On the Seventh Anniversary Eve of the December 18, 2018 Revolution: A Message to the Central Council of the FFC on the Resistance Committees

Abdullah Ali Ibrahim

*(I have found that whenever I address a dismal plan adopted by the Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC) during the transitional government, its guardians rush to justify it by claiming they had no real power—bereft, as they say, of the weapons held by the armed forces or the Rapid Support Forces. Let us set aside the poverty of this excuse. Their weakness is precisely what we repeatedly warned them about, so that they would not gamble on arrangements such as the so-called Framework Agreement, however noble its stated intent and however bankrupt its prospects.

Here, however, we return to the FFC’s weakness with a more fundamental question: what weakened it to the point where it now relies on excuses without subjecting itself to merciless self-examination? Revolutions do not occur every day, and squandering one with such casualness—by tossing out justifications that only compound the damage—is an unforgivable failing.

This article examines one manifestation of how the FFC undermined itself: by dissolving its own political army, the Resistance Committees. Below is a message I addressed to the FFC Central Council in August 2020, which I revisit today in light of the ways in which the FFC withdrew from those committees, a withdrawal that sealed a fateful rupture between them.)*

Since the October 25 coup, I have called on FFC circles to cease the mutual recriminations over who committed the error—or errors—that wrecked the transitional period. There is no surviving faction. No one succeeded. I called instead for a scientific approach to examining the collapse of the transition: convening an academic conference that would elevate the discussion to a sober diagnostic discourse, rather than one of indulgence or provocation.

When no one took the initiative, I reconciled myself to publishing articles I had written over the past three years and more, in which I attempted such a diagnosis of the ailments of both the transition and the revolution. In today’s article, you will find an examination of what I see as the FFC’s fatal mistake in abandoning the Resistance Committees—thereby dissolving, by its own hand, its political army—while its adversary not only preserved its military and political formations but expanded them. What follows is the message I sent to the FFC Central Council, warning that disbanding its political army, the Resistance Committees, was a harbinger of catastrophe.

To the Esteemed Members of the FFC Central Council,
Greetings,

I write to you out of concern for what the Resistance Committees have been subjected to by individuals and political, executive, and sovereign bodies counted among the ranks of the December 19, 2018 Revolution. This political defect became evident in the isolation that surrounded the Resistance Committee of Hattana as it carried out its revolutionary duties.

The signing by civilian members of the Sovereign Council of a statement condemning that committee’s actions marked yet another episode in the estrangement of the Resistance Committees—a pattern that has recurred repeatedly. In its repetition, it appeared to me to complete the orphaning of these committees within the strategy of the revolutionary state.

On one recent occasion, I took issue with Mr. Khalid Omar Yousif for hastily denying any connection to the Resistance Committee of the city of Sennar after it was accused of assaulting Mr. Othman Dhi Al-Nun. I likewise objected to Mr. Ibrahim Al-Sheikh when I found him more concerned with keeping his own reputation, that of his son, and his political legacy unsullied in the well-known incident in which the Resistance Committee of Burri halted the infamous vehicle disguise.

In both instances, I faulted Khalid and Ibrahim for being quicker to absolve themselves than to endure the burden of leadership at a difficult moment when the Resistance Committees found themselves under pressure.

I observed that the representatives of the Forces of Freedom and Change on the Sovereign Council, by condemning the Hattana Resistance Committee, accepted wholesale the charges leveled against it. They adopted, verbatim, the narrative and language of the counter-revolution. I was astonished that they did not pause to verify claims that racist expressions had allegedly marred the incident—claims advanced by remnants of the old regime. The youth of Hattana were not afforded the same consideration extended to Lieutenant General Kabashi, the central figure in the incident, who has remained under investigation since June 2019 for the massacre of the sit-in at General Command—an accusation he himself publicly acknowledged.

I had hoped that a civilian member of the Sovereign Council would have the courage to sit with the youth of Hattana and examine the matter with them from all angles. Such an approach is dictated by fairness and sound conscience, even before the political responsibility borne by those who claim leadership over the Resistance Committees.

I wished that recordings of the incident had been submitted to an audio expert to verify the contested expressions: Were they abusive? Did the abusive overshadow the legitimate act of speaking truth to authority? Who precisely uttered the offending words, given that infiltration in such situations is always possible?

It pains me to see the civilian members of the Sovereign Council succumb to the intimidation of the counter-revolution. They chose to disavow one of the revolution’s own bases in the hope of containing the problem—as if it would be the last problem they faced. I had hoped for a strategy of offense rather than defense: to rush to engage directly with the Hattana Resistance Committee upon hearing of the incident, to listen to their account, to discuss the details with them from a position of leadership rather than guardianship, and to arrive together at a sober revolutionary stance. Such sobriety is neither arrogance nor defiance; apology, when warranted, is among the hallmarks of the revolutionary ethic.

It may be true that the civilian members’ haste to condemn the Hattana youth stemmed from a broader defensive posture that revolutionary forces have recently been forced into under the weight of their own disorienting mistakes. Suffice it to say that this defensive crouch has driven some among us to resort to the courts to clear their names. Yet the revolution was won through offense, and it will only be preserved through offense. Defensive positions are fragile—and fatal.

Today, the Resistance Committees stand at the center of a counter-revolutionary storm. Elements of the old regime have compiled a catalogue of alleged—some fabricated, some real—errors by these committees and are circulating it among the public. They want people to see the committees as reckless and inept, even though they are the very ones who stayed awake for the revolution and its people.

Unfortunately, this beauty does not spread its fragrance because there is no institutional care that places the Resistance Committees at the heart of state strategy—so that the committees are not forced to resort to mass marches simply to bridge the gap between themselves and the state. I have found no one who thought seriously about such a strategy, except Imam Sadiq al-Mahdi, who in his final roadmap called for elevating the Resistance Committees into a flexible central body that would refine their impact and effectiveness.

I had proposed something similar to those who contacted me early on, when the revolution was still in its infancy, asking what should be done. I suggested that a first step might be for the committees to issue a news bulletin (not a newspaper) through which different committees could share and exchange experiences. This could be followed by establishing an institute for social, political, and cultural studies, offering courses for committee leaders to help them cultivate the political consciousness they entered with force but little preparation.

If you permit me a return to history, I fear that, due to excessive revolutionary orphanhood, these committees may suffer the same fate as the Committees of the Professionals’ Front during the October 1964 Revolution. Those committees spread across the country and carried the burden of the revolution to its culmination. They took care of themselves and convened their first national conference.

When traditional parties and the Muslim Brotherhood failed to gain a foothold within them, they sought to isolate them by branding them communist. Among the demands that particularly alarmed reactionary forces was the Professionals’ Front’s call for an electoral law that ensured fair representation for urban forces—workers, intellectuals, and progressive rural groups—who had suffered most under dictatorship, had taken the lead in the revolution, and sought to safeguard parliamentary democracy against the perilous paths of coups.

The counter-revolutionary propaganda proved so effective that professional forces gradually wavered, retreating from their revolution by withdrawing from the Professionals’ Front one organization after another. The rest, as they say, is history.

I therefore appeal to you in the Forces of Freedom and Change, and to the divided Professionals’ Association (alas), to treat the Resistance Committees with the care they deserve—committees that have never ceased to serve the nation. I hope you will unite in defending them through institutional frameworks, beginning with Imam Sadiq al-Mahdi’s proposal and others like it, which root these committees in their exceptional practice of bottom-up democracy—something revolutions and societies long for and strive mightily to cultivate, yet which has emerged among our youth here spontaneously, delicate and radiant like a fine mist.

I extend to you my highest appreciation for your efforts under conditions unparalleled in Sudan’s history of governance—an ordeal from which we pray to emerge crowned with a nation worthy of its people.

Sincerely,