Oslo Freedom Forum
For three decades, Sudan was ruled by an Islamist regime.
The regime pursued an ideological agenda costing millions of lives.
But in December 2018, everything changed.
The people of Sudan took to the streets
demanding freedom, peace, and justice.
There was a revolution,
And 28-year-old doctor, Mohamed Nagi Alassam, was at the forefront of this revolution.
His work helped make a lasting change in Sudan.
Mohamed Nagi Alassam
Sudanesse doctor and pro-democracy activist
Fron despair to hope: the chronicles of Sudan's peaceful revolution
Hi everyone my name is Mohammed Nagi, I am 28 years old doctor from Sudan.
Like millions of my fellow Sudanese, I grew up hopeless, desperate, and disappointed
in the way our country turned out to be under the 30 year dictatorship of Al-Bashir's islamist regime.
But the good news is that we have brought him down in the end.
Al-Bashir is now standing trial after our peaceful and non-violent revolution toppled him in April 2019.
But ladies and gentlemen, this outcome was not preordained by any means.
In May 2013 I was still a university student when I came to realize Al-Bashir's redeem through brutality.
I was part of the opposition alliance that was competing against the pro-regime students
in the university students alliance elections.
On the same day that the lists were supposed to be presented,
massive armed forces stormed the campus.
They were accompanied by the loyal regime students who were dressed
in military uniforms riding small pickups and wearing Kalashnikov's over their shoulders.
These vehicles started circling around us with our fellow students who were pro Al-Bashir regime.
Followers started firing from their Kalashnikov's over our heads.
I don't think I will ever forget this scene.
It showed me the true nature of Al-Bashir regime and how it has only violence as response.
This feeling was confirmed later in September 2013 when massive protests took
to the streets mainly by also university students and they were met by a huge amount
of violence resulting in more than 200 people killed.
But from both of these unsuccessful protests, the lesson I learned was:
The regime's only success was due to our failure,
in how it has been successful in keeping us divided.
I think that is the moment when I found my true calling.
Setting out with colleagues to try and understand and find a solution to this dilemma.
How do we unite the opposition to come together and work together to find a way and
remove this very brutal regime in a peaceful manner.
By then I had graduated and became a physician.
The logical next step allowing me to cease on the Sudanese trade union's rich
and profound role since the colonial era as a vanguard for the social and political movements for change in Sudan.
In early 2016 I joined the central committee of Sudan's doctors known as CCSD.
Although it was not officially recognized by the regime, but then the regime
had to contend with it due to the profound role of doctors in general in Sudan.
By November 2016, CCSD had managed to lead the largest and biggest strike of doctors in the history of Sudan.
This was a strategic turning point that has broken the barriers of fears for doctors and also
for the largest numbers of other professionals.
So lawyers, journalists, and teachers felt emboldened
by this activity of doctors, which eventually led to a large and dramatic increase in the activity of professionals in general.
We came together and we have established the sudanese professionals association.
The regime didn't seem to understand this monumental shift.
We have solved the main problem that has plagued us for years, a body that can be trusted by the masses was finally there.
We evened the balance of power by unifying these professionals
and by establishing the sudanese professionals association.
A unity that was later cemented by drafting the Declaration of Freedom and Change.
This document became a vehicle that has
brought together political parties and different ideologies from all around the political sphere of Sudan.
Transcending parties and ideologies for the first time in decades in my country.
Establishing the largest coalition in Sudan's history, the Forces for Freedom and Change.
In January 2019 I had the privilege of being the first member of
the SBA to ever go public on a Facebook Live video, announcing the Declaration of Freedom and Change
and confirming the leadership of SBA.
Within three days I was detained by the security apparatus and spent 98 days arrested.
During which I was constantly interrogated about the SBA and its members.
Threatened that I will be there for at least a whole year, and was repeatedly
told that there is nothing happening outside and that it is all over.
Well, that was not entirely true.
Something was happening. An uprising had begun and it would last for another eight months.
What happened and ensued was a battle of will.
Millions of sudanese, young and old
and especially women, formed local resistance committees.
These committees were independent but
highly coordinated grass roots cells that kept the revolution all the way peaceful and highly energized.
The entire affair is best summarized by the words of a young protester who was killed and
shot by the gunfire of the regime.
"Oh my friend, we are tired
but we cannot lay during the battle."
His name was Abubaker Abdelaziem. He was one of more than 200 killed, thousands wounded, and more
than 40 disappeared during the dictatorship's vain attempt to break the will of an entire people.
They failed, people won. Or did we? It depends on how you define winning.
We were euphoric when we toppled Al-Bashir in April 2019. But a new battle had already begun.
We never gave up on the non-violent pathway for change. We rose up time after time, holding
onto that spark of hope, the mightiest of which was on the 30th of June huge demonstrations.
Just 27 days after the 3rd of June Khartoum massacre. An event that was orchestrated
on the sole purpose of crushing that hope. The regime knew that their only way for defeating
us was through crushing our hope by snatching that light away from us and sending us back into darkness.
We were not about to allow for our revolution to be contained and smothered
as happened elsewhere around us in our region.
And let me be honest here,
these powers will never want their influence to be affected.
It's not in their interest to see people
controlling their own destiny or their own resources.
In our region, proxy wars are everywhere.
Competing regional and international powers who won't face each other directly,
or maybe they don't want to, but rather do that in other people's lands.
Spilling other people's blood and literally sabotaging their whole future. With the whole world seeing that,
remaining silent, and almost like blinded. And today here in Sudan we are no exception.
Despite this massive interference both politically and financially, we held fast.
We got to a transitional government that with hope and determination will pave the way for
sustainable democracy in Sudan. Our story is not a success story yet, democracy needs time, we need
to keep building up the momentum towards lasting political and social change in Sudan.
Ending the short-sighted political agendas and most importantly, always focusing on the big picture:
a free and democratic Sudan.
Ladies and gentlemen, friends of freedom, I will be frank with you here.
We cannot walk this road without you. You may think Sudan is a world way away
from you personally. Or that in the greater scheme of things, your voice is but a whisper
in a stormy world. I humbly tell you that you are wrong. Tell your leaders
and your elected officials to not fall for the age-old cliche that democracy is not attainable in our part of the world.
We are building one right now in Sudan.
More than 60 years on, Sudan's tragic history makes it abundantly clear that dictatorship is the most geopolitical
destabilizing force, not democracy. As long as there are dictatorships,
wars, human rights abuses, anywhere in the world, democracy and human rights are threatened everywhere.
In the end, I hope that many of you will come to my country and witness
this change, a rise of a new oasis of democracy in a desert of dictatorships.
You are welcome to the new Sudan and thank you.