Pen Tool Revolution

Sikka Alsadig Yaseen

The ousted President Omar al-Bashir addressed the public in a mass rally in the city of Kassala in the eastern part of the country following the escalation of calls on social media to revive a general civil disobedience for the second time within one month, at the end of the year 2016. It appeared as if it were an experimental launch to explore potential spaces for transferring oppositional civic action into the lives and discussions of the general public. At that time, al-Bashir stated, 'You are hearing these days from the keyboard and WhatsApp revolutionaries... We want to tell them, if you are trying to overthrow the regime, confront us directly on the streets."

This label "keyboard revolutionaries" may seem historically correct first, although the intention was to detract from the revolution, wink at its channel, and question its ability, on the grounds that it is nothing more than a narrative of a virtual world on social media, different in its structure and composition from the usual public theater of work.

In fact, the Sudanese revolution received this name (keyboard revolutionaries) in the narrative of the counter-revolution, and achieved it in the phase of its first hypotheses that filled the minds of political actors, as the spaces of digital worlds that embraced the discussions of change and the deliberations of actors established a new interactive reality in the Sudanese political and social arena, and influenced the proposals of discussion - theoretical and applied - on the new political action and the dynamics of spaces of expression as patterns of resistance that are difficult to track and monitor. But the uniqueness of the new tools of change was evident in harnessing all new technologies and worlds – based on creative resistance with a purely artistic dimension – and ensured the sustainability and development of forms of resistance expression. It has been truly a revolution of keyboards, mouses, and multimedia, with media creators, content creators, and graphic designers, for nearly a decade, which has not been possible for the usual methods in light of the restriction of public freedoms, the security grip and the scissors of pre-censorship of traditional media.

Despite the historical importance of the emergence of the Sudanese political keyboard and the manifestation of resistance in the peaceful artistic tools of expression, and although graphic design is an essential manifestation of the interaction of the artistic and creative movement with Sudanese political events during the last decade, it has not received historical attention concerned with that stage and its development. Presentation and expressions adapted to younger generations. Perhaps this task puts it at a high level compared to the rest of the arts and literature that originated in the Sudanese revolution and were recorded in its records. Rehabilitating the experiences of Sudanese designers in working in public affairs becomes a kind of rehabilitation of the revolution itself. In this context, we put an attempt to document the stages of development of graphic design in narrating the events of the Sudanese revolution and its industry, and the gap bridging by posters and designs in the media of the revolution.

To trace the great development in the means and tools of expression in Sudan and the amazing ability of the December revolution to create spaces for everyone in its multiple narratives, it is necessary to go back to the last decade, which witnessed the openness of young people to the unlimited worlds provided by social media. These groups had an effective media presence in the blue space, which enabled them to evade restrictions and surveillance, and used new media tools in images, recorded materials and posters in electronic presence, and took advantage of technology to document their field activities on the Sudanese street. It was in these circumstances that the first relationships arose between the public sphere and designers and photographers. We can say that this phase was a trial phase for the members of these groups who were obliged by secrecy to continuously learn new technologies, creating a group of professionals in the graphic design and photography sector – committed to political and social issues, and creating information offices for youth training. As a result of these circumstances, professional relationships have been created between practitioners and those with common interests, and the need for an organizational form similar to cooperative societies has grown, as all productive sectors and academic entities face difficulties and obstacles that destroy every attempt at individual solutions, necessitate organized work with others, and create public discussions about the affairs of professionals  and those interested in different fields, and of course the graphic design sector was no exception.

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Placing creative work in a collective participatory framework has been a very important factor created by the new digital spaces in the face of the lack of educational materials and licensed programs, which obligated creators, professionals and amateurs interested in graphic design to deal with the difficulties they face in using unlicensed pirated copies, by intensifying their creativity and sharing their experiences in addressing the obstacles that limit their access and competition due to the economic and technological embargo imposed by the US administration on Sudan, whose effects the Sudanese have suffered for two decades.

In an interactive creative work with the space of the December revolution, and in the context of getting used to the embargo imposed on Sudan, the diagnosis of reality identifies; We find this in a design by visual artist Omar Mustafa, "a software interface with a window in the middle that reads "This element is not available in your country" with the background of a member of the Janjaweed militia established by the Bashir regime, in a symbol of the accumulation of difficulties facing the creation of the creative process in Sudan, from technological and economic embargoes to security censorship and the repressive state. In the face of these worsening difficulties, Sudanese have increasingly relied on sharing knowledge resources, crowdfunding initiatives, finding training opportunities, and sharing technical tactics to circumvent the embargo and meet their basic needs.

Sudanese Graphic Designers group is self-regulatory initiative that supports and assists the graphic designer community, launched in 2012 on Facebook, quickly became an open database and mine for sharing experiences and knowledge materials, and saw the birth of a new organizational form in the legal space that created spaces to open awareness of the possibility and effectiveness of regulation.

Fist. Waving.. and the tool

The ability of the December Revolution to revolutionize the arts was a catalyst and motivation for the race to engage in preoccupation and interaction with public issues, through exposure to inspiring knowledge to produce new art forms, and to deviate from the standard of proficiency and professionalism to the value of the work itself and its ability to address art, raise questions and transfer dialogues within the format of the artwork.

The sit-in square, in the vicinity of the "General Headquarters of the Army" in Khartoum, represented an ideal incubator for those who can be called creative minorities, and a more effective tool in the creation of mass media for the revolution. The community of writers, designers and photographers formed the intermediate link in transforming the artistic and cultural heritage into a revolutionary discourse with complete visual composition, as in the graphic design sector, the work of designers during the first period of the revolution dealt with the topics of mobilization and the creation of the discourse and media of the revolution. Posters resembled the pattern of posters in the Soviet era and the socialist republics, topping the symbolism of the fist, breaking the restrictions of most of the first works of graphic designers with faces expressing cheering, and they mixed between symbol and word, due to the strong presence of Sudanese poetic schools in the composition of the visual scene.

The designers then moved to advertising templates for revolutionary processions and events, and this stage was common to the designers' contribution to the creation of works and posters that promote the revolutionary discourse of the masses and address the topics of the schedules of revolutionary events that were published on the page of the Sudanese Professionals Association. The stage of intensification and visual treatment of the revolutionary discourse was followed by another stage in which the designs dealt with the themes and events initiated by the Sudanese during the period of the General Command sit-in following the fall of the Bashir regime, then the designers engaged in the "Hanabniho" campaign, which formed the artistic and symbolic alphabet of the December revolution and strengthened the presence of arts as a catalyst for revolutionary work in the Sudanese street through graffiti works, songs and graphic designs, and this stage was dominated by collective symbols, waving and signs of the coming tomorrow.

In another phase following the formation of the transitional government, the works of art addressed the collective desire to form revolutionary bodies and the basic construction of revolutionary incubators, and designers engaged in campaigns such as "StandforSudan" and the subsequent volunteering in reshaping the visual identity of public institutions in Sudan and their logos, and this period celebrated a lot of competition between artists and graphic designers, and the revolution and its dictionaries and alphabet created a great impact on the topics dealt with by professional designers in private sector companies and civil institutions alike.

Like the first period of the formation of the graphic designer community, the revolution contributed to the entry of many activists into the artistic and creative field, especially photography and graphic design, as they are among the requirements of mass media for grassroots bodies, such as resistance committees and neighborhood committees, thanks to living the sit-in, visual feeding and listening to the product of the Sudanese revolution.

The attached design included in the poster has been published and used with the prior authorization of the designer, Omer Mustafa.