Resistance committees keep Sudan’s revolution alive:

We will call her Amal. That’s not her real name but using her real name could get her abducted or killed. 

She lives in the east of Khartoum and she is a member of her neighbourhood resistance committee. This committee’s 80 members include students, blue-collar and white-collar workers, artists, journalists, trade unionists and members of political parties. Many are women.

There are hundreds of such committees in Khartoum and thousands countrywide. In the absence of a functioning government, they often provide the only semblance of governance — informal, democratic bodies that respond to the needs of their communities, while pushing for national reform.

Their effect has been phenomenal.

It was these largely youth-led groups that spearheaded the peaceful revolution that put an end to the 30-year tyranny of the brutal dictator Omar al-Bashir.

As the uprising spread, thousands of resistance committees were formed across the country. Amal’s formed in December 2018. 

“We came together organically, organising night marches and stand-up protests in the neighbourhood and participating in the main protests in the city centre as well,” she says.

The committees worked together to coordinate daily demonstrations that drew hundreds of thousands of participants. They planned and publicised routes, raised money to treat those who were injured by security forces, supported the families of the many who were killed and created neighbourhood spaces for discussion and debate.

By April the next year, Bashir was out. But the resistance committees were not done. They continued to organise huge sit-ins, especially in Khartoum, where hundreds of thousands of people gathered daily to demand civilian rule instead of the military junta that removed Bashir.

Traffic was banished from the vast sit-in site outside the army headquarters and barricades erected to keep the security forces out. Artists, musicians, singers and dancers converged to promote the revolution. Banners were posted to show protesters, many of whom had been kept in the dark, the full extent of Bashir’s atrocities. Street children were given free food.

Then came the brutal backlash. 

In June 2019, the sit-in was dispersed by the Rapid Support Forces, a powerful militia group that was part of the junta. Hundreds of protestors were killed and dozens raped. This was a wake-up call for the committees. 

“After the Khartoum sit-in, members became more aware of political dynamics,” says Amal. 

Nonetheless, they continued to push hard for a government led by civilians, and their calls caught the attention of the international community, which forced the generals to form a joint military-civilian transitional government.

This did not last long. In 2021, the generals ousted the civilians in a coup d’état. And then, in 2023, they turned on each other. Since then, the Rapid Support Forces have been locked in a civil war with the Sudanese Armed Forces. The war has devastated much of the country, leaving more than 13?000 people dead and nearly eight million displaced. 

Dreams of democracy are further away than ever before. In response, those resistance committees still operating on the ground have focused on their social role, delivering life-saving support to their communities. 

Amal’s resistance committee runs a communal kitchen to feed people who are struggling to feed themselves. Political photos and artwork decorate the walls.

“Each resistance committee is different,” Amal says, “but most of them are participating in providing humanitarian assistance and organising mutual aid. In our case, we have helped set up an emergency response room.”

Local health workers use the emergency room to deliver medical care, while soup kitchens provide food to about 6??000 people every day. For many, it is the only support available. 

“In some areas, including Khartoum, we are the only provider of aid on the ground — there is nobody else doing it. And, if we are to keep supporting our community, we will need more aid. Our funding is extremely limited and it’s difficult for aid from overseas to reach us. As the war goes on, finding food is becoming more and more difficult.”

And the backlash from the generals has not relented. Hundreds of resistance committee members have been killed around the country since the outbreak of the civil war last year — a war which is, in part, a brutal rejection of the committees’ vision of a free and democratic Sudan. 

Shortly after our interview, several members of Amal’s committee were abducted by militia fighters.

Even in the midst of the suffering of war, the resistance committees continue to show how a more democratic and peaceful Sudan is possible. “We try to keep the revolution alive,” Amal says. 

Mark Weston is the author of The Saviour Fish: Life and Death on Africa’s Greatest Lake. He lived in Khartoum for the first two years of the revolution. This article first appeared in The Continent, the pan-African weekly newspaper produced in partnership with the Mail & Guardian. It’s designed to be read and shared on WhatsApp. Download your free copy here.

– The Mail & Guardian

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– The Mail & Guardian

Include women in the fight against corruption:

This year’s theme for International Women’s Day is “Inspire inclusion”, with its goal to encourage others to understand and value women’s involvement. There are numerous benefits that come from the inclusion of women, with equity and empowerment as key components. In anti-corruption efforts, an inclusive society has been found to correlate with a less corrupt society. 

The inclusion of women in anti-corruption efforts is beneficial not only for women, but for everyone. We have little knowledge of corruption from the lens of women, let alone their potential role in curbing it. This is because we have reduced women to only two categories — either as victims or beneficiaries of corruption. We have missed an important category for women as potential agents of change. 

We acknowledge the role of women throughout history in shaping our societies; we often acknowledge that if women are unhappy with the progress of society, society changes, but we are yet to see women rolling up their sleeves against corruption even though the burden of corruption is unequally distributed and the scale tips a little harder on them. This raises the question: are women happy with the progress we have made in the fight against corruption or have they not been given a chance to look for answers to the corruption problem? 

Women are known to be the drivers of change in our societies; they have an ability to get everyone involved and to look for solutions to the problems their societies face. It is shameful that we haven’t fully used this ability when it comes to corruption. Corruption is a relentless pandemic silently killing our dreams, our prosperity, our potential, our progress and when it’s done, it even takes our lives. 

Women can bring different perspectives to anti-corruption efforts to make visible the invisible forms of corruption such as “sexual corruption” or “sextortion”, a widespread form of corruption that we often overlook that disproportionately targets women and girls. This type of corruption becomes much more than tracing bank statements or following brown bags; instead it’s just silence, shame, stigma and a normalisation of a crime we all neglect.

Corruption has always been seen as a men’s problem to solve which often fuels a male centric view of our understanding of corruption, resulting in gender neutral solutions that limit a holistic understanding of the double harm when corruption meets women. The inclusion of women in anti-corruption efforts will force us to reframe our understanding of corruption and to recognise that not all corrupt actions are equal; some come in forms that rob women and girls of their dignity and basic rights. 

The inclusion of women in anti-corruption efforts must be seen as more than just a token of appreciation or a nice to have to achieve gender quotas, but as an important tool that could help to mitigate women’s experiences of corruption. This argument for the inclusion of women in anti-corruption efforts should not be hijacked by the debate of whether women are less corrupt than men. Such inclusion must go beyond the boardroom to reach women where they are, understand their experiences and let those experiences guide our anti-corruption programmes, reporting and responses. 

Recently there has been much debate about how corruption scandals involving women leaders undermine the argument for the inclusion of women as a possible antidote for corruption. What these kinds of debates miss is that advocating for the inclusion of women in anti-corruption efforts does not mean women are an antidote for corruption, but that diversity, which has been found to be what matters most. Diversity disrupts collusive networks that often create a fertile ground for corrupt networks to thrive.  

Including women’s perspectives in anti-corruption efforts will go a long way in contributing to raising awareness on the portions of corruption we have yet to uncover and help us to shape a holistic understanding of corruption. We must advance the participation in anti-corruption efforts by providing a platform that shows women not only as victims but the agents we need for the change we want to see. 

Zakhona Mvelase is the founder and director of the African Women Against Corruption Network.

– The Mail & Guardian

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