مقال بالانجليزية للفنان خالد البيه بالغاردين جدير بالقراءة

I feel despair at Sudan’s coup. But my children’s mini protest gives me hope
Khalid Albaih

After 30 years in exile, it’s easy to doubt that it will ever be safe to live and work in Sudan. But the action being taken by young people shows democracy will rise again

Sudanese anti-coup protesters take to the streets during a demonstration in Khartoum, Sudan, 30 November 2021. Thousands of protesters rallied against a deal reinstating the prime minister after his ousting in October’s military coup.
Sudanese anti-coup protesters take to the streets during a demonstration in Khartoum, Sudan, 30 November 2021. Thousands of protesters rallied against a deal reinstating the prime minister after his ousting in October’s military coup. Photograph: EP

“All the goodness and the heroisms will rise up again, then be cut down again and rise up,” John Steinbeck wrote to a friend in 1941, just before the US entered the second world war. “It isn’t that the evil thing wins – it never will – but that it doesn’t die.”

Growing up, I was always interested in politics, politics was the reason I had to leave Sudan at the age of 11. At school, we weren’t allowed to study or discuss it, and it was the same at home.For years, I lay in bed and listened to my father and his friends as they argued about politics and sang traditional songs during their weekend whisky rituals. They watched a new Arabic news channel, Al Jazeera, which aired from Qatar. All the journalism my father consumed about Sudan was from the London-based weekly opposition newspaper, Al Khartoum. The only time he turned on our dial-up internet was to visit Sudanese Online.

At the time, I never understood how Sudanese activists and political figures, like my diplomat father, who cared deeply about the country and had fought for their principles for so long, suddenly submissively stepped back. Or worse, why they sheltered their children from the issues. I always wondered, “So who are you fighting for then؟”