Sudan v Southern Freedom Movement

From the Sudan Tribune September 26, 2012 (KHARTOUM) - Is there a Revolution on the horizon in Sudan? On the evening of June 16th 2012, the voices of a small group of female students from Khartoum University’s Barracks dorms broke out in unison, chanting against the ruling National Congress Party (NCP); setting off a chain of events ..... A significant number of new actors have joined the political movement further broadening the base from being exclusively just activists and traditional groups. The recent protests attracted the attention of the world’s media and the sympathy of international civil society – and this has helped in highlighting the democratic movements in Sudan and prompted analysts to rethink their approach regarding the political situation in the country. A new generation of leaders has emerged as a result of the protest movement at both the national and regional levels. This can be viewed as nothing less than a positive step for the future of Sudan’s political scene. Awareness and the need to ’rebuild’ unions was another positive step; as a result, activists went on to form new, more active professional unions and syndicates covering doctors, lawyers, teachers and journalists.... The protests only served to further emphasize and bring about divisions and rifts within the ruling regime and the system it has put in place. Voices within the government and party began to question whether it’s possible to retain complete power in the near future and already exit plans and steps are being made. Why is Sudan Not There Yet? Lack of Leadership: In all its years of rule, the NCP has systematically and efficiently worked on demolishing the political and trade unions which in the past were the heart and base of Sudanese political activism; and had a leading and well respected position in the streets of Sudan in regards to it answering the people’s demands and interests. As such there is a vacuum of leadership and an inability to bridge this gap. 1. At the political level, with a lot of the opposition parties being based abroad has led to a ’break down’ between their leadership and the parties’ support base..... 2. The politicization of the mandatory civil service has also played a big part in dismantling state institutions that brought together professionals from various sectors resulting in the breaking of links of association between them. 3. The new demographic in the country is a factor as the doubling of the urban population in relation to the rural rising from 20% in 1989 to more than 40% in 2011. This drastic change has caused the rural areas to be void of traditional leaders and cities populated with people who have no social or cultural links, therefore a limited sense of camaraderie and kinship ties....

From Key Components of a Successful Social Movement:  A Successful Social Movement = The coordination of a variety of membership organizations that effect a fundamental paradigm shift..... To be strategic, an action needs to be designed to answer, at least, the following questions: 1. Will it dramatize the injustice you want to change? 2. Is it designed to gain the sympathy of a wider audience (and do you have a variety of tasks ready to assign for the expected number of recruits who will want to join when they see or hear about your action?) 3. Is your action part of a larger, long-range plan? 4....... 5.......   While the four major organizations - NAACP, CORE, SCLC, and SNCC - formed the basic infrastructure of the movement, they were supported by a variety of other important membership organizations both national and local in scope -- religious, labor, lawyers, doctors, civil rights and so forth...too many to name here. Kennedy’s election in 1960 and his public commitment to spreading “Freedom” throughout the world made the Federal government extremely vulnerable to direct action like Sit Ins and Freedom Rides that exposed the government’s hypocrisy to the world. .Examples of a few of the thousands of local leaders that were the backbone of the movement: Birmingham: Fred Shuttlesworth (Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights) . . . Montgomery, AL: Jo Ann Robinson (Women’s Political Council); E.D. Nixon; Rosa Parks; Ralph Abernathy, Martin Luther King, Jr.. . . . Johns Island, SC: Bernice Robinson; Esau Jenkins various Mississippi counties: Fannie Lou Hamer; Endesha Ida Mai Holland; Sam Block; Wazir Peacock. . . . Nashville, TN: Diane Nash; James Bevel; John Lewis; Bernard Lafayette. . . .   The NAACP had local offices mostly in the North until the 1930s when James Weldon Johnson created his Southern Empire -- local NAACP chapters in the South.