The necessity of coordination after the success of the civil disobedience

By Salah Shuaib

Before embarking on the next step of those young activists who called for the first and second civil disobedience, supported by Sudan’s opposition forces, there must be a new kind of productive resistance against Bashir’s regime. The need for a coordinating front, as the SPLM’s general sectary and others have suggested, is necessary for the sake of keeping this growing mood of struggle alive.

The suggested front is not only mainly to make a linkage between the young activists of social media networks and our opposition forces, but also to seek wisdom of how mobilizing the change groups can be useful and accelerating to the process of change.

In addition, the coordination expected to be done by the suggested body should also be supportive of the noble aspirations of the country’s enthusiastic young activists and, in the meantime, an energizing factor for their old brothers and sisters and parents affiliated with traditional parties.
This is based on the fact that most of those who called for the civil disobedience are inevitably politicized; some of them belong to political organizations, and the rest fights independently. In fact, they are the young activists whose creative ability is tested to group themselves to benefit from the channels of social media to strengthen the essential act of opposition, and to enrich the national spirit at the moments of societal atrophy.

Based on the vitality of the November 27 disobedience that produced a major national response, one notices that there were some writers who intended to minimize the importance of the role played by the traditional political forces in bringing about a valuable change through our political history.
Some political activists looked at the courage of the young activists and their appeal to bring down the regime as an alternative to the weak political parties, which have failed, for almost three decades, in making a political breakthrough in Sudan. But the general interest of all opposition parties lies in the important coordination among the national gatherings seeking a better democratic future for the country.

The effort made by the young activists through the previous civil disobedience has given Sudanese political forces an opportunity to activate their roles, as well as the professional groups at home and abroad that have expressed their united position against the regime. This effort, per se, is a defeat to the regime which has systematically been working to disperse all Sudanese unified activities.

Frightening the regime’s leaders, the second disobedience proved that our young activists, despite the little political experiences they have, are ready to inherit the political scene, and perhaps that their disappointment towards the previous generation of politicians was a reason to ignore the traditional political forces during the process of planning the disobedience. But despite this fact, the young activists should seek to benefit from the experiences of those political figures who have the same sense of patriotism to accelerate the steps toward change, and they can have them as advisers to help improve their political perceptions.
In this context, Yasir Arman, the Secretary General of the SPLM/North, said that “we have to have a foreign policy and a strategy for a clear external action in this alliance front.” Other than that, he called for attracting the energies of all the Sudanese who had sided with distinction and went in solidarity in all the world campaigns against the regime”. Yes, a successful next step against the Bashir regime and his associates requires more coordination soon to enhance unity among the elements of the opposition.

In fact, what Arman is advocating for is that the plan for the suggested coordinating front should ensure the stimulation of opposition forces, including young activists, at home and abroad. The national consciousness, the high sense of struggle, and the magnitude of responsibility those young activists have acquired will undoubtedly make them eager, soon or later, to cooperate, in good faith, with all opposition parts, so long as change needs comprehensive shares.

The writer is a Sudanese journalist. He can be reached at [email protected]