What can Sudan learn from Iran’s Green Revolution?
By: Dalia Haj-Omar*
June 28, 2009 — While the world has been closely monitoring Iran’s “Green Revolution” in the last few days, little analysis has come from the Sudanese media and political leadership on the relevance of this historic event to the political scene in Sudan. And the lessons that Sudan’s civil society, political parties and donors can capture in the months before the national election scheduled for early 2010. This article assumes a scenario where the National Congress Party (NCP) will win the election and argues that all stakeholders should use a long-term approach to engage the NCP in the months before the elections and long afterwards on issues related to transparency, equal distribution of wealth and building infrastructure outside the Center to benefit the rural areas that lack basic services—mainly health and education. Iran’s Green Revolution was driven by the power of a large, educated middle class that has growing expectations and a conviction that their citizenship rights are sacred. Sudan is a long way from that, and a short-term focus on the outcome of an election and on power politics will only be detrimental to peaceful democratic transformation.
There is much to be admired and learned from Iran’s courageous youth and middle class who are asking the very legitimate question, “Where is My Vote?”. However, I see few words or actions of support from the Sudanese people, political parties or Sudan’s independent civil society in support of Iranians who have risked and continue to risk their lives for the truth under oppressive conditions and through the most populous, peaceful and symbolic people-led demonstrations the Middle East has ever experienced. In recent days the Iranian regime started to use violence against demonstrators and arrested prominent opposition members. If this had been Gaza we would have been drowned in pleas for support and government-organized demonstrations in Sudan. Of course authoritative regimes have no interest in drawing attention to Iranians suffering under the iron fist of their own unyielding dictatorship. But I am sure that regimes in Africa, the Islamic and the Arab world are watching with fear, and wondering if what is happening “there” could happen “here”.
There are many ideological parallels that make Iran’s experience relevant to Sudan, so let’s not lose this opportunity to reflect and to act. What is happening in Iran is a window of opportunity for Sudanese civil society to show that it is part of a global movement that has universal values and aspirations. It is also a chance to start a renewed, creative, realistic and inclusive dialogue on peaceful democratic transformation. Sudan’s independent civil society is often branded by the NCP as “communist”, “secular”, “un-Islamic” or simply “opposition”. Iran’s Green Revolution shows that freedom and citizenship rights are universal and that even an Islamic regime that came through legitimate elections can be questioned and rejected by those who put it in power.
Sudan is very far from Iran’s political context and from having political institutions that function. However, a pivotal moment in Iran’s recent history came with the election of 1997 that brought to power the reformist Islamic regime of Mohmmed Khatimi. Since then Iran’s middle class has doubled through expanded access to health and education. Hence modernizing a large portion of Iran’s population and improving the situation of women by giving them equal educational and professional opportunities. Today, 70 percent of Iran’s population are the youth who are challenging Ahmedinajad and his regime, which has been unable to meet their needs for employment; free, competitive markets and an equitable distribution of oil wealth.
In comparison, Sudan’s middle class is shrinking very fast. Quality education is limited to the elite and institutions of higher education are mostly clustered around the capital and are bias in their admission against students from rural areas. Not to mention that most new graduates do not have the skills necessary for a globalized world and are not able to easily join the labor market. Although there is an obvious economic boom, it is limited to the capital and benefits a small slice of the population. Rural areas suffer from abysmal access to schools and medical care. Sudan is trapped in excessive centralization of power and wealth.
Recent events in Iran also show that power comes in numbers—some estimates of the June 16 demonstration (some prefer to call it a march) in Tehran say that 7 million people showed up (almost half of Tehran’s population). The first four demonstrations were mostly peaceful characterized by no riot police, silence, the color green and strong slogans that captured the attention of the world such as, “where is my vote”, “Mousavi, go get my vote back”, “God is great and truth will prevail”, “Democracy does not equal Dead Student”, “Stop Killing Us”, “We are not rioters”, “Silence is not acceptance” and “The key to victory: Calmness, Hope and Patience”. Those words and the powerful images that accompanied them were shared with the world mostly by Iranian citizens who tactically responded to their government’s ban on international media by using their own phone cameras and digital cameras and by posting images and words on You Tube, Twitter and other internet outlets. Although some have called this a “Twitter Revolution”, this is nothing but an Iranian revolution. Iranians wrote their own story, created their own history and shared with the world what their regime would have otherwise kept hidden. A journalist from the BBC (the network was banned from Iran) commented about the inflow of information coming from Iranian citizens by saying, “The days when regimes can control the flow of information are over.”
Sudan’s independent media suffers from excessive censorship. There is a great lesson to learn from Iranian youth about alternative media and the power of citizen journalism. Iranian youth are not only highly educated in comparison to their Sudanese counterparts, but also technologically savvy and have long ago figured out how to bypass government proxies.
With Sudan’s national elections around the corner there is great pessimism amongst the independent civil society as the challenge of voter education is immeasurable and the time, resources and freedom to conduct such activities limited. There is similar pessimism amongst the youth and the educated class who believe that this election will not bring change. They say there is no alternative leadership that will bring the stability and relative economic progress we see today, and therefore they question the point of participating in an election that will bring the same old faces.
Not only is one election not likely to lead to a consolidated democracy, but an excessive focus on the short-term and on the outcome of the next election is a fatal approach. The question is, if the NCP comes to power after the elections of 2010, how can Sudanese citizens ensure that the regime will be more accountable, transparent about the use of national resources, ready to address issues of social and economic injustice and committed to improving access to services in rural areas, hence lifting the rural populations from extreme poverty? If the NCP is forced to address these issues before the election then a dialogue can continue afterwards and they can be questioned on what they deliver or fail to deliver. So far many in civil society and among opposition parties refuse to entertain a dialogue with the NCP that is focused on tangible issues rather than on power politics. With a little bit of imagination and long-term vision this might be the strategy for future progress— a strategy that requires patience and persistence.
For donors who are planning to pour millions of dollars on election administration, monitoring and voter education in the next six months: a more sustained and firm dialogue with the regime focused on political, social and economic rights coupled with a long-term investment in citizen participation and civic education maybe more practical than the sudden and short-lived dumping of funds prior to an election.
* The author is a Sudanese living in France