By Léonard VincentPosted on 18-12-2019Changed on 18-12-2019 at 21:06

This Thursday, December 19 marks the first anniversary of the start of the Sudanese revolution. Last April, it caused the fall of the regime of Omar el-Béchir, in place for thirty years. A revolution started and then carried out, essentially, by the people of the cities of Sudan.

As always in popular revolutions, from 1789 in France to 2019 in Sudan, the flame setting a whole system on fire may seem trivial. In this case, it is the rise in the price of bread, in a Sudan already hard hit by the political and economic isolation of a regime which, at that time, did not have much room for maneuver.

It was then that these anonymous actors arose on the political scene called in the country the " neighborhood resistance committees ", bringing together familiar citizens, living in the same block or in the same street. " We saw all kinds of people," explains researcher Sarra Majdoub, who spent several months this year with them . But we will say that those who took the lead were young men and young women, with capacities, networks and a certain agility. These are not people who had militant career ambitions. They had above all a know-how, born like that, from the bottom, from the daily practice of the city, from mobilization, from civil disobedience, answering questions like : "How are we going to do ? How will do we protect ourselves from daily repression? ""

Burst of anger

It was on December 19, 2018 that anger broke out everywhere. First in the working city of Atbara, in the North, then the neighboring city of Dongola, in Port Sudan, in the east of the country, in El Obeid in the center, and obviously in Khartoum, the capital. We demonstrate, we parade through the streets . But above all, we organize ourselves around our home, with a central watchword.

" At the beginning, the objective was really the material and effective fall of the regime ," says Sarra Majdoub. They chanted "Tasgot bas!", That is to say: "You are going, that's all." The regime had to fall, period. We mostly organized at night. People found themselves, taking stock of the mobilization day by day, of what was happening here and there, of the ebb of repression. "

If the personalities of the Association of Sudanese Professionals , the political wing of protest, leads the organizational battle, it relies on committees, where the Sudanese debate, sometimes argue, agree on the next steps to take. “ It's really a very interesting model, continues Sarra Majdoub . Their job consisted in deciding how to organize themselves concretely, what tactics to develop, what method to use to occupy such a place, to get to such a march. It was really, both logistically and politically, the key place for mobilization. "

The rest is now known. On April 11, Bashir was overthrown by a palace revolution, a military coup led by several generals, supported by the ubiquitous Rapid Support Forces of former Janjaweed chief Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as "Hemeti", who turned out to be the key man of the maneuver. Suddenly, the military - paramilitaries, especially - take the situation in hand. They repressed in blood, in early June, the festive and political rally which had been held in front of the army headquarters, the epicenter of the revolution, for weeks.

Under international pressure and faced with rising tensions in early July, a compromise was finally found. Sudan then enters a transition phase, supposing a sharing of power between civilians and soldiers . A compromise which, for the moment, takes place in relative peace.

A new idea from Sudan

But what was born during this revolution, insists Sarra Majdoub, is a new idea of ​​Sudan among ordinary people. “ The regime in place was racialist. He considered that these are less Sudanese than these, so we can repress them, we must make war on them, etc. , she explains. This is why, within the Committees, there has been a very strong return of the question of "suddenness" , to put it quickly, of the question of knowing what it means to "be Sudanese". And what has emerged is a Sudan for all, that is to say the idea of ​​ultimately building a new " suddenness", or rather reviving it, the same "suddenness" that brought independence of the country, which was the driving force in 1924 during a former revolt ... It was something very strong. And then people began to make the link with the crises in the country's margins, Darfur, the Blue Nile or the Nuba mountains. We had to build something strong enough to counter the regime's racialism . "

But today, many members of these resistance committees are " bitter, " adds Sarra Majdoub. With the military still in power, what predominates is " a sense of expropriation ". But they also have in mind, she recalls, a Sudanese expression which evokes the " long breath " of revolutions. Which indicates, with poetry, that it may not be all over.

► Also read: 2019, the year of all anger

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