How resilient care can temper a war
A yearlong war in Sudan could end by military victory or negotiation. Yet pro-democracy activists are attempting a sort of peacebuilding based on compassion.
Muslim worshippers attend Eid al-Fitr prayer, marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan at a stadium in Port Sudan, Sudan, April 10.
REUTERS
Most of the world’s violent conflicts end with either a military victory or a negotiated settlement. That may yet be the case in Sudan, a largely Arab country in Africa where a yearlong civil war between two warring factions has left tens of thousands dead. But even as world diplomats plan a fresh round of negotiations, ordinary Sudanese are attempting their own sort of peacebuilding.
Women, Sudan’s most stalwart pro-democracy activists, have set up community meal centers. Neighborhood “resistance committees” that once organized nonviolent protests for democracy now provide health services. Lawyers gather testimonies from victims of violence in hopes of postwar justice and national reconciliation.
In other words, citizens who once protested for democracy are now creating networks of compassion amid the devastation of war. Some are even rethinking how to redesign cities to promote ethnic harmony for the future. Such resilience shows how conflicts can compel civic-minded people to sow seeds of peace through mutual aid.
“While it may seem bleak and beyond hope, a global, self-organized, grassroots movement is meeting the survival needs of civilians on all fronts,” noted Fatima Qureshi, a Pakistani writer, in a detailed report from Sudan in March.
Such grassroots activism is not uncommon in societies where conflict has disrupted democratic uprisings. In Myanmar, for example, pro-democracy activists battling the military leaders who took power in 2021 have also arranged humanitarian aid for civilians displaced by the fighting.
In Sudan, too, democracy fighters are now meeting the basic needs of people. “In some areas, including [the capital] Khartoum, we are the only provider of aid on the ground – there is nobody else doing it,” a member of a neighborhood resistance committee told Mark Weston, a writer for The Continent who was on a reporting trip to Sudan, last month.
These local acts of compassion can often influence the warring parties or feed into international diplomacy. With conflicts ranging from Gaza to Ukraine to Haiti, a model may be set in Sudan. Peace may not come from only military victory or diplomatic deal-making. It can come from doing good for the innocent.