The Reproduction of Dictatorship

Following the December 2019 Revolution, Sudan witnessed a significant rise in demands for radical solutions capable of restoring freedoms to a people who had endured nearly fifty consecutive years of military dictatorship and repression. For the first time, a revolution emerged in an organized form, rooted in genuine popular structures represented by neighborhood Resistance Committees and revolutionary youth united around a clear objective: the overthrow of dictatorship.

Yet counterrevolutionary forces consistently worked to dismantle these revolutionary forces. They targeted the Resistance Committees, arrested the youth, and killed hundreds of revolutionaries in an attempt to extinguish the spirit of change. Despite this, the flame of December continues to burn to this day.

However, the current crisis lies in the growing power of counterrevolutionary forces that exploit the war to advance their own agendas — reshaping society along authoritarian ideological lines, normalizing violence, and paving the way for a renewed cycle of despotism — all amid the absence of cohesive and unified revolutionary forces. At the same time, we are witnessing behavioral and political fragmentation within the opposition, with some factions choosing to endorse the war or actively participate in it by supporting one of its parties, thereby deepening the political and moral crisis.

Moreover, many young people — by which we mean the generation that fully grasped the meaning of the revolution and lived through its experience — lack a clear political vision and an organized program capable of translating their emancipatory aspirations into sustained action. Traditional political organizations have largely failed to meet these revolutionary expectations or meaningfully engage this generation.

The continuity and durability of the revolution and emancipatory thought do not depend solely on revolutionary enthusiasm. They require organization and a structured revolutionary program — elements that are currently lacking within Sudan’s youth movement. Amid immense pressures and conditions of siege under which we operate, we strive to create even a small emancipatory space where revolutionary youth can articulate their aspirations free from political repression, systematic domination, and ideological control — practices that are often reproduced even within parts of the opposition itself.

Building such a liberatory space demands substantial organizational effort, a sober and precise reading of the political environment, and a collective will to reestablish revolutionary action on more conscious and resilient foundations.

Fawaz Murtada