Arabism and Pan-Arabism in Sudanese Politics

Oluwadare Aguda

doi:10.1017/S0022278X00008272

Arabism and Pan-Arabism in Sudanese Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 November 2008

Oluwadare Aguda

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The greatest achievement of Arabism in the Sudan has been the unquestioned acceptance by the whole world that this is an Arab state, in spite of the fact that only about 40 per cent of the population is Arab. Indeed, the predominance of the Arab Sudanese in the country's culture, politics, administration, commerce, and industry makes it de facto an Arab state. The ascendancy and assertiveness of the Arabs caused the North–South conflict to be almost intractable, while their economic and political domination led even the Northern Muslims to begin to assert themselves, although they had traditionally looked with favour upon assimilation into Arab culture.

Type: Africana
Information: The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , June 1973 , pp. 177 - 200

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022278X00008272 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1973

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^{Page 177 note 1} The 1955–6 census put the proportion of all Sudanese who spoke Arabic as their mother tongue at 39 per cent; in addition, a further 12 per cent could also speak Arabic. Deliberate Arabisation, with the suppression of local African languages, and the normal process of administrative and commercial intercourse, must have widened the spread of Arabic since then. But, of course, to be able to speak Arabic, no matter how well, does not make a person an ‘Arab’. While the 1963–72 civil war must have reduced the African population, Karol J. Krotki, the officially appointed Austrian analyst of the census data, concluded that the Southern Sudanese were increasing at a faster rate than the population of the Arab North. First Population Census of Sudan, 1955–56: 21 Facts About the Sudanese (Khartoum, 1958), p. 20.Google Scholar

^{Page 177 note 2} See, for instance, the editorial in Al Umma (Khartoum), quoted in the Khartoum News Service, 2 February 1968.

^{Page 178 note 1} Sudan News (Khartoum), 26 May 1969.

^{Page 178 note 2} This is in marked contrast to the policy of Southern autonomy announced in June 1969 which fell far short of what militant Southerners would accept. Besides, the Anya Nya guerrillas and their political leaders had not been brought into the negotiations which took place in Khartoum. Nor was the Government, then dominated by the pan-Arabists, in a position to implement any substantial concessions to the South.

^{Page 180 note 1} Abd al-Rahim, Muddathir', ‘Arabism, Africanism, and Self-Identification in the Sudan,’ in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), VIII, 2, 07 1970, p. 244.Google Scholar

^{Page 180 note 2} Sudan News, 1 June 1969. This declaration of support for the Government was probably more tactical than sincere.

^{Page 180 note 3} Trimingham, J. S., Islam in the Sudan (London, 1965), p. 5.Google Scholar

^{Page 180 note 4} See Cunnison, I., Baggara Arabs (Oxford, 1966).Google Scholar

^{Page 181 note 1} Beshir, Mohamed Omer, Educational Development in the Sudan, 1898–1956 (Oxford, 1969), p. 72.Google Scholar

^{Page 181 note 2} The Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Disturbances in the Southern Sudan in August 1955 (Khartoum, 1956).Google Scholar See also Reining, Conrad C., The Zande Scheme (Evanston, 1966), pp. 183–4.Google Scholar

^{Page 182 note 1} Theobald, A. B., The Mahdiyya: a history of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, 1881–1899 (London, 1949), p. 14.Google Scholar

^{Page 182 note 2} These are Algeria, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, South Yemen, Sudan, Tunisia, the United Arab Republic, and the Yemen.

^{Page 182 note 3} Abd al-Rahim, loc. cit. p. 243.

^{Page 183 note 1} Omer Beshir, op. cit. p. 153.

^{Page 183 note 2} See Abd al-Rahim, Muddathir', Imperialism and Nationalism in the Sudan (Oxford, 1969), ch. 4.Google Scholar

^{Page 183 note 3} See Shibeika, Mekki, The Independent Sudan (New York, 1959), p. 462.Google Scholar

^{Page 183 note 4} Collins, R. O., The Southern Sudan, 1883–1898: a struggle for control (New Haven, 1962), p. 23.Google Scholar

^{Page 184 note 1} Henderson, K. D. D., The Making of the Modern Sudan: the life and letters of Sir Douglas Newbold, K.B.E., of the Sudan Political Service (London, 1953), pp. 105–6.Google Scholar

^{Page 184 note 2} 'Abd al-Rahim, loc. cit. p. 243, paraphrasing al-Nuwayhi, Muhammad, al-Ittijahat al-Shi'iryya Fil-Sudan (Cairo, 1953), particularly chs. 2 and 8.Google Scholar

^{Page 184 note 3} Omer Beshir, op. cit. p. 152.

^{Page 186 note 1} See Said, Beshir Mohamme, The Sudan, Cross Roads of Africa (London, 1965), ch. 5.Google Scholar It has been alleged that the Northern delegation to the 1947 Juba Conference had used their vastly superior education and political experience to ‘bamboozle’ the Southerners into accepting an unqualified unitary state for the Sudan.

^{Page 186 note 2} For a good discussion of the Brotherhood which has appeared in all the Arab states since World War II, see Halpern, Manfred, The Politics of Social Change in the Middle East and North Africa (Princeton, 1963), especially pp. 137–50.Google Scholar

^{Page 187 note 1} Morning News (Khartoum), 23 04 1969.Google Scholar

^{Page 187 note 2} Some Beja and Nubian tribes are ‘fanatical’, even although their Islam is quite superficial; see Trimingham, op. cit. pp. 9–11 and 55.

^{Page 188 note 1} See The Vigilant (Khartoum), 12 12 1968,Google Scholar for a memorandum submitted to the Constituent Assembly by the National Committee for the Constitution.

^{Page 188 note 2} See a statement issued by the Sudan African National Union, published in the Khartoum News Service, 5 February 1968.

^{Page 188 note 3} Cf. Oduho, Joseph and Deng, William, The Problem of the Southern Sudan (London, 1963), pp. 24–5Google Scholar; and Albino, Oliver, The Sudan: a southern viewpoint (London, 1970), p. 33–4.Google Scholar

^{Page 188 note 4} Omer Beshir, op. cit. pp. 190–1.

^{Page 188 note 5} Khartoum News Service, 3 February 1968.

^{Page 189 note 1} A conference of the supporters of the Imam's wing of the Umma Party protested that over 50 candidates had been imposed on rural constituencies from Khartoum in previous elections; ibid. 14 January 1968.

^{Page 189 note 2} The Northern parties won 28 out of the 57 Southern constituencies, 26 of these going to the two religious parties with only a total of 26,000 votes.

^{Page 190 note 1} el-Mahdi, Saddiq, reported in the Morning News, 22 04 1969.Google Scholar

^{Page 190 note 2} Ibid. 23 April 1969.

^{Page 190 note 3} See Bakheit, Gaafar M. A., ‘British Administration and Sudanese Nationalism, 1919–1939’; Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge, 1965.Google Scholar

^{Page 190 note 4} 'Abd al-Rahim interviewed Ismail al-Azhari in 1960 who made this claim; op. cit. p. 102 and see also pp. 221–3. it is surprising, however, that t Egyptians did not discover that they were being ‘used’ in this way.

^{Page 191 note 1} Ibid. p. 223.

^{Page 191 note 2} Legum, Cohn (ed.), Africa Contemporary Record: Annual Survey and Documents, 1970–71 (London, 1972), p. c. 87.Google Scholar

^{Page 192 note 1} Hill, Richard, Egypt in the Sudan, 1820–1881 (London, 1959), pp. 168–9.Google Scholar

^{Page 192 note 2} See Gaitskell, Arthur, Gezira: a story of development in the Sudan (London, 1959), pp. 40–1 and ch. 9.Google Scholar

^{Page 193 note 1} 'Abd al-Rahim, loc. cit. p. 245.

^{Page 193 note 2} Holt, P. M., A Modern History of the Sudan (London, 1967), pp. 183–4.Google Scholar

^{Page 193 note 3} Issawi, Charles, Egypt in Revolution (London, 1963), pp. 307.Google Scholar

^{Page 194 note 1} Egypt's industrial exports, according to El Ahram (Cairo), 14 02 1970,Google Scholar went up 19 per cent in the second half of 1969, compared with the same period the previous year.

^{Page 194 note 2} Issawi, op. cit. pp. 300 and 306.

^{Page 194 note 3} el-Agraa, Ali, ‘The Sudan and the Arab Customs Union: a conflict’, in The East African Economic Review (Nairobi), I, 2, 12 1969, pp. 39–52.Google Scholar

^{Page 195 note 1} el-Agraa, loc. cit. p. 49.

^{Page 196 note 1} Sudan News, 16 June 1969.

^{Page 196 note 2} Khartoum News Service, 14 January 1968.

^{Page 197 note 1} Legum, op. cit. p. B. 44.

^{Page 197 note 2} Ibid. p. B. 46.

^{Page 198 note 1} Khartoum News Service, 8 January 1968, and Morning News, 10 February 1969.

^{Page 199 note 1} See my ‘The State and the Economy in the Sudan: from a political scientist's point of view’, in The Journal of Developing Areas (Macomb, Ill.), 04 1973.Google Scholar

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