A Call For Civil Uprising in Sudan
By Abdel Wahid al-Nur
Beloved people of Sudan, brothers and sisters, the hour of destiny is upon you. Awaken in your burning hearts the brilliant light of a new dawn of freedom that can longer be denied to you and seize the liberation that is your God-given right with your own two hands. The time has come for you to act, to rise up, united, as one and overthrow the dictatorship that has kept our nation imprisoned in fear, poverty and oppression for nearly thirty years. We have had enough of the misery and hopelessness the regime has fed us, while they, the corrupt, privileged few whom rule over us with impunity, have grown fat on all they steal from us, when we have been denied the prosperity and opportunity we long for, working countless hours to exhaustion for wages that do not allow us to live in dignity and we are then told to be content with a miserable crust of bread.
Now there isn’t even enough bread and too many of us are hungry. And look at the corpulent tyrant, Omar al Bashir, does he look like he ever skipped a meal? How many babies that die of malnutrition could be fed from what he feasts on at his table every day, where the tears of every mother who loses a child to hunger, poverty and lack of medical care, never diminish his appetite? Now let him taste the bitter flavour of your righteous anger, not the delicacies on his plate while you eat nothing and see if he will be able to digest it. Let your empty stomachs punish him. And why should we or our children go hungry when Bashir has stolen nine billion dollars from the nation for himself and hidden it in foreign bank accounts? He has taken what does not belong to him, he has taken food out of your mouths and it makes him the greatest robber in Sudanese history.
The dictatorship must face the justice of the people. Sudan is not destined to remain impoverished, stagnating and hungry. The genius and creativity of its hard working people and all the natural resources Sudan enjoys, from the waters of the Nile to our rich soil, our petroleum and mineral wealth, even the sun over our heads and many other riches, can chart an entirely different future for our nation, if that nation is at last, truly in the hands of the people and responsive to their will, in a transparent democracy and the just, free, society we yearn for, where no man or woman will be regarded as worth less than any other, regardless of the color of their skin, faith, class, tribe or gender. Either we are all Sudanese and one nation and Sudan is for all Sudanese or we are nothing.
But our history and the many glories of our illustrious past shows us eloquently that we were always destined for greatness, that we were meant to be a mighty nation and so we shall be again. We who were once Pharaohs and no less than the children of Moses, were not meant to live as prisoners of the thieves, liars and killers that rape our nation and keep it on its knees, abusing us just as colonialism ravaged us but even worse so because they consciously perpetrate their crimes against their own people. So now we must stand up to the enemy within and cast them off, where our refusal to submit any further to their subjugation will ensure their doom. They are a plague of locusts consuming the lifeblood of the people, but our united voice, roaring the cry of freedom, a sound so powerful they cannot silence it any longer, will scatter them to oblivion.
Our patience is at an end because we recognize what the outside world and the regime itself does not recognize, that Omar al Bashir like all of his henchmen is a dead man walking, that the blood-stained and dishonourable page turning in history he has written is in its final chapter. We must help him finish writing his epilogue, where he will come to the same end all the butchers and betrayers of their own people always meet. In this, we must keep faith in the certain knowledge that evil and greed never triumph forever. In the end, all dictatorship always collapses and always for the same reason, because an oppressed people will not withstand their humiliation indefinitely. We have reached the same defining moment that determines we cannot and will no longer submit to the endless injustice we endure.
He will call us traitors, but he is the greatest traitor of them all, to his own people, to God, to all that is decent in humanity and he dares to pretend he is a father to his nation? Let us recognize that like a cornered, wounded, wild animal, his increasing brutality towards us, is not a sign of strength, but instead of weakness, where he hopes against hope, that by trying to crush the people, he shall break their spirit and silence their yearning for freedom. He will not and he gravely underestimates the courage of the people whom will no longer suffer in silence.
Thus summon your courage noble people of Sudan. In every city, in every town, in every village, make your voices heard as never before. Refuse to cooperate with your own oppression. Stand tall. Resist! Shout your demand for change with all your might. Resist! Paralyze the dictatorship. Resist! Refuse to work. Resist! Go on strike. Resist! Immobilize the infrastructure of the criminal state and boycott a government that has already ceased to function and no longer has a legitimate hold over you. Resist! Flood the streets in your millions in a sea of angry humanity demanding change. Resist! Let the dictator, his servants and his thugs know that they are finished, that it is the end for them and you will no longer let them imprison your mind, your body or your future or your nation. Resist! Do so at the very gates of the Presidential Palace. Resist! Let Omar al Bashir know you do not fear him any longer and that instead, he should fear you for all he has made you suffer. Resist! You have nothing to lose except the chains that keep you in bondage.
Mighty people of Sudan, take back your nation, take back your future, rally far and wide across the country and send the dictatorship to hell where it belongs. Resist with all your heart, with every breath, with every ounce of your courage and strength of character, with the certainty of the righteousness of your cause, of your plea for justice that is the battle cry upon your lips. It is in your hands if you will rise to meet your destiny. Freedom is never gifted, it must be taken and that day has come. We will no longer accept a living death as the national condition. There is no alternative, there is no negotiation possible with a regime that only speaks falsehoods and empty promises, and answers only by trampling upon us. There is only one path to freedom now. See the road to liberation clearly, that despite all the sacrifices that we must still bear, a national uprising is our only dignified course of action to emerge from the long dark night that has held our nation captive. Fight for the light! Strike now and all of us together will overcome our oppression, for as a prophet of freedom once said:“all the armies of the world cannot defeat an idea whose time has come.” Our time has come. We will not be defeated if we stand together. Arise Sudan! Awaken Sudan! Resist my Brothers and Sisters and take your freedom! God is with you and future generations will remember you as the heroes that you are and will become.
The author is the Chairman Sudan Liberation Movement & Commander in Chief Sudan Liberation Army