasy conviction under circumstances that attracted serious criticism from human rights observers.

Taha’s significance lies not merely in his death but in his refusal to abandon his convictions when confronted with the ultimate consequences of dissent.

The comparison with Socrates is illuminating, although their circumstances were not identical. Socrates refused to escape because he believed that doing so would violate his moral obligations. Taha resisted a state-imposed religious and legal order that he believed violated deeper Islamic principles.

Both cases demonstrate that a person’s relationship with authority cannot be understood simply by asking whether that person obeyed or defied the state. We must also ask what principles informed that decision and whether the authority being challenged was itself just.

Their deaths do not automatically establish the correctness of every argument they advanced. Rather, their legacies invite continuing scrutiny of the relationship between conscience, law and power.

Hemedti: The politics of survival

Hemedti occupies a fundamentally different position.

His rise from a relatively obscure background to the leadership of a powerful paramilitary organisation, and subsequently to a central position in Sudan’s struggle for political authority, has been accompanied by an extraordinary concentration of military and economic power.

The war that began in April 2023 transformed the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), once operating alongside the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), into a principal contender for control of the Sudanese state.

The conflict has devastated communities, displaced millions and produced extensive allegations of atrocities against civilians. The RSF has faced particularly grave accusations, including mass killings, sexual violence, forced displacement and other serious violations. The conduct of all parties requires scrutiny, while individual criminal responsibility must be established through credible judicial processes.

Hemedti’s political and military project has therefore raised questions that extend beyond the outcome of any particular battle. What happens when an armed leader who has accumulated substantial power confronts the possibility that this power may be lost؟

Would he accept surrender as a means of ending the war؟ Would he negotiate a political settlement requiring his forces to relinquish their weapons؟ If captured, would he submit to an independent judicial process addressing allegations against him؟

Or would he regard surrender as an existential threat and continue resisting for as long as military circumstances permitted؟

These are hypothetical questions, not predictions about his private intentions. His eventual response, if such circumstances arose, would depend on factors that cannot presently be known with certainty.

Nevertheless, the philosophical distinction is crucial: the willingness to die for a cause is not the same as the willingness to relinquish power, and neither, by itself, establishes moral courage.

Socrates accepted death rather than violate his understanding of justice. Taha maintained his opposition to a government whose religious and legal authority he rejected. A military commander’s refusal to surrender, by contrast, cannot automatically be treated as evidence of principled conviction.

The relevant question is whether continuing to fight serves a defensible purpose or merely prolongs the suffering of the population.

The missing Socratic moment

Perhaps the most significant distinction between these historical examples lies in the relationship between individual survival and responsibility towards others.

Socrates asked whether the desire to survive could justify an unjust act. Taha challenged a government that claimed religious legitimacy for a system he considered unjust. Their resistance was shaped by their understanding of principles that stood above immediate personal advantage.

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