Civil disobedience has made a revival for Sudanese opposition forces after more than three decades since it succeeded in overthrowing the second military dictatorship. This raises questions about the possibility of ousting the current regime that came to power 27 years ago.
In late March 1985, the Sudanese opposition leadership represented by professional syndicates called for civil disobedience to confront the policies of late president Gaafar Numeiri, which raised poverty levels, escalated the civil war and failed to address drought and desertification across the country causing a famine that killed thousands.
One month later, Numeiri’s regime was toppled after nearly 16 years in power having adopted a variety of ideologies. In the early years, it was a leftist approach, then pragmatic politics and finally an infamous alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood headed by their historic leader, the late Hassan Al-Turabi, the engineer of the coup that brought the incumbent president to power in 1989.
Today, Islamists have ruled Sudan since their coup in June 1989. They came to power using familiar coup slogans such as “reckless policies” that caused widespread poverty, famine and escalated the civil war.
In the last 27 years, Sudan went through a civil war in the south that killed two million people according to Western estimates, which ended in the secession of South Sudan in 2011. By that, Sudan lost oil fields in the new country that just broke away.
After separation, other wars broke out in the southern Blue Nile and Nubia Mountains close to southern Sudan, which are killing dozens every day.
In Darfur, another war broke out in 2003 and continues to rage until today. President Omar Bashir is being pursued by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity after 300,000 were killed, and millions of refugees were displaced, according to the UN.
One cannot talk about economic advances of any kind amid all these wars and loss of oil fields that accounted for 68 per cent of Sudan’s revenues. To address dire economic conditions, the government resorted to several measures, including raising prices, which the population met with protests in September 2013. The regime brutally quashed protests and killed more than 200 people.
In early November this year, the government decided to reduce subsidies for electricity, fuel and pharmaceuticals, raising prices by 300 per cent, while the price of gasoline rose by more than 30 per cent. When the Sudanese pound was floated, the value of the local currency dropped from six to 15 pounds against the dollar. When the Sudanese Central Bank was unable to provide foreign currency for pharmaceutical imports, 200 major pharmacies across the country went on strike on 19 November.
To prevent the news from spreading, the authorities confiscated several newspapers which in recent weeks reached seven publications. This measure is detrimental for newspapers, since the authorities intentionally confiscate all copies of the newspaper after it is printed, which is another blow and heavy loss for publications.
On 26 November, youth who are not known to be affiliated with any opposition political parties called for civil disobedience, which began the next day for three days. The call was well-received, and many stayed home either in solidarity or out of fear for their lives or their children’s in school. Some private companies gave their staff time off in anticipation of any unusual events.
Universities were the most responsive to the call for civil disobedience, and were completely vacant of all students. Sky News Arabic reported the streets of Khartoum were vacant of people during the three days. Al-Hayat newspaper estimated there was a 20 per cent response to the call for civil disobedience, according to its correspondent in Khartoum. “Traffic was light on Sunday,” the first day of the strike.
In response, the authorities shut down Om Dorman private television channel and several newspapers such as Al-Tayyar, but activists published a black list of the names of newspapers that are “misleading and pro-regime”, such as Al-Intibah owned by Al-Tayib Mustafa, the president’s maternal uncle, and Al-Rai Al-am, Al-Mighar, Al-Alwan, and others.
In light of this partial success of the strike, the authorities arrested a large number of activists who will be charged with incitement of violence, according to Minister of Information Ahmed Othman. Meanwhile, Bashir said in an interview with the Abu Dhabi-based UAE Al-Khaleej newspaper that the strike “is a failure one million per cent”.
The hashtag #SudanCivilDisobedience spread like wildfire on social media with 60,000 tweets within hours of the first day of the strike. And by the end of the three days is was the top hashtag in Sudan.
However, political parties did not make gains off the strike because they did not call for it and did not urge their cadres to participate in it. Many opposition figures such as leftist leader Kamal Al-Jazouli said the opposition were taken by surprise by the strike and the level of responsiveness, just as the government was. None of them are in real touch with the youth movement.
Al-Jazouli believes the strike had a favourable response because people fear a confrontation with the government and a repetition of the violent repression of protests which occurred in September 2013, when inflation spiked to 60 per cent.
Inflation in Sudan dropped to 43 per cent in 2014, then 23 per cent in 2015, and reached 13 per cent this year. Experts expect it will rise again with the partial lifting of subsidies, and there are no indications the government intends to back down on raising prices.
The English-Language newspaper Sudan Tribune reported that calls to come out and protest appeared on social media, and were strongly opposed by some who said it was a ruse by the regime to repeat the events of 2013, and undermine “the tools of revolution”, according to an activist in Khartoum who preferred to remain anonymous. But why didn’t events escalate in Sudan as they did in March and April of 1985?
Some observers believe Sudan cannot carry out a revolution right now since the alternative is not easy. The Sudanese people have tried living under the Nation Party led by Al-Sadiq Al-Mahdi after Numeiri was toppled in the mid-1980s. There is also racist propaganda to scare the Sudanese people about the armed revolution in Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kurdufan since it is supported by non-Arabs and at times non-Muslims.
Several leftist liberal activists criticised the opposition that promoted what is known as “the alliance of people of qibla [direction of Muslim prayer]” against other Sudanese nationals, in an attempt to frighten Arabs in central Sudan from Africans.
At the same time, others believe the presence of the Muslim Brotherhood in power and their control of the state is preventing the strike from halting work at government offices because they are under Islamist control. This was a missing variable in the mid-1980s. Meanwhile, professional syndicates and unions have suffered from a brain drain for a long time as a result of poor economic conditions at home. Thus, the absence of the middle class will prevent the escalation of civil disobedience into a popular revolution.
Fears of reverting to instability haunts Khartoum residents who are relied on to “ignite the revolution”, even though war rages in many areas in the country. The regime is accused of using chemical weapons in suppressing the “armed rebellion” in Darfur. Nonetheless, random developments cannot be ignored, and civil disobedience can evolve into a popular revolution that topples the Muslim Brotherhood regime, especially since its presence in the region — in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Iraq — is on the wane.
