the sudan since independence

The Sudan since IndependenceAuthor(s): K. M. BarbourSource: The Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Mar., 1980), pp. 73-97Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/160411 .

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The Journal of Modern African Studies, 18, I (I 980), pp. 73-97

The Sudan Since Independence by K. M. BARBOUR*

In the three decades that have elapsed since the end of World War II, the overseas empires created by the European powers have almost all come to an end, and a wide range of new states, large and small, has taken their place. Now, when many of these nations are approaching the 25th anniversaries of their independence, it is a fitting moment to ask how well they are doing, not in any spirit of paternalistic chauvinism, but rather in order to see how far the hopes and expectations of the last

years of dependence have been fulfilled in the first years of freedom, and whether a modern polity, modelled essentially on the nations of Europe, can be created and sustained by peoples of very different traditions, working within arbitrarily imposed boundaries that were not of their own choosing.

Such an enquiry does not lie within the field of any one of the social sciences, and may appear to smack of week-end journalism rather than serious academic study. Nevertheless, as a regional geographer, the author would suggest that since our subject undoubtedly encourages us to look at man and landscape as a whole, it can also be argued that both a people's perception of how their country and its resources should be developed, and their actual achievements in this field, are themes of legitimate interest to our discipline.- This article will thus begin with a few hard facts, but will consist more of untested hypotheses awaiting research than of firm conclusions based on specific investigations.

Of all the former European dependencies in Africa the largest and one of the strangest was the Sudan, more properly the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, the product of Egyptian and British empire-building, with a

consequent exposure to both Arabic and English civilising influences. Furthermore, the Sudan's population is made up of both Arab 'Med- iterranean' and African Negro elements, inhabiting widely separated areas which had little or no contact until brought together under alien rule in the nineteenth century, apart from some slave-raiding whose

memory has been kept alive by interested parties, and this has made the birth-pangs of the Sudanese nation particularly long and severe.

The writer worked at the University College of Khartoum during the last eight years before Sudanese independence, and after periods spent

* Professor of Geography, New University of Ulster, Coleraine, County Londonderry.

0022-278x/80/2828-4430 $02.00 t 1980 Cambridge University Press



in the United Kingdom and Nigeria returned to Khartoum to teach for a semester in I977, spending most of the time in the capital, but also

making visits to Eastern and Southern Sudan, and to the Gezira. The

following pages, originally conceived as a preface to a multi-authored

study of contemporary Sudan that it is hoped will shortly appear, constitute an attempt to grasp the controversial nettle, and to make an assessment of the degree of progress achieved in the Sudan since

independence on I January I956.

THE ACHIEVEMENTS

One way of assessing the achievements of independence is to construct a table and map of economic and social conditions in the Sudan as near as possible to I955, when the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium came to an end, and to compare these with the situation as close to the present as the published statistics will allow - see Table I and Map i. Though there is no way of estimating how the latter figures would have turned out if the previous political situation had continued unaltered, we must

surely admit that if a significant advance has been made it will seem to the Sudanese themselves to be the result of their changed status. For this purpose use has been made of the Sudan Almanacs from I 955 to 1957, together with the results of the First Population Census of the Sudan, I955-56 and the I973 census (alas unpublished, like so many in Africa today), plus the Government's latest Statistical Yearbook, I975-6, as well as various figures that appear in the 'Sudantistics' section of Sudanow, the official English-language monthly.1

There is a substantial number of other advances that might be added to that list, together with a range of complete innovations. Whereas

formerly a slow rail service carried passengers along a very restricted number of routes within Northern Sudan, and a limited steamer service

operated on sections of the Main Nile and on the White Nile between Kosti andJuba, there is now a whole net-work of long-distance omnibus routes radiating from the capital north, south, east, and west, making travel far easier for the average citizen than it used to be. The telephone service between the capital and the provinces is now much improved by the use of a microwave system in the north-east, and elsewhere by the Sudastat satellite project, with 14 giant dish-shaped antennae

Sudan Almanac (Khartoum), I955 to I957; First Population Census of the Sudan, 1955-56: interim reports (Khartoum, I957-8); Ministry of National Planning, Democratic Republic of the Sudan, Statistical Yearbook, 1975-76 (Khartoum, 1978); Ministry of Culture and Information, Sudanow

(Khartoum), I 976 to date.

74 K.M. BARBOUR



THE SUDAN SINCE INDEPENDENCE

Map i. Developments in the Sudan since I955

which are also used for overseas calls, and to bring radio and television services from Omdurman to all parts of the country.'

These developments and advances clearly represent a very consider- able investment that has taken place in the Sudan in recent years, and

part of the expenditure involved has been devoted to infrastructure -

communications, education, health - items which, from their very nature, cannot be effectively costed in terms of return on capital invested. This makes it all the more desirable that we should have some accurate estimate of the profitability of the Sudan's investment in

agriculture, both irrigated from the Nile and mechanised in the

1 'Spreading the Word', in Sudanow, June 1979, p. 52.

75



TABLE I

Some Indicators of Social and Economic Change in the Sudan, I955-791

Inflation Real Indicators circa 1955 circa 1979 factor growth

Population 10,225,000 (55-6) 17,832,000 estimated (80) x 17

Central Government revenue S 354 million (53 4) S 3373 million(75-6) 3'0 x 32

expenditure 27-6 30434 3'7

Value of all exports S 48-8 million (55) S 2302 million (77) 25 x 19

imports 48-8 3765 2-5 3-1 cotton exports 333 1316 3'0 1-3

Gezira irrigated areas: cotton 238,926 feddans (55-6) 390,711 feddans (75-6) x i6 other 193,697 423,600 2'2

Other irrigated areas: cotton 200,000 (55-6) 444,542 (75-6) X 2'2

Mechanised rainland agriculture 27,000 (50-1) 5,000,000 approx. (77) x 1,850-0

Students in secondary schools 2,809 (55-6) 57, I42 (75-6) x 20-3

Students in Universities 825 (55-6) I17,326 (75-6) X 21 0 Medical practitioners 220 (56 1,382 (75-6) x 6-3

Railway routes 3,442 kilometres (54-5) 4,757 kilometres (74) x 1-4 Tarred roads outside urban areas 20 miles (55) 750 miles (79) x 375

Bridges of the Nile and tributaries 7 (55) 14 (79) x 2'0

Vehicles licensed for loads 5,0I9 (55-6) i9,098 (74) x 3'8 for passengers 8, io (55-6) 35,686 (74) 4'4

Sudan Airways: internal passengers 110,000 (76) international 200,000 (76)

Towns with piped water 24 (56) 46 (8o) x 2'0

electricity I5 (56) 22 (80) x 1-5 Hafirs in rural areas 309 (54) 816 (80) x 2-6

Deep bores in rural areas 190 (60) 2,335 all kinds (8o) x iso

Sources: as explained in text on p. 74.

W

tt 0 _

P




rainlands, since the possession of extensive and potentially fertile lands

awaiting cultivation is the Sudan's one outstanding asset. Certainly, there is no doubt that it was the profits of cotton cultivation, particularly in the last decade before independence, that financed very much of the

development during the latter part of the Condominium. The theme is one that goes to the very heart of the development process, and which

points unmistakably to the difference between the older colonial-type concept of the role of government, in stimulating economic growth for the sake of increased overseas earnings and a broadened tax base, and the newer post-independence attitude, which is that effective development should involve the average citizen in the decision-making process, and must include improvements to his housing, health, and education as objectives to be pursued alongside the enlargement of his income.

The early successes of the Sudan Plantations Syndicate, which became the Gezira Board in I950, were achieved by a tough discipline that made the tenants feel that they were closer to employees than to

independent farmers renting land and cultivating it to the best of their

ability. The dates of sowing and the progress of weeding and picking cotton were prescribed and supervised minutely, and it was a constant source of anxiety to tenants to find and hire the necessary labour for their Io-feddan plots of cotton, which were certainly too large for their families to work unaided.1 Since independence, pressure from the Tenants' Association has brought a number of changes. Non-Sudanese families - the 'Westerners' - have not been permitted to inherit tenancies on the death of the original holder, and these have been reduced in size from 40 feddans (including 10 of cotton) to I 5 feddans (including 5 of cotton) so as to make it possible to increase the number of tenancies, both changes seeming to suggest that the role of tenant, though disagreeable in certain respects,2 is still coveted. Security from eviction has been increased, the tenants' share of the profits of cotton cultivation has been raised from 40 to 50 per cent, and with water more plentiful since the 1959 Nile Waters Agreement with Egypt, rotations have been intensified so that the land now yields five crops (two of cotton) in six

years, instead of the former three (two of cotton) in eight years. The original Gezira Scheme, in fact, with its 1957 Managil extension,

and with the private pump schemes, now nationalised, may to-day be said to be run more in the interests of the tenants, and less with a view to raising revenue for the state. In the circumstances it is not surprising

I Arthur Gaitskell, Gezira: a story of development in the Sudan (London, 1959), pp. 229-39. 2 Tony Barnett, The Gezira Scheme: an illusion of development (London, 1977), passim. See also

Economic Intelligence Unit, Quarterly Review of Sudan (London), 2, I979, p. 14.

77



to learn that the return to the Government has relatively declined, from

S5'-3 million in Ig50,1 to very little more in 1975-6, when the total

public revenue had risen by nearly ten times, but when the Gezira Board made a loss of S2 I -4 million.2 Some of the objectives of development, rather than merely of economic growth, have therefore been achieved. But once projects cease to be regarded as a major source of state revenue, it becomes difficult tojustify why the tenants should have so much more investment and attention devoted to them than is available for the citizens of the country at large. There is no doubt that however the

irrigation schemes are run, their tenants will always be much better off than the farmers of the Kordofan Goz or the nomads of northern Darfur. As things are now, the Gezira tenants understandably pay more attention to their cash crops, such as wheat or ground-nuts, for which

they pay a water rate and whose profits go entirely to their own pockets, than to cotton, whose profits they share with the Board. Essentially similar attitudes are to be observed in the other schemes and in Khashm el Girba, the area to which the displaced Nubians were moved after the building of the Aswan High Dam.3

The latter is a particularly interesting story, and highlights the

difficulty that not merely the Sudanese but, in fact, all developing countries are having in maintaining the agricultural sectors of their economies. During the 50 or so years of the Condominium - and, indeed, even before that, during the Turkiya, when the Egyptians ruled Sudan - it was the accepted wisdom that the reason why the menfolk from Nubia, both Egyptians and Sudanese, went off to Cairo and elsewhere to seek employment, was because their native lands were unable to support them, especially since transport difficulties prevented them from concentrating on the fruits and vegetables for the urban markets to which their rich silty-clay soils beside the Nile were best suited. It now seems more reasonable, however, to say that the Nubians and the other inhabitants of the lands beside the Main Nile below Khartoum have become used to the idea of seeking urban employment more or less throughout their working lives.4

While some of the more traditionally minded are ready to leave their wives to look after their family lands, particularly if they are too poorly paid to be able to rent an adequate home in the capital or elsewhere,

1 Gaitskell, op. cit. pp. 267-8. 2 Bank of Sudan, Seventeenth Annual Report for Year Ending 3i December 1976 (Khartoum, I 977),

p. 67; Francis A. Lees and Hugh C. Brooks, The Economic and Political Development of the Sudan (London, I977), p. 47.

3 Hassan Dafalla, The Nubian Exodus (London, I975), pp. 278-90. 4 K. M. Barbour, The Republic of the Sudan: a regional geography (London, I 96), p. 147.

78 K.M. BARBOUR




others see the vastly improved opportunities for education and employment that urban life offers, and are happy to take their families with them. Moreover, even if they cannot do that, they would rather take an urban job, and hire someone to look after their land for them, than

stay and work on a farm all their lives. In consequence the tenancies

granted to the Nubians at Khashm el Girba, though vociferously demanded as compensation for the loss of their family lands, are not

really what they want for their livelihood. Hence they pay little attention to good husbandry, and the same is essentially true of the nomadic peoples who have been awarded tenancies in the same area. If they can hire labourers to till their land, and thus get a little profit by the end of the year, they are content; but even if they cannot, neither Nubian nor nomad intends to turn himself into a farm worker to help the Government get an acceptable return on its investment.

Mechanised farming on the central Sudan rainlands represents a very different approach to the problem of bringing the country's vast area of hitherto unused land into profitable cultivation. The first experiments in mechanised crop production schemes were made by the British in Kassala Province shortly after World War II. While attempts to involve the local nomadic population as tenants were unsuccessful, a number of businessmen found it worth their while to make agreements with the local tribal authorities to give them access to uncultivated areas far from

permanent water supplies, and then to acquire tractors and hire labourers in order to grow plots of i ,ooo feddans and more of dhurra

(Sorghum vulgare) . In the last decade this process, which had proved very profitable for the entrepreneurs concerned, has been extended with official support to the Nuba Mountains, Southern Kordofan, and Southern Darfur.

While limited areas have been cultivated by the Mechanised Farming Public Corporation as pilot schemes, with attempts to determine the

proper rotations, fallow periods, shelter belts, depth of ploughing, etcetera, wealthy merchants and others with no experience of farming have simultaneously been acquiring tractors and permits to cultivate plots of up to ,500 feddans for no more than a small development fee and an annual peppercorn rent of pt. perfeddan. The Government has been quite unable to supervise the activities of these people, whose initially very profitable operations have been described by a rural sociologist as 'agricultural strip mining', featuring low capital input, quick returns, and an absence of long-term concern for the environment. Two studies of yields have shown a decline from 0-5 ton perfeddan in

1 Ibid. pp. I92-8.

79



I970-I to 0'2 ton or less by I974-5, and while the adoption of a suitable rotation might prove more profitable over a 25- or Ioo-year period, in the short run a farmer does best from continuing to cultivate land year by year until the yield virtually disappears. Unfortunately, at the same

time, important elements in the local flora and fauna are also likely to

disappear, and can lead to the devastation of crops by such predators as rats and insects, if their natural enemies - foxes and birds - have been driven away.1

In the future, mechanised agriculture of this kind seems likely to

spread ever further away from existing settlements and lines of

communication, and in consequence both supervision by official inspec- tors and the provision of amenities of any kind for the labour force will become increasingly difficult and expensive. The dilemma confronting the Government is therefore clear, for if attempts were made to create new settlements in the broad clay plains, it would be even harder to

persuade farmers to migrate to them permanently than it has proved to do the same at Khashm el Girba, and the operation would probably fail. If officials, policemen, doctors, or teachers were posted to such new

settlements, they and their families would be extremely discontented, and would certainly move away as soon as they could; and yet, if

capitalists are allowed to go ahead unsupervised, it may be that they will do major harm to the whole environment for the sake of a few years of quick profits.

Irn fact, it must be recognised by all students of the development process in the Third World that most rural areas - even the fertile

irrigated fields, date palms, and traditional villages of Sudanese

Dongola, or the picturesque terraced hillsides of Jebel Marra - are

becoming progressively less attractive to those who know that in the towns they can get clean water from a tap, a conveniently wide range of food in the market, drugs and medical care for their families, and

schooling for their children, not to mention those 'bright lights' that some authors have misguidedly believed to be the chief enticement of the city. If this is true of those favoured spots where water, food, and shade are readily available to rural dwellers, how much more so is it the case in the Sudan, where life away from the rivers is a harsh and constant struggle? It is little wonder, in consequence, that one of the

great changes in the Sudan since independence has been the vast

enlargement of the urban population, with Khartoum receiving the lion's share of this growth.2

1 M. Bryant, 'Bread-Basket or Dust-Bowl?' in Sudanow, October I977, pp. 42-6. 2 El-Sayed El-Bushra, An Atlas of Khartoum Conurbation (Khartoum, 1976), pp. 75-6.

8o K.M.BARBOUR



THE SUDAN SINCE INDEPENDENCE 0I

TABLE 2

Population of the Sudan's Largest Towns, 1955-6 and 19731

I973 1973 X I00

Towns I955-6 I973 1956

Khartoum 93,103 333,906 358'6 Omdurman I I3,55 293,399 258-4 Khartoum North 39,082 150,989 386-3 Port Sudan 47,562 132,632 278 2

Wad Madani 47,677 106,715 223-8 Kassala 40,612 99,652 245'4 El Obeid 52,372 90,073 172-0

Gedaref I7,537 66,465 378-9 Atbara 36,298 66,ii6 182-1

Nyala 12,278 59,583 485 3 Juba I0,660 56,737 532-2 Wau 8,oog 52,750 658-6

Total: 12 Towns 518,741 I,509,017 290-9

Sudan I0,262,536 14,113,590 137'5

Such an expansion of the capital has, of course, been a feature of every post-colonial territory in Africa during the past two decades. In addition to the conscious development of industrialisation, which in the case of import-substitution has naturally been drawn to the largest cities, there has been an increase in the functions of government, the

heightened need for security forces, the expansion of training and education (particularly the more advanced forms which gravitate readily to the capital), the enlargement of trade, the arrival of new banks and development agencies, the establishment of the diplomatic corps with representatives from many nations (more than 50 in the Sudan), the building of luxury hotels, and, indeed, the provision of necessary housing, services, and utilities for all the classes listed. In Table 2 the

populations of the Sudan's 12 largest towns, according to the 1973 census, are compared with the figures for I955-6. As will be seen, the overall growth has almost trebled in a period of 17 years, whereas for the country as a whole the increase has been less than I4 times, if the very low figures which that census gave for the southern provinces are to be believed.

This rapid urban growth has been accompanied by a remarkable areal spread in all the Sudan's cities, essentially because the strong Islamic tradition in Northern Sudanese society makes the occupation of flats generally unacceptable on account of the loss of privacy, while

1 Sources: First Population Census of the Sudan, 1955-56, and the unpublished 1973 census, available in Khartoum.



the severity of the climate makes the possession of an open space for

sitting out and sleeping a virtual necessity. In the rapidly expanding provincial capitals of Southern Sudan, the building materials are in

general those of the rural areas, and by no means strong enough to

support two or more storeys. Of all the cities, only Khartoum, the

capital, has acquired a recognisable central business district, with high blocks of hotels and offices that have quite transformed what was

previously a pleasant and almost humble city beside the Nile, laid out on a grid with diagonals that was said by some to resemble the Union

Jack. A most successful use has been made of the space beside the Blue Nile

where it approaches its junction with the White Nile in the Mogren area; a former village and dockyard have been removed and replaced by pleasure gardens, a highly imaginative National Museum with treasures from Lake Nubia and elsewhere, the Khartoum Hilton Hotel, and most outstanding of all, by the gleaming white Friendship Palace, built in 1976 as the gift of the People's Republic of China. Similar

foreign generosity is responsible for two other fine buildings across the White Nile on the approach to Omdurman: the North Korean Palace of Youth, a splendid recreation and sports hall, and the Roumanian- financed People's Assembly Building, while just to the north of these a striking modern mosque - the Nilein (Two Niles) -- contributes to the

generally distinguished lay-out of the area.1 Furthermore, a tall hotel, intended to serve also an an official hospitality centre, is rising in Khartoum North across the Blue Nile from the Secretariat. These

structures, when taken with the improved road network and the four road bridges which now facilitate circulation in the Three Towns, make the capital much the most up-to-date and impressive part of the Sudan, all the more striking because Omdurman is otherwise very little

changed from its condition of 30 years ago.

THE EXPECTATIONS

Assuredly, then, there has been substantial progress in the Sudan since 1955, though this has not achieved either the pace or the direction that thoughtful Sudanese were hoping for when they made their first concerted demands for self-rule and eventual independence in 1942, during World War II.2 These demands, formulated by the Sudanese Graduates' Congress - i.e. the 'diplomates' of Gordon Memorial Col-

1 'The El Nilein Mosque - a Focal Point', in Sudanow, March 1977, p. 25. 2 P. M. Holt, A Modern History of the Sudan (London, I961), p. 142.

82 K. M. BARBOUR




lege, later the University College of Khartoum, and now Khartoum

University - may be thought of as the kind of promise from their rulers that the educated Sudanese then felt it would be appropriate to demand as the price of their continued support for the allied war effort. At this stage, it should be remarked, a direct demand for independence would have been unrealistic, partly because the Egyptians and some Sudanese then regarded the Sudan as a part of the Egyptian kingdom, and partly because the British clearly could not contemplate all the

complications of a total transfer of power during a world war, even if

they had been favourably disposed to the idea. Incidentally, the Condominium was really a legal fiction, for since its establishment in

1898 the British had effectively monopolised the control of the Sudan, almost the only power which they did not possess being that of

terminating their rule on terms unacceptable to the Egyptians.l The demands of the graduates began with a request for an Anglo-

Egyptian declaration in favour of self-determination for the Sudan at the end of the war, and after that were principally concerned with

obtaining for the Sudanese the right to participate in the approval of the annual budgets and of any new legislation, with a stepping-up of

expenditure on education, and with increasing Sudanese participation in the civil service, in business concerns, and in the exploitation of the

country's wealth.2 The graduates also wanted the executive and the

judicial branches of the Government to be separated, Sudanese national-

ity to be properly defined (which had not been done hitherto, because of differing views held in London and Cairo concerning the country's status), and immigration to be checked, particularly from Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon. In the south, 'closed districts' were to be abolished, enabling the Sudanese to move freely in their own country, and subsidies to mission schools were to be ended, a common educational curriculum being requested for the whole of the Sudan.3

These demands were far-reaching in their scope, and quite specific in their tenour. Now, after more than 30 years, almost but not quite all of them have been achieved. The Sudan is wholly independent, the Gezira Scheme is nationalised, and all posts in the Government, the

banks, and former commercial firms are either in Sudanese hands or at the disposal of wholly Sudanese selection boards. The judiciary has been separated formally from the executive, though it would be a rash

Beshir Mohammed Said, The Sudan: crossroads of Africa (London, I965), pp. 17-18. 2 At that time, it should be recalled, there were within the civil service special salary scales

and terms of service considered appropriate for Sudanese, for British, and also for Egyptian and

Syrian officials. A great deal of Sudan's foreign trade was in the hands of Greeks, Armenians, Italians, and Indians, in addition to the foreign nationals already mentioned.

3 Holt, op. cit. pp. 142 et seq.

83



man who would assert that all judges now felt able to go against the

expressed wishes of, say, the President, if their consciences told them

to; and the Sudanese have control of immigration and nationality, though it is probably not much easier than ever it was to check movements across lengthy land frontiers. On the other hand, the

regional government of Southern Sudan is now pursuing rather different

religious and educational aims from those of the North, for the Christian missionaries are-back and teaching once more, with official support, and the English language is coming back in many ways, perhaps the most

striking being the number plates on many new vehicles, using Roman letters and 'western' Arabic numerals only.

Furthermore, although Northerners may now move quite freely in Southern Sudan, and although there is now a substantial number of Southerners working in the North, on any objective analysis it must be

accepted that integration of the populations of the two regions is still a major problem. This comes as no surprise to the visitor from Ulster, where many Catholics and Protestants with identical physical features, accents, and habits of dress find in their separate confessions of the same faith, and in their separate underlying senses of nationality, enough reason to avoid socialising or marrying together, and even more

recently, to insist on inhabiting separate housing estates. In the Sudan, however, some Northerners, who have probably rather rosy and unhistorical ideas of how the Arabs came to the Sudan, converted the local inhabitants to Islam and integrated with them,' often express the view that but for British policy they would have repeated the process in the southern Provinces between 1885 and 1955, and now believe that after the 1972 Addis Ababa Agreement the blending of the two

populations and the spread of northern culture should proceed briskly and without interruption. Whereas, in fact, the Southerners who come to the capital scarcely integrate at all with the local inhabitants: they wander around self-consciously together, finding their role as unskilled labourers humiliating, but tolerable for the sake of the money they can earn and the cows they can buy when they return home.

Despite their unfamiliar appearance, accents, and attitudes, the Southerners could probably be integrated even now into northern

society, as often happened in the past, if they came one by one, and

accepted every aspect of the northern way of life. To-day, however, most Southerners come north for short periods only, some of the men bring their wives with them, they socialise with one another, and they are sustained in their sense of identity by the knowledge that they have their

I Yusuf Fadl Hasan, The Arabs and the Sudan (Khartoum, 1973), pp. 145-73.

84 K.M.BARBOUR




provincial and regional authorities behind them. In all Africa to-day, as indeed in Europe and America too, minorities are standing up for their rights to separate personalities, and often to separate territories and separate governments besides; nothing of what the writer has seen and read in the Sudan recently, north or south, has led him to doubt that southern integration is exceedingly far off, and probably never to be attained at all.1

Now none of the above remarks is intended as in any sense a

disparagement of Sudanese sincerity, because the major constitutional

difficulty that the Sudan has experienced since independence - namely the question of the relationship between the northern and the southern Provinces - owes its existence to the shortsightedness of two imperialistic powers, Egypt and Great Britain. The former, by invading Northern Sudan in 182 , and by extending its rule to points beyond the

Arab-speaking world in Southern Sudan in the following years, created a territory of a kind that twentieth-century nationalism would inevitably find unacceptable;2 the latter, by taking control initially of the whole of the Egyptian Kingdom and Empire, and later by retaining power in its southern portion, similarly gave hostages to fortune that the United Kingdom was subsequently unable to redeem with both logic and honour. If anything, it is rather my intention to highlight the

unifying zeal and commonsense of the President of the Republic, Sayed Jaafar Muhammad Nimeiri, who after the wisdom of the I972 agreement which ended the civil war, has now made it his practice to visit a different provincial headquarters each year in order to celebrate

Independence Day, and is so helping all those Sudanese who watch national television, read a newspaper, or listen to Radio Omdurman, to become more aware of the vastness and the diversity of the country of which they are citizens.

Genuine regional devolution is not a common feature of Islamic states in the world to-day, a point well illustrated by the persistent troubles of Chad, or by the survival of the absurdly large Northern Region in

Nigeria until I967, for as long as the whole country was effectively ruled

by the Northern Peoples' Congress. Similarly, within the Sudan it is the three former southern Provinces of the South, now divided into six, that constitute the only part of the country where significant numbers of the inhabitants have recently shown any desire to escape the control of Khartoum.3 In the west, Darfur was not brought under effective British

Francis Mading Deng, Dynamics of Identification (Khartoum, I973), passim. 2 R. Hill, Egypt in the Sudan, 1820-1881 (London, I959), passim. 3 E.g. Oliver Albino, The Sudan: a southern viewpoint (London, 1970), pp. I I Iff.

85



rule until igi6,1 but since independence most of the Province's inhabitants have accepted continued membership of the Sudan without

question. In the north, the Nubians of Wadi Halfa and Dongola might have seen some advantage from being united to their ethnic kinsmen in the Egyptian Province of Aswan, but even before the construction of the High Dam, which has eliminated agricultural settlements for 300 kilometres along a stretch of the Nile, it was clear that they much

preferred to remain Sudanese. In the east, there are close ties between certain nomadic communities and the inhabitants of northern Eritrea; these have led to minor demarcation disputes concerning the position of the Sudanese-Ethiopian border, but not to any question of secession from the Sudan.

The unifying and centripetal tendencies implied in the above, for

virtually all parts of Northern Sudan, are further reflected in the absence of any significant demand for the creation of separate regional or state governments, such as those which have been set up in Africa's other largest and most populous countries, Zaire and Nigeria. We may choose to ascribe this acceptance of the dominating role played by the inhabitants of the lands beside the two Niles to physical and economic

conditions, particularly to the wealth and high population density made

possible by irrigation: away from the river there were at the time of Sudanese independence only two towns with a population approaching 50,000 inhabitants, namely El Obeid in the west, the railway terminus, and Port Sudan in the east, the national ocean port.

Alternatively, we may prefer to lay stress on the linguistic and confessional bases of Sudanese unity, for there is no doubt that the Arabic language and the Islamic faith constitute powerful forces, bringing the Northern Sudanese together, even if the religious sects or

tariqas create a certain division of personal loyalties to particular leaders and hence form the basis of political parties.2 In the development of a sense of Sudanese nationality the role of some 50 years of the Condominium should not be discounted, not merely because Sudanese

officials, merchants, and others moved about the country and became aware of its size and diversity, but also because the British District Commissioners and Provincial Governors were at once authoritative towards their subordinates and deferential to their superiors, and so established a pattern of nation-wide obedience to the capital.3

In consequence of the above, the efforts that are now being made to I A. B. Theobald, Ali Dinar, Last Sultan of Darfur, i898--i9i6 (London, 1965), p. 207. 2 J. S. Trimingham, Islam in the Sudan (London, I949 and I965), pp. I86--241. 3 Harold MacMichael, The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (London, 1934), p. 83.

86 K. M.BARBOUR



THE SUDAN SINCE INDEPENDENCE 87 associate the public at large with the policies of the Government are

being directed through the only permitted political party in the

country, the Sudanese Socialist Union.1 Branches of the Union have been established down to the level of urban wards and rural villages, within which officials of the Union can sound out the attitudes of the

public towards proposed or recent legislation, and can also explain the

thinking behind official policy when this may run counter to local interests or aspirations.

In theory, such a system should give ordinary citizens the right to make suggestions which, if approved locally, would then be considered all the way up to the Presidential Council, and if finally found

satisfactory could be adopted as national policy. In practice, however, the ruler of a large and impecunious state, at the mercy of natural hazards as well as the vicissitudes of foreign politics, notably the attitudes of neighbours, can scarcely afford the luxury of waiting for his subjects to devise the right answers to countless pressing problems. If, therefore, actual power has not been delegated to regional authorities, whether for the raising of taxes or for their allocation, an organisation such as the S.S.U. must become a propaganda exercise on behalf of the Government, encouraging 'Yes-men' rather than originral thinkers, and

scarcely diminishing the autocratic nature of a military regime.2 That stern view is hardly modified by current thoughts on regional

devolution in the Sudan. Since the beginning of 1980 the National Committee of the S.S.U. has been deliberating how best to break up the organisation of Northern Sudan into regional units to allow greater local participation in policy-making. Current proposals, yet to be

approved, suggest that the authorities are fearful of permitting the

growth of regional governments based on a sense of historical identity or personality; thus Darfur, an obvious cultural and historical unit, and

physically quite distinct, is likely to be merged with the whole of Kordofan, which includes Arab and negroid Nuba elements, both quite unlike Darfur. Again, Wad Madani, the centre of the wealthy and advanced Gezira, is likely to be associated with Kassala, a traditional

religious centre in an area dominated by nomads, while the capital of this new Eastern Region, El Gedaref, depends largely today on mechanised rain-land farming, and contains a high proportion of immigrant westerners. Yet, if each Region remains a microcosm of Sudan's own diversity, ethnic and economic, each will have to ask Khartoum to

1 Abd El Moneim Awad El Rayah, 'Away from the Capital', in Sudanow, May 1978, pp. I6-20. 2 Abd El Moneim Awad El Rayah and A. L. Taban, 'A Decade of Concensus', in ibid.January

1980, pp. 1I-I5.



adjudicate between local disagreements, and the whole dynamic and

mobilising effect of regional semi-autonomy will be lost - see Map i. Yet this should not surprise us, for the creation of the S.S.U. has

had as one of its objectives the destruction of the traditional semi-

hereditary type of administrative structure which the British had found it convenient to support and to work through, namely the system of

nazirs or tribal leaders, with beneath them their representatives, the

'omdas, heading groups of nomads or of villages, and the sheikhs or headmen at the level of the single encampment or village.1 This, perhaps, makes it ironical that the modern system of laws which the British introduced, the Sudan Penal Code (based on an Indian model), is now being attacked by Sudanese who would like their country to revert to a traditional Islamic code based on the Shari'a, though this was never a theme mentioned in their demands for independence and

autonomy in the past. The motives are essentially traditional, an affirmation of religious

faith and national identity, and a rejection of atheist communism. Pan-Arab solidarity is also involved, with a desire to be aligned with such conservative states as Saudi Arabia, while Sudanese puritanism and asceticism are likewise playing their part, for even to-day the great majority of the population observe the rules of the fasting month of Ramadan meticulously. There have already been several laws and edicts which attempt to impose private virtue by public decree: brothels have been banned, the Government has sold its share in the Blue Nile

Brewery, which it had previously nationalised, and leading Sudanese officials have been required to foreswear the use of alcohol. An ordinance is under consideration which would introduce some of the restrictions on conduct, particularly drinking alcohol, that are already being experienced by residents in Saudi Arabia. There is at least one bank which refuses to lend money for interest, because this is forbidden

by the Shari'a, and which takes instead a share of the equity of any enterprise to which it makes an advance.

At one level, therefore, the forces of traditionalism are powerful in the Sudan, and even among university students it is the Moslem

Brethren, Al Ikhwan Al Muslimin, who currently win all the union elections. Yet, at the same time, there is a significant set offorces at work in the opposite direction. Some of these, such as the spread of education or the rise of industrialisation, are definitely the results of official policy, while others are the inevitable consequence of allowing foreign personnel, publications, and ideas into the country, and simultaneously of sending

1 MacMichael, op. cit. p. 243-

88 K.M. BARBOUR




Sudanese abroad to acquire technical qualifications of many kinds. By now, moreover, it is not merely a question of how many Sudanese have travelled outside at public expense, whether to study or to work, or as families accompanying an official; over the past two decades there has also been a striking flow of Sudanese visiting Egypt, Europe, and other

parts of the world at their own expense. The results of such international mobility show themselves in a

number of ways, some of which could only properly be assessed by the most sensitive and experienced of observers, since such themes as the abandonment of traditional values or the adoption of foreign ways evoke emotional responses that can prevent an objective judgement. Thus, for

example, the use of an ordinary Sudanese housewife's face on the cover of Sudanow for November I977, quite unveiled, could seem to some to be a sign of real advance and emancipation, while others might view it with abhorrence and dismay as shameless and immoral, and yet others as being quite unimportant, because of the journal's minute circulation

(I ,ooo copies per month), among a wholly unrepresentative and uninfluential readership, consisting principally of Southerners, foreign- ers, etcetera.

On the material plane it is rather easier to observe a number of innovations: the common craze for powerful radios and tape-recorders, valued not only as status symbols, but also because they give access to

foreign broadcasts; the spread of new styles of clothing - for example, blue jeans - and of hairdressing, particularly the Afro-style, and those

curly black wigs that are also popular in West Africa; the gradual shortening or even abandonment ofthe long enveloping robe or tob among women; the increasing use of cutlery and china ware for eating; a few women being allowed to learn to drive the family car, or even to have one of their own; the gradual shift from the traditional single- story house towards blocks of flats.

The writer, with some help from students of the University of Khartoum, carried out a mid-morning survey in various provincial capitals to observe the spread of modernisation in the Sudan, and arrived at the following conclusions, amongst others:

I. Ordinary spectacles for everyday wear are very scarce, even in Khartoum, probably because of the paucity of opticians; but up to a

quarter of all men tended to wear dark glasses, these being almost as common in the most remote areas as they are in the capital.

2. Dress may be a better indicator of where the forces of innovation are at work. Except in Kassala and Rumbek, the proportion of men wearing shirts and long trousers approaches 50 per cent, and in

89



90 K. M. BARBOUR

Khartoum or Juba it is nearer 80 per cent in the middle of the day, though in the evening the proportion would be rather lower in the

capital, where the Northern Sudanese relax in traditional turban and

robe, imma and jallabiya. Shorts are worn by adult males in the South

only, and suits are extremely rare, apart from uniforms. At Kassala and

Rumbek, where animal-rearing prevails as a way of life, more than half of all men were seen wearing traditional dress. Furthermore, for women there are still areas, particularly in the south, where the tob is not the traditional dress, and it is there too that skirts are most commonly worn. In central Khartoum the proportion of women wearing skirts is over 20 per cent, being influenced by the number of foreign visitors and

residents, but in the provincial capitals of the North, such as Kassala or Port Sudan, the proportion falls below o per cent. The tobs

quite clearly reflect an increasing fashion-consciousness, with office workers invariably wearing spotless white nylon, and with bright and multi-coloured rayon tobs now much more usual than the traditional black or white of heavy cotton. It would appear that tobs are now worn rather lower round the face and rather higher round the ankle than they used to be.

3. Although virtually all private motoring takes place within, and not between, urban centres - except from the Three Towns to Wad Medani and parts of the Gezira - small economical cars are very scarce. While the reason may partly be the need for durability on the poor road

surfaces, a more convincing explanation is the fact that a car is seen as a status symbol as much as a means of locomotion, and a small vehicle evokes little respect. Women drivers were virtually non-existent, even in the capital, thus achieving by social custom almost the same effect as that produced by law on the other side of the Red Sea. Private cars were virtually absent at the end of 1977 in Southern Sudan, mainly as a result of the civil war and the terrible state of the roads. Federal, regional, and provincial officials who needed to be mobile all had access to official vehicles and petrol.

The last of these three sets of findings call for further consideration, since their interpretation can lead us in two directions. The first could be an enquiry into how, in a state where socialism is proclaimed in the title of the only political party, where the gross domestic product is

exceptionally low per capita, and where taxation, shortages, and the black market make all but the bare necessities of life extremely expensive, a substantial number of individuals are able to import and

pay the very high customs duties on bigger motor vehicles than they really need, to build large private houses in the vicinity of the capital,



THE SUDAN SINCE INDEPENDENCE 9I

and to frequent luxurious hotels which are certainly not the preserve of foreign businessmen on generous expense accounts. And the second, which follows from the first, is that if we accept that there exists a class of Sudanese capitalists with funds available for investment in commerce, agriculture, industry, or related enterprises, are there forces at work such as will guide their investments in economically and socially desirable directions?

The answer to the first question is that the ideology proclaimed in the title of the Sudanese Socialist Union is only an aspiration, an

expression of a belief that all should work for the common good; there are no plans to completely nationalise either land or economic activities, and indeed the S.S.U. is strictly opposed to communism. In consequence, though private pumping schemes have been nationalised or confiscated, private investment in mechanised agriculture is encouraged; though state-owned cotton spinning and weaving mills have been constructed, private factories are also allowed to operate, built partly with Sudanese and partly with foreign capital; and though the export of cotton is a state monopoly, most imports and almost all of their distribution are in private hands.

To a certain extent our second question has provided an answer to our first, by indicating that private enterprise is still active in various kinds of manufacturing, in transport, and in wholesale and retail trade. Yet, in a period of shortages of foreign currency and of interruptions in the supply of both raw materials and daily necessities, those who are able and willing to hoard goods in order to create artificial scarcity, and then to sell their stocks at black-market prices, can make enormous

profits, far greater and more assured than those to be expected from

manufacturing or farming. Even legitimate trade in the Sudan works on very high 'mark-ups' to counter low turnover, spoilage, bad debts, etcetera, and so when goods are sold at two or three times the normal price, substantial profits accumulate quickly.

Furthermore, the moneyed class has been able to make large fortunes out of real estate, partly by buying and selling plots, but also by building houses and apartments to let. The increase in the number not only of

jobs available for Sudanese in the capital, but also of foreign embassies and international agencies with offices in Khartoum, has very greatly enhanced rents for both office space and high quality residences.1 The effect is the greater on account of perennial shortages of cement, bricks, and other construction materials, and also because, it is said, the rate at which the authorities release government land for building by no

1 'The Soaring Rents', in Sudanow, January 1977, pp. 9-10.



means keeps up with the demand. The rapid development of a class of

extremely wealthy Sudanese is assisted by the fact that the highest rate of income tax is only 50 per cent, while businessmen rarely reveal their full profits; furthermore, rents on property are hardly ever declared or

detected, and neither capital gains nor inheritances attract any taxation at present.

One result of the property boom, combined with the effects of a

perennial shortage of foreign currency, has been to make the country exceptionally expensive for visitors. The Sudan, thus, has all the

inflationary disadvantages of the countries of the Middle East without the buoyancy engendered by rising petroleum revenues. Wealth is

narrowly distributed, for the wages of the average unskilled labourer or clerk in the civil service are extremely low - they were raised to starting rates of S,f29 and Sf49 per month, respectively, in i9781 - and in

consequence there is little effective demand for the products of local

industry. This low spending power, combined with the high level of

profits to be obtained from building property to let, from the import- export trade, and from distribution, has long since been recognised to be a deterrent to investment in productive activities such as manu-

facturing or the intensification of agriculture. If the above be true of normal profit levels, then the argument must

be all the more valid in respect of the exceptional return to be obtained from profiteering in sugar, cooking oil, or other basic commodities that

periodically can only be obtained through the black market. The balance is further swung in favour of commerce and property deals, and

against agriculture and industry, by the currency difficulties just mentioned. Shortages of spares for pumps and tractors and of oil fuel have been among the chief factors that have reduced production on the Blue and White Nile irrigation schemes in recent years, both before and since nationalisation. Similarly, hold-ups ofmachinery and raw materials have been major hindrances to manufacturers, who have also to cope with regular delays in Sudan Railways and Sudan Airways, as well the

expensive results of unpredictable electricity cuts of various lengths.2 Such shortages of foreign currency are delaying the development of

almost every independent African state. Once the government of a poor developing country takes stock of the huge range of improvements it

1 Ibrahim Mohamed Ahmed Mohamed, 'New Scale, More Money', in ibid. July 1978, P. 23.

Doctors and engineers start at S 1,563 per annum only, and arts graduates at SfI,182, or Sf98.5

per month. 2 H. M. Mirghani and H. U. Mohamed, 'The International Money Crisis.. .Sudan', in

Economic and Research Council Research Paper, No. 8, Khartoum, 1976, p. 60.

92 K. M. BARBOUR




would like to make, it inevitably finds it has to make choices between investments for the future and the gratification of immediate wishes.

Moreover, even while it keeps the latter to the minimum, the supply of foreign exchange is still likely to prove inadequate, partly because of the weakness of primary producers when the terms of trade turn

against them, and partly because almost all developments generate a

greater need for imported fuels, supplies, etcetera, to keep them going than was envisaged when they were first begun. Hence, since the

economy is always being run with virtually no margin of safety, grevious difficulties often arise as the result of relatively minor miscalculations, as when President Nimeiri broadcast to the Sudanese people in

September 1978, and explained how unexpectedly heavy rains and a

jamming of sluices at the Sennar Dam had been responsible for major power cuts in the capital during the trying month of Ramadan!

Such difficulties are not peculiar to the Sudan, but many citizens may be forgiven for wondering why, quite apart from external problems due to rising petroleum prices and falling prices for long-staple cotton, successive governments have proved so incapable of checking profiteering in rents, and in the sale of daily necessities within the country. The story is common enough, but these are not merely minor difficulties, for when the scales are apparently weighted in favour of merchants, landlords, and dishonest officials, sooner or later public servants look

for a way to find a more comfortable existence, particularly because the levels of salaries paid in the Sudan to graduates and the professional classes are so low.

The result is the brain-drain, which hits the Sudan exceptionally severely because its doctors, engineers, and academics are so well suited to employment in the Arabic-speaking world or elsewhere in Africa:

they tend to speak English better than do Iraqis, Jordanians, or

Egyptians, and to be much less inclined to interest themselves in local

politics.1 Furthermore, there is already, as we have remarked above, a tradition of Sudanese men who go off to Cairo or Khartoum from their villages in Nubia or Dongola, leaving their wives and children behind.2 Certainly, a period of two or three years spent in Riyadh or

Kuwait, at three to five times his original salary, is very attractive to a well-trained man who cannot see how else he will ever earn enough to build a house or buy a decent motor car. In addition to the Arab

lands, academic Sudanese are also attracted to centres like Ibadan or Nairobi, where the salaries are less generous than in Arabia but much

1 Sir Sid Ahmed, 'The Brain Drain', in Sudanow, December 1976, pp. 7-9. 2 Barbour, op. cit. p. 147.

93



better than in the Sudan, and where their wives enjoy a freer existence, while their children learn to speak English fluently.

Politicians like to speak of these moves as if they were wholly beneficial, bringing foreign currency into the Sudan, and creating good will among fraternal Arab and African states. But the truth is that

they drain the Sudan of expensively trained workers at the height of their powers, and disturb and disrupt almost all the ministries, corporations, schools, and colleges in the country, since their members are for ever seeking opportunities to get away, in the realisation that

they can earn far more by mere routine work abroad than by doing their best and earning promotion at home. The drain is by no means confined to graduates, for typists, carpenters, mechanics, surveyors, and

even, it is said, falconers and racing camel-trainers, have been lured

away, with shattering effects on labour discipline in the Sudan at almost

every level. Mention of the knowledge of English, as one of the qualifications of

the more highly trained Sudanese who are tempted to posts abroad, brings us to the somewhat remarkable fact that the University of Khartoum still uses English as the language of instruction and exam- ination for almost all subjects.1 The debate continues between the

comparative advantages of speaking to students in their native tongue, which they immediately understand, on the one hand, and of intro-

ducing them to one of the world languages in which serious academic discussion takes place, on the other. The course of recent history and the resurgence of national pride amongst the Arabs would seem to

suggest that the shift to Arabic cannot be long delayed, but the example of many undergraduates in the Middle East, able to read Arabic only and confining their studies to their lecture notes, has hitherto kept some of the most patriotic of Sudanese lecturers and professors from wishing to make a change.2

One important change in the Sudan since independence, despite the effects of the outward flow of intellectuals, has been the growing increase in the supply of printed material about the country - the information explosion, as it is often called. Because of the steady shift in

government from English to Arabic, this has been less striking than the similar trend in Nigeria or Kenya, for example, since it has been much

1 The United Kingdom Inter-University Council for Higher Education Overseas still includes Khartoum amongst the Universities that it helps with recruitment, thus contributing to repair some of the gaps created by the brain drain.

2 According to a Sudanese lecturer working in Saudi Arabia, although the University of Riyadh has a marvellous library, most of the books are in English, which the undergraduates find too difficult to read.

94 K. M. BARBOUR




TABLE 3

Major Developmental Projects in the Sudan in the Decade I969-791

External Total cost: finance: Percentage

Category Number S million Per cent SL million of cost

Airport improvements 7 39-6 I'7 39-6 ioo

Agricultural schemes and animal resources Io 276 II-6 c.I50 54

Cement factories 2 24 Io 24 100

Education 4 123 5-2 59 5 48 Energy 4 250 Io05 75 30 Hotels 4 17 0-7 113 66-5 Mineral development 3 5 3 0o2 I 20

Oil pipeline I 43 ir8 28-3 66

Regional development schemes I0 182 7-6 83 45-6

Roads 8 248-4 IO04 ioo-8 40-6

Sugar 4 905 38-1 58IsI 64 Telecommunications 2 I0'2 0-4 4-7 46 Textiles I4 156 4 6 6 70 + 45 + Other infrastructure 7 98 4-I 68 7

Total 76 2,377 9 999 1,145'1 48^2

harder for foreign journalists or scholars to come and do research in the Sudan, and to produce worthwhile results within a relatively short space of time. Furthermore, despite paying lip-service to the value of

publications as a necessary preliminary to promotion, the Sudanese Universities are far less obsessed with lists of articles and monographs from their staff members than are their counterparts in West Africa or North America. Apart from theses, often written for overseas degrees, and some monographs and articles from the Khartoum University Press, the major stream of published or printed material on the Sudan has come from foreign organisations - for example, the British Direct- orate of Overseas Surveys, the Marburg and Munich Universities in

Germany, the United Nations agencies, a Polish Government team

investigating rural water supplies, etcetera. Many such studies are commissioned by, and submitted to, particular Ministries, and are not

easily available for scholarly reference. Significantly, and disturbingly, the best collection of such material is to be found in the library run by a foreign organisation, Triad, in a villa in southern Khartoum, where the serious investigator is made extremely welcome.

1 Source: 'Development Projects', in Sudanow, June 1979, pp. 38-49.

4 MOA

95



It is also distressing to have to record that the country's one generalist learned journal, Sudan Notes and Records (Khartoum), has been appearing so spasmodically and so late in recent years that its continuation is now in doubt. With Sudanisation long since completed, its flow of articles from amateur botanists, zoologists, linguists, historians, and archaeol-

ogists serving in the country has virtually come to an end. In its stead an attractive and useful illustrated monthly magazine, Sudanow, is now

published by the Ministry of Culture and Information, wherein a well-informed series of popular articles discusses many aspects of current affairs and developments with a frankness that comes as a most

agreeable surprise to those familiar with the normal official handouts in the Middle East.

DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS

And what of the future? Schemes abound, as is witnessed by the vast list of current development projects in a recent edition of Sudanow, summarised in Table 3. Of course, it is difficult to make a comparison with the situation at the time of independence, outlined 1the author's

regional monograph in 1g6i.1 Certain items from the _7 danow list are not priced, nor has it proved possible to obtain the required figures from other sources; in addition, there are several important aspects of

development, particularly health, public works, railways, schools, and

housing, which are not included, or at least not fully so. Nevertheless, there is a striking contrast between the 1 95 i -6 development programme, which envisaged an expenditure of Sf45-5 million, and the 1969-79 list, which totals SC2,377-9 million, and is thus 50 times as large.

Foreign aid is an important factor, but this accounts for only 48 per cent of the later figure - of course swollen by the flow of petro-dollars from the oil-exporting Arab states - and the fact remains that the

Sudanese have felt able to take on an immense volume and range of

development projects on their own account. Mention may also be made of the huge investment that the American petroleum company, Chevron, has been making in prospecting for oil in Upper Nile and Southern Kordefan and Darfur Provinces. The company has earmarked more than U.S.$70 million for prospecting, and while some encouraging traces of oil have already been found, it is by no means certain that the venture will eventually succeed.2

How far the Sudanese will be able to establish and subsequently I

Barbour, op. cit. 2 Quarterly Economic Review of Sudan, in, 1978, p. I2.

96 K. M. BARBOUR



THE SUDAN SINCE INDEPENDENCE 97 administer major development projects unaided remains, therefore, the

major issue that confronts the country at the present time. On the one

hand, it is most encouraging to learn that the construction of the Rahad Scheme is being carried out by an Egyptian-Sudanese consortium, with the full approval of the British consultants; on the other, it is depressing to read that according to present trends it is now accepted as increasingly unlikely that the Sudan will in fact be able to achieve the role of bread-basket of the Middle East, as was being forecast only a few years ago.' Whether we ascribe such difficulties to the very severe Sudanese

climate, to the excessively amiable Arab spirit of mercy and forgiveness, or to the presence of more lucrative opportunities for men and women of ambition and ability in other parts of Africa and the Middle East, the fact remains that the Sudan seems to lack the spirit of self-denial and the sense of unity of purpose and of determination which it needs, if the country is ever to develop its substantial resources effectively.

1 M. Bryant, 'Arabs Look to Sudan for Food', in The Guardian (London), 25 May I979, p. 8.

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the sudan since independence

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