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Small Urban Centres: Vanguards of Exploitation. Two Cases from Sudan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2011

Abdel Ghaffar M. Ahmed  and
Mustafa Abdel Rahman
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Extract

‘As theories of development, dualist interpretations have difficulty in accounting for the origin and the dynamic of a system which is, on the surface, dichotomous’. Our acceptance of a dividing line between ‘rural’ and ‘urban’ sectorsin African societies and the sectoral approach to issues of development allows for the continuing dominance of dualist assumptions in all fields.With the introduction of a differentiation in scale between ‘urban centres’, ‘small urban centres’ and rural areas it appears that we are in a position where the introduction of the idea of continuity between rural and urban sectors may be accepted:

Societies in transition are often a source of controversy, as they characteristically abound in ambiguities of both form and content. Historically they represent a dramatic juxtaposition of continuity and change.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 49 , Issue 3: Small Towns in African Development , July 1979 , pp. 258 - 271
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1979

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References

1 Dualism and Rural Developmentin East Africa, Institute for Development Research, Denmark, 1973.

2 Mafeje, A., Science, Ideology and Development:Three essays on Development Theory, Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, Uppsala, 1978, p. 47Google Scholar.

3 O'Fahey, R. S. and Spaulding, J. L., Kingdoms of the Sudan, MethuenandCo., 1974Google Scholar.

4 Moorehead, A., The Blue Nile, 1973Google Scholar. See Buickhardt, J.L., Travels in Nubia, 1819Google Scholar.

5 Cf. Talal Asad (Kababish), I. Cunnison(Baggara), Abdel Ghaffar M. Ahmed (Rufa'aal-Hoi).

6 Veterinary and agricultural services, for example, are intended to increase the production of the area concerned for the national economy, rather than to benefit the localpeople.

7 The most notorious case of thisis South Africa, but in other African countries the practice, if not the explicit theory, is the same.

8 18 Colonial education systems were geared to the policy of creating cheap labour. Today's systems should rather be geared towards creation of equity and self-reliance, but few have been radically changed.

9 This section has been based on the work of the socio-economic survey team working in the area since 1976. Most important among the reports used here are: Existing Services in Kongor and Bor Districts and Demographic Characteristics of Kongor Area, by M. O. Sammani and others, and Integrated Rural Development. Problems and Strategies: The Case of the Dinka and the Nuer of Jonglei, by Abdel Ghaffar M. Ahmed, 1978.

10 The Jonglei Canal Project aims at the reduction of water losses in the Sudd region of the Southern Sudan to increase the Nile yield and the capacity for agricultural development of the Jonglei region which is not feasible without the relief of the swamps from the present excessive flooding. Studies for the utilization of the Upper Nile Swamps have been going on since the beginning of this century. In 1938 the Egyptian Government submitted to the Sudan Government a proposal for the Jonglei Canal Project. The proposal comprised storage of water in the Equatorial Lakes and the construction of Jonglei Canal having a discharge capacity of 55 million cubic metres per day. The control of the water requirements of Egypt during the timely period in the low flow season would provide an extra yield of seven milliard cubic metres of water. The proposed project would have resulted in reversing the natural cycle of the river's fluctuation during the flood and low flow periods, and would have consequently led to radical changes in the livelihood of the inhabitants of the affected region.

This project was modified in 1948, reducing the discharge capacity to 35 million cubic metres in normal years and 55 during high years. This was again modified in 1974 for a project not governed by storage in the Equatorial Lakes. Most important among the physical works that comprise this phase is the execution ofthe main canal having a discharge capacity of 20 million cubic metresper day, and a total length of 280 km from Jonglei village up to themouth of the Sobat River, near Malakal. Recently the starting point has been area and other peoples, killing men and capturing moved to Bor.

11 The Murle occupy the area south-east of the Eastern Dinka and hostilities existed for a long time between the two groups. The government exploited these hostilities during the 1955–72 civil war and supplied the Murle with modern arms during the 1960s to fight the Anya-nya forces. The Murle waged bloody raids on the Dinka of this area and other peoples, killing men and capturing women and children. This situation stopped the Dinka from using their eastern plains for grazing.

12 Eric R. Wolf, ‘The mills of inequality, ’paper presented to the Burg Wartenstein Symposiumno.80 on Social Inequality: Comparative and Develop mental Approaches, held in Austria, 25 August to 3 September 1978, sponsored by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research.