Sudfa ("Coincidence" in Arabic) is a participatory media created by a group of
Sudanese and French friends and activists to bring the voices of the Sudaneserevolution to the French-speaking world. Our goal is to share or translatearticles written by Sudanese people, or co-written by Sudanese and French people,on the political, social and cultural news and history of Sudan and the Sudanesecommunity in France. ---- Neighborhood committees formed in resistance to theSudanese army dictatorship. ---- In Sudan, the resistance to the military coup ofOctober 25, 2021 is mainly carried out by the "resistance committees", orneighborhood committees. These self-managed local organizations, presentthroughout the country, bring together women and men of all ages, and evenchildren. While they have existed in their current form for three years, inreality the history of the resistance committees dates back to the September 2013uprising. coup that brought him to power in 1989. In 2013, a protestunprecedented since the coup emerged from the universities of the capital: it wasthe "Girifna" movement, or "We are fed up" . The originality of this movement, inaddition to its innovative use of social networks, is that it is not linked toany political party. But this mobilization is confronted with extreme violence onthe part of the security services of the dictator El-Béchir, who in less than twoweeks kills more than 200 people. Following this unprecedented violence, theSudanese revolutionaries are forced to change their strategy. The centrality ofthe movement in the capital had facilitated the repression: the idea then emergedamong the activists of returning each to their neighborhood or village of originto form autonomous organizations, in order to constitute a more diffuse movement,more rooted in the local population and therefore less identifiable by thesecurity services.In some neighborhoods, resistance committees emerged in an explicitly politicalform, with the aim of organizing demonstrations and supporting the overthrow ofthe regime. In other neighborhoods, they are formed to thwart the "popularcommittees", a body created by the regime to insinuate themselves into localpolitics and seek to destroy any form of democracy from below. Finally, in otherplaces, they are set up above all as a structure for mutual aid and neighborhoodsolidarity in the face of the economic crisis that the country has been goingthrough for years (for example, in 2020 on the occasion of the International Dayof women's rights, the resistance committees of the Arkawit neighborhood inKhartoum set up an open clinic where all women could come for free treatment andfree medical tests, as well as distribution of sanitary napkins and workshops onbreast cancer information). In some cases, the resistance committees succeeded inrecovering the common goods seized by the previous regime, such as public squaresthat had been sold to bosses and investors close to power. While the regime waspursuing a policy of division on racist bases, the activists of the resistancecommittees worked daily to create links between the inhabitants of theneighborhood to rebuild a social climate of peace.The important field work carried out by the resistance committees has earned themthe confidence of the inhabitants of the neighborhoods. Gradually, the trust andsupport shown to them by the inhabitants gave them the enthusiasm to extend thisdream to the entire nation. They then launched the hashtag "Hanabniho", whichmeans "we will rebuild it", implying the country.A central role in the 2018 revolution and the transition periodIn the December 2018 revolution, the resistance committees played a central role,organizing demonstrations in different neighborhoods. After the fall of OmarAl-Bashir in April 2019, they remain constantly active, trying to maintainpressure on the political elites to protect the gains of the revolution. At thesame time, they are trying to rebuild what the previous regime had destroyed,disintegrating the social fabric and cultural life in the neighborhoods (notablyby closing cinemas and cultural centers, and putting their premises up for sale).They also organize many political events to support the interests of therevolution, with the aim of building a country for everyone: conferences on thefuture of democracy in Sudan, as well as political self-training workshops. Theytake part in creating unions of women and students.e.s, taking advantage of thespace of freedom granted by the revolution.While the country in transition is hit by destructive inflation, and prey toinsane fluctuations in the value of the currency (the Sudanese pound), theseneighborhood committees are working on their own level to fight against pettycorruption by constituting teams of "market observers" who ensure that traders donot raise their prices by taking advantage of the shortage of certain resourcesand therefore the misery of the inhabitants. On social networks, we can thus seein several cities photos of young people who camp in bakeries to check thatbakers do not monopolize stocks of flour in the hope of selling their bread at amuch higher price on days of shortage. In the village of Al-Hilalia (GeziraState), in October 2019,The spearhead of protest since the coup of October 25, 2021Following General Al-Burhan's coup d'état on October 25, 2021, which put an endto the post-revolution democratic construction process of 2018, the resistancecommittees became the spearheads of the protest movement. For eight months, theyorganize processions and call for demonstrations, marching through the streetsthe day before rallies to call on the population to come down to demonstrate.Many of their members are among the 116 dead and 7,000 injured during the 2022protests. But despite the extreme violence of the repression, the regime has beenunable to put an end to their activity, thanks to their decentralizedorganization in network, distributed in all the cities and all the districts ofSudan. In the capital Khartoum alone, there are dozens of independent resistancecommittees.While the various political parties tried to recover them, the resistancecommittees continued to organize themselves from the base, in coordination (bycity, then by region, and finally at the national level) and by refusing to beassociated with a political party. From the first day of the coup, they adoptedthe slogan of the "Three Noes": "No partnership, no negotiation, no haggling(with the army)". The coordinations of the resistance committees have maintainedthis position until today, refusing to ally themselves with the political partieswhich today are again negotiating a peace agreement with the military. They thusembody the most radical movement of the civil disobedience movement."Power to the people" or democratic construction from belowHowever, their role is not limited to the organization of demonstrations. Facedwith the observation that the military continue to cling to power despite themassive protest of the population, the resistance committees have also tried tostructure themselves to develop a civilian political proposal that is a crediblealternative to the military government. Thus, from January 2022, severalcommittees began to work on the drafting of a "Revolutionary Charter for thepower of the people", to propose the bases of a new civil constitution. OnOctober 6, 2022, the two charters that emerged from the resistance committeeswere finally unified in a single common proposal.This charter proposes the formation of a federal legislative body which begins inthe local councils, then municipal, then at the level of the regions and finallyof the federal State. It envisions this legislative body then designating theexecutive branch of government. This model completely reverses the traditional,pyramidal approach of the ruling class, whatever its political label. Whilewaiting for this model to be adopted at the political level, the resistancecommittees are trying to put it into practice on the ground.What place in Sudanese politics today?Today, while the civilian political parties and the military are in the processof concluding a new agreement that will allow the military to stay in power, theresistance committees are among the only political organizations that reject thisagreement. After several years of central place in the revolutionary movement,their role is debated among the members: should they constitute themselves into apolitical party or organization? Or should they always remain "outside" ofinstitutional politics, and continue to put pressure on political parties to pushfor more radicalism? For the moment, it is rather this second option that seemsto be taking shape.In any case, it is important to note that since the October 2021 coup, politicaland media discourses on Sudan systematically ignore the role of resistancecommittees as political actors in Sudan. For a year and a half, foreign mediahave been writing that the protests against the coup are organized by theAssociation of Sudanese Professionals or the Forces for Freedom and Change - twopolitical organizations that emerged from the 2018 revolution but which have beendiscredited by two years of collaboration with the military following therevolution, and which no longer have any real political base or any link with thestreet. The UN representative in Sudan and foreign embassies have howeverinsisted on establishing peace agreements between civilians and soldiers with theForces for Freedom and Change as the main interlocutor representing Sudanesecivil society. This reveals the way in which international politics seek toignore grassroots movements that truly represent the popular will - all the moreso when the latter aspires to radical change.Article written by the "Sudfa" collectiveIf you want to contact us, you can write to us at sudfamedia@gmail.com, or viaour social networks (Facebook and Instagram). To read our other articles, you cansee our Mediapart blog: https://blogs.mediapart.fr/sudfa or our website:http://www.sudfa-media.com . See you soon!Notes1 - In Khartoum, a revolutionary guards one of the barricades built by theresistance committees during the protests against the coup, November 2021.2 - Public discussion organized by the resistance committee of the popularneighborhood of Janoub Al-Hizam in Khartoum, December 2021.3 - Khartoum resistance committees present their charter proposal at thepresidential palace during the demonstration on 02/27/22.http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article3643_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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