Film and Discussion with the Rootwork Cinema Group
In Sudan, a war by the military against the population had taken place. It is a counter revolution against the revolutionary uprisings in Sudan since 2018. Since colonization, it has been a continuous attack on the identity of the population.
We watched the film “Khartoum,” which was screened by the group Rootwork Cinema im KIOSK/Prisma, and afterwards we discussed the situation in Sudan. A friend from Sudan who took part in the revolution shared his experiences. The current war waged by the military and the revolutionary aspirations of the population can only be understood if we understand the history of the people of Sudan.
Since 2019, the population`s call for an end to the dictatorship could no longer be silenced, not even through violence. At the demonstrations they chanted: “Democracy is our future. Tyranny is our past.”
The state of Sudan is a space created by the colonizers and has nothing to do with the reality of the many peoples and languages in the region. For example, one of the two military forces, the RSF, was partly built up by the EU in order to deploy it at the borders against refugees trying to reach the EU.
The current war is being used by the two military forces to draw the Arab and Black populations into an ethnic conflict. Yet Sudan has a long history of peaceful coexistence among different people, languages, and religions. Both in the Films interviews the discussion afterwards, it became clear that the population is not going along with this. “We are Africans, we are Sudanese.” Colonization sought to erase people’s identity, but their resistance and their struggle for their identity continue to this day. We saw people who love their region and will not allow it to be destroyed.
The revolution was also a generational conflict: a young generation that no longer tolerates their parents’ silence in the face of dictatorship. A young generation that is conscious of its identity.
This post is also available in Deutsch.