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[Music]
I'm really happy um to announce Ahmed
Ahmed is an artist and activist from
Sudan and he's going to present us two
great um projects from Sudan um that
support decentralized Grassroots
movements there and so please give a big
round of applause to
[Applause]
Ahmed all right um yeah I'm going to
start so first of all this is not a
really technical uh presentation so if
anything that technically came in your
mind uh if you ask me question later I
will not able to to answer but you can
explain it to me and help me on it so
yeah I'm an activist and artist from
Sudan uh helping a Grassroots movement
so I'm going to start my presentation
with saying that over the course of
enormous years countless communities
across the globe have dedicated
themselves dismantling the just system
and is striving to contrust more
Equitable World although the Strategies
employed have been diverse a common
threat has been a Reliance on physical
presence on public
spaces uh in Sudan we also impra the
moment to voice our longing for equality
our opposition to capitalism and our
dedication to establishing Allah's
Democratic Foundation as a result of
this motives and various others a
successful Revolution culminated in
overthrow over uh 30 years
dictatorship the power model that the
Sudanese Community had to contend was
expedit three prominent characteristic
militarism the concentration of power
within single community in a specific
City and the systematic ex extractions
and exploitation of the rest of the
country especially the ruler area
while the uprising in 2018 2019
succeeded in toppling the regime Figure
Head the structural Integrity of the
regime plered by the security and
Military apparatus proved resilient
allowing for a subsequent Resurgence
basically the military hang on and B a
fight but um during that fight in the
Forefront of this revolutionary movement
stand stand the neighborhood Hood
resisting committees also referred to as
the resisant Committees a decentralized
Grassroots organization that assumed the
burden of revolutionary leadership when
a coalition of reformist political
parties failed to achieve the demand of
the
Revolution following a successful Sittin
in front of the military headquarter the
existing committees efficiently
organized themselves within the
neighborhood representing a new form of
a collective action arose from a deep
understanding of Sudan historical
problems particularly the issues of
militarized decent uh and centralized
power the resistant committee have
opened the door for a broader political
participation spreading geographically
to more areas in Sudan facilitating
increase involvement of Civilian could
you imagine that a militarized country
and those guys just open up for more
civilian to participate in the political
power so to effectively support the
resistant Committee in their challenging
Mission a range of Grassroots
institutions have been established while
NOS have traditionally played a role in
clustering Democratic movement adapting
to novel obstacles necessi a structural
transformation this institution needed
to be constructed from ground up so in
order to support those resisting
committee you need to change the way
that we are thinking decentralized
movement or decentralized organization
that should should come
on um so from ground up spanning
multiple geographical location and
adopting decentralized approach to
better address the new challenges to
hand among these entities is the Civic
lab it stand out as a notable
example because it's created by the
member of resisting committees
themselves and it has become an integral
part of the movement across various
territories uh toward the conclusion of
2022 at the batttle against militarism
persisted we recognized the imperative
of incorporating fresh tools into our
campaign Our intention was twofold to
fortify the movement capabilities and to
explore an Innovative modood of
Expressions Central to our delibery
deliberation sorry was the concept of
technological
autonomy and the principles of Open
Source this line of thinking led us to
Envision a multidisiplinary Endeavor
situated in tenous uh at Art Science and
Technology to bring this Vision to
fation I joined forces with a Civic lab
to conceive bid the term bid it means
literally
heresy convey the essence of innovation
drawing it is atmology from the
word which signifies creativity this is
an Arabic word so you know that the act
of engendering something new from
pre-existing element and this concept
resonated with us as a parallel to the
notion of hacking encapsulating our
aspiration to craft novel
Solutions
so um rather than merely conceptualizing
ideas over casual beer in table in
Berlin or Paris or anywhere like you
know diaspora communities they look at
revolution of their Homeland and they
decide to sit drink beer and tell the
people what to do we opted for a more
engaging approach by initiating
conversations with people and Community
Keen to join our course cause we
distributed a questionnaire among those
interested in collaborating with us and
the inside inside gleaned from this
survey was valuable if you see here
maybe some stuff in Arabic but I can
read um we were fortuned to attract
participant from
diversities um including some were
access to electricity is limited to as
few as 12 hours per day even
less the majority of
individual ex um sorry the majority of
individual expressed a keen interest in
crafting artistic projects utilized
novel
tools a portion of this uh
individuals were seeking farther
information before fully committed
they're skeptical about our work yeah
you know they need to know which is
actually a good thing yet they were
Enthusiast expressed their willingness
to participate in our initial meetings
and
workshop um here exist kind of
relatively small cohort who have
experience with electronic and
circuitry but
the yeah and also coding but also the
Intriguing um uh Revelation is that the
majority of the participant have a
prayer experience with Linux
which is something that make us excited
about working and um running this work
do mean there is some kind of community
that we could work
with so we had also a lot of kind of U
random response that people sort how
much excited and how they imagined to
work collectively our idea initially
from this project was starting step by
step uh building just a basic knowledge
of Open Source and then integrating
injecting that in a decentralized
movement in order to build this this
kind of Knowledge from bottom up as the
resisting committee we got inspired by
the resisting committees and their
work so yeah we shipped a lot of
Rasberry pies oros and shat and every
cat that we found in the internet we put
it on the plane we sent it to Sudan we
made our poster we were very happy and
then we pl we planned our physical
meeting on the first of May 2023 we
created this module you know little bit
smaller stuff and then but unfortunately
in the
morning of
ail uh April
2023 a resounding gunshot of an unknown
origin tore through the air piercing the
Flesh of a furious Soldier it sunders IU
evaporated serving as an unmistakable
signal for the Insurgent of the troops
of the counter Revolution to descend
upon the cities of Sudan two World Lords
of two
factions igniting the Flames of this
brutal conflict had long harbored
animosity toward the December Revolution
which is triumph out their predecessor
in 2019 actually this is an introduction
for an article if you want to know about
the war I wrote it so it's actually I
just made it here dramatically like that
because I'm not talking about the war at
all but as a friend of mine from Syria
told me before and she's a fellow
activist her you need to follow her work
her name Isa Mustafa she's um she's
doing activism for the imprisoned people
in Aid regime she said
before we are in a brutal btle of
narrative a brutal War strangely enough
I found myself witnessing the Swift
transformation how the
narrative around our C changed overnight
what was once a movement establishing a
civilian and Democratic alternative had
suddenly shifted into to A Narrative of
War while it is understandable that news
outlets and mainstream media might adopt
this framing it is dis hurting to see
activist an open- Source
investigator in reinforcing this kind of
framework by creating this particular
maps all of the maps you find it from
open source investig every open source
investigator in Sudan you right Sudan
they all draw just a war in Sudan Sudan
War mapper we map Sudan as a war zone
you know the fractions of the rsf the
fraction of the Army is taking places it
was quite disting for us because a
movement that was there for revolution
for a democratic movement representing
millions of people and now all of Sudan
narrative is around 200,000 soldiers
fighting around cities of Kum and all of
what's Happening from International
activist especially open open source
investigator is just mapping the Army
fract without the other
movement I'm
sorry all right
okay
so on the other hand again the resisting
committee stand for the challenge to
address the trauma of the war and
Safeguard the
Revolution they have actively pursued
two primary objectives firstly they have
dedicated effort to build an anti-war
coalitions and clarifying The Narrative
surrounding the conflict their emphasis
lies on highlighting the war primarily
stems from the PO struggle between the
generals and does not serve interest of
democratic
Foundation this approach aims to
counter any misconception that would
under the revolution goals at first
secondly the resistant committee have
taken a revolutionary approach by
establishing emergency response rooms
this rooms serve as a vital support
system to help individual absor absorve
the trauma caused by the war and Elevate
the hardship faced by
civilians the emergency room ped a
digital infrastructure through which
they convey their missions and gather
Community donation they are
strategically positioned across various
regions and intentionally decentralized
mirroring the organization's approach of
the resisting committee
themselves
additionally they convey a document
together this
document uh effort by uploading a lot of
data of their work uh the practice not
only AIDS is assessing the situation
they're assessing the but also
facilitate the monitoring of operation
infrastructure they collected the data
includes geolocations of their
operations Community Kitchens hospitals
and other related
projects
so by converting this data to Json
format it can be utilized as a database
even as a mapping
resource and that is what actually we
did creating a
visualization of their work on a map and
carry a powerful carry a powerful
political statement shedding a light a
light on the lives struggle and the
stories of civilians LED movement in
this and their Central role in The
Struggle it serve as a counteraction
against militarization of Consciousness
and narrative and the main purpose was
that but other purpose served as well
later what we still need because as you
see we just use Simple Solutions
collaborative
solidarity like we need you to support
this Movement by endorsing its objective
also as you see we use Google sheet and
we use all of those commercial platforms
we need open source accessibility
collective learning experience and a
revolutionary Paradigm which is mean it
is not a war there's a civilian movement
a community that is struggling to strive
for better life using all of what you
actually produce as a community and they
are part of you and extensions of your
extensions of you as a community and you
are extension from them that the people
who are struggle for Democratic
foundations and a just world so by
helping them I endorse their work by
providing them with whatever accessible
technologies that you created in this
community beautiful Community here with
your old political endorsement for
better world and just world thank
[Applause]
you
[Applause]
thank you so much Ahmed for your input
and giving us an insight into this
important uh struggle and important
projects are there any
questions um it's not that easy to go
between um the rows so I think it would
be easiest if people want to ask
questions if they just come here and
then I can give them the
microphone but if you still need some
time to think of a question um maybe I
have one so do you already um have some
examples of um solidarity towards the
projects in Sudan um that would be
examples of what we can do or would you
say it's like really no one like there
is really not a lot yet going on yeah I
actually the war started just three
months ago four months ago all of those
project are very recent um there's a
suppos from a lot of NOS um
International organizations I came with
this project here because they seek
unique solidarity different one so the
one that based on funding technologist
commercial that working around is not
really providing a lot of solutions for
us and it's not really fast and in the
same time is oriented with certain kind
of political agenda that is not
necessarily the political agenda of the
Grassroots movement and because of that
I was thinking to communicate this
project with with a community community
that are active as a community not as
organization NGO so there's a lot of
people who offer support uh by for
example say hey this project we're going
to provide you but also we didn't want
to just give the data to everybody so we
actually used a very simple solutions by
going in documentations like you know
checking all of those like open source
libraries of JavaScript to just create
this work but in the same time we think
what I saw here for example I think that
people are capable to create more better
project but just a community based this
kind of I I yeah maybe people also have
a political agenda and I would
appreciate this politic agenda because
it's the same political agenda of the
decentralized Grassroots movement there
of the just world
yeah thank you um I see a little bit of
Applause so if you want to join in you
can um okay I I see that there is an
angel with a
microphone um so um he could also come
to you um and you don't have to stand up
if you don't is that a question yeah can
you please because then the internet can
also hear
you hello okay um so you mentioned um
access accessibility to open source uh I
think tools and solutions what's the
biggest challenge when it comes to that
at the moment for you and the community
yeah um so yeah the biggest challenge
for us like if you see that I I talk
about B the first project although that
is not realized because we thought we
were working on something about building
a knowledge about around open source and
you know in general technology that
accessible for the years before the war
started and the time when the war
started uh we couldn't realize that
project and what happened is we needed
to use basically very um like we need to
use for example this Google sheet where
people a 90 n sorry 90 people have
access to it to provide information in
different geographies so we didn't
actually have an open source tool and if
you have an open source tools we need
the time to teach people to work on them
so one of the thing that we are thinking
about it is how we could
create type of technology that
accessible not just by working on it
also by learning it very fast because
they can work very goodly in the moment
of emergency but in the and it's also
they trusted and Reliance and we could
also talk to the provider of that
technology to help us of the maintenance
that what I'm I'm thinking about in
Sudan we have a really problem because
as a country we lived in the sanctions
since 1995 we didn't have access to a
lot of Technology we had a problem
basically with technology and
accessibility Technologies and uh we are
we trying and this grass movement if
they got that UT get that tools they
could utilize for this for this movement
now you know and I think particularly in
the sponsor room and also in general in
the Revolutionary movement for this
decentralized you know we we like
autonomy over over their data of
informations over software they are
using also creating because they are as
the communities are in different places
if they integrated some really good
technology in their work they could
create some model that we could actually
um could provide them as helpl also
could be a good example for us feedback
here who are working on developing
different kind of solutions
yeah so any more
questions yes
great hi uh so you basically portrayed
um you know this idea of decentralizing
all around the world all different
initiatives um and therefore creating
something that
goes between and among Grassroots
movements but also in you know in
developing countries or countries at
risk uh such as is Sudan with war and
political
instability there is um very strong
presence of um International
organizations
and most than often they are on the
ground around you know talking with
communities and
people that is generally the traditional
way in which those countries have um
link with the global setting in which
they are so how do you
exactly take that into consideration
when it comes you know with something
that U may have like political
differences and is um you know much more
decentralized and much more you know
spars and Scatter All Around the World
in contrast to those big um
International
organizations so yeah I I thank you for
the question first of all um I think
that would actually all of this what I'm
doing here is about that um is um I've
been working with the resistant
committees and the Civic lab for a while
and the Civic lab is built so so the
revolution in Sudan is is based
on three topics decentralization of
power
demilitarization and um what do you call
it like yeah we call it like power if TR
translate power from ground up which is
the movement in Sudan is decentralized
movement is created among neighborhood
geographies and this movement when the
war
started they knew that ngos are going to
jump in the model that you just talking
about it which is a model that we think
it's a part of oppressive Mo model
itself is not just just they came those
NGS as we call them the Cowboys those
like Cowboys they came to in the
conflict Zone yeah you know they came to
support the people uh in the war that
they actually very trained NOS worker
and then we have also this is a sad news
thing this is what this is the oen
people that open source investigation in
sort of supporting a movement they are
dividing country as an army fraction the
territories of the rsf the territories
of the army so it's a whole model of
narrative that created is actually fight
by the people working in the ground so
they created the emergency response room
and they started to assume State
responsibility in the time of veam and
also doing work more than this NOS
forcing those NOS to legitimize them so
the United Nation UNS in Sudan un
special mission for integration
basically was ignoring all of those
resisting committees just to use they
don't have a political agency they don't
have a representation and when the
crisis started those guys uh because
they started to do this humanitarian
work the UN started to negotiate with
them in order to provide support to the
community and they forced their
Narrative decolonizing of mutual Aid
sorry Mutual Aid decolonization of
humanitarians and economic solidarity
economy and because of that what I'm
coming here to do is to provide those
narrative and those political movement
with a community that able to support
them without those particular agenda
that you you just described which is me
and you were critical toward it somehow
if am I if I assume that right
[Applause]
yeah thank you for your question is
there are there any more
questions you have a question
cool uh thanks a lot for this talk um
what impresses me every time when I'm
looking at uh the Sudanese Civil Society
is how well organized it is and how big
uh this civil movement is could you tell
us a bit more you already went a bit
into that how this civil movement is
organized about maybe also the direct
Democratic elements in it and about the
driving forces that have been doing that
since many
years yeah um yeah it is it is somehow
just um it wasn't um yeah you're right I
me it is a movement that developed a
long long time but also a movement that
it's not an isolated movement it's
learned from its neighbor learned from
the Egyptian movement from Bina movement
2015 Egyptian 2011 Tunisia movement is
like those eager young people around and
also not the old young people active
people I meant young people is a real
wrong word I mean there's not age on
this yeah and they started to observe
around them What's happen wrong you know
how how we got defeated like ABD fat
said you know coming and we how we how
we cannot be defeated and and those
movement learning from their history and
the surrounding geographies so they they
come to two conclusions that first of
all decentralized movement I meant that
when people organize according to their
neighborhood they have autonomy over the
solutions and political solution they
have and also their organizations we get
more efficient system of work uh then uh
we have a way of communication so we use
an open platforms so this resistant for
example in the last three years they
drafted something is called the
Revolutionary constitution for the power
of the people which is circulated around
the country everybody commenting on
using the internet tools people taking
it with their hand because not all over
the place the internet people printing
It And discussing it with their
communities and then giving a feedback
and then resisting committee one of the
resisting committees in kartum decided
to create something is called the um the
editing room so they created the editing
room and then they edit all of those
comments and they released something
called the the Revolutionary draft for
people power and that was actually kind
of really uplifting because people think
ah we able to communicate as well we're
not just we are a headless movement
we're a movement without a leader with's
a movement that with a more democratic
approach I mean like ground up movement
everybody in the neighbor could take a
decision there's more political
participation and in the same time we
are able to articulate our demand in the
50 pages that everybody could talk to
and because of that one of the thing and
it's a German guy the United Nation guy
the the head of the United unitown
transitional whatever in Sudan he said
that those people they don't have a
political opinion because they don't
have a leader in a spoken person and
then just like people sending sending
him the link it was in an online
conversation oh that's actually a
document they released in that Daye
that's a document they released so they
articulated themselves and in the same
time you cannot take somebody and um and
kind of uh negotiate with them and
that's Al actually the movement
understand it from how reformers
political party was easy to get coopted
and because of that again I'm going to
repeat those movement need novel
Solutions in order to optimize those
sign of communications and a secure one
a powerful one that able to integrate
because it's it's they are trying to be
Democratic as much as possible including
everybody's opinion but we could enhance
that by providing more solutions uh but
and they actually not we coming as a
savior that's also got it they actually
they already have the agency they have
their missions and they ask for
solidarity and support where they can
teach their model to the people outside
and they can learn from the people
outside in their model and that's
exactly how the movement develops
through actually I may say uh the last
40 years are most critical because a
revolutionary process and people met
physically in the street and they have
buddies meeting each other but also
within 30 years of struggling to one of
them like one of the brutal regimes in
the region a military uh Shar B regime
that able to uh practice a lot of extra
legal killing all over the last 30 years
so they created that because of
brutality and their tactics against
repression turned to be a very good
tools of creating political
discourses
[Applause]
yeah so are there any more questions
attention train operations please stand
back from the edge of the you
again oh someone else is
there
yeah okay so um I think that Ahmed
already gave us like some really um good
and extensive ah you have one yeah but I
still
want all right
thank you but you have a question right
oh yeah just wondering if there was any
um like online resources where we could
learn more yeah specifically about how
you're how this is working yeah so as a
diaspora community in Berlin we created
a platform the last two years basically
for
communicating the the the movement
discourses and We're translating a lot
of stuff in German and English it's
called Sudan apprising germany. net um
and it is a group actually it's a
physically that exist in in Berlin um
this um this website uh I just show that
we're still working on it to optimize it
because we have lacked some kind of
information I would love to get your
support and help in developing it
further and also maintaining its
security and its integrity and then we
could actually publish it we are
planning to publish it next month as a
kind of visualizing the movement in
Sudan and also you know all of this scff
we're going to work on it but Sudan
uprising. net is where we publish the
first
informations
yeah just to follow up on that what well
you were saying that people could plug
in to try and volunteer and help and so
on that URL there'd be somewhere where
we could like contact you and
volunteer U yeah exactly um there's I
don't know if you're based in Germany or
somewhere else but if you're based in
Germany this group it told you and
there's also a lot of sanese community
uh but that group is um kind of
providing a lot of like work on to to
provide solution for existing committee
um yeah and we are just there and
physically are exist there and there's a
website and also we have a mailing list
we're putting it there and also if you
just write us an email that or if now
came to me and they hey I saw that work
that in your talk earlier and I could
actually help you with this it would be
amazing we're going to just connect uh
forever
yeah yeah if uh thank you Ahmed for your
wonderful talk it's like lovely to keep
uh seeing it progress uh my question is
actually about the resistance committees
like you said that the narrative is
always about the rapid support forces
and the Army uh can you tell us maybe a
story or something about what the
resistance committees are doing during
the current crisis um yeah exactly that
that's what the emergency response room
is um so yeah the resisting committee
there is two thing that the The
Narrative of militarization which is the
country divided among two fractions that
what is the narrative is like controlled
by generals and then the resisting
committee so that their agency being
taken away from them and they are
representative of this neighborhood and
then they saw also a humanitarian crisis
happening unfolding because of the war
so they decided to form these emergency
response rooms and those emergency
response room they have three main
objectives uh first of all like serving
medical support to people in the same
time making this open Street Kitchen
where everybody could eat um in the
setting also maintenance for like
electricity water supply and all of the
kind of stuff even there because what is
The Neighbors in Sudan is mean that an
Engineers there's doctors living in
those Neighbors in addition to the
people who coming from a different like
a working background where could they
work together provide solutions to
people and as a political but also they
separated the emergency rooms from the
resisting Committee in the political
sense because they said like emergency
response room they don't have a
political agenda so they can serve
anybody even the people who are opposing
the revolution but the existing
committee uh they started to forge this
anti-war coalitions but in the same time
working with the diaspora closely to
challenge this Narrative of the war that
propagated by the United Nations and
United Nations Workers International
noos um International Community in the
center of it Germany USA and Saudi
Arabia um does all of those kind of
political work they are doing and in the
same time we're just pushing toward that
it will not transform to be you know
like what's happened in other
revolutions it is not a war it's a
revolution and this war is an obstacles
over it and it will they're going to
overcome it and they are still working
together on that I hope and if we got
defeated I don't really want to be like
the optimistic Revolution if we got
defeated the model that until now those
people they survived so much obstacles
and they metamorphosis in a different
kind of um you know what you call it
like organizations to just just just to
work against challenges and that way of
transformation could be actually a model
to understand learn from it and for me
it was a really big learning process the
last three years
yeah
um I saw another question
there he guys we can just also talk in
the tent you
know might be might be more comfortable
but please ask away no I'm just kidding
I no it's just um thanks again for your
talk and all these uh all these great uh
discussion points one thing that I just
wanted to pick up on right now because
it was peculiar to me you mentioned
three countries uh just a minute ago um
United States
uh uh Germany and Saudi Arabia um I
understand maybe a little bit when you
bring up United States and Saudi Arabia
in the Sudanese context I'm not so
certain about Germany could you maybe
explain the role of Germany so so yeah
so maybe if I just bring it to you from
the foreign Affair uh the vertiga arm in
Germany um so they have this program
it's called Uh stabilization program so
they just want stability stability as a
sense that regardless who is in power
but stability that's the first thing the
second thing Germany have worked during
the transitional period with three
different organizations which is um um
um frish ibert Henry SPO and GIS uh
working in the ground in Sudan in order
to support the Constitutional transition
they had a problem on their political
Consciousness they could not imagine a
decentralized movement without a
political leader who can come and
sitting them in the table and that's
lack of imaginations and lack of
thinking that politically outside the
box that's what they say all the time
when you meet people where is the
existant committee we don't see them
yeah you see their documents you see
their work you see their materiality
their material representation in the
street you see that they can actually
move all of that street they can occupy
the country for one day and all of that
neighborhood but you didn't see them in
the negotiation table and you think that
they don't have a political agency
because you want to Coop them with
certain kind of neoliberal narrative
they don't want to go on that so just
read their documents they translate it
in your language in German in English in
Pharisee even just understand it and try
to replay this is the demand of those
movement and work with it you know you
say like for example I achieved from
your demand 40 percentage and try to
negotiated the movement in the public
not negotiate in the Clos table so
Germany is one of the countries that
wanted work it with this work with this
lack of imagination political
Consciousness which is sitting want to
co-opt a movement and that what they did
between 2019 2020 when they supported a
model of a sharing po between political
parties on the Army when there resist
committee was telling them the Army
cannot be in power and there committe
telling them this army people they going
to have a fight soon on the country and
Germany did listen and now they say oh
we didn't know they're fighting oh [ __ ]
there's a war let's take our people out
and they took their people out we were
not there like you were there for two
years we saw we saw you we we you were
there you know we talk to you and you
were shut shut you committee people are
very radical don't talk to us you are
not really radical we're asking for
democracy social justice
collectivization of Rights and
everything you know we didn't even ever
like taking the state down we just want
basic thing that's you know and then
they said you're very radical for for
for the demands and because they cannot
imagine our political agency and that
what they did basically so Germany in
the middle because they projects as just
like neutral adult mutal they don't have
um you know you know like Switzerland in
the past they don't want like to kind of
exploit you but but actually the lack
their lack of imaginations is resulting
to a very repressive
[Applause]
yeah I'm looking very sharply at you and
counting to three in my
head one two two
three thank you so much for coming and
yeah
be around yeah thank you so much Ahmed
um for sharing your knowledge with
[Music]
us