How did Sudanese revolutionaries organize neighborhood and resistance committees to resist state and non-state violence? What are some of the principles underpinning their worldview? What can we learn from them?

For episode 188 of The Fire These Times, Elia Ayoub is joined by Sudanese journalist Eiad Husham to talk about his piece “⁠revolutionary aid in Sudan⁠” for The New Internationalist and try and answer those questions.

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Transcriptions: Transcriptions are done by⁠⁠ Antidote Zine⁠⁠ and will be published on⁠⁠ The Fire These Times’ transcript archive⁠⁠.

Credits:

Elia Ayoub (host, producer, sound editor, episode design), ⁠⁠⁠Rap and Revenge⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (Music), ⁠⁠⁠Wenyi Geng⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (TFTT theme design), ⁠⁠⁠Hisham Rifai⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (FTP theme design) and ⁠⁠⁠Molly Crabapple⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (FTP team profile pics).

Original photo by Ela Yokes for The New Internationalist.

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Transcript via Antidote Zine:

Sudanese people, brave young women and men, realized and understood that no one would be there to help them except if they take charge and try to do their best to support their people.

Elia J. Ayoub: I wanted to talk to Eiad Husham because I am very curious about why certain contexts, certain countries, create resistance movements that are more or less organized democratically (of course there’s variations; we’ll get into those), are more keen on mutual aid to support one another, and are more willing to have a broader critique and approach towards the state.

Sudan is a fascinating case, similar to Syria. I will try and do that comparison, though it will be superficial—I want to do more in-depth research on the matter (as of now I haven’t managed to get funding). For the purposes of this conversation, it is fascinating that Sudan had this dictatorship by Omar al-Bashir for decades, and Syria as well, by Hafez and Bashar al-Assad up until December of last year; in both contexts, how did Syrians and Sudanese, despite overwhelming challenges, manage to create something that can objectively be described as democratic? Even if, in many parts of Syria (and this is certainly true of Sudan as well), there are problems and challenges; no one is perfect and there are disagreements and tensions within—all of these things happen. But why Syria and why Sudan? 

Or why Myanmar, another point of comparison, where there was a coup by the military junta and, very soon after, a massive outbreak of resistance against the junta—to the point that now, a few years down the line, the resistance is winning and the junta is on the back end (which doesn’t stop it from being extremely deadly and dangerous of course)? There is something there; there is something to be analyzed and understood.

If our goal is building the new in the shell of the old—what does that mean? These are contexts that are mired with difficulties, with trauma, pain, and suffering, with violence and mass death. Certainly when it comes to Sudan, Syria, and Myanmar—we did a recent episode on the From the Periphery Podcast with two activists there who were talking about the aftermath of the earthquake that happened a few weeks ago and how the junta has responded by bombing resistance areas, and how the resistance areas and the groups operating there have also responded to that situation with this mutual aid principle. Of course Syria is an ongoing obsession of mine—but Sudan is relatively new. 

I have followed Sudan on and off for a few years now, but I haven’t done it justice. Think of this episode as slowly trying to rectify that. Our friend and colleague and co-host Ayman Makarem has done an episode on Sudan for The Fire These Times in the past, and recently an episode with the same two guests on the From The Periphery Podcast, but in terms of my personal contribution, think of this episode as the beginning of many to come, because Sudan is grossly under-studied and under-explored, and it offers fascinating lessons for us all.

Eiad Husham: I am a Sudanese journalist; I work for different media outlets like Ayin, the New Humanitarian, the New Internationalist, and other media outlets. I’ve covered Sudan’s conflict and humanitarian crisis for almost five years, but it became more intense during this conflict. I’m trying with my work to lift up the voices of people who are suffering because of the ongoing conflict in my country.

Sudan is going through the worst humanitarian and displacement crisis in the world. We’re talking about millions in need of humanitarian aid; we’re talking about millions who are internally displaced or had to flee to neighboring countries. 

My work at this time is not just doing what I love; it’s more trying to help my people to be heard in the world, and the suffering they are enduring because of this conflict, because of how regional and international actors are fueling this conflict and burning our country just for their interests, and they are using local proxies to get the job done.

EA: Thanks a lot. We will be focusing primarily on a piece you wrote for the New Internationalist, that’s how I first heard of you. We were put in touch by two friends, colleagues, comrades: Sara al-Hassan and Dallia Abdelmoniem, who were on our sister podcast From the Periphery to talk about Khartoum especially but also about Sudan more broadly.

Talk to us a bit about the piece. Why did you choose to write it in the first place? 

EH: I have to give credit to Amy Hall, the editor of the New Internationalist; we both agreed this was something that should be told to the world, that Sudanese people had no one to rely on except themselves, except grassroots initiatives that were based on the resistance committees and neighborhood committees which led the Sudanese revolution back in 2018 and 2019. When the war started and most of the international NGOs left for security concerns, withdrew their employees and suspended some of their local employees, Sudanese people, those brave young women and men, realized and understood that no one would be there to help them except if they take charge and try to do their best to support their people.

A lot of them had the privilege to leave, but they chose not to. They chose to stay with their people; they chose to try to do their best to help as much as possible. As was said in the piece, this is the only lifeline still helping the Sudanese on the ground. The experience is not perfect; yes there are mistakes, yes there are things we need to address, there are some issues. But they are not NGOs, they are not aid workers—they are grassroots initiatives consisting of youth, women and men, who participated in the revolution and wanted to put the country on the path to real democracy. 

They went through a lot for this country: the revolution, taking out the dictator Omar al-Bashir, then the pandemic, and now the war. They have sacrificed a lot, and that’s why we thought we should shed a light on such initiatives and how they’re doing their best to help in this difficult time in Sudan’s history. The idea came from that place.

EA: I’ve been fascinated by the resistance committees for a while, and the wider movement around them in multiple parts of the country. Despite challenges I can barely imagine, we’ve seen extraordinary expressions of grassroots organizing, democracy in action—these committees that were part of the revolution—in many places. 

Let’s get into them more directly. What are these resistance committees and movements? How did they start? How would you describe their uniqueness?

EH: After the Arab Spring in 2011, Sudanese people were influenced by the movements that took place in Tunisia and in Egypt. There were some protests during that time in Sudan, and after, in 2012 and 2013. In 2013, some neighbors started creating grassroots initiatives because they thought it was a better way to coordinate their revolutionary efforts. This was based on an idea brought by the Sudanese Communist Party in 2012. They formed neighborhood committees and started from there. But the Sudanese people have a long history of revolutions and demonstrations, so they adapted the idea into what we know today as resistance committees.

It started in 2012 as an idea, implemented in 2013, and I can tell you, in 2013 the regime was shaking. The protesters managed to control the capital for three days; that’s why Omar al-Bashir called what we know today as the RSF [Rapid Support Forces] which was previously known as the Janjaweed, and they committed war crimes, killing hundreds of Sudanese protesters in 2013, just to end the demonstrations. 

But it didn’t stop there. The Sudanese people kept trying to remove Omar al-Bashir and his dictatorship. In 2018, in January, Sudanese people took to the streets again. There were crackdowns on the demonstrations, but eleven months later the idea of the resistance committees reached the peak of development and coordination. At that moment, we saw them taking the streets; we saw them having a unique way of communicating, a unique way of planning their demonstrations, coordinating with each other, even having to protect the demonstrations from the crackdowns.

Yes, it was a political party’s idea, but later it was developed by the Sudanese people and upgraded for years until we saw this version. This is the main reason the revolution managed to succeed at least in overthrowing Omar al-Bashir. The type of structure they made, where there is no president, where no one is in charge—it’s the group who are in charge—made them more flexible, more able to work together, to gather more youth who believed that the regular political parties are not for them because of the system of certain structures and getting orders and other stuff that this generation is not interested in. It gave them another example of how to put their effort into something that they all feel they are represented in. This is the main strength of the resistance committees.

EA: You quote Dallia [Abdelmoniem] saying something along those lines, that they stepped in where the state had to withdraw because of the resistance against it, and they managed to create an alternative to the state in those areas. The fact that they are de facto leaderless also makes them more difficult to suppress, because there isn’t just this one leader that the dictatorship or the military or the RSF can arrest.

EH: This helped them from the security crackdowns. Even if you detain ten members of the resistance committee, it’s not going to stop their work. They will still be able to plan, they will still be able to take to the streets. And yes, as Dallia said, they were strong, and they are still strong, and there’s a moment we can use to explain how strong they were after the coup in 2021: the civilian prime minister Abdalla Hamdok went back and signed a partnership along with [general Abdel Fattah] al-Burhan, and in like ten minutes from the protesters requesting his release, it flipped to We don’t want him, he’s going to go get us another partnership with the forces that are killing us. So immediately this agreement was thrown out the window.

This example explains how powerful they were. And they are powerful because they are rooted in the grasses of their neighbors. They control this area—you can’t, as a government, force something in those areas without their acceptance, because they are in charge. They were a state, and a state with participation of all the people. We created something where everyone believes they are involved—they can be in the meeting, they can say their opinion, and their opinion will be considered—for the first time in Sudan’s history. 

It’s more like the people’s committees—it describes all the ideology, all the opinions in every neighborhood. This is what gave them real power.

EA: I’ve said, and I’ve heard many people say, that one of the best things you can do if you’re building a resistance movement or an alternative to an authoritarian regime is get to know your neighbors. Because once that basic social bond is broken, that makes it much easier for an authoritarian regime to divide people, to lock them up. It becomes easier to crack down, it’s classic divide-and-conquer.

What I’m hearing from you—feel free to give us examples of the areas that you eloquently explore in the piece—is that a large part of Sudan already had that; that this was an active effort of people living in different neighborhoods, different areas, different parts of the country, to get to know one another, to organize with one another, to put aside differences and really have this one goal in common. Is that fair to say?

EH: It’s definitely fair. One of the unique elements of the Sudanese revolution is that it didn’t start from the capital this time. In the history of Sudan, all of the revolutions started from the capital; if you managed to control the capital then the regime is done. But this time, the revolution started from states that the regime didn’t even consider something like that could happen in. The resistance committees, the grassroots initiatives, exist in every single state of Sudan, which makes them very strong. 

And they have a basic agreement: they agree on some political conditions, on exactly how they want the country to be; they have a similar basic agreement. For example, they want democracy and they want to end corruption; they want a system that allows all Sudanese to participate in every single decision the country makes; they want Sudan to have good foreign relationships with countries based on the interests of our people. It’s always fair to say that even though they have differences in some elements, they still manage to see the bigger picture, to be united behind one goal: putting the country on the road to democracy.

EA: It reminds me of the example of Syria, not only in the sense of the local councils and local coordination committees, but also the fact that the revolution in 2011 did not even start in Damascus; it was in Dera’a. For the most part, most of the story of the past fourteen years has been outside of Damascus: in the north of the country, in the south of the country, in the east of the country, and so on. The good and the bad, the highs and the lows, have been mostly there. 

You mentioned that they are leaderless. How do they organize? What can you tell us in terms of how the communication is done? How are decisions made?

EH: Because of the flexible structure, and because they have no leaders, they created coordinating bodies that work with the same structure: there are no leaders, just representative members of each resistance committee in every neighborhood in every city. Then every city will be represented in a coordinating body with the other cities or with the other states. This helped them to create a structure that helps them coordinate, and at the same time helps them to discuss ideas, to agree and disagree on things. 

One of the important things that these structures helped them learn is how to solve disagreements in a democratic way. For the first time we have political committees or groups that prefer to solve their differences through conversation, without using weapons, without using any kind of violence. This was the example they are trying to show the politicians and the security forces: as a nation, we should always try to find middle ground in our differences without relying on violence.

Those coordinating bodies helped them have a clear vision of what exactly their agreements and disagreements are. It helped them to coordinate the demonstrations, the goals they want to achieve, what should be pressured more and what should be left aside for a while, and how they should have one voice when they deal with the government, with the authorities.

They had agreements on a lot of stuff: democracy is a must; the military should go back to their military bases and not be involved in politics; they wanted free elections; they wanted a democratic transitional period with justice; they want justice to be served in their areas. Even the resistance committees in Khartoum were asking for justice for Darfur. They wanted justice for every single soul that was lost through the revolution and through the years following the revolution.

They had goals that they all agreed on, and these coordinating bodies helped them have conversations, to discuss tactics, so they always had one voice when it comes to the major issues.

EA: What I’m hearing is essentially there’s a consensus-based model, where disagreements are recognized as natural and there is a way of finding compromises that do not compromise on the fundamentals, which is calling for transitional justice, democratic rule, and liberty. As long as those are not broken or violated, there are ways to move forward despite other types of disagreements.

Is that a fair summary?

EH: Yeah. They had clear ideas of the goals they were all behind. Maybe they would have disagreements about tactics—Should we block the road or should we protest?—but not about topics.

EA: The next question is related to all of this. It became a bit of a meme online, the “lady liberty” of the Sudanese revolution—I’m referring Alaa Salah, that photo and video in 2019. For the most part, this photo was also used to overlook the fact that many women were part of the Sudanese revolution; in fact they have taken important roles. Can you talk a bit about that?

EH: Sudanese women have been the most important part this revolution, the resistance committees, and the grassroots initiatives. Sudanese women had so much space through these grassroots groups; they felt they are represented so they wanted to be a part of it. They had their own demands about things they were suffering from during the al-Bashir regime. Demonstrations would start with a zaghrouta, a celebrating sound that Sudanese women always started demonstrations with at one o’clock. 

Definitely, Sudanese women were a big part of every step since the revolution until today, and I want to say that we should thank the young Sudanese women who were so brave to stay in Khartoum, to stay in affected areas, even though they had the privilege to leave, but they decided to stay and help people. They are providing food, helping with medical stuff, filing for humanitarian aid, protecting those in need. Sudanese women for sure played a very valuable part in the revolution and after, until today. 

This shows the talent of Sudanese women, and their ability and their potential. They were always sidelined in politics; they were not represented in political parties in the way they deserved. They found structures that were opening doors for them—they opened the doors; they earned it. They were treated equally and they found a way to demand their needs and goals, and were supported by most of the revolutionary groups. The freedom of women, the freedom of how they dress, changing some sharia laws that were affecting their lives in Sudan under the al-Bashir regime—for them to be taking the streets and protesting, and changing the view that Omar al-Bashir and his regime were trying to implement in Sudan, that women should not be in the streets protesting and should not be participating in any political environment, they should stay away from that, and If she did that she’s not a good person—in this revolution, they earned their presence and they changed a lot in the mentality of the Sudanese people who had been affected and influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood regime.

EA: We’ve given an overview, and I’m very grateful for this conversation; these are in-depth contextualizations very few people have. We’ve explored a bit of the timeline of how we got here, and gone into details of why the committees were able to operate they way they did, where they came from. Given the nature of the conflict, the crisis, today in Sudan, let’s get into the role of foreign actors, especially the UAE and others. 

How are these committees and other movements faring? How are they adapting? What are things they’ve had to do now that they didn’t have to a few years ago? How do you envision they might adapt in the future if the situation doesn’t improve?

EH: They went through a lot, so they have a lot of experience with being flexible and trying to adapt to the situation. For example, in 2018 and 2019, the target was to remove Omar al-Bashir and establish a civilian-led government in Sudan, and to lead the country to a democracy. But then after the signing of the civilian partnership with the military council, one of the first things announced by the government was they wanted to depoliticize the resistance committees and change them into something called “change and services committees.” They wanted them only to take care of the bread, the local markets, the corruption in their neighborhoods. They wanted to sideline them from their political agenda.

But at that time, the resistance committees were very smart. They didn’t give up on their people. The believed they should have duties in helping their people, but at the same time they didn’t want to be sidelined from their political agenda. So they created a parallel structure called change and services committees—but kept the resistance committees. They were able to be flexible about the situation and not let the government win a point, saying Now they’re not really focused on you guys, they’re only focused on their political agenda. They created a parallel structure. 

Then, in the COVID pandemic, they had to create another parallel structure, which was volunteering and helping hospitals and providing assistance to those affected by the pandemic: they created the emergency response rooms. Those were not created during this war, they were created during the pandemic. They were always ready to be flexible and to adjust and adapt to the situation. This is what makes them a unique experience and a unique structure; they will always be able to adapt.

Now, during the war, definitely the sounds of the weapons are louder than the sounds of protest. So some of them decided yes, they have problems with the RSF and they have problems with SAF [Sudanese Armed Forces], but let’s get RSF (the Janjaweed) out of the equation and then we can figure something out with SAF. So some of them joined SAF, to fight alongside SAF to fight RSF, to protect their people, because the RSF is committing textbook war crimes and crimes against humanity, and sexual violence and all the things that are inhuman. The other part, most of them, decided to still make their political statements and try to explain how they see this conflict, and that both sides are not considering the best interests of the Sudanese people.

At the same time they are working in public kitchens, they are working in emergency response rooms, just to address the needs of their people. Now the highest priority for the Sudanese people is not freedom, it’s to be able to eat and get medication. So they are focused on how to help their people, especially with international NGOs not being in the picture, with the lack of funding, with all these issues. They had to adjust to the situation. I think they will always be able to, because their structure is flexible—they are leaderless; they are more flexible, more rooted in the society, so they will always have the chance to adjust to the situation. 

Regarding international intervention in Sudan, it’s fair to say that the world changed. Previously, countries with interests in a specific country would send their military to get the job done; now they look to local proxies to get the job done. It’s not just the UAE—it’s Egypt, it’s Russia, it’s Iran. Everyone who’s invested in the resources of Sudan is taking sides in this conflict and are supporting a side. I’m not going to be okay with Egypt supporting SAF, Russia supporting SAF, Iran supporting SAF, and just blaming the UAE and the RSF. No. We should have a straight line that we don’t want anyone to interfere or intervene in our country, whether it’s with SAF or the RSF.

All of these countries are not helping us out of their goodwill. They have interests in Sudan. We all know Sudan is the land of resources. I don’t know any country that has this many different resources. All of them want something. It’s for us, the Sudanese people, to decide that no, we want to be in charge of our resources. We should be able to decide with whom we’re going to do a treaty, with whom we’re going to sign a contract, and how it’s going to benefit us.

This will not stop because they stop—they will not stop. It should stop because as Sudanese we should be more forward about our opinion that this should not be the case; we don’t want anyone to support this war, we don’t want regional and international actors to keep fueling the war and benefiting the arms trade companies and benefiting their interests in Sudan. 

Now we see it: now we are closer to the Libyan scenario, almost divided. The RSF is about to take control of Al-Fashir, which means the whole Darfur region, which equals the size of France, will be under the control of the RSF. We have the SPLM-N [Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North] under Abdelaziz al-Hilu, they have their areas of control; we have Abdul Wahid [al-Nur], he has his own; and we have SAF in different areas. So when we look at the map now, Sudan is divided into four small countries. 

This should be our position, and the resistance committees are clear about it: they refuse any foreign intervention in Sudan.

EA: Today is April 16; yesterday it was announced that a UK conference on Sudan “failed.” The articles that cover it do a pretty bad job of explaining why it failed, given that one of the participants was the UAE, which is a huge part of the problem here. As you said, it’s not the only problem, but it’s certainly a big one. 

Is there anything you think we should have gotten into but we didn’t?

EH: No, we’ve had a good conversation.

EA: One thing I’ll ask you before we wrap up: you mention solidarity networks connecting different initiatives in Sudan with international support—and that includes Sudanese people in exile organizing different aid drives and other things, whether in neighboring countries as refugees or in the West. If listeners of this podcast want to help or want to do something to educate themselves, what are resources you can recommend?

EH: The ERRs [emergency response rooms] had problems with the international NGOs when it comes to funding, because they want them to be an NGO, they want to turn them into NGOs—which is not the case; they are not NGOs, they are grassroots initiatives. They will not play by the rules you want them to play by; you want them to have a certain structure where there is a president and there is an accounting team and they should give proposals and create documents. Those kinds of things don’t happen on the ground when there’s a conflict, when there are people dying, when there is intense clashes between the two sides of this war. 

This was the main issue at the beginning, and even at that moment it helped Sudanese people to adjust: for most of the ERRs’ work, they rely on Sudanese living abroad. They are funding, giving a lot, because they understand the situation on the ground and they understand the need to donate. There are still some international NGOs who are more flexible now with funding them, but USAID was suspended, and eighty percent of the public kitchens were affected by this suspension. But still the Sudanese will always continue to support these grassroots initiatives, because they trust them. They built trust with them; they see their money invested in the right way.

We have a lot of NGOs—I’m not saying they’re not good; they are all amazing. They did a great job. But the Sudanese people never felt that there is funding coming in and it’s affecting their lives the same way they are feeling now. Because every morning they will go to the public kitchen to take their meal. These fundings are really being spent on the Sudanese people. That’s why the people who are donating trust the process. They trust the grassroots initiatives to do the job, more than they trust the government, more than they trust any other NGO. They believe, We know them, they are from our neighborhood, we know their family. They are familiar with the members of these groups, so they trust them. 

In everything that happened since that moment, the ERRs have really showed that they deserve this trust. You mentioned you had Sara [al-Hassan] on this podcast. Sara is one of the best people who helped a lot in this conflict. She wouldn’t like me to say all of this, but she truly helped in fundraising, helping a lot of families. She’s doing a great job, and Sara is also trusted by the people. They know every dollar they send to Sara will be used in the right place and will reach the people who are in need.

So the Sudanese people managed to create another structure, of fundraising—how to fundraise, how to use the money, and how to prove the money was used in the best way. This has helped to reduce the disaster of this war, even if today in Sudan there are twenty-three million who are in need of humanitarian help. Believe me, if Sudanese were not donating, and other foreigners were not showing solidarity with the Sudanese and donating, without their donations the numbers would be very high, more than this. So the Sudanese managed to a create a very nice structure of funding their grassroots initiatives.

EA: Eiad, on that note, I want to thank you for coming on The Fire These Times.

EH: Thank you for having me.