So once again, Sudan is revolting. Everyone’s saying how this is it, this is THE revolution that will finally unglue the NCP and cast them down history’s hall of shame. The demonstrations are rather smaller than last time, mostly because university students are nowhere to be seen (I mean the demonstrations are not initiated in universities). However, it’s obvious that the size isn’t what’s bothering the government, because the crackdowns are deadlier than ever and all reserves have been called to action. I keep wondering, don’t the police and NISS goons have families of their own that someone else is pounding on? Anyway, they should be scared because this time they’ve simply gone too far: too far with their lies, too far with their insults, too far with their idiotic justifications of the damage they’ve done and keep on doing.
We’ve all been glued to our TV and computer screens, watching news of the clashes and updates of the casualties. A distant cousin of mine, whom I have never met, was killed on the first day of the clashes while standing in line at the bakery for bread. He wasn’t even in the riots, and was shot with 8 other people and died the next morning. The first pictures that filtered in were of kids in school uniforms and flip flops, all hit in the head or neck. But that hasn’t been the most sickening thing. As is their custom, government officials have been all over TV in interviews and statements, defending their excessive use of force, justifying the president’s RIDICULOUS speech about how the NCP saved the nation from a life of poverty and did them the favour of introducing them to the luxury or fast-food. I’ve seen that ignoramus Rabei AbdelAti (who rumour has it was beaten up after Friday prayers for telling families to get their kids off the streets), Qutbi Elmahdi, Ahmed Bilal the minister of information, and some other dude who’s name I couldn’t even bother trying to remember, all arguing that a) there are no riots, just a bunch of punks burning down public and private property, b) the government has been paying through its teeth for the oil subsidies because of its love and respect for the people’s feelings but just simply couldn’t afford the price of this paternal affection anymore, and c) there are no riots, just a bunch of punks burning down public and private property. This biggest joke of course is their belief that the oil hike will only affect the ‘rich minority’ of the population who own ‘5 and 6 cars’ per household, while the rest of the country still ride donkey carts. I mean, really, what irritates me the most is that these people don’t even MAKE AN EFFORT to sound like they have an IQ higher than that of a tea pot. Ho mino gheirkom alli have 5 and 6 and 20 cars per household, wu kolo halfot fil7ukoma drives only the latest model of luxury cars and no one min alra2ees lelghafeer pays one damn CENT for their petrol? Yakh ma tikhtashi yakhi. ARAF.
And as usual, the president is nowhere to be seen, except for news of his humiliation in being denied an entry visa to the US to attend the world leaders’ get-together that even Iran got invited to. Poor guy, he even had his hotel bookings in downtown Manhattan and everything. I wonder, but doubt, if he’s been watching the news at all, or even has a glimpse of what’s going on in this land of his, the land he owns and will rule until his dying day ‘even if there are only 15 people left’. What we do see, however, are the cracks in the regime starting to show, as people like Gazi Salah Eldin, who just can’t seem to decide which side he’s on and keeps one foot-in-and-one-foot-out, with 30 of his pals declare their refusal of the government’s decisions and advise it to ‘think again’.As if they ever thought about it in the first place, because everyone knows that thinking requires a brain. The prize of the evening though goes to the YouTube video of Nafie Ali Nafie getting kicked out of Salah Sanhouri’s funeral home, the young pharmacist who was one of those shot in the demonstrations and whose funeral procession itself turned into another demonstration, which was of course dispersed by the riot police with tear gas and live ammunition. I wish my relatives had given Asha Alghabshawi the same treatment Nafie got, but they’re too respectable for that, unfortunately.
However, I am disappointed in these riots. I’m disappointed because I thought that when the time comes, EVERYONE will be out on the streets. And when I say everyone, I mean all those people in Marabee3 Alshareef, Sharg Elniel, Ombada and Alfath who lost their homes and belongings and children in the August floods, who the government simply ignored as they died of drowning and electrocution and exposure and disease. I thought all those thousands of girls and women who have been rounded up and whipped in public and fined for wearing ‘indecent clothing’ would be at the front of the line. I thought all those sittat alshay and farasha who’s tables and glasses are kicked to pieces by the police and are jailed for working without a license would be out there shouting for the fall of the regime that has been starving their families for the past 24 years and has brought the nation down to its knees with blow after crushing blow, and has no plans of falling back, let alone leave.
Sometimes I wonder, don’t these people EVER think of the Day of Judgement?