By:
Salah Amar
Throughout Sunday, December 9, Khartoum lived a long day of surprising and unexpected protests, in terms of their size and density. The protests resulted in a panic in the lines of the security and police forces.
I conducted a number of talks, in order to evaluate these events, with those who participated in the protests and journalists on the ground. Most of them agreed that the size of these protests was more than seen before, and their intensity allowed them to last for hours without interruption. This stopped the flow of traffic in various locations of central Khartoum.
All circumstances were in the interest of the protesters. Sunday is the beginning of the work week and schools and educational institutions. The flow of traffic is more than other days in Khartoum, and is made worse by the transportation crisis facing the capital these days. Citizens have been silently suffering from this for months now (a ticking bomb that can also trigger protests at any moment now).
By Sunday morning and afternoon all the residents of the triangular capital (i.e.: Khartoum, Bahri and Omdruman), had heard of the new of protests. And as I was walking by foot, like others who could not find transportation, people’s conversations and phone calls were focused on one event, “Khartoum has protests”, quickly followed by: “ and I can’t find transportation”.
The second important indicator that needs analysis and testing, and that gave a big push to the protests was the the performance of the police; and maybe even the security apparatus itself. The police and security had failed to stop the protesting students and limit their presence to the locality of their universities, as has happened in previous protests. This raises questions and even some doubts.
The success of the students of the Universities of Khartoum, Sudan and Nilien in breaking the siege around them and conquering the Center of Khartoum, is a rare precedence, because the locations of these universities do not favor protesting. In addition to the resources and mobility advantages of the police and security apparatus.
What raises questions is that the police and security were aware of the protests that were announced on Saturday morning (i.e., 24 hours in advance)– an expected reaction after the deaths of four students.
Is the police and security supporting the protesters? Or was it the unprecedented strength of the street that led to the failure of the security apparatus to stop the protests? The answers to these questions will definitely be answered in the next days in the event that the protests continue. But it is important to note that these questions are linked to the sharp internal struggles the regime is experiencing within its ranks these days, which analysis expect to lead to internal changes or even acts of violence.
However, Sunday December 9, 2012; was on all counts an important day in Sudan’s history, not for the reasons mentioned above related to the size of the protests, and the breaking of the fear barrier. Or that those protests came after months of limited street action. But for another important and sensitive reason and that is: these protests have helped bolster a strong feeling of Sudanese national unity and a sense of belonging to one nation–a factor that poses as one of the main challenges facing the future of Sudan.
As the (Ingaz) regime moves towards depending on individuals from the North and the center, the eruption of the crisis in Darfur and the destruction facing the region and its people has made Darfurians feel a lot of injustice that is justified by the destruction on the ground. Among Darfurians there is overwhelming silence and some some outspoken voices that express discontent toward citizens of the “center” and the political parties and their events that often lack support to the Darfuris and their plight.
The timing of the strong student protests in reaction to the
deaths of four Darfuri students (who protested paying tuition fees as per a Presidential decree that gives all Darfuri students a waiver), has helped break the fear barrier, magnified a sense of national unity, and is important for the future and unity of Sudan and the possibility of its continuation as a one country.
After the end of what could be called, “Great Sunday”, and regardless of the uncertainty of the future of those protests and their ability to continue, all indicators point to the fact that the pro-government security and military forces have reached the limits of their capacity to tolerate. Not because of their lack of resources, but because of the lack of the moral and legal legitimacy of their work; and the death of the ideological project that they used to protect and stand for.
And with the renewed hopes of a new dawn, the question of the “alternative” poses itself with more urgency. Those who are fighting the regime should not try to evade this question, nor should they stop working towards regime change.
It is wise that work on both those issues goes in parallel, because talking about an alternative in the absence of the fall of the regime will lead to the loss of Sudan as a united country. And the “alternative”, will not find a country to rule. It is obvious that every additional day that the Ingaz continues ruling Sudan is in the interest of the project of disintegrating Sudan, which the Ingaz government is supporting and that is happening with the blessing of regional and international powers.
The question, of “what’s the alternative”, is legitimate. One look at what is happening in Egypt and Tunisia and other places where revolutions are stolen by organized groups that used to work with authoritative regimes under the table, confirms that. And we don’t need to look far, as Sudan as lived that scenario of the, “ citizens planting the seeds of revolutions, and the elites reaping the benefits” through two revolutions, in April (1985) and October (1964).
In relation to the alternative, in Sudanese society youth and students are the majority in quantity and quality; and it is high time that they lead. It is not difficult to diagnose the Sudanese crisis; and put in place theoretical programs as solutions. Programs should indicate leadership and not the will and mood of individuals. The generation of students and youth who went to university in the 1990s and after have reached a conviction that what they have in common is bigger than their previous political affiliations; and some of them have started uniting.
Some of the generation of youth, and most of the those belonging to the traditional political leadership have a love of power for the sake of power. The likes of those don’t have enough depth to realize that governing Sudan after the legacy of the NCP is going to be an impossible mission that is likely cost its future leaders a high cost.
The Umma Party and the Democratic Unionist Party, are practically pro-regime. It is therefore not practical to announce protests that start from their mosques or premises. The biggest error that the new elements of change can commit is to use the mosques of Al Sadig al Mahdi and Al Mirghni as the launching points of protests or events. It is to the advantage of “change project” to be implemented from a distance from those two parties and their leadership, even if it leads to a delay of weeks and months in the movement toward change.
The Sudanese in Diaspora are large in numbers and their their presence in social networking sites is even larger. But activists on the ground are need of more tangible support to help the change movement. It is, for example, strange that there is are no independent TV channels that reflect the Sudanese street and its voice. Limited donations can be used toward implementing projects and programs with an invaluable outcome.
As for those who have broken the barrier of fear and went out on Sudnay–I know that they don’t need a road map, but I would like to tell them: you will triumph, and in the near future; as everything points to that. But precedents tell us that that the lives of the evil ones and the extremists sometimes take time to go to the dustbin of history.