On October 25 of 2021, Sudan’s progress towards gaining human rights and freedoms severely backslid with a military coup that replaced the acting democratic government with another dictatorship. In response, the Sudanese people have put their own safety and freedom on the line to protest against the authoritarian government, fight for democracy, and protect human rights. The light of a brighter future still shines in their eyes, the light from the torch of hope that they have carried since before the democratic revolution eventually deposed the demagogue Omar al-Bashir in 2019 and that they kept going even when that democratic government fell and a battle was lost to the authoritarian military, because, of course, the war goes on. Since October, the acting government has officially killed 94 pro-democracy resistance leaders according to the Central Committee of Sudan Doctors, although the real number is likely higher. Most of these leaders are young advocates for change, one of them a boy of only 19 that was shot by one of the rubber bullets shot by government anti-protest forces during a rally against the military government.
The democratic government has tried to make a deal to coincide with the coup government but the failure of the deal has shown that their fundamental differences and the charged emotions of the Sudanese people will never let there be peace with this kind of arrangement. Clearly, there can only be one government when each option is the antithesis of the other. In my opinion, I think this means that Sudan will need outside help from a country such as the United States to help prop up the structure of the state because the democratic government was not strong enough to quell or fend off the coup and the coup government cannot be in power without the existence of friction between it and the people. Though the people wish for their own independence to choose policy for themselves, independence is hard to protect and if military coups such as the one last October continue to threaten Sudan’s democracy and no other country intervenes, civilians are the only ones left to defend it which is what we are seeing now. The spirit and resilience shown by the Sudanese people so far is truly admirable and I think the United States, which found its origins due to a similar dream of democracy, should respect their wish and do more than simply pressure the coup government with sanctions. After all, the United States has climbed the ladder to become a world power with freedom at the core of its identity and Sudan is an underdeveloped nation that we have the chance to uplift.
In connection to Comparative Government, the struggle between the people’s government and the dictatorship reflects many other struggles throughout history to move beyond where society and government started, the hierarchy that puts every inch of control in the hands of those at the top rather than affording it to everyone in the hierarchy at least in some facet. The hierarchy, even in a developed country such as the United States, does not simply dissolve with this goal achieved, the rich still decide things in the lives of the poor, yet our hard-earned equalizers, impartial courts, voting, and natural rights, when implemented as they should, separate us unquestionably from our past.