The Taliban of yesteryear

It might seem at first a great advantage that the peoples of :the 
Soudan, instead of being a multitude of wild, discordant tribes, 
should unite of their own accord into one strong community, actuated 
by a common spirit, living under fixed laws, and ruled by a single 
sovereign. But there is one form of centralised government which is 
almost entirely un-progressive and beyond all other forms costly and 
tyrannical--the rule of an army. Such a combination depends, not on 
the good faith and good will of its constituents, but on their 
discipline and almost mechanical obedience. Mutual fear, not mutual 
trust, promotes the co-operation of its individual members. History 
records many such dominations, ancient and modern, civilised or 
barbaric; and though education and culture may modify, they cannot 
change their predominant characteristics--a continual subordination 
of justice to expediency, an indifference to suffering, a disdain of 
ethical principles, a laxity of morals, and a complete ignorance of 
economics. The evil qualities of military hierarchies are always the 
same. The results of their rule are universally unfortunate. The 
degree may vary with time and place, but the political supremacy of 
an army always leads to the formation of a great centralised capital, 
to the consequent impoverishment of the provinces, to the degradation 
of the peaceful inhabitants through oppression and want, to the ruin 
of commerce, the decay of learning, and the ultimate demoralisation 
even of the military order through overbearing pride and sensual 
indulgence.

Of the military dominations which history records, the Dervish Empire 
was probably the worst. All others have displayed compensating 
virtues. A high sense of personal honour has counterbalanced a low 
standard of public justice. An ennobling patriotism may partly repair 
economic follies. The miseries of the people ate often concealed by 
the magnificence of the army. The laxity of morals is in some degree 
excused by the elegance of manners. But the Dervish Empire developed 
no virtue except courage, a quality more admirable than rare. The 
poverty of the land prevented magnificence. The ignorance of its 
inhabitants excluded refinement. The Dervish dominion was born of 
war, existed by war, and fell by war. It began on the night of the 
sack of Khartoum. It ended abruptly thirteen years later in the 
battle of Qmdurman. Like a subsidiary volcano, it was flung up by one 
convulsion, blazed during the period of disturbance, and was 
destroyed by the still more violent shock that ended the eruption.

After the fall of Khartoum and the retreat of the British armies the 
Mahdi became the absolute master of the Soudan. Whatever pleasures he 
desired he could command, and, following the example of the founder 
of the Mohammedan faith, he indulged in what would seem to Western 
minds gross excesses. He established an extensive harem for his own 
peculiar use, and immured therein the fairest captives of the war. 
The conduct of the ruler was imitated by his subjects. The presence 
of women increased the vanity of the warriors : and it was not very 
long before the patched smock which had vaunted the holy poverty of 
the rebels developed into the gaudy jibba of the conquerors. Since 
the unhealthy situation of Khartoum amid swamps and marshes did not 
commend itself to the now luxurious Arabs, the Mahdi began to build 
on the western bank of the White Nile's new capital, which, from the 
detached fort which had stood there in Egyptian days, was called 
Omdurman. Among the first buildings which he set his subjects to 
construct were a mosque for the services of religion, an arsenal for 
the storage of military material, and a house for himself. But while 
he was thus entering at once upon the enjoyments of supreme power and 
unbridled lust, the God whom he had served, not unfaithfully, and who 
had given him whatever he had asked, required of Mohammed Ahmed his 
soul; and so all that he had won by his brains and bravery became of 
no more account to him.

--Winston Churchill, The River War: An Account of the Reconquest of 
the Sudan (1899)

-- 
Louis Proyect, lnp3@panix.com on 10/15/2001

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