Supporting a revolution from afar: the construction of unity between generations of Sudanese exiles in France

Abstract

ABSTRACT Since December 2018, Sudan has been experiencing a revolution that has engaged the large numbers of Sudanese who live abroad in a political struggle from afar. Based on a case study of the Sudanese community in France and an analysis of their long-distance support of the political upheavals from three different cities, this article assesses how times of revolution affect the sense of commonness of diasporic groups and reshape socio-political boundaries in exile. From our initial identification of two Sudanese generations in France, which we will call the elders and the youth, we assess how the collective identification process for exiles, which is initially determined by social and regional affiliations, has been affected in recent times by the outbreak of the Sudanese revolution. After presenting the two generations of Sudanese currently living in France, we show how the revolutionary context has affected their feelings of belonging and produced a temporary sense of diasporic unity. Finally, the article analyses how the stalemate in the revolutionary process during the summer of 2019 led to an erosion of this unified Sudanese consensus and resurrected political, regional, social, and generational divides, pushing the young generation to the forefront of protest from afar.