Sudan af ter Revolt Reimagining Society, Surviving Vengeance ELSADIG ELSHEIKH abstract After more than four months of con stant dem on stra tions, the Sudanese pop u lar up ris ing, be gun on De cem ber 19, 2018, and led by the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA), forced the high- rank ing gen er als of the Sudanese Armed Forces to side with the pro tes tors in re mov ing the dic ta to rial re gime of Omar al-Bashir on April 11, 2019. The SPA de vel oped new tac tics for or ga niz ing and mo bi liz ing the masses in the face of crip pling pub lic fear to put an end to thirty years of al-Bashir’s dic ta tor ship. However, the peace ful rev o lu tion has yet to de clare its fi nal vic tory and finds itself fac ing a ma jor en e my, the Transitional Military Council (TMC), which in tends to main tain the sta tus quo an te. This es say asks: can Sudanese civil so ci ety chal lenge the TMC and lead the coun try out of au toc ra cy, achiev ing gen u ine de moc ra ti za tion, or will the TMC cut short such trans for ma tion? keywords pop u lar up ris ing, peace ful rev o lu tion, International Criminal Court, Darfur con flict, Suda- nese Professionals Association Sudan’s pop u lar up ris ing, be gun on De cem ber 19, 2018, marked an im por tant de vel op ment in the con tem po rary his tory of so cial pro test in the Global South. For the third time since Sudan gained in de pen dence in 1956, a so cial move ment in the coun try or ga nized to peace fully top ple a mil i tary dic ta tor ship. In each case, this oc curred de spite the ex treme bru tal ity of the rul ing re gime. The most re cent of these re gimes, led by Omar Hassan al-Bashir and his Is lam ist National Congress Party, for merly known as the National Is lamic Front, over threw the dem o crat i cally elected gov ern ment of Sadiq Al-Mahdi dur ing a June 30, 1989, coup d’état. The two ear lier pop u lar up ris ings that de posed dic ta tors and ush ered in ci vil ian, dem o- cratic rule oc curred in Oc to ber 1964 and April 1985. At the time of writ ing, Sudan remains at a dan ger ous po lit i cal stalemate; it re mains un cer tain who will lead the coun try out of kleptocracy and to ward a sys- tem based on ac count abil ity and the rule of law. This is a con fron ta tion be tween CRITICAL TIMES | 2:3 | DE CEM BER 2019 DOI 10.1215/26410478-7862560 | © 2019 Elsadig Elsheikh This is an open ac cess ar ti cle dis trib uted un der the terms of a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 466 Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/critical-times/article-pdf/2/3/466/731568/466elsheikh.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 two vi sions and two forces. On the one hand, there are the pop u lar civic groups who led the up ris ing and who are represented by the Declaration of Freedom and Change, also known as the Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC), which includes the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA). The SPA led the mas sive dem on- stra tions for four con sec u tive months from the coun try’s pe riph er ies and into the cap i tal, Khartoum, and the FFC led the sit-in at the headquar ters of the Sudanese Armed Forces in Khartoum, which forced the lead er ship of the Army to over throw al-Bashir’s re gime. On the other hand, there is the Transitional Military Council (TMC), which seized power and ousted al-Bashir on April 11, 2019, un der the pres- sure of dem on stra tions. In what fol lows, I sug est that in an age of hy per-in di vid u al ism, se cu ri ti za tion, and neo lib er al ism, civil re volts against dic ta tor ships re quire so phis ti cated (ru ral and ur ban) grass roots so cial move ments that ground them selves in lo cal strug les for trans for ma tive change, while also looking be yond na tional bound aries. These move ments are ca pa ble of em brac ing the di verse and com mon hu man as pi ra tions to free dom and so cial, ra cial, and eth nic jus tice. Only such move ments have the ca pac ity and imag i na tion to lead a rev o lu tion fought by cit i zens for struc tural change and through peace ful means. In an era of neo lib eral glob al iza tion and of glob al ized so cial and po lit i cal re sis- tances to it, such a new path for so cial move ments in Sudan can only be forged when prominent ac tors in the so cio po lit i cal arena (po lit i cal parties, wom en’s groups, stu dent ac tiv ists and young peo ple more gen er al ly, mar gin al ized ur ban and ru ral groups, and or ga nized and un or ga nized la bor ers) man age to em brace Sudan’s mul ti ple Af ro-Ar ab iden ti ties and to value the col lec tive sys tems of knowl- edge forged by Sudanese civil so ci e ty, draw ing on the par tic i pa tion of the masses and in tel lec tu als, and on col lec tive cul tur al, lit er ary, and cre a tive ex pe ri ences. The de facto rul ing body, the TMC, has claimed the right to run the coun try for a two-year period be fore handing over power to an elected civil ian gov ern ment. Meanwhile the op po si tion, led by the FFC, con tin ues to chal lenge the TMC’s po si- tion on the grounds that the mil i tary coun cil is not a gov ern ment cho sen by the peo ple, and that it includes sev eral gen er als who had been part of, and served, the de posed re gime un til April 11. Moreover, the FFC ar gues that the mil i tary coun cil is im ped ing the dis man tling of se cu rity ap pa ra tus struc tures and the uprooting of the deep state put in place by the deposed re gime. Thus, according to the FFC, the mil i tary coun cil should hand over power to a ci vil ian-led tran si tional gov ern ment to run the coun try for a four-year term and im ple ment a com pre hen sive dem o- cratic pro gram free of the rem nants of the de posed re gime.1 To ac count for this com plex and pe cu liar po lit i cal cross roads in Sudan, I first trace the char ac ter is tics of the new type of col lec tive ac tion, re source mo bi li za tion, and “street pol i tics” that has both ar tic u lated so cial dis con tent and brought it to ELSHEIKH | SUDAN AFTER REVOLT | 467 Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/critical-times/article-pdf/2/3/466/731568/466elsheikh.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 the main stream as a means by which to con front and chal lenge a bru tal dic ta to- rial re gime. I then show how the SPA’s suc cess in or ga niz ing and mo bi liz ing the Sudanese peo ple, par tic u larly women and youths, dur ing the De cem ber up ris ing was piv otal to the peace ful re moval of the head of Sudan’s no to ri ous re gime af er nearly three de cades in pow er. Finally, I seek to re vive the de bate about the fu ture of the po lit i cal co ex is tence of Sudan’s var i ous po lit i cal parties, rebel fac tions, and strands of pub lic opin ion given the coun try’s his tory and leg acy of mil i tary coups, civil wars, and vi o lence. More spe cif­i­cal ly, I re flect on the pos si bil i ties opened and foreclosed by the 2009 International Criminal Court (ICC) in dict ment of Omar al-Bashir for war crimes and crimes against hu man ity com mit ted in Darfur.2 “The Old Is Dying and the New Cannot Be Born” The mil i tary has ruled for more than fif y-two of the six ty-three years since Sudan gained in de pen dence. The National Congress Party (NCP) governed for thirty of these fif y-two years, dur ing which the po lit i cal de bate in Sudan cen tered on the state’s be hav ior (its abil ity to pro tect civil ians dur ing in ter nal armed con flicts) as op posed to the state’s re spon si bil i ty (to move away from the use of vi o lence in solv ing po lit i cal chal lenges).