 Good afternoon, good evening. I'm delighted to welcome everyone to this panel on the roots of the revolution in Sudan. My name is Susan Stegant, and I lead USIP's programs in East Africa and the Greater Horn of Africa. The United States Institute of Peace was established by the US Congress in 1984 as a nonpartisan public institution dedicated to preventing, mitigating, and helping to resolve violent conflict around the world. In 2019, the world watched with awe and in solidarity as men and women from across geographies and generations mobilized a mass movement to depose the Bashir regime in Sudan and to demand a democratic political transition. For many watching the news, it was hard to imagine what it must have taken to mobilize millions of people day after day. It was hard to grasp the investment, organization, and leadership that such mobilization requires. And it was particularly striking that sustained protests continued in the face of internet and telecommunications cuts and under the threat and the deadly reality of violent repression by security forces. For many watching, it was truly extraordinary that Sudanese citizens continued to demonstrate the deepest courage, determination, and commitment to nonviolence and the goals of the revolution. And that that determination and commitment continues even now following the October 2021 coup and amidst the political and economic crisis. Today we have the honor of hearing from researchers and activists about their exploration and their experience with the civic origins of the protest movement. The report that will be discussed as well as short two-page summaries are available on the event page on USIP's website. This is a report that is important for Sudan and for Sudan's partners, but also for others leading, accompanying, and supporting political transitions around the world and who wish to understand the critical role of movements in those transitions. It is our privilege at USIP to advance dialogues and inform policy based on evidence, experience, and learning. We work directly with African citizens, including women and youth, to build local capacities to manage conflict peacefully and to reduce future crises and the need for costly interventions. We advise and work with African political and civic leaders and national and regional governments and organizations to shape peace processes that ensure more sustainable solutions to violent conflict. And we provide a constructive platform for these kinds of discussions and reflections. At USIP, we consider our work and partnerships in Sudan as a top priority. We know that conversations are charged as the country seeks to reset the political transition. We know that the stakes are high as protests are anticipated on June 30th again this year, and violence against protesters continues. We know that today's topic is not a matter of academic interest, but is deeply rooted in the hopes, aspirations, and hard fought gains of the Sudanese people for a better future. And we know that there may be disagreements and diverging opinions about what is discussed today, and that is precisely why this type of discussion, dialogue, and engagement are needed. It is now my privilege to introduce Mr. Matthew Siebel, research officer at USIP's team on nonviolent action and peace and your moderator today. Matthew, over to you and our distinguished panelists. Thank you very much for that introduction, Susan. So as Susan has said, my name is Matthew Siebel, and I'm a research officer here with the Nonviolent Action Program. I'll be moderating today's panel. To get us started, I'll briefly provide some background for the origins of this panel. So the panel coincides with the publication of a USIP special reports on the 2019 Sudanese Revolution written by Maria Marovic and Zahra Haider, two of today's panelists, which investigates the civic origins of the protest movement that deposed long-time President Omar Bashir. The report illustrates that while mass protests that successfully removed Bashir in 2019 seemed spontaneous, they did not, in fact, materialize overnight. Rather, they were based on years of determined civil society development in difficult and highly repressive conditions. And we will hear more from Maria and Zahra about the report's findings shortly. We also know that since Bashir's downfall, Sudan's democratic transition has struggled to consolidate its hard-won democratic gains, and progress is now threatened by a counter-revolutionary military coup. So figuring out how to get this democratic transition back on track in Sudan is the object of today's panel. And to that end, it is my pleasure to introduce four knowledgeable panelists to help us think through these challenges. Zahra Haider is a lifelong Sudanese activist and is also one of the co-authors of the special report I've just mentioned. Zahra has been a nice, key nonviolent training facilitator with the nonviolent action program here at USIP and has worked with us since 2018 in both Sudan and South Sudan. Maria Marovic is the other special report co-author. She is a former program director for Freedom House and the International Republican Institute in East Africa and is a senior advisor to the Giza Group which works on civic media access in closed societies. Jaohara Kanu works for USIP's nonviolent action program where she is the synergizing nonviolent action and peace building program officer for East Africa. She is responsible for organizing nonviolent action trainings in Sudan, South Sudan, and Ethiopia. Jaohara is also a political economist with expertise in developmental economics. And last, Munakarashi, I believe she's just jumped on, which is great, is currently a program manager for the Sudan Commission for Social Security and Poverty Reduction where she works to provide cash transfers to young Sudanese mothers. During the transition period, she has also served as the Minister's Office Director at Sudan's Industry and Trade Ministry and has been involved with numerous humanitarian and development enterprises in Sudan's recent history. So thank you all very much for being here. We're delighted to have you here. Moving forward, the rest of the panel will unfold as follows. To start, Maria and Zahra are first going to provide us with a more detailed description of the report's findings. Then Jaohara and Luna will offer some reflections on the current situation in Sudan. That should get us about halfway through the panel. The second half of the panel will feature a moderated discussion as well as time for audience Q&A. If you'd like to ask a question, you can type the question into the corresponding window on the main event page online. I will call a questions as we go. Okay, so I believe that brings us to Maria and Zahra. Zahra, over to you both. Thanks, Matthew. My name is Maria. As previously mentioned, then I will start us off by trying to present in a short and concise way the key findings of the report. But before we move to the key findings, I just wanted to share a couple of notes about how this report came about and what is really the background of this research and how this research was conducted. The reason this research was conducted was for the collaboration between Zahra and me and as the revolution in Sudan started unfolding, we decided to go on a documentation project primarily to try to record and document the narratives as the revolution was at its height. So the main research method for this report was conducting interviews with key informants. The interviews were conducted during the sit-in in Khartun primarily and they took place the interviews, most of the interviews took place between May 17th and May 27th, 2019. Total number of the respondents for this research was 42, 29 male and 13 female. And within these 42, we held one focus group discussion that included nine participants. The profile of the interviewees who offered their thoughts and analysis was as follows. We interviewed members of the FFC leadership, of the SBA leadership, a leadership of several different women's groups, media activists, members of teachers union, several civil society veterans, activists from the demands group, from neighborhood resistance committees, from political parties, from professors union, members of the political wings of the armed movement and the leaders of the initiatives. You will see that in the interview the names are anonymized for a security reason. But within these 42, we had a good selection across different generations of civil society actors, which I also think is important as you are listening to the key findings. And we identified basically three generations that participated in this research. We had these veterans of civil society who some of them really fought for democracy and human rights since the sheer came to power. Then we had a section of generation that initiated the 2013 protests which are in the Sudanese imagination considered as the most recent and close to success mass mobilization effort in September 2013 that was unfortunately crushed violently. And we had a generation of interviewees that matured in the period from 2016 and finally those who became active in the civil society in the 2018 and in the neighborhood resistance committees. The reason we decided as I mentioned previously to embark on this project initially was really to document because we are both aware that narratives change and the analysis changes as history happens and as the political circumstances change. So this is actually a kind of a window to that moment when the revolution was at its so all the respondents were actually asked open-ended questions and we asked them to explain in their own words and how they see that the revolution was possible and the success that was achieving at that time. And also to explain why this effort in 2018 was successful versus the protests in 2013 that were crushed. So when we got all these responses and analyzed the interviews we were basically organizing our research around the key themes that transpired and that were mentioned by pretty much all the respondents. And they defined the key factors for success as follows. So first important factor or the key factor was the unity of leadership. The second was the commitment to non-violent struggle or the commitment to the method of struggle which was also referred to as civil resistance in Sudan which in the end resulted in increased participation that is mass mobilization that we saw it. They also beyond these key factors for success of the mass mobilization navigated us through the mechanism that enabled this to happen. And the mechanism was something that we defined as different civic spaces that provided a space for activists of all ages to connect to coalesce and learn. So I will go a little bit and talk about the leadership as a key factor. So what happened is that the key moment that gave, that propelled the movement was when the Sudanese professional associations emerged as a leader of the movement and for those who may be on the call and who are not aware of what the Sudanese professional association is it's a it's a basically a coalition of shadow unions of teachers doctors lawyers engineers and other professions. So it all started when they basically decided to shift from presenting their quote unquote unionist demand for a revision of salaries to the government and presented the demand to the to the presidential palace for Bashir to step down that occurred in December 25th 2018 but the protests were already taking place in across Sudan. And this is actually the moment when the SBA decided to to proclaim the political goals of their struggle and that is how they came to the helm of the movement. The reason respondents claimed that was really important is because the mobilized people really needed some kind of leadership and SBA at the moment was seen as untamed politically. They were not known necessarily across Sudan but the mere fact that their leadership was not a traditional hierarchical leadership but that they presented themselves through a number of convincing individuals who were communicating the agenda was really a breath of fresh air. Then they were seen as representing professionals and in most societies teachers and doctors and lawyers are seen as respectable figures. Finally, they were seen also as being a sector of society that is in touch with the grievances that people faced on the daily basis simply by the nature by the nature of the work in the communities. Teachers were working in schools and were working with all sorts of students coming from all sorts of backgrounds the same for doctors. So I'll move a little bit faster now. I suggest you can all read the report for many other details. But this credibility cluster of traits that SBA had actually enabled them to then later negotiate the coalition and the formation of the coalition that we know as FFC which became a political vehicle for transition. Then another, as I mentioned, these are the kind of the overall factors that were really important and unity of leadership and the nonviolent discipline being really important ones. Doctor, I will talk a little bit more about the nonviolent discipline. But the key mechanism for this mobilization to take place was beyond leadership that everyone was ready to follow the spaces or the mobilization units where this activity and implementation of the mobilization agenda was taking place. And these came or they transpired in Sudan in a place where the environment was heavily constricted for activities of the political parties and civil societies and Zahra will hand it over to you to speak a little bit more about what these spaces were. Thank you, Marina. Thank you a lot. Actually, while leadership that everyone was ready to follow was necessary without mobilization mechanism or mobilization that can implement activities and work on the ground across Sudan, the 2018 revolution would not be possible based on what we presented in this report. In this research, we identified several keys of spaces that created out of mobilization to reach number we saw in 2018 and 2019. The key space that is a mechanism of mobilization in the environment that it's abrasive to traditional civil society, institution, media and political parties turned out to be an organic organization unit rooted on Sudanese traditional of community services and union. So here we talk about Mubadarat which is mean initiatives. The so-called demands group shadow unions and neighborhoods committees. I will start with Mubadarat. Mubadarat or initiatives are a group of volunteer based in Sudanese concept of Nefir call of mobilize for common work that stepped in where there is a need or where government was failing to provide much needed services or social services. There were 100 of such initiatives in the ground with their own network and engaging in wide range of issues in area. Some example included a provision of flood reliefs collecting garbage offering free medicines and covering medical expenses for families who cannot offer it. Organize reading and discussion clubs collecting, distributing collecting and distributing books to school children and so on. There is a many I cannot just mention all the initiatives. So secondly, the call demand group were organized to advocate for correcting specific policies harming local communities. These were hyper localized and mobilized around issues like harmful effect of building of the dams in the local farmer or again is land grabbing in farming regions or even around rights of a small worker in the agricultural sectors and see ports. When you talk about shadow union called professional association of different professional like teacher, doctor, lawyer, engineering and journalists. This is another space for mobilizing rooted along to the traditional of organized laborers. They began to organize themselves in 2011 and slowly building network and coalitions. The neighborhood committees which the fourth space another highly localized civic space organized space on the neighborhood grade of cartoon which was used during crash September 2013 protests to organize demonstration. Some of those committees survived and continued to mobilize around community needs and neighborhoods in period between 2013 until 2018. At the mass protests gained momentum in 2018. The model expanded throughout Hartu and become a key organizational unit to deploy tactics of non-violent struggling at very local level. Organizing protests, street cleaning, strategy meetings and listening with and lazing with other actors. Sorry for that mistake. So, there were not why they are success. They were not political or highly political engage in party politicals. They respond to community needs and grievances. They were embedded in community so highly localized delivering community assistance which is earned them credibility and trust of communities. They employ large network of members and volunteer. Therefore, when SPA leadership emerged offering clear walls and methods for mobilization they were able to use the capital that previously built and call those communities to action and they respond for sure. So, finally, I presented discussed the role of various training conference workshop that played an important role as another structural space that prepared after formalization. Those were important for allowing for new skills development, strategy planning and non-violence action which become increasing available in the period of 2014 to 2018. For lesson learning and reflecting a shortcutting of previous effort and other methods of struggling for building trust, networking and negotiation coalitions. So, all these aspects of all these spaces are reflected in our interviews in different way. Like for example, I just want to mention some example one of our our interviews is with the old civil society actors. He talked a lot about capacity building roles in preparing people for this revolution. We also reviewed women activists that she talked about how women organize themselves, how they they increase their capacity, how they deal with the challenge that they face. Some of these challenges are culture. Also the last example like activists that we interviewed, they talk a lot about non-violence as a value and how they started claiming about it from the training or from movies sometime or something like that. So in this report we reflect all that and I will encourage all our attenders to see the report. Thank you, Matthew. Amazing. Thank you very much for that summary, both of you. I will now turn it over to Jauhara to talk about the current situation in Sudan. Thank you, Matthew. I'm really glad to be here today with our distinguished panelists. I was actually also very glad to have read the report. It was heartwarming for me to be in a Sudanese person with me since this history being made and it also reminded me the effort and the all the struggling that people has gone through over this period that the report investigates and how far have we come. It was also a reminder that the revolution is a state, not a moment. So we still we still say we're still in a revolution state. So thank you again. If I want to delve into the current status today, I would like to start by focusing on the nonviolent action side of things. The report already investigates how nonviolent actions seeds were sowed and to some extent they're still being sowed but they're being right at the same time. So it's still an ongoing process. First, I would say that the first outcome or the first thing that we've been noticing is accumulated political knowledge that has been taking place. It has been spreading to more people and even the level of knowledge has been going deeper in a sense that the political participation the level of involvement in current affairs and so on has been widely spread. We see new groups of women new groups of young people and even groups that traditionally have been refraining from taking parts in politics. And this is of course a positive outcome of nonviolent action that it generates lots of participation and so on. Additionally, I would also like to highlight how nonviolent action has been adopted in new domains. Of course, Sudan has a long-standing history of nonviolent action movements but recently we've been seeing new trends. In a sense we've seen sit-ins and new methods of nonviolent action being taking place in unconventional places. In a sense areas such as Central Darfur for instance had a massive sitting in Nertagy in 2020. Areas such as that Firsal had their first environmental sitting in Africa where they were protesting cutting off trees and so on. So we've been seeing nonviolent action being adopted into the Sudanese context and being dealt with in different cases that are not necessarily tackling their game but tackling locally contextualized issues. Another important point that I would also like to mention here is to what extent these nonviolent action activities have been providing room for more critical thought on politics and participation. We've seen so many charters coming out of resistance committees different resistance committees across to that and we've also seen critics and discussions and lives and you know different platforms discussing these charters and trying to bring another point of view. We've been having a space to discuss different issues and also to to see as a counter narrative of things that might have not been present in the past 30 years. I'm not saying that it has been a rosy picture however we we do need to recognize the positive outcomes of the nonviolent action that has been ongoing in Sudan and how it's been teaching and and and reflecting stories from Sudan as well. Got it. So I think we were originally planning on hearing from Muna here but she is dealing we've learned with some very difficult circumstances at the moment so she might not be able to jump on for a little while longer. So instead of that I'm going to begin with some moderated questions. The first thing I want to ask our panelists about is leadership. So the special report emphasizes the importance of leadership under the FFC coalition and the Sudanese professionals association the SBA and analysts since then since since the like in that post-bashir landscape have expressed concerns that this leadership structure that helps to guide the revolution is now weakening which has made it more difficult for the opposition to present a united front in favor of democracy. So what do you all think that civic actors need to do to re solidify movement leadership in the weeks ahead? What what actions can they take? Why don't we I'll direct questions here so why don't we start with Zahra and then and then move on. So thank you Matthew. Based on our research and our interview they mentioned the three three aspects is very important to to learn from from the September revolution. One of them ability to united political forces and masses that required a lot of trust building because lack of trust was a big challenge in in overcome the revolution. The second things and it's very important to open in the door and keep the door open for everyone to participate. The best say of that that even that is create a space of everybody to participate. That's what happened in September revolution. For example we see that religions had that space. Artists had a space. Army movement had a space. Traditional leader has he has as well. Even part of military at the the last stage had a space. So it's important for revolution to success and I have I want to highlight this point for current situation. It's extended the revolution. It's extend the participatory not close it and making it very very very good for any main actors. And the third point in my opinion our base on even revolution commitment to nonviolence. And this is a big challenge now as Jovara mentioned. And when we talk about committing nonviolence we had an ability to create and be creative in designing designing activities or giving a space for people to share in our revolution to keep it to keep it in nonviolence way. Like in in September revolution. I remember that private sector participate by giving food, water and several things. So it's important to keep nonviolence way open the door and be creative in the tactics that we we do it. Without that and that's what many of our interviews say. We cannot have this this mass of people in the street. And there is a mass of people not in the street but they support the revolution in different ways. Yeah, creativity and diversity and maintaining nonviolent discipline seem very important. Maria and Johara do you want to chime in here with anything else before we go on? I can I can chime in. Yes. So what we uncovered during this research and what everyone said during interviews was really that SBA's leadership was accidental but it was successful because of the credibility. And I remember distinctly one interview is saying that when you go and take a bus you don't ask who is the driver but where the bus will take you. And I think this is what is needed again. So whatever the leadership emerges out of this moment that we are facing now needs to be credible and needs to be able to attract different sectors of the society where that will emerge it's not very clear. Neighborhood resistance committees are I think very interesting actor to to watch for more leadership. Because they have taken since a more prominent role of a political agent. But they need to make sure that they're representative and that they continue to build their skills for this type of political work that is required at the moment. Yeah. If I may jump in here. Yeah. I would also like to add something. Yeah. The important size is importance of leadership and yes it was crucial for the success of the 2018 revolution. But I feel like there's so much if I may say overrated emphasis on the importance of a united front or a united leadership. We seem to be focusing on that question very much we forget talking or mentioning other things. In a sense that if the opposition manages to find the minimum level of unity across like basic principles around democracy around human rights around commitment to transition and so on. It should be fine for the time being because the way I think is that it hasn't been in anywhere in the world that the opposition was a united front. So why should we expect it now in this moment from from the Sudanese civil society from the Sudanese opposition from the Sudanese civilian in a time in an age where we haven't been experiencing democracy for 30 years. It's not an easy process and it's not going to be an easy exercise. So I think the emphasis should be like what is the very minimum that we can all agree on so that we push forward. And this has been clear just before the coup that the Juba peace agreement senators have been opposition as well and we have the civilian army which is the civilian army which is an opposition now but they haven't been agreeing on the very minimum of things since the fraction happened. So if you manage to get that level of consensus at least it should be at least able to move us throughout the transition and then people can look for this united front at later stage but it seems to be a difficult task for me at the moment. Yeah, I think that's a very valuable point that it's unreasonable to expect the opposition to magically be perfectly unified that's just never how things work. So one other topic that I hopes to ask the panelists about involves mediation. So international actors like the UN and the AU have attempted to mediate peace talks between the military and civilian groups and it seems like these efforts have failed to reach a settlement thus far and that international actors are very clearly struggling with reputation or credibility problems. So can we talk more about why the protest movement has been skeptical of international mediation efforts and what if anything international actors should be doing to improve those mediation efforts? I said that Moon has put her hand up so I think she would like to answer that. Hi everyone I'm not going to I'm sorry this is actually like that but I'm going to talk about the constitution sorry for being led today we have an unplanned demonstration so we have a lot of passion and we have a lot of injury that's why I'm in the hospital with them. I can give just a small piece about what's happening this day and this day we have unplanned demonstration everywhere and every day from Tum, Bahrain, German and all the states which have the leadership from the youth the youth in the committees and the youth in the streets so these days are full of activities a full of action because everyone is ready for 13 of June in this month the big demonstration and the big economic demonstration so I'm very sorry for not being there I have the time to read the report and I feel like the report is really talking about what we have in the current situation in Sudan and what we have in the leadership and I know that Zahrao has a lot of fighting and activities with the youth in the streets and the committees and everywhere to have the leadership from them and to give them to the right way so I thank you everybody and I'm ready to answer any question you have it for now just I want to say hi now and if you have any questions I can answer it I'm listening for you maybe I will be out of the videos because I'm with the hospital so if there is anything I'm gonna listen for you all and answer everything you have sorry for that it was unplanned demonstration that's why I don't know what to do now but I will be with you in all my videos yeah Luna thank you so much for being here despite the difficult circumstances of today we really appreciate you attending so I've asked a question about mediation I'd be happy for any of the panelists to jump in and speak to the credibility of international mediators if that's possible so I can jump with that so in my opinion the mediation in Sudan especially in this time need to be create understanding of understanding of the current situation in Sudan so there is a lot of mistrust in Sudan between all parties so you cannot create a mediation process traditional mediation process like what happens everywhere I know mistrust is everywhere but now in Sudan there is for example there is a lot of valid questions in the street it's about how we trust that traditional transition justice will be how we trust that military will give us like the power of political power and economic power by the way how the power is be palace to make us appear and participate that's what you asked it in the industry on the other hand for militaries they want people to forgive them about the murder about a lot of blood sitting in all the day so without understanding that I think traditional mediation process is difficult to work in Sudan in my opinion so listening for everywhere is good and I see mediation trying to to do that now but at the same time building trust is the long process so I think this is a good opportunity and good steps to reach the goal of mediation in my mediation in my opinion thank you three that you know traditional mediation seems to be very difficult given how how polarized the system is and just fundamental distrust in the military which seems like it's going to be very difficult to recover a related question has to do with the kind of persistence of nonviolent activism nonviolent protests and related civil society trainings so the pre-revolutionary period featured many civil society and activism trainings the report describes you know the thousands of Sudanese protesters over the five years prior to the revolution were involved in some sort of civic organizations or or run trainings like this Jaohara and Zahra were both personally involved in some of these efforts do you think that these trainings are still necessary or important going forward or have they mostly kind of accomplished what what they set out to achieve how should we understand kind of these these types of civil society building efforts or interventions in Sudan during this stalled transition period I'll pitch that to Jaohara and Maria if possible thank you that's that's a very good valid question Matthew I would start with the saying that research has proven that capacity building is always the best way of intervention during mobilization first and second I feel like in Sudan we need this more than ever and and even more so as we go in the future and this this is based on two opinions first these trainings have been providing a platform or basic for movement toward democracy or establishing a democratic system Sudan hasn't been experiencing democracy in a while now is is is relatively a new state in the modern concept states so we try and we're trying to learn the foundations of democracy democratic building and so on so these trainings have been providing this capacity to different people in different areas with the Nordic and so on the civic education trainings have been allowed people to like know their rights how to interact with with the state how to interact with with one another and so on other trainings that are focusing on nonviolent action has been a shared experiences for instance another citizen who knows the history of Sudanese revolutions but might not be fully aware of of of experiences in different countries and how they say they relate or contracts with our experiences as so on so it is provided like more knowledge that people can learn from and reflect on additionally these training spaces as as proven by the report has been providing a platform for mutual understanding so these spaces have been allowed people to interact in a safe space where they can actually have a dialogue they can actually talk about different opinions where you're not afraid of the other person judging you or you're not afraid of being judged on the ideas that you share so it is laying a small foundation of a democratic process where people learn to hear and learn from each as one another and each as also so yes we do need these trainings they're still viable now and they're even more viable as we move along the transition and as we move to be in a new democratic state of Sudan I add to what Johara mentioned that I agree with on what we said there is a lot of need of training for sure but based on our experience in the previous three years in the transition period the state itself need and you need to be built but I'm not focusing on the state I focus about teachers for example media actors artists actors youth in general neighborhood committees these these so-calleders need a lot of capacity building to complete the way that we started on 2018-2019 revolution and current revolution by the way because there is a big questions about what next and and what next this question create capacity building a lot of capacity building requirement for the future of democratic transition so I agreed on what Johara mentioned but always when we talk about capacity building we mentioned the activists yes activist is training is very important but there is a different different categories also need to to be part of the democratic transition like leadership community leaders for example teacher as I said religious people these these targeted groups need a lot in my opinion thank you hi if I can jump also to that I think that the capacity building we needed also for the also about the democracy so they can be leading the future of Sudan so they will need a lot of awareness a lot of training a lot of capacity building in democracy and the meaning of democracy and also the meaning of leadership how they can lead shape not just the street but they can lead shape also that the country and the government and everything so so I think the capacity building should be also for the us Zahra are doing a lot of capacity building but I think if anyone can help me that that what we need in Sudan because most of the us now they just know about the demonstration and the revolution but what next is what we need to have a capacity building for it too so we can have a very good future for Sudan and we can have a suitable situation for Sudan in the future thank you also I forget to women we want to ensure women better in the future so they need a lot of I mean building that capacity in leadership term at least in democratic aspects exactly if I may add to the points stressed by Zahra and Muna I think the way I look at it is that we have two categories of of active people I wouldn't say activists but active people in the space ones that are somewhat experienced in mobilizing and some are quite fresh as Muna mentions that need to know the principles of things and so on so for these new people of course they need to know the foundations of democracy of the state and so on and it's important for them to know that and all the group needs to unlearn a few things that they've learned by practice because for the past 30 years we did learn some some things that are not necessarily the most useful way and we need to also be humble and know that you know there are different ways of doing things and this is what the younger generation has been teaching us actually is that it's not necessarily our old way that has been has been have been that we've been repeating is the correct way but we we need to be open and learn new things as well so yeah some learning and unlearning needs to be done yeah also I want to add small point actually even based on our experience learning and the training are are one of the process of building trust so people when we started to be together hearing each other accepting each other this is a very important part of building a trust and building future image an common future image force to them so I think this is the most important things in training and capacity building thank you yeah I really like this this discussion of the training activities as a like a way to speak across differences as teaching people how to speak across differences which seems really important to the current moment in Sudan um before I get to audience Q&A I'll ask one more question that I that I have which is about the relationship between protesters and soldiers in the military so we know that a key component of successful nonviolent action campaigns involves convincing the military or at least members of the military to support the campaign instead of repressing it and you know that seems to happen initially in 2019 when the military sided with protesters against Bashir but since then it's become clear that you know the military has reversed course and has argued that military rule is ongoing military rule is necessary for security so you know can anything be done to undo this shift and kind of more specifically we speak about the military as if it's some monolithic entity as if you know everybody in the military is captured by these generals at the top but I'm curious as to what the panelists think about the relationship between the opposition movement and regular soldiers in the Sudanese army could those soldiers be convinced to side with the people and refuse to repress nonviolent protests that are coming up you know how do you see the links between the opposition and the military go ahead Zahra you've got your hand up thank you Matthew yeah based on our interview and which included in this report one of the factors approaches of the military was distinguishing between the leader of the army who were involved in crimes and the junior officer in particular particular base dealing with the military as a one of block is a mistake in what we hear it from people who are in the you know the military needs to analyze with the understanding of their structure and the context in which they were working in the end the new Sudan will not be built by one side without other sides we need everywhere in fact the influence existing in them aspects and there is no expectation for the army and without of objective dialogue and agreement of common vision which is the new Sudan that we dream of their will be no victory there may be temporary victory and then return again to them to the conflict and as what happened usually incident we need to open the door for the dialogue with the militaries people or youth who are not part of this I know that a lot of activists said now that it's really to find someone who are not part of the blood drivers in in Sudan but if you open just a discussion with one of the youth you find that they want all that to stop they always say this is not all of us this is the militaries who stay in the in the above we don't want that but the military structure is like that so we need to open this discussion to to understand them and give them the chance to understand our side and then focus to bring them on our side I think this is very important especially in that time and this is what we learned from December position also exactly I I think I think to answer your question Matthew I think again I think we always like stuck in the in the in the two sides of either black or white with the military whether in or out as if like you know it's just like one or the other why is the question should be how can we deal with the military going forward and how are we going to to reform the military apparatus the security apparatus or even the paramilitaries and so on because at the end of the day I mean it would be nice to live in a world where we don't need an army we don't need military and you know no one has to carry an arm to defend one's country and so on but it doesn't seem to be logical for the time being so we have to deal with what we have now I think the question should be about talking about unified national security strategies talking about how can we sways those people who are like in line with our democracy values in our principles and so on and I mean at the end of the day Sudan can fit everyone as long as we have the main principles as long as we believe in in democracy and those who refuse and that's another case so as long as these people seem to be sharing the same principles so as I mentioned unified security strategies wild consultation about the role of military the level of intervention in politics the level of intervention in state governance and so on should be the question rather than whether the military should be in or out now I mean I do hope in the future that no one can no country needs an army but I don't know if I would need to see that life there now also I can add to that on what Johara mentioned I feel like there is a gap in understanding democracy and human rights in the military sites like one of the wonderful things happening in these protests like you find activists younger activists by the way who stand in front of the military and tell them about the value of democracy and value of accepting other and value of of of human rights so this protester I mean sometimes not always they try to increase the awareness for the other part we didn't I mean this aspect is absent completely on their structure and their their their culture question of capacity building I think these forces need a lot of capacity building in terms of human rights and interests Hi if I can just add to that I think as well as Johara said really all of them need to have a lot of capacity building in a human rights and how to deal with the human rights without using gun and other things so just would like to agree with that they really need it they really they don't have any capacity building in that so it's a very big gap if we can if you would like to have a civil country in the future government and everything we need them to be a part of it by training them and by having a capacity building for them all Yes and I just want to add something conceptually from the non-violent struggle perspective and in terms of how you build the participation and how do you build alliances what typically happens with the security sector is they do not necessarily can always be completely on your side nor that should necessarily be the goal of the movement but more about convincing them to look the other way so to speak and there will always be a difference and I think someone mentioned at the panel that this is not the monolithic structure there will always be a difference at the calculation at the different level of the of the security services where the top leaders usually have much more to lose whereas that is not consisted only on a small percent of the leadership but the security services are also consisted of others who have completely different calculation and it is possible with the successful movement and the successful outreach and the successful messaging to those different tiers of the security sector to change their calculation and to have them more or let me put it this way less oppressive towards the movement which is sometimes sufficient Yeah it seems like a lot of the focus has been on these high level dialogues between the generals and the leadership of the opposition but perhaps we should be more interested in kind of these middle or low level interactions between everyday protesters and everyday soldiers and how to bridge those divides Okay so I'm going to turn to audience questions now we have a couple great ones first Nick Swanson asks about food insecurity in Sudan so as far as I understand this is becoming a very serious issue this summer and part-fueled by the war in Ukraine I read recently that something like a quarter of Sudanese are likely to suffer from serious food insecurity over the summer and fall so how do how do the panelists think that this situation is going to impact the ongoing protest movement I guess in combination with general economic struggles that Sudan is currently experiencing Matthew I'm sorry I feel like I missed the first part of your question if you may just like repeat it in summary please how food insecurity relates to what yeah just the the ongoing protest movement how how will increasing food security insecurity in Sudan affect the ongoing protest movement is the question yeah if I if I may jump in here yeah food insecurity seems to be a looming crisis or if it hasn't started already forecasts are saying that like at least one one out of four Sudanese people are insecure or in the danger of being food insecure over the next month and an important link to make here to the non-violent movement is how access to bread and access to food has been one of the triggers if I may say to to to the ongoing to to the ongoing revolution so yes it does affect because the the hardest economic situation is the more difficult it is for people to to if I if I may say to to deal with whatever political injustice that's there because at the end of the day there is the active there is active mass that engages in political activities and there is a huge decent amount of people that just cares about making a living which is fine but you know these difficult situations eventually would would lead more people to get involved in this this satisfaction is a is a political situation and this satisfaction with this existing regime whatever it is because at the end of the day for many people their goal is to make a living to have a good welfare and to have a good life and so on but the moment that starts to be an issue then it might be a cause for more people to be angry and so on in addition to the people that are already mobilizing and so on so I can add short sentence questioning that based on our interviews and in the report also one of the successful keys like people moved not based on the political issue based on their needs and based on how they sit like the leaders are are mobilizing and moving based on their need not high high level of political aspect that's why I think insecurity is supporting revolution to continue food insecurity thanks I just got another question from Hamid Khalifala which is what needs to change to enable the international community to engage with the pro-democracy movement is to stand more effectively specifically the resistance committee so so we know that since in a post-bashir landscape the resistance committees have taken on more of a central role in the in opposition organizing as the the FFC and the SPA seem to have become less credible actors so how how does the international community more effectively engage with the resistance communities? If I can jump to this directly I think the most important thing that they need to have more communication with them they need to listen for them more and they need to listen from everyone in the residential committee especially to know from them what they need to know from them their objective to know their name from them the change they are looking for so I think the first thing and the most important thing that they need to listen for them and have a more communication with them more communication too not just like a meeting maybe it can be through the messages they can send it through the media especially the social media through the direct meetings through the online meetings through the every every communication tools they can have it so whenever you have more communication and more connecting with the residential committee they can trust you more and they can tell you more about what they need and the change they are looking for so this is my adding point the communication and the communication and the communication I think Mona sums it up very nicely but I would like to elaborate more on this I think the benefit of the resistance committees or the advantage of them is that them being horizontal in a sense that there isn't like a clear hierarchy however this is also a disadvantage for some people is that it's not easy for you to get someone as a leader of the resistance committees and get consensus on whatever point that they say and so on and this is a new domain that the international community has to deal with like historically you go into a country you get five opposition leaders you get them in a nice hotel you have a meeting and then you have consensus they share it back with their people but now it's not the case now we have to do the hard exercise of appealing to people make them come to us rather than sending invites and so on in a sense that we need to find ways that resistance committees can actually trust us and come to us and share things be it international communities be it all civil society be it whatever and so on and this is a very important thing however doing this exercise is always crippled by the international community's bureaucracy the resistance committees have a very fast pace one day like they organize something next day they're out in the street but the international community is always crippled with the bureaucracy of making decisions of hearing this statement and then monthly they will hear like an action coming out of that statement as well so it's a new demand that we need to investigate and if the international community is actually keen on moving forward the new methods need to be adopted the same way we adopted new nonviolent action techniques that the international bureaucracy needs to adopt new ways that fit the new scenarios that we're dealing with and it's not just the Sudan thing across the globe people are evolving and innovating new techniques and hence the global governance system needs to adopt Maria would you like I thought I got something that you wanted to add something here no you're good okay yeah I mean I oh go ahead Sarah okay it's in the way in the same way I just want international committee if you can send them a sincere understand that the future of Sudan is built by the image of this generation this new generation so stop dealing with the old generation you need to understand that this generation had a view of future of Sudan and it's a most bright view of Sudan so according with them as a leader give them a chance give them the space to present to the world that the only way to understand how they think and where we want to go thank you yeah so more more dedicated engagement with youth activists I think it's the clear message there despite the coordination difficulties of decentralized movements so one other audience question comes from Real Khalifa who asks how important was the use of social media in terms of mobilizing people into non-violent action and particularly in creating solidarity amongst the Sudanese diaspora living abroad I'll pitch that to Maria and Zahra to start because they address it in the report yes it was it was incredibly important that was one of the spaces that we didn't analyze in depth in the report but that definitely played an important role as a communication space as mobilization space as a space where all sorts of activities were taking place including you know reporting on the on the security risks that were that were present during the mobilization and so on definitely the internet penetration is a factor there and not everyone across Sudan was able to use these spaces I mean social media and different messaging applications so people figured out the way how to how to move and transition between those who had access to internet and using more traditional means of communicating even you know from the meeting to the communities verbally based on what was happening on the social media so thank you for that question I wish we spent more time in the report discussing that but it was definitely a very important element of an important let's say a factor that facilitated organization and as one of the even senior civil society leaders said during the interview basically Facebook at one point during the revolution became this public forum like a public assembly where the ideas were shared where the ideas were refined and through which for example SBA accepted some ideas that were coming from the ground up yeah I also want to add the question that it's not provided concerning that I think Diaspora, so Denise Diaspora play a great work during the revolution during September revolution until the moment so I want to highlight some issues that they did actually very effectively when the regime shut down the internet two times the Diaspora people transfer the information about human abuse to the world so if you remember the campaign of Blue Sudan it's completely organized by Diaspora people they also add a lot in organizing people in the crowd and they are very well organized and I see a lot of Diaspora people in different countries supporting the revolution or supporting it but Sudanese revolution they are unique because they started to organize themselves there is a lot of group intuitures in Facebook in different groups even in the ground to support the idea of revolution until the moment they continue they didn't stop they didn't feel that we're done and they organized even offline activities remember the big march in US in Washington based on supporting the revolution and so I think this is one of the unique aspects of Sudan revolution and as Maria said we didn't cover this in our report but we think this is another thing because in my opinion this is something need to be researched separately it's a big issue how the Diaspora doing what they doing for the revolution and still doing till the moment yes and there were some we didn't investigate this further as Zafra mentioned but it's definitely worth exploring more because in this case Diaspora played a very positive role which is not always the case when we are talking about different Diasporas around the world and I think they also supported with funding which I think it's really important to mention if I may appeal to a certain part of the question about how social media contributed to building solidarity amongst Sudanese people be it in Sudan or outside Sudan it's true that not everyone has access to social media but it has been evident that social media has been contributing to building a unified solidarity about issues ongoing in Sudan so that is a very big country and not necessarily everyone knows about issues happening as a region and this has been the case for years you would see that you know there is a massive incident happening in eastern Sudan and the rest of the country not necessarily engaging with it or talking about it this is not the case anymore whenever something happens in any part of this country now there is access to knowledge about it and people are actually engaging demanding change and so on and not only that even politicians public figures and leaders are being called out when they don't engage to these local issues so for instance if a leader whatever leader political whatever in Khartoum tweets about something why something is happening in eastern Sudan people would be like people are dying in eastern Sudan why are you not talking about that matter and so on so it did contribute to building a unified solidarity about whatever issue that's happening across Sudan and so on and it's still ongoing and yeah these effects are difficult to kind of quantify specifically but I think it's clear that it was quite important so we're about at the end of our time here and I just want to give the panelists one last chance to chime in here with what key message or takeaway would you most like to send to our audience today about the ongoing protests and and efforts pro-democracy efforts in Sudan I'll start with Jaohara here and then we can go around the table okay I was taken by surprise actually I think I think the key message is that there is a lot to learn from the ongoing revolution and still unfolds and it's still ongoing and there's also a lot to provide so as long as we have that in mind we need to we don't need to like keep our hands of Sudan we need to still keep supporting the ongoing change we'll have to call on somebody how about Maria I think it's clear and I'm echoing Jaohara here Jaohara sorry that you know Sudan belongs to the generation that carried out this mobilization and that that was active during the revolution and that is the generation that needs to be supported Mona Jaohara Mona Jaohara feel free so I I I want to send a message for Sudanese new generation who protests especially today in the street and they've prepared for 13 of June a big event and I want to say that non-violence is work as one of our interviewers told us Mia and Maria in the sitting and said he told us it's work non-violence it's work that's what he said so it's work but also we need to commit to it and we need to understand the two pillars of non-violence to success the one pillar is to power of people building power of people extending the participatory in the revolution itself so we need to know that we want to add more people not dividing people so any mentality of dividing is again is a revolution itself a non-violence revolution so the second pillar and it's very important we need to understand our steps where we go what the the value is what's our objective what the vision of Sudan so in my opinion I learned from this report and from our trainings and non-violence research because research non-violence use two things extending the revolution itself and strategize it's very important to strategize our our steps awesome Muna you have any final thoughts for the panel before we close out thank you all for that and I'm sure that like this meeting it will be very useful for all of us and I'm gonna say so yeah I know for now being with you but we have really a very hard situation here in the hospitals we have a lot of people so I'm so sorry for that but really thank you so much for this meeting and I think again and again if we have a lot of like this meeting with Yosemite people and with the residential communities and with all the civil society it will be very useful for us and if we have more discussion in the report because the report is very important and have a lot of of finding that it's very useful for the people if we have a lot of discussion for it with more people from the community community as a general it will be very useful thank you so much again well I'd like to take the opportunity again to thank all of our panelists for attending some in very difficult circumstances we really appreciate you all being here and thanks again to the audience for joining us we hope that you found this as engaging as we did until next time thank you all again