Sudan: The bite of Civil Disobedience shifts the ballance

By Trayo A. Ali

The December 19 – 2016 Civil disobedience Action (CDA) called by the Internet Empowered Youth (IEY) has effectively earnestly and sucessfuly kicked off in time and across the nation. It took the government quite unprepared, disorganized its usually preemptive tricks, stripped her almost naked and thrown her in panick to the point forcing to celebrate (in advance) the tradional occassion of January first National Independence Day!!. Suffice it to discribe such a move as quite unusual.

Resorting to this unconventional tactum (while combining with others smart means), it has not only pumped a new spirit into opposition’s body politica, revamped extra energy for push-up, but it gave the opposition the advantage and leverage to push the government to the receiving end. Such a move will definitely shift the existing ballance of power and the entire scheme of arrangements.

This is more so when one consider the fact that the government has no stamina to remove the root causes of the protest and/ or defuse its trigger factor which ignited and gingered the situation. High cost of living.

First:
Its New, peaceful and effective weapon.

The government was taken by surprise. The civil disobedience is a qualitatively new challange to face. Peaceful in nature where as any attempt to brutalize it shall equal to committing war crimes and subject the perpetrator(s) to face criminal charges. Human rights eagle eyes and live smart phone videos and pitures are there to relay, monitor and report.
Its a new kind of a ball- game all together. The Islamist regime buldozing tactics has seized to be effective and can not be entertained any more. Pretty convasant with harsh tactics, the regime is usually accustomed more with brute force and heavy handed means of supression. Even the government’s well propagated electronic batalion (an organized security operatives trained to wage cyber war-fare through hackering and disinformation) has effectively turned useless.

-The civil-disobedience is an unconventional ammunition, it strikes hard. With its ever growing tooth which bites hard it constitutes a totally uncontrolable new challange the regime ever faces.

Second:
It shifts the power ballance
– Ever since its advent to power (in 1989) the NCP Islamist aparatus managed to neutralize the component of peaceful resistance actors from the battle. From the onset It brutaly crushed and almost eliminated this segment. It effectively banned the trade unions, imprisoned, prosecuted, exilled and even executed many of its leaders. Today not only the trade unions are reemerging and gaining life (the medical doctors as an example) but the internet empowered young generations of youth are trooping to the battle by using the smart weapon provided by social media. Thanks to Internet the face book and other associated accessories. The hungry and angry unemployed youth are gathering the momentum and reinforcing the battle against the status quo. They are calling for change and nothing less than change. The ground is shaking and the power ballance is increasingly shifting to dis-favour the government. The government is facing the hard choice. Either to change itself or to be changed

Third:
The message is gone deep down
– international community reacted
– The protest has decapacitated the the militia (specially the Rapid Support Force) which were deployed to crackdown the protesters. Operation disobedience also out smarted and detonated the so called Electronic battalion and effectively neutralized and subsequently cut the government into its real size. Changing the celeberation dates and calendars that coupled with irresponsible statements uttered by many government leader (including the president) show in no uncertain terms how the government was panicked, desperate and confused.

The civil disobedience pushed the battle frontiers to the point of no-return. The business is not any more as usual. The fear of unknown is already broken and for good.

Fourth
Yet some missing links need to be fixed
The excercise of civil disobedience should be looked as an incremental and snowball process; not as an event. You may loose a battle but surely with more reslience you can overcome and win the war.
To make the Operation more effective and sustainable two issues shall attrack further consideration. The leadership and participation. The political leadership has to be ‘strem-line. In this regard political parties should resume the leadership role. Some lessons should be learned and some very close experinces should be considered as guide lines.

Involvement of and synchronization with the trade union is another indispensable political requirement. This supplies the operation with the necessary political Oxygen and gurantee the sustainabilty of the resistence.