Sudan Cold War
By JOHN HYSLOP ALL the world, including Neguib, has supposed that the fight in the Sudan elections was on the issue : Independ- ence or Union with Egypt. It is now fairly clear that the real struggle is not political at all, but is a sharper and more open development of the old rivalry between two powerful religious personalities. The .so-called pro-Egyptian parties, who have for years taken Egyptian money, have no intention of uniting with Egypt if they win the election. This has been suspected for some time by acute observers of the scene; now it becomes almost a certainty through a recent statement by Sayed Sir Ali Mirghani, leader of the Khatmia religious sect, Who took the pro-Egyptian group of parties under his wing some years ago. Sayed Sir Ali, whose word is law to his following of nearly three million Sudanese, said as polling was about to begin : " We must prove to the whole world, through our good behaviour, that the Sudan is a true demo- cratic country deserving freedom and liberation."
There is no mention of " our blood brothers the Egyptians " or " Unity of the Nile Valley." Sayed Sir Ali is after libera- tion for the Sudan with himself as head of the State, and the political party chiefs are held to his leadership by far stronger ties than the- rather phoney political alliance with Egypt. I use the word " phoney " because in Omdurman in -1951 when the pashas of Egypt were wooing the Sudan, not so ardently or skilfully as Neguib has since done, I asked an official of one of the pro-unity (with Egypt) parties why they supported a pro- Egyptian programme. He answered : " But we don't. We are not pro-Egyptian any more than we are pro-British. We are pro-Sudanese. But we think the best method of securing our freedom is to get rid of the British first and deal with the Egyptians later. If the Egyptians wish to make us presents to help us to get rid of the British so much the better. I don't believe any thinking Sudanese would prefer Egyptian domina- tion to freedom. And those who don't or can't think will vote as their tribal leaders tell them."
Before the Egyptian coup d'etai by which General Neguib swept away King Farouk and his pashas in July 1952 there were in the Sudan a number of small political parties which favoured some kind of association with Egypt. After the Anglo- Egyptian agreement on the new constitution of the Sudan of February this year, General Neguib persuaded all these parties to unite as the National Unionist Party. He paid the salaries of officials, helped them to run newspapers, gave them money to bribe tribal sheiks, gave funds to build new schools, mosques and hospitals, and subscriptions for the support of existing mosques and hospitals. But Neguib did not even receive from the National Unionists any declaration of their intentions, or any sharp definition of their plan for " union with Egypt."
Nor is he likely to. . There is something rather more than poetic justice in this, for it has never been thought by educated Sudanese or anybody else close to the scene that the Egyptians really meant to 'rule the Sudan. They have not the flair nor the energy for long periods of self less service in the dreary outposts. They were not much interested in developing the country from the desola- tion in which the Khalifa left it 55 years ago. They were content to be sleeping partners in the Condominium so long as their rights were maintained by the flying of two flags and the playing of two national anthems; and while the British were in the Sudan the Egyptians' southern frontier was secure and their rights to the Nile water inviolable. But when, due almost entirely to British effort and Sudanese diligence, the country became a going concern and there was talk of inde- pendence, the Egyptians became alarmed, not to mention covetous. Two big problems arose. In the sinking world demand for cotton the Egyptian industry was in danger from the much more efficient. Gezira scheme- in the Sudan; and the first demand of an independent Sudan would be for a bigger share in the Nile waters than is permitted in the 1929 agree- ment. The meagre share of the Sudanese—about two per cent. at low Nile, though for nearly two thousand miles the river flows through the Sudan—was bound to be increased on appeal to any international authority. And if refused there would be nothing to prevent an independent Sudan building dams of her own to secure more of the water. The Egyptian solution to these two problems was to gain remote control of the Sudan from Cairo.
President Neguib's father served in Khartoum many years ago and was married to a Sudanese wife. His two sons were born and educated in Khartoum. President Neguib could be expected, therefore, to have a better appreciation of the Sudanese minds, their hopes and ambitions, than the pashas whom he ousted; but it is not surprising that even he should be deceived by the shifting of alliances and loyalties which has occurred in Sudanese internal politics in the Thirty Years' Cold War of the Sayeds.
In 1923, when Neguib was a scholar at the Gordon College, Khartoum. Sayed Sir Ali Mirghani was in British eyes the Golden Boy among all the Sudanese. His father had been loyal to the British and Egyptians during the Mandi revolt, and had been rewarded with land and money. The estates descended to Sayed Sir Ali, as did the devotion of the Khatmia sect of orthodox Moslems. He was .rich and powerful. He lacked, however, business acumen and the flair for choosing able advisers with the result that he did not prosper materially, though he retained the allegiance of his followers. As the years rolled by and the Nile flowed on, another figure emerged —Sayed Sir Abdel Rahman el Mandi, posthumous son of the rebellious Mandi. He and his mother had been left penniless after the defeat of the Khalifa in 1898 but he was entitled to cultivate some of his father's land on Aba Island, near Kosti. He did this in a small way at first until his father's old followers and their sons sought him out. They believed that the divine spirit of the Mandi, God's Guide to Salvation, had descended to the son. The British administration, fearing a revival of Mandism, encouraged Sayed Sir Abdel to stick to the land. They gave him more acres and licences for pumping schemes on the White Nile. He worked hard on the land and grew rich, and the richer he grew the greater became his religious following. He showed great commercial ability, and by the time the first glimmerings of political consciousness were seen among the Sudanese he was the wealthiest man in the country with a fbllowing equal to that of Sayed Sir Ali. He used his influence to support the British administration in their moves towards an independent Sudan. The British warmed towards him. Meanwhile Sayed Sir Ali became bitter and jealous. He could not understand that the British should favour the son of the rebel while he, whose father was loyal in time of trouble, remained in the background, and comparatively poor.
At one time it became common talk that Sayed Sir Abdel was to be King of the independent Sudan. This was too much for Sayed Sir Ali. Both saw some danger to their standing in the growth of political parties; perhaps the young intelligentsia were not so religiously minded. The Mandi's son was first to see the danger, and he took under his wing the Umma Party seeking independence. The only course open to Sayed Sir All was to sponsor the opposing parties, though he always denied he was a politician.
Some attempts were made to break down or breach this religious rivalry by the formation of parties claiming to be divorced from religion. But they failed even among the young progressives. For no Moslem will barter his chance of a happy hereafter for mere earthly power and prosperity. To their following the Sayeds represent the link between God and the common man, and the Moslem faith demands for an individual the guidance of some pqrson endowed with peculiar spiritual virtue; who can act as that link. It should not be understood from all this that the two great leaders are selfish place seekers. Each believes that he is the Divine Guide of his.people and the man chosen to lead them to a happy freedom. These beliefs and the powerful attachment of millions of peo)le transcend by far the earthly clahhs of the Egyptians, and the British in their readiness to grant the .Sudanese independence show a much more intelligent appreciation of the situation.
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