You are all alone. They are not supported by the powerful in their countries - nor by the Europeans, who in North Africa value supposed stability more than human rights. Yet citizens in Algeria and Sudan have already achieved more than their governments and foreigners have ever imagined: they have driven the two long-term rulers Abdelaziz Bouteflika and Omar al-Bashir from office.
The demonstrators are not satisfied with that. They want to occupy the places in Khartoum and Algiers until not only the dictators are defeated - but also the dictatorships.
Talks between representatives of civil society and the military in Sudan over the appointment of a civilian interim government failed on the weekend. Sudanese and Algerians have learned from the mistakes of the Arab revolutionaries of 2011: they realize that it is not enough to exchange a single man at the top, if no reforms follow - as in Egypt.
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The riots are a hassle for all despots in the region: The rulers of Cairo to Khartoum have drawn no or the wrong lessons from 2011. They did and do nothing against the abuses that people put on the streets at the time: poverty, nepotism, marginalization. Instead, they just exacerbated the repression.
Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, in particular, endeavored to portray the Arab Spring as a historic mistake. His media discredited the protests as an attempt by rival Qatar to bring the Muslim Brotherhood to power in as many Arab states as possible.
The protest movement from below is Salman's authoritarian reforms from above. Under the slogan "Vision 2030", he wants to turn his land inside out economically and expand his power in the region. But the protests in Algiers and Khartoum show that the plan to defame the Arab Spring in order to prevent new protests has failed for the time being.
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Change of power in Sudan: Putsch on the NileThe Red Sea is closely watched by many powers
Other heads of state and government are also following closely what is happening in North Africa. Sudan's ex-dictator Bashir has set his country to maximum flexibility in terms of foreign policy. In January, he visited Qatar's ruler Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani - although Sudanese soldiers in Yemen are part of the anti-Huthi coalition, which in 2015 was supported by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Arabia was forged.
Qatar had previously stated that it would invest up to $ 4 billion in the expansion of Sawakin, a strategically important cargo port on the Sudanese Red Sea coast, diagonally across from the Saudi coastal city of Jeddah. The Red Sea is a geostrategic hotspot: China maintains its own naval base in Djibouti. In addition, US soldiers and Italian, French and Japanese military are represented in the mini-state between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
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Protests against the regime: Algeria's displeasure is growingThe United Arab Emirates operate an air and naval base in neighboring Eritrea. None of these states has an urgent interest in overthrowing North Africa. The UAE and Saudi Arabia announced only on Sunday, the new rulers in Khartoum converted about three billion dollars to donate aid.
Europe has relatively clear interests
In any case, Europeans have been considering developments in the Arab world almost exclusively from two points of view since 2015: is Europe threatening a new refugee movement? And: Is there a danger of terrorist attacks?
Chancellor Angela Merkel emphasizes mantra-like, how important the stabilization of the Middle East is. The German government is subordinating everything to this goal: It courtes dictators such as the Egyptian Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and supplies weapons to the region. In recent years, Algeria has always been the largest buyer of German armaments outside of NATO.
At best, Berlin and Brussels are reacting with restraint to the democratic movements in Algeria and Sudan. For decades, Bouteflika and Bashir dominated politics. The figures that follow them are largely unknown to Western diplomats.