- 1 In this article, we use the term “uprising” according to the definition given by Casciarri and Man (...)
- 2 In this article, the term “northern” is used in a sense going beyond the geographical meaning. It (...)
1Between December 2018 and April 2019, Sudan has experienced huge demonstrations against the regime. April 11, 2019 marked the fall of Omar Al-Bechir and his arrest by the army as well as that of the senior regime officials. However, sit-in continued and protesters said they wanted to remain mobilized until a civilian transitional government was established. Unfortunately, a brutal killing and dispersing of the sit-in protesters happened on June 3, 2019, causing the death of more than 130 protesters and more missing, and led to a deadlock in the political negotiation between Sudan’s Forces for Freedom and Change (ffc) and the Transitional Military Council. The demonstrators’ resilience as well as the locations where these demonstrations took place raise question on the dynamics of Arabization and Islamization in relation with national identity building in Sudan, since the protests were dominated by the middle classes, mostly young professionals and university students from Northern Sudan. The epicenters of protests were in Burri, Old Omdurman, Shambat—predominantly middle-class neighborhoods. The spatial dimension of the protest locations in Khartoum reveals a disconnection between the peripheral areas or shantytowns, where most people originated from Western and South Sudan, and other middle-class areas in the capital, which led inhabitants from the former to consider the protest in central Khartoum not in their interest. This article tries to understand the reason behind that disconnection. For this purpose, we need to look into the history of political change in Sudan, specifically the previous uprisings1 of 1964 and 1985, to seize the dynamics of an opposition between two visions: on the one hand, an uprising against the corrupt northern2 elite-led government; on the other hand, an uprising against the post-colonial Sudanese State and its marginalization of people from peripheral regions.
2In the last decades, the question of identity has attained a remarkable centrality within human and social sciences. In the field of sociology, for example, the dominance of class as the fundamental identity marker has been challenged by the growth of various new social movements: feminisms, minorities’ struggles, and ecological movements. In anthropology, also, there are many concerns about the ethnical identity. This concept is deemed more relevant to explain armed conflicts and political instability, which spread over many parts of the world, although other concepts have been used to analyze and interpret these devastation situations (e.g. migration, climatic changes).
3Many studies suggest that the main reason for the political instability and civil wars in Sudan lies in the identity struggle at the national level between the Arab-Islamic identity, asserted by the government in Khartoum, and the African/Christian identity of the western or South Sudan (Mazrui 1971; Deng 1995; O’Fahey 1996; Idris 2005; de Waal 2005; Sharkey 2007; Assal 2009). In this paper we try to investigate the Sudans’ culture and identity politics in relation to processes of political changes, namely the history of uprising in the post-colonial Sudanese State. More specifically, we try to understand how peripheral (urban) identities nourish the general reflection on the tricky issue of identities in Sudan, as we look at their practical manifestation—although invisibilized by the discourse of a “unity of all Sudanese” against the regime—in the dynamic context of the third uprising (2018-2019).
4The central objective of the paper is the analysis “from the urban margins” of the real participation in the 2018-2019 Sudan nationwide uprising. In order to understand the relations between the marginal regions of Sudan, represented here by peripheral shantytowns of Khartoum, and the center, we need to look at the history of political change in Sudan. Since Sudan gained independence in 1956 it has endured numerous military coups and almost continuous violent conflict within its borders. Yet it has also experienced three civil uprisings (Berridge 2015), which occurred primarily in and around the capital, Khartoum. All three occurred as Sudan was experiencing continued armed conflicts between northern-led Sudanese armed forces and former southern Sudanese armed movements (1964 and 1985) and, after the re-emergence of armed conflict following the independence of South Sudan in 2011, between northern-led Sudanese forces and forces from Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile in 2013 (Naimark-Rowse 2017: 118).
- 3 Planned urban represent first, second, or third class areas, which are a legal planning designatio (...)
5In the latest uprising, it is possible to differentiate two main categories of actions for the people taking part in protests from December 2018 up to April 2019 in Khartoum. The people who participated in actions are largely middle or upper class, mostly from northern Sudanese ethno-religious background, meaning they mostly adhere to Arab-Islamic identity. The first category consists of protesters located mainly in the central areas of Khartoum. The second is made up of the people who took part in the protests organized in the neighborhoods, both in old and planned urban areas of Khartoum.3 Most of the protests occurred in old urban areas (e.g. Burri, Old Omdurman, Shambat), with sporadic protests coming from planned urban extensions (e.g. Sahafa, Thora, Mazad, Kalakla, Haj Yousif, etc) (see Map 1).
Map 1. — Sudan Protests in Greater Khartoum
Sources: Press and social media. Data collection by C. Deshayes, M. Etienne, A. Franck, T. Gismallah and K. Medani.
6Those residential neighborhoods protests are more homogeneous in terms of participants. They are mostly composed of youth, male and female, the youngest being teenagers—unlike central areas with less teenagers participation. Protesters usually try to build a roadblock setting tires on fire to close the roads. Some neighborhoods become well known for it, as it is almost done on a daily basis in Burri and Old Omdurman areas.
- 4 The Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA) is the main organizer of the protests in Khartoum, re (...)
- 5 These leaders later set up and led the resistance committees in the neighborhoods.
7In the neighborhoods protests, the spa4 plays a smaller role. The “local leadership”5 is predominant. Most people have known each other for a long time, family relations are well established, and there are very few newcomers in these areas. Thus, the strong and long-lasting relationships among neighbors may account for the resilience of these demonstrations. The brutality of the security forces also strengthened the solidarity among neighbors who fought against one common enemy.
8The local leaders, chosen for their experience and skills (i.e. protest management knowledge), are the ones that decide on the meeting points, the direction of the march, the building of roadblocks, and that divide the roles among the participants in the protest. Indeed, the entire family may be mobilized and everyone plays an active role. For example, mothers and old people might join the protest at the beginning until the police comes, and once they return home, they can continue to inform protesters about police movements and open their doors to demonstrators in need of shelter.
9Teenagers and children also participate despite the risks they face of being caught and abused in the same way as more mature participants. The protests in the neighborhoods generally turn out to be more violent and fatal than the ones in central Khartoum (Dahab et al. 2019). Protesters may throw stones at the police and security forces may respond by using tear gas and live ammunition. Yet, in both types of protests, we can find a huge participation of women and girls in different roles, including the risky ones. Females participate in throwing back tear gas to the police, being in the front row confronting security forces. Some have been arrested, beaten, harassed and sexually abused.
10There was an apparent disconnection between the peripheral areas or shantytowns and the committed quarters described above (whether low, middle or high middle class residential areas), which led inhabitants from the former to consider the protest in central Khartoum and other middle-class areas as not in their interest. In order to understand the reason behind that disconnection, we need to look into the history of those peripheral areas to see how urban expansion developed in the context of Khartoum. First, the majority of the population living in peripheral areas in Khartoum came to the capital as displaced people, fleeing from war, drought and desertification. For example, at least 2.4 million people were affected by famine by mid-1985 in the western regions of Sudan. Around the same time, the civil war broke out in the former South Sudan region in 1983, displacing about 4 million people, 1.5 million of whom ended up in the capital (de Geffroy 2007). The presence of a huge number of forced migrants in the capital living in largely squatter settlements was not a problem in itself, but their discrimination became one. This comes from the fact that the dominant social and ethnic hierarchy in northern Sudan establishes that people from southern Sudan and the Nuba Mountains, and to a lesser extent from Darfur, have to be considered as having a lower status due to their different cultural features, be they religious or ethnic. The majority of people coming from these regions consider themselves as having African descent, while the majority of people in Northern Sudan consider themselves as having Arab or Nubian origins. For example, Ja’aliyyn, Shaygiyya, and Danagla, the main ethnic groups in the Northern Sudan, have dominated the Sudanese State since the pre-colonial period, particularly since the introduction of Islam and Arabism to Sudan in the sixteenth century, accompanied by a legacy of the slave trade.
11That bitter historical relationship between the peripheral population and the rest of the city has always tended to be shaped by majority versus minority relations. This relationship strongly reflects the hierarchical system that dominates the country as a whole, as people from north and central Sudan have ruled the State, the economy and national culture, and have treated other parts of the country as mere peripheries turning the population from peripheral areas into the most vulnerable and stigmatized people in the capital. Moreover, most people from Darfur and Nuba Mountains remember that no single protest was organized when there were reports of mass killings and violence caused by the Al-Bechir regime in their original areas. Besides, the legal status of South Sudan refugees remain very critical as most of them strive to be invisible to the government.
- 6 National Congress Party : the Islamist-led party ruled in Sudan between 1989 and 2019.
12Since this disconnection is also the result of the ncp6 regime’s long history of mismanagement and discrimination towards peripheral areas in Khartoum, it was imperative to see how these policies managed to divide the population of Khartoum. Indeed, if we analyze the urban policies of the government towards illegal settlements of poor people, it is clear that it has long consisted in legalizing settlements in remote areas, by re-planning or upgrading them, and in demolishing squatter settlements located near the center and in high value areas. The planning and upgrading of squatter settlements in remote areas was not intended to change the socioeconomic position of the people, but rather to consolidate and legalize their position at the margin of the city as the lowest status of people. Such policies encouraged peripheral or shantytown residents to develop a distinct lifestyle that emphasizes and enhances their difference from the mainstream city population (Bakhit 2016a), by keeping stronger relationships with their home areas and maintaining African multi-religious identity, with hostile relations with other middle class areas, where residents are mostly adopting Arab-Islamic. These discriminatory urban policies (e.g. squatter settlements re-planned as fourth class settlements—the lowest levels of planning in Khartoum, at the margins of the city) are combined with socioeconomic marginalization (e.g. lowest ethnic status, low-income jobs) strengthening the urban segregation processes.
13Within this context, it is possible to consider that the nationwide protests from December 2018 to April 2019 in different parts of Sudan did not make sense for the peripheral population in Khartoum. The economic and political crises—among other factors—that led to the nationwide protests actually hit mainly the so-called middle-class areas. For example, the local currency crisis in Khartoum banks affected first and foremost the middle-class employees, and fuel shortages affected mostly car owners who usually live in middle-class areas. Meanwhile, the population of peripheral areas and shantytowns has faced these economic hardships for a long time, and most of them work in the informal economy with the ability to get cash money and negotiate their income on a daily basis. Thus, the recent economic crisis was not a major upset in their life, as they already had to cope with multiple economic challenges due to previous economic deterioration. For poor people in Khartoum, it is a story they already know.
- 7 According to the governmental law in Khartoum, selling and drinking of alcohol is prohibited, usua (...)
14In addition to that, the use of extreme violence by police and security forces against shantytown populations is not new. They have actually suffered from multiple forms of brutality from the police and security forces since their arrival in Khartoum (e.g. demolitions or alcohol raids7). This violence has become part of their daily life and has been accompanied by racial and bureaucratic discriminations. Seeing heavily-armed police vehicles in shantytowns streets is a normal thing. There were historical experiences of clashes with the police and security forces in shantytowns. This happened a decade ago when violent protests took place in Khartoum, following the sudden death of John Garang (the leader of the Sudan People Liberation Movement/Army, splm/a) in August 2005. The violent protests turned to attacks between Northerners or Southerners, and it included different kinds of killing and stealing in the big markets in Khartoum (El-Hassan 2007), which had later invoked effectively the question of the “identity conflict” between North and South. These wide confrontations between southern and northern Sudanese, after the protests that took place further to John Garang’s death, led to the creation of many police and security camps in shantytowns in order to repress any resumption of protests, as it happened when Darfur-based rebel movement managed to invade unsuccessfully Omdurman in 2008. In 2013, important demonstrations took place in Khartoum when young people from peripheral areas and shantytown of Khartoum (mostly from Umbadda, Haj Yousif, Mayo) went out in protest against the new economic measures. If the triggering of the 2013 movement is comparable to that of 2018, the response from the government was immediately massively violent, causing Rapid Support Forces militia to shoot and kill protesters. It was a very shocking and awful experience for people, especially for those young people who demonstrated and for the families of the victims from peripheral areas.
15In contrast, the systematic use of violence by police and security forces in the December 2018 uprising against a middle-class population is unprecedented in their areas. The dreadful experience this represented for them became a strong reason to continue protesting. But in fact, this systematic use of violence is not new to the shantytown population of Khartoum, and the middle classes are not the first to experience it.
- 8 Informal communication with a SPLA-North member in Khartoum.
16Senior spla-North (Sudan People Liberation Army) commanders expressed concern about the lack of participation of their members in the Khartoum protests in 2018-2019. The reason for this concern is that most spla-North members come from Nuba Mountains and other marginalized regions of Sudan, reside in peripheral shantytowns and work largely in informal sectors or as laborers. While apparently the members of spla-North in Khartoum were not involved in the ongoing protest, because it was a protest of the northern middle class, for the leadership of spla-North it was important to participate to consolidate their position of opposition to the Al-Bechir regime in both armed resistance and non-violent protest. As a result, the leaders of the Nuba Moutains ordered all Khartoum members to participate, but few numbers managed to participate regularly8, apparently due to a lack of motivation and ties to the spa.
17Guma Kunda Komey (2008: 6) sums up the logic whereby provincial movements became ethnically particularized and armed:
Four common features characterize the various ethno-political movements in Sudan. First, they arose in the regions whose populations are largely of African origin in response to persistent exclusion and marginalization by the central State. Second, in pursuing their political endeavors, these regions form a loose political solidarity in some national issues of common interest, particularly in their demand for a federal system. Third, these movements pursue their demands to the central government on the basis of their ethno-territorial affiliations, with each region progressively becoming a spatial expression of belonging and attachment, a source of economic livelihood, and an icon for socio-cultural identification. Finally, in response to their persistent political marginality and socio-economic deprivation, these regional movements gradually shifted from peaceful and political to armed movements coupled with a change of loyalties from national to regional levels, with each region (land) being concretized as a political category with a specific character, image and status in the minds of its inhabitants.
- 9 Today, there are eight bridges across the Nile in Khartoum (and two more under construction), four (...)
18The character of Sudanese political resistance reflects the country’s political economy and development. This has historically taken an accentuated dualistic form. Since the colonial era, Sudan has been characterized by extreme socioeconomic inequality. While Khartoum and its environs look like a low-income country, the outlying regions, notably Darfur, Eastern Sudan, Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile, and the newly independent South Sudan, are some of the poorest places on earth. Since the 1970s, investment and services were concentrated in Khartoum. When the government changed the currency in the early 1990s, it discovered that 90 % of the banknotes in circulation where in greater Khartoum (de Waal 2013: 222). After Sudan became an oil exporter in 1999, leading to an accelerated growth in public spending, about 90 % of the investment in infrastructure was in Khartoum (World Bank 2007).9 The inequality between center and periphery is reflected in distinct forms of governance, which in turn have shaped modes of resistance. Most works on inequality in Sudan focus on the detrimental impacts of such extreme disparities, which have contributed significantly to the country’s recurring crises (de Geoffroy 2007; Assal 2011; de Waal 2013; Bakhit 2016b). The relatively high level of development within the center has facilitated the emergence of a sophisticated political culture, reflected in strong traditions of a multi-party system, civil society, liberal higher education and social movements.
19The urban parts of Sudan, although largely immune to the types of armed conflict we see in Darfur or the Nuba Mountains, were nonetheless affected by the strategies of Islamists in their version of “empowerment,” which not only excluded non-Islamists from government positions but also pursued a campaign of inculcating more pervasive and radical “Islamist values” into the social fabric. Such a campaign undermined the educational system and personal, political, and press freedoms, but also generated a conservatism that is exercised through public order police, religious curricula and institutions, and various security apparatuses, not to mention the displacement of vast populations from war-torn parts of the country. These internally displaced person (idps) live in poor neighborhoods around Greater Khartoum and face greater employment, health, and education challenges than older Khartoum dwellers.
- 10 “This slogan emerged in the early days of the protests in response to the regime’s attempt to spli (...)
20The urban elite’s grievances against the Islamist State, though not as harsh and direct as displacement, rape or death, are related to the government’s perceived economic or political failures, the secession of South Sudan and other unresolved conflicts, and restrictions on freedom of expression. Urban actors in Greater Khartoum now include communities that have interacted directly with the war and are facing harsh economic conditions. This has introduced new dimensions of racism and social injustice into the call for regime change. These newer dwellers of Greater Khartoum ask, for example, what the older residents of Khartoum do when people are killed in Darfur (Kadoda & Hale 2015: 217). There were attempts to address those issues during the protests, as one of the famous slogans used during the protests marches shows: “Hey (you) arrogant racist, we are all Darfur”10 (see Casciarri & Manfredi in this volume). This slogan was coined in response to a false accusation by security forces against university students from Darfur of being trained in Israel to commit murders and robbery during the protests in Khartoum and other major cities.
- 11 The leader of SPLM/A, he advocated a vision of a united Sudan, under secular, democratic constitut (...)
21The urban population that emerged in the urban centers across northern Sudan was neither the Islamists’ vision of a moral society nor Garang’s11 vision of “New Sudan,” but rather a rapidly urbanizing society, with an economy dominated by the informal sector, dependent on oil-funded patronage systems and remittances from Sudanese expatriates working in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries.
22A noticeable trend among young people from conflict-ridden regions in Sudan (e.g. Nuba Mountains and Darfur) is that there is much more concern and activist focus on the idps, the effects of war, and issues of race and class. Youth groups based on ethnic or regional affiliation are not new, but have become more vocal and, as a consequence, are the target of brutal treatment by security forces. A number of high-profile cases of assassination of Darfur students caused their funerals to turn into street demonstrations. Remarkably, the participation of people from riverine ethnic groups was visibly low, leading to criticisms and resentment from activists of Darfuri descent. This illustrates the mistrust of youth from marginalized areas compared to more affluent youth from northern and central Sudan, which generated, for example, debates on “martyrdom” focus on the young people who died in the Khartoum protests, while neglecting the many deaths in demonstrations on the outskirts of Khartoum (nicknamed the “black belt,” because it is mostly inhabited by communities displaced by the conflict in Darfur and the Nuba Mountains) and areas affected by the 1983 famine or who died in demonstrations in Darfur and other peripheral regions (Kadoda & Hale 2015: 226-227).
23It could be argued that the reasons for such numerous experiences of popular uprisings that ended a dictatorship in Sudan political history can be understood by examining the unique structure and historical formation of Sudanese society, culture, and identity. Popular resistance against corrupt governments in Sudan has been schematically divided into a non-violent civic mobilization in the central part of the country—mostly linked to Arabic Islamic identity—and violent insurrection in the peripheries—mostly linked to African Christian identity—that reflect the differences in national identifications, economic development, and proximity to power between the center and the peripheries. The overall results has been that civic opposition has been narrow in its visions and perspectives, while armed popular movements active in the peripheries have not been able to have influence in the capital without a political deal with the government in place (for example Comprehensive Peace Agreement, cpa, signed in 2005).
24This 2018-2019 uprising (intifada) is by no means the first in Sudanese history. Sudan experienced two inspirational popular uprisings that toppled military dictatorships. Namely, the popular uprisings of 1964 and 1985, both entered the history books as short-term success uprisings, but with long-term failures (Berridge 2015). Those previous uprisings have been challenged by the difficulties of simultaneously pursuing the civic uprising and armed insurrection, and of aligning the objectives of liberal democracy and ethnic self-determination of marginalized regions of southern, western, and eastern Sudan (de Waal 2013: 213).
25General Ibrahim Abboud took power in 1958 at the request of civilian leaders who had given up in the face of Sudan’s complex problems. It was an unusual coup: an act of resignation by parliamentary leaders rather than an aggression by the officers of the National Army. Nonetheless, army officers soon showed their dictatorial face. In short time the oppositional civil society formed the basis for organizing the uprising against Abboud’s regime. It was an alliance of professionals and professors, along with the leaders of the Gezira Tenants’ Association the Sudan Workers’ Trade Union Federation, and the Sudanese Communist Party. They established the National Front for the Professionals, using the University of Khartoum staff club as their headquarters. The outline agenda was a quickly-drafted set of demands including the end of dictatorship, immediate moves towards democracy, peace in southern Sudan (where there was a civil war), land reform and modernization of national institutions. Across the river in Omdurman, the leaders of the banned sectarian political parties quickly followed suit and formed the National Front for Political Parties.
26Anticipating that early democratic elections would bring the same parties back to power, they focused on democracy. The alliance between the two fronts was tactical but effective. It gave rise to a large demonstration. The army responded by shooting and killing a student. The death of this student, on 19 October 1964, sparked outrage and other demonstrations, notably when more than 30,000 people attended the funeral. The National Front for the Professionals called for a general strike and further demonstrations. Finally the uprising succeeded in falling down the six-year dictatorship of General Ibrahim Abboud in October 1964.
27The second successful uprising in Sudanese history was the popular uprising that overthrew Field Marshal Jafar Nimeiri in April 1985. It was inspired and shaped by the 1964 uprising. Nimeiri’s “May Regime” had, after 15 years in power, been disgraced and had engaged in corruption and financial bankruptcy, reaching its end with the adoption of a form of Islamic law. Even its great achievement of peace with southern Sudan was undermined by dishonest actions on implementation of the Addis Ababa Agreement and a return to war. As a dictator, Nimeiri had become a political clone, constantly reshuffling his alliances, only blatantly preoccupied with power for its own sake (de Waal 2013: 216; Berridge 2015).
- 12 Founder and political leader of the Sudanese Republican Party, a party which introduced a radical (...)
28The gatherings to mourn Ustaz Mahmoud12 in early 1985 became the occasion for trade unions and professional leaders to begin discussing how to organize regime change and they immediately created the Trade Union Alliance. From this emerged the National Alliance for National Salvation (nans), which coordinated the uprising. The model of 1964 was on their minds. Therefore, it is impossible to understand the April 1985 intifada without referring to that earlier manifestation of popular power which has captured the popular imagination ever since. They also wanted to avoid the mistakes of the leaders of that uprising, but this never happened in reality. The specific trigger was austerity measures imposed by the government, especially increases in food prices. In the 1970s, Nimeiri had borrowed large sums of money to finance accelerated development, based on wishful thinking about timing and rate of returns. When the development failed to materialize and the loans were due, Sudan became locked into a spiral of default, austerity, and new loans as the us and western creditors bailed out Sudan.
29The organization of the 1985 intifada involved a similar spectrum of groups as its predecessor, but was more carefully planned. As the largest unions (railway workers and tenants in Gezira) were more fragile than 20 years earlier, professional associations took the lead.
30Demonstrations started on March 27 against price increases in basic commodities. After five days, as the protests gathered momentum, and the security forces began rounding up the alleged leaders, for the first time the steering committee demanded that Nimeiri should hand over power to the people. On April 2, the ruling party organized a counter-demonstration in Omdurman, but the turnout was poor. Demonstrators were encouraged, and the largest protest happened on April 4, as Nimeiri was preparing to fly to Washington dc. The banks were closed as their workers joined the columns in the streets, marching behind lawyers and judges who led the protests in their full judicial uniform.
31In the early hours of April 6, the army units that had been ordered to take positions at key points in the city were recalled and the generals commanding the units in and around Khartoum announced that the army had “sided with the people,” and had formed a Transitional Military Council (tmc). Instead of demonstrating in front of the Palace, the crowds stormed Kober Prison and released the political detainees inside.
32Three days later, the Minister of Defense, Lieutenant General Abdel Rahman Suwar al Dahab, assumed the leadership of the tmc and said that a transitional civilian government would be formed under the tmc umbrella, to be followed by elections after a year. He kept his word. But the same failures to gain on the momentum of the intifada were similar to those following October 1964. Even the political figures were more or less the same: army officers who had held powerful positions in the last years of Nimeiri kept their posts, Sadiq Al-Mahdi became prime minister again following the 1986 elections, and disappointed again (de Waal 2013: 217-218; Berridge 2015).
- 13 The second dictatorship regime in Sudanese history began in 1969 and ended with a popular uprising (...)
33On April 6th, 2019, different demonstration groups which had been active since December 2018 were preparing a day of massive action, marking the anniversary of the 1985 popular uprising and the fall of Nimeiri’s13 military regime. These groups, including the Sudanese Professionals Association (spa) and the umbrella Forces of Freedom of Change (ffc), called on all Sudanese people to participate in demonstrations, sit-ins and actions planned for that day. In Khartoum and other major cities, it was planned to be in front of the headquarters of the armed forces. Despite the brutal actions of the security forces in an attempt to contain the movement and prevent people from reaching the armed forces headquarters, the protesters stayed to celebrate, which clearly showed the fallen regime the real power of the Sudanese people. It was no surprise for many analysts that on April 11 the fall of Omar Al-Bechir and his arrest by the army commanders were announced, in addition to the arrest of all senior regime officials. A two-year Transitional Military Council (tmc) was declared, headed by General Ahmed Awad Ibn Auf, vice-president of the fallen government and former defense minister. Jubilant Sudanese demonstrators in front of the armed forces headquarters rejected these arrangements and demanded the removal of Ibn Auf (using the slogan:“Tasqut tani,” “Your fall, a second time”) (Deshayes & Vezzadini 2019: 4-5).
34The main features of all previous uprisings in Sudan are clear. Officers in the security services and opposition political party leaders came from a relatively small and close-knit political elite. Many attended the same schools in the same middle-class neighborhoods in Khartoum. Loyalties overlapped on sectarian, northern tribal affiliations, and political bases. Some loyalties shifted during the uprisings, but social ties between elites remained strong. For example, it was very usual for those with acute political disagreements to attend the same weddings and funerals and other social occasions. These cross-cutting social ties reduced the chances that any violent actors could mobilize social groups to use systematic and widespread violence against others. This is in stark contrast to politicians and elites from other parts of southern or western Sudan, who continue to be victims of killings and violent repression.
35One of the main characteristics of Sudanese uprising of 2019 is the participation of youth, led by activists who are emerging as an alternative for traditional politicians, in addition to the wide usages of technological products as tools for communication and vertical organization. Yet, youth activism in the last decade has become increasingly associated with new media technologies, in Middle East and African political landscape. The “Arab Spring” provoked much attention among academics, policy makers and others on the connection between youth, activism, technology and social media. Although they are often seen as threats to authoritarian States, youths have become agents of change in the eyes of international foreign or policy makers who claim to be keen on progressive and inclusive governance. Young Sudanese activists have taken center stage at demonstrations calling for regime change, and adopting mechanisms similar to their counterparts in the Middle East and North Africa (Glade 2015; Kadoda & Hale 2015: 215).
36Digital media have presented new tools and techniques for the politically engaged to gather and share information, potentially altering the balance of power. Nonetheless, governments also strive for control through new digital technologies, justifying this control as “anti-terror measures,” for example in the United States and Germany, or as part of anti-Western and anti-oppositional activities in Sudan (Lamoureaux & Sureau 2019: 35).
37These available technologies boasted of the desperate desire of middle-class youth to overthrow the Islamist regime in Sudan. It was in September 2013 that young demonstrators, led by youth activists, demonstrated for the first time in response to the government’s announcement of economic measures and the removal of subsidies for essential goods such as fuel. The demonstrations took place in various towns in Sudan, especially in Greater Khartoum. The seemingly spontaneous demonstrations in Khartoum’s neighborhoods turned into the most powerful challenge of Al-Bechir’s regime until that time. Demonstrations began as a revolt against neoliberal austerity measures and turned to demands for regime change. This new development showed the leadership position of middle-class youth; the opposition political parties followed them and tried to exploit their success. Youth in the Umma Party (one of the two largest sectarian political parties, composed of the Ansar brotherhood—followers of the Mahdi) challenged Sadiq Al-Mahdi, their leader, and his calls for modest reform, joining instead the street demonstrations (Kadoda & Hale 2015: 220). More groups emerged with names that followed the Egyptian “Kefaya” (“Enough”), e.g. “Abena” (“We Will Not Comply”), “Isena” (“We Rebel”), and “Maragna” (“We Came Out”), along with the slightly older youth groups like Girifna (“We Are Fed Up”), “Youth for Change” and others. These groups made a web of social media campaigns and alternate news channels (Deshayes & Vezzadini 2019) (Bashri 2014: 77).
38When the demonstration of December 25, 2018 started, the Sudanese Professionals Association (spa) was the main organizer of the protests. The spa was initially composed of three bodies of professionals: the Sudanese Doctors Central Committee; the Sudanese Journalists Network; and the Democratic Lawyers Alliance. The spa announced its official existence in August 2018 during a press conference. Their original intent was to submit to Parliament a study on declining incomes in Sudan with a list of demands after a demonstration by professionals.
39Since the beginning of these protests, the spa communicated through social media, providing weekly programs of protests to be held in Khartoum and other cities in Sudan, even in rural areas. This widespread use of social media and Internet as the main platforms for communication and organization of the activities was new for most of the demonstrators and surprised the security forces. They had no experience in dealing with such communications and mobilization channels. Importantly, these technologies were mainly used by young middle-class people, based in urban areas (Steel 2017: 235).
40Moreover, for rallies in the center area of the city or in neighborhood areas protests, the spa organized the demonstrators by fixing the time and location for the meeting point and by providing them with slogans and themes.
41The protests in the center of the city usually took place in central market area in Khartoum, in Omdurman or Bahri, or in other small markets, main streets and bus stations in suburban areas. Protesters sought to form large gatherings of people coming from different parts of the city to march to an important institutional building of the government (e.g. presidential palace, parliament). Most of the participants were university students, unemployed persons, civil servants, people from private sector or self-employed people, with a real involvement of women. The majority of protesters were educated people with former professional experience or prospects of becoming professionals (graduates).
42The protests that took place in central areas of Khartoum were organized under the leadership of the spa, opposition political parties, or some youth civil society organizations. However, other groups also participated and new leaders emerged from them, gaining recognition through their confrontation with the security forces. Therefore, the issue of leadership is more dynamic and horizontal, in the sense that leaders might not necessarily be appointed from above by the spa or other political forces, but that the leadership may emerge and evolve in a flexible manner according to the requirements of protests.
43Protest leaders would decide which directions were safe, protect the people, help the injured protesters, and provide assistance tools (e.g. water, masks). They would advise protesters not to throw stones at the police, and not to cause material damages in the protest area (such actions mostly occurred in the demonstrations that took place in the neighborhoods protests).
44During the protests, we could also observe a lot of solidarity from people not directly participating in the protests. These people could hide protesters who were chased by the police inside their buildings. Families and business organizations helped protesters in different ways (e.g. by providing shelter, food, water or medical assistance).
45In fact, the wave of protests in Sudan first began in Atbara, a dusty town on the Nile, located 350 kilometers north of Khartoum. The initial spark was an immediate popular response to the tripling of bread prices in Atbara after a government decision to slash wheat subsidies. The protesters of Atbara were the poor bread buyers of the town: teenage students from Atbara industrial school, artisanal miners in a gold rush border town, day laborers from Atbara Market and migrant students from Atbara River Nile University. They directed their anger at recognizable symbols of power and privilege in Atbara. They set fire to the headquarters of the ruling National Congress Party (ncp), burned cars parked nearby and ransacked atm machines.
46In Khartoum, the picture was certainly different. The protests were dominated by the middle classes, mostly young professionals and university students, and were indeed non-violent. There was often a youthful atmosphere, amplified by the power of social media. Young women and men competed in documenting their involvement through Facebook livestreams and pictures taken with their smartphones and internet-connected cameras. The shantytowns of Khartoum were marginally visible, only emerging in rare protests within districts like Kalakla in Khartoum and Um Badda in Omdurman.
47The epicenter of protests was in Burri, a predominantly middle-class neighbourhood. Here, young women and men were in a way living out new subjectivities of insubordination and revolt against the government, and more importantly against a patriarchal moral order. In this light, the bulk of protesters in many locations were young women. Young women on the streets were demonstrating corporeal presence, agency and discontent with the city’s gender architecture.
48At present, after the structures of the transition period began to take shape, the neighborhood committees proved to be a source of frustration for the established operators of the transitional government in Khartoum. The neighborhood committee proved a wildly successful organizational form and was soon reproduced across the country. Still committees and alliances of committees claiming to represent wider urban geographies made public announcements declaring their independence from the politicizing of the ffc (Forces of Freedom and Change) and its members.
49In early November 2019, the transitional Minister of Federal Governance issued a policy directive to dissolve the Al-Bechir-era Popular Committees and transfer their mandate and assets to Change and Services Committees—a formalized version of the “resistance committees.” The ministerial decree seeks to impose a hierarchy of State penetration on a horizontal open-access organizational form that challenges established patterns of micro-authority. In essence, the decree seeks to transform the committees into propaganda units, which will certainly be constantly opposed by majority members of the committees (El Gizouli 2020: 6-7).
50It is very clear, in the end, that technology confirms a dynamics of internal stratification of peripheral groups in the third uprising. By using technology and professional skills, middle-class youth manage to mobilize in large numbers against Al-Bechir regime. But this participation is a reflection of a wider social differentiation in Khartoum capital city. This middle-class youth, assisted by technology and social media in a non-violent uprising, clearly exposes the class identity divisions in the tangled space of Khartoum, and Sudan at large, where some dominant groups have the right to protest and challenge the political orders without fear of mass killing or community-based systematic use of violence. In contrast, participating in political change and revolution with a sense of belonging to the same national identity (e.g. Sudanese identity) is still not granted to peripheral people.
51Sudan witnessed its heaviest political change in the last three decades. Even bigger than the secession of South Sudan in July 2011, this political change culminated in April 2019 by the toppling of the thirty-year dictator Al-Bechir, by a popular uprising that first erupted, in December 2018, in regional towns and soon reached the capital Khartoum.
52The spa (Sudanese Professionals Association) is simply an umbrella formation of associations that emerged out of Sudanese politics in the past 20 years. It is composed of three bodies of professionals: the Sudanese Doctors Central Committee, a strike action committee that successfully led a doctors’ strike back in 2016; the Sudanese Journalists Network, formed in 2008 as an alternative to the government-aligned Sudanese Journalists Union; and the Democratic Lawyers Alliance, essentially an electoral list of opposition lawyers who have repeatedly attempted to win the elections of the Sudanese Bar Union. The turn of events in December 2018 pushed them to adopt a new strategy. So they drafted a declaration named the “Freedom and Change Declaration” demanding the immediate resignation of President Al-Bechir and his government and the formation of a Transitional National Government composed of “technocrats.”
53Looking on all three uprising, the clearest lesson is their limited consistency and transient gains. In both earlier experiences (1964 and 1985), democratic gains were undermined by a combination of conservative political parties that could readily win a plurality at the polls, and the militarized confrontation between the provincial opposition and the army and security forces. For democrats, the Sudanese case starkly poses the divergent logics of opposition in the center and in the peripheries, marked most bitterly by Garang’s rejection of the outcome of the 1985 intifada. In the years following the uprising, Sudan’s political economy has become less hospitable to civic resistance, with the decline of public institutions and public spirit and the rise of a dynamic and well-resourced patronage marketplace (de Waal 2013: 231).
54It now appears that the model continues to prevail, as the first signs of the 2019 uprising indicate the same fate as the previous uprisings. A continuous political struggle is taking place between civilian and transitional military government. At the same time, armed movements representing the peripheral regions refuse to join the transnational government, asking for recognition of the historical problems of the Sudanese State (i.e. Sudanese identity, secular State, power and wealth sharing, equal economic development, and justice for previous crimes against humanity). These armed movements from Nuba Mountains, Blue Nile, and Darfur mainly ask the restructuration of the Sudanese State on the basis of ethnic equality, and the recognition of African/non-Islamic character of Sudanese identity. And as long as these armed movements hold their arms, there will always be a danger of slipping back toward another civil war in Sudan.
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55Eventually, we need to look at the history of political change in Sudan, specifically the previous uprisings of 1964 and 1985, to understand the visions of the northern middle class who were rising up against the corrupt government, as opposed to the vision of marginalized people of western, southern and eastern Sudan who were rising up against the old post-colonial Sudanese State.
56Sudan experienced and maintained an Islamist dictatorship in power for 30 years. In 1989, in the midst of an economic crisis, Omar Al-Bechir rose to power and established a military junta in cooperation with the National Islamic Front (nif), an Islamist party stemming from the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood. The deposition of Al-Bechir in April 2019 was led by the spa and the ffc. The spa of 2018 has ancestors, known as the Syndicates Front of 1964 and the Trade Unions Alliance of 1985. Both emerged in the midst of mass political mobilization to claim a leadership role as representative of middle-class professionals, without having to rely on powerful allies of other political parties, or armed movements on the peripheries.
57What do we learn from this history and present events? Associations of professionals emerge in moments of revolutionary crisis, their politics is always fluctuating between alliance with popular classes and reliance on the military as a way to secure power. Their political characters prefer change from above and their proposal of a transitional government usually popularized under the slogan of the army siding with the people. In fact, it is predominantly a revolt of the salaried classes, and the spa certainly works as their political voice. But then, the following question remains: what about the rest of population of Sudan? What about, particularly, the vast majority of people of peripheral regions of Sudan who are constantly considered as disenfranchised and oppressed by various dictatorships or democratic regimes in Sudan’s post-colonial political history. And, most importantly, what is the future for the unemployed youth in Khartoum and other regional cities in North Sudan who led the demonstrations?