Earlier this week, social change finally came for the country of Sudan, one largely fuelled by the use of street art murals and portraiture implemented during peaceful demonstrations to document and encourage the people’s struggle.
After months of protests in the Sudan capital city of Khartoum, it was decided on the 4th of August that a transitional civilian shared leadership with the military council would exist in the country. This long-awaited moment was met with applause and cheers from protestors who had been involved in the pro-democracy demonstrations dating back to December 2018, a story told by street art murals that had coated nearly every wall of the city area.
One of the artists, Muhanad Khalafallah told the Anadolu Agency that, “Arts always flourish during revolutions,” at one point saying that, “We consider ourselves one of the genuine initiators of the revolution.”
Khalafallah went on to explain that during the April sit-in protest artists had “… painted the majority of around 10 kilometres of the walls and grounds of the sit-in outside the army headquarters in Khartoum.”
Many of the artworks put to use the green, yellow and blue colours of Sudan’s first national flag of independence. As a collective the murals represented the diversity of Sudan and called for unity, change, peace and equality. Earlier this year, ex-patriots of Sudan had used the internet to band together, launching the #askmeaboutsudan and #blueforSudan campaigns while art shows were held all over the world in support of the Sudanese people.
Then, on the 3rd of June violence broke out as police and security forces worked to disperse protesters, opening fire with live rounds on the crowds in an attack that led to the deaths of over 128 people and the destruction of many of the murals.
However, this did not deter the insistence of protestors, as less than a month later tens of thousands of citizens returned to the streets of Khartoum and other cities around the country, sustaining further brutality on their way to achieving a civilian state this month.
As reported by the BBC, one of the murals in Khartoum had quoted a slogan of the revolution chanted by protestors, “What is martyrs’ blood worth?” In the wake of the resolution this month, a protester, Omar Hussein commented that, “Now we can tell the martyrs that their blood was not wasted.”