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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Sudan
Index
Sudanese nationalism, as it developed after World War I, was
an Arab and Muslim phenomenon with its support base in the
northern provinces. Nationalists opposed indirect rule and
advocated a centralized national government in Khartoum
responsible for both regions. Nationalists also perceived
Britain's southern policy as artificially dividing Sudan and
preventing its unification under an arabized and Islamic ruling
class.
Ironically, however, a non-Arab led Sudan's first modern
nationalist movement. In 1921 Ali Abd al Latif, a Muslim Dinka
and former army officer, founded the United Tribes Society that
called for an independent Sudan in which power would be shared by
tribal and religious leaders. Three years later, Ali Abd al
Latif's movement, reconstituted as the White Flag League,
organized demonstrations in Khartoum that took advantage of the
unrest that followed Stack's assassination. Ali Abd al Latif's
arrest and subsequent exile in Egypt sparked a mutiny by a
Sudanese army battalion, the suppression of which succeeded in
temporarily crippling the nationalist movement.
In the 1930s, nationalism reemerged in Sudan. Educated
Sudanese wanted to restrict the governor general's power and to
obtain Sudanese participation in the council's deliberations.
However, any change in government required a change in the
condominium agreement. Neither Britain nor Egypt would agree to a
modification. Moreover, the British regarded their role as the
protection of the Sudanese from Egyptian domination. The
nationalists feared that the eventual result of friction between
the condominium powers might be the attachment of northern Sudan
to Egypt and southern Sudan to Uganda and Kenya. Although they
settled most of their differences in the 1936 Treaty of Alliance,
which set a timetable for the end of British military occupation,
Britain and Egypt failed to agree on Sudan's future status.
Nationalists and religious leaders were divided on the issue
of whether Sudan should apply for independence or for union with
Egypt. The Mahdi's son, Abd ar Rahman al Mahdi, emerged as a
spokesman for independence in opposition to Ali al Mirghani, the
Khatmiyyah leader, who favored union with Egypt. Coalitions
supported by each of these leaders formed rival wings of the
nationalist movement. Later, radical nationalists and the
Khatmiyyah created the Ashigga, later renamed the National
Unionist Party (NUP), to advance the cause of Sudanese-Egyptian
unification. The moderates favored Sudanese independence in
cooperation with Britain and together with the Ansar established
the Umma Party.
Data as of June 1991
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