Colonel Gordon and the Mahdi

In the future--if there is a future--humanity will study the cultural 
artifacts of the United States and Great Britain just as scholars 
study Roman epic poems. To fully understand Empire, you have to study 
how its artists flatter their masters. Since Empire loses vigor from 
generation to generation, it is no wonder that Anglo-American late 
capitalism, the bastard offspring of Ancient Rome, has not produced a 
Virgil. Instead, in its dotage, it tends more and more to draw upon 
the movies to sing its splendors, with Rambo and Ronald Reagan 
standing in for the Aeneid and Julius Caesar.

When Great Britain met its first battlefield defeat in the colonial 
world at the hands of the Mahdi-led "fuzzy-wuzzy" and dervish, it was 
thrown into as much of a quandary as the United States was after 
Somalia militiamen caught the US Marines in a devastating crossfire. 
How could savage tribesmen armed primarily with sword and spear 
defeat the best-trained and best-armed military in the world?

(Map of the Sudan: http://www.marxmail.org/Sudan_map.jpg)

To begin to grasp this imperialist trauma and, further, what drives a 
kind of neo-Mahdist revolt of today, there is no better place to 
start than "Khartoum," a 1966 British-American co-produced film that 
starred conservative icon Charlton Heston.

Written by Robert Ardrey of "Territorial Imperative" fame, "Khartoum" 
made its debut when the United States was engaged in a life-and-death 
struggle with its own defiant rebels, in this case believing in 
Communism rather than Islam. Of course, with Communism no longer a 
factor in world politics, it is no accident that malcontents across 
three continents are now returning to 19th century millenarian 
ideologies.

Striving for a kind of kitschy grandeur, "Khartoum" begins with a 
5-minute overture that superimposes the word "Overture" on a blank 
screen so the audience will understand that it is not dealing with 
some technical difficulty. Frank Cordell's overture has two motifs 
that are heard throughout the film. The "Gordon" theme is a 
second-rate "Pomp and Circumstance" march, while the "Mahdi" theme 
sounds like the standard camel-walking-across-the-desert music heard 
a million times before in films like "Lawrence of Arabia."

When the overture ends, the first images appear: silent pyramids and 
a gently flowing Nile. A narrator portentously states, "The Nile was 
always there." Indeed, Egypt and the Sudan--the two countries whose 
fates were intimately linked to the Nile--are timeless as well. These 
were lands of "mystery," where "the gods" were always a factor. It is 
out of this Orientalist stew of timelessness, gods and mystery that 
the Mahdi emerged. With this kind of introduction, it is a safe bet 
that any scenes dramatizing social and economic grievances would be 
left on the cutting floor. (It is sad to reflect upon the fact that 
producer Julian Blaustein had also produced the 1950 film "Broken 
Arrow," which was written by blacklistee Albert Maltz and which took 
a sympathetic view toward the American Indian.)

Once the legendary underpinnings are in place, the movie can cut to 
the chase. The first scene depicts the massacre of a 10,000 
expeditionary force made up of Egyptian conscripts and their 
commanding officer, Colonel William Hicks. Sent to subdue the Mahdist 
rebels, this British version of General Custer meets an Arab version 
of Sitting Bull. 

Perhaps for these British officers, there was little difference 
between the "Fuzzy-Wuzzy" and some North American Indians they once 
did battle with. General Garnet Wolseley, who would eventually head 
up an abortive mission to rescue Gordon from Khartoum, made the 
rounds across the British Empire, including Canada where he commanded 
the Red River Expedition. This was a force sent against Louis Riel 
and the rebellious Metis, composed of trappers and hunters with mixed 
Native and French Canadian ancestry. According to Robin Neillands:

"Wolseley's force made their way across the wilderness to Manitoba in 
canoes paddled by French-Canadian 'voyageurs'. The rebellion had 
collapsed before they reached Fort Garry but the 'voyageurs' were to 
enter Wolseley's mind again in the Sudan a few years later. During 
this expedition he began to gather around his headquarters a group of 
efficient and forward-looking officers." ("The Dervish Wars," p. 45)

In other words, counter-insurgency tactics learned in native Canada 
would come in handy in the Sudan. After Canada, Wolseley moved on to 
West Africa, where he fought the Ashanti from 1870-1873. By this 
time, he was the youngest General in the British army at the age of 
40.

His higher-ups regarded Colonel Hicks, who was less skilled than 
Wolseley at colonial subjugation, as mediocre at best. Sent out to 
capture the Mahdi in September of 1883, he suffered from the sort of 
over-confidence that marked British participation from the outset. 
When the Mahdi offered him mercy if he surrendered, Hicks told him no 
deal. The film accurately depicts the British troops (including 100 
'cuirassiers', or cavalry, in anachronistic chain mail) deployed in a 
standard 'square' formation, which put horsemen and cavalry on the 
perimeter, and supply wagons in the middle. Weakened by many days of 
travel in the hot sun and short on rations, the British force was 
decimated by the sword-wielding Mahdists.

(Mahdist troops attacking a "square" formation: 
http://www.marxmail.org/Sudan_battle.jpg)

Since the film is entirely from the British perspective, the Mahdist 
fighters are seen as an undifferentiated mob of howling, 'jibba' 
(smock) wearing fanatics. In reality, the Mahdist army contained 
different types of soldiers, based on social and ethnic origins. The 
term dervish, derived from the Persian term 'darawish' or beggar, was 
applied across the board to the Mahdist soldiers. For example, an 
'ansar' infantryman was armed with sword and spear. He came from the 
Beggara group of livestock-herding tribes, who were of mixed Arab and 
black descent. Riflemen were known as 'jehadiya' and had often 
formerly served in the Egyptian army. These tended to be blacks from 
the Hadendowa tribe, who were part of the Beja people and were called 
fuzzy-wuzzies by the British because of their butter-matted hair. For 
all of the racial preconceptions one might carry into this narrative, 
it is interesting to consider that blacks had most of the guns.

(Ansar infantryman: http://www.marxmail.org/ansar.jpg)

(Hadendowa "fuzzy-wuzzy": http://www.marxmail.org/hadendowa.jpg)

The British were shocked by the defeat of Hicks. In a speech to the 
House of Lords one month later, Lord Fitzmaurice said, "An Army has 
not vanished in such a fashion since Pharoah's host perished in the 
Red Sea."

Following the scene of Hicks's defeat, the film shows the triumphant 
Mahdi addressing his troops. Played by a scenery-chewing Lawrence 
Olivier, this Mahdi rolls his r's--"tomorrow" comes out as 
"tomorrrrrow." This heightens the character's exoticness in 
lily-gilding fashion.

While the Mahdi ("expected one") united people around his own brand 
of Islam, the real man was not just a religious fanatic. He had a 
social vision for the Sudan, cloaked as it was in the Koran.

(The Mahdi: http://www.marxmail.org/Mahdi.jpg)

Born in 1844, Mohammed Ahmed-Ibn-el-Sayed-Abdullah became interested 
in religion at an early age. His carpenter father encouraged his 
development by sending him to a 'khalwas,' or religious school, that 
was traditionally led by a 'fakir', or holy teacher. Part of his 
instruction involved learning the Koran by heart. Mohammed Ahmed's 
asceticism and dedication gained attention from teachers and local 
people. Most scholars, as well as his enemies in the British army 
such as Charles Gordon and Winston Churchill, share Neillands's view 
of the Mahdi:

"The broad thrust of Mohammed Ahmed's teaching followed that of other 
reformers in other religions. His Islam was one devoted to the words 
of the Prophet and based on a return to the original virtues of 
prayer and simplicity as laid down in the Koran. Any deviation from 
the Koran was therefore heresy. There was also a political edge to 
this doctrine. Mohammed Ahmed's contempt for the Egyptians and 
Turko-Circassian people, who oppressed the Sudanese, co-operated with 
the slavers and led a life of indolence and luxury, was all too plain 
but he offered hope as well. The way to paradise lay through humility 
and a strict observance of the tenets of Islam.

"There was nothing particularly new in Mohammed Ahmed's doctrines but 
he was an inspiring teacher. His message - that this world was but a 
testing ground and paradise awaited those who followed the Muslim 
faith - had a strong appeal to a people who found their daily lives 
hard in the extreme and welcomed the promise or prospect of a better 
life if not in this world then in the one to come. As far as this 
life was concerned, a better life depended on getting free of the 
'Turks'." (Dervish Wars, p. 63)

You'll note that Neillands refers to the Mahdi's "contempt" for those 
who "co-operated with the slavers." Keep this in mind when we take a 
closer look at the British anti-slavery stance in the war against the 
Sudanese people.

"Khartoum" now shifts to the chambers of Prime Minister William 
Gladstone (Ralph Richardson), who has assembled a high-level strategy 
meeting to figure out a response to the Mahdist revolt. The 
atmosphere can be likened to that which probably prevailed in the 
White House following Sept. 11. Taking into account the unflappable 
spirit of the British ruling classes, the scene could best be 
described as one of hand-wringing trepidation. As Neillands puts it:

"Her Majesty took a very poor view of armies led by British officers 
being cut to pieces by sword-armed savages. This opinion even 
stretched to armies led by former officers like Valentine Baker. 
Baker was clearly not a gentleman; he may even have been a bounder 
and was currently serving in the forces of another power, but he was 
British and relentlessly brave. In Her Majesty's opinion repeated 
massacres of forces led by British officers in the Sudan were 
deleterious to British prestige. If they continued it might set a bad 
example to discontented folk in other parts of the Empire. Something 
had to be done to restore British military standing and Her Majesty 
expected someone - possibly the Prime Minister - to do it. The 
Queen's view was widely shared by the British public and the British 
press and they were not to be denied."

In other words, Great Britain faced nearly the same situation the 
United States faces today. In the final analysis, just as was the 
case in 1883, the war against al-Qaeda and the Taliban is necessary 
to prevent a bad example being set for discontented folk in parts of 
the American Empire. It does not matter if the Taliban are a bunch of 
nasty religious fanatics. We cannot have American hegemony being 
challenged anywhere and under any conditions. It might give 
Venezuelans or South African the wrong idea.

The characters in that room were a microcosm of British imperial 
power. Sir Evelyn Baring (Alexander Knox), a Kissinger-like realist 
and cynic, sees politics as a way to advance the fortunes of his 
family bank using the leverage of his post as Governor of Egypt. Lord 
Granville (Michael Hordern) is Gladstone's Foreign Minister and a 
hard-core self-described imperialist--this was at a time when 
euphemisms were unnecessary. Representing the military high command 
are Colonel J.D.H. Stewart (Richard Johnson), who would become 
Gordon's aide in Khartoum, and the aforementioned General Wolseley 
(Nigel Green).

Although by no means a consensus, they agree to give Colonel Gordon a 
chance to sort things out, even though success seems uncertain. With 
Granville urging a hawkish interventionist course and Baring warning 
dovishly against troop commitments, Gordon is a sensible compromise. 
At any rate, nobody else would be willing to step into the developing 
quagmire except someone like Gordon, whose fanaticism matched the 
Mahdi's. Notwithstanding Gordon's religious zealotry and reputation 
for being a loose cannon, he had shown audacity in putting down the 
Taiping rebellion ten years earlier, whence he earned the nickname 
"Chinese." He would be dispatched to Sudan to collect information and 
to evacuate Egyptian citizens from Khartoum. Although Gordon was 
ordered not to take military initiatives, his reputation as a 
colonialist warrior must have raised the possibility in Gladstone's 
mind that Gordon might "improvise" after arriving there.

(Gordon in dress uniform: http://www.marxmail.org/Gordon.jpg)

But if Gordon was fanatical, at least he was on the side of the 
angels. (And he would be the first to affirm that.) Indeed, his 
impeccable moral standards would help to forestall any domestic 
criticisms of Gordon's mission in the Sudan as imperialist meddling. 
As a long-time opponent of slavery, the government could defend his 
assignment in the Sudan as a second tour of duty against the scourge 
of slavery.

On his first tour of duty in 1873, Gordon had signed on with the 
Khedive Ismail to wipe out slavery in the Sudan, a country that Egypt 
was attempting to liberate, all the better to bring under colonial 
subjugation. With the Suez Canal looming as a strategic asset for the 
country, the Khedive sought to gain control over the territory 
surrounding the White Nile in the Sudan. In order to procure British 
support for his endeavors, the Khedive pledged to wipe out slavery in 
the Sudan, a cause that Great Britain had long been associated with. 
Through the pressure of the Anti-Slavery Society and individuals like 
Wilberforce, the British government not only abolished the trade 
itself, but also made warfare on traders.

(The Khedive with his medals: http://www.marxmail.org/Khedive.jpg)

The British War Office released Gordon for duty in the Sudan and he 
assumed the post of Governor. In keeping with his reputation for 
honesty and frugality, Gordon told the Khedive that he would accept a 
salary of only £2,000 per year rather than the £10,000 offered him. 
He told his sister, "My object is to show the Khedive and his people 
that gold and silver idols are not worshipped by all the world." 
(Marlowe, "Mission to Khartum", p. 33)

Since some of the Mahdi's followers appeared to be disgruntled 
ex-slave traders, the British public--deeply committed to the 
anti-slavery cause, at least the way they understood it--could not 
possibly object to Gordon's presence. His mission would be the sort 
of thing that only the British version of the anti-American "hard 
left" could object to, just as we oppose US Marines rescuing the 
Haitian people from Macoute terror, or NATO preventing genocide in 
Kosovo.

With his eventual triumph over the slave-traders, especially their 
most powerful figure Zobeir, Gordon was elevated into an anti-slavery 
icon. Emin Pasha, another Governor of the Sudan who was originally a 
Jewish-born Austrian doctor named Eduard Schnitzer, sang Gordon's 
praises:

"[T]hanks to Gordon Pasha's eminent talent for organization, thanks 
to his three years of really superhuman exertions and labours in a 
climate which very few have hitherto been able to withstand, thanks 
to his energy which no hindrances were able to damp... Only one who 
has had any direct dealings with negroes ... can form a true estimate 
of what Gordon Pasha has accomplished here." (Moorehead, p. 208)

Of course, Emin Pasha had become much the expert on 'negroes' during 
his tenure in the Sudan:

"After many years' of experiences of the Negroes and intimacy with 
them I have really no hopes at all of a regeneration of Negroes by 
Negroes--I know my own men too well for that--nor have I yet been 
able to bring myself to believe in the hazy sentimentalism which 
attempts the conversion and blessing of the Negroes by translating 
the New Testament and by moral pocket handkerchiefs' alone." 
(Stanhope White, "Lost Empire of the Nile", p. 142)

After Gordon arrives in Cairo to begin lining up all his ducks in a 
row, he goes through diplomatic formalities including attendance at a 
belly-dancing performance at the Khedive's palace in his honor, an 
event that actually took place. Charlton Heston sits there with a 
look of some discomfort on his face, but one that by no means could 
have matched the expression on the real Gordon's face, who was very 
likely a repressed homosexual.

Once that is out of the way, he rolls up his sleeves and gets down to 
business. His first important consultation is with the infamous 
slave-trader Zobeir Pasha (Zia Mohyeddin), whom Gordon nominates as 
Governor of the Sudan! What could explain this reversal? More likely 
than not, British imperialist interests carried more weight in his 
mind than fighting slave-traders. Principle had little to do with 
anything. If the only political actor in the Sudan who could command 
an allegiance matching that of the Mahdi was a slave-trader, so be 
it.

(The Zobeir pasha in old age: http://www.marxmail.org/Zobeir.jpg)

In an interview with William Thomas Stead's "Pall Mall Gazette" 
(Stead was the world's first interviewer in the sense we understand 
this format today), Gordon spelled out his version of a domino 
theory. If the greatest danger facing Great Britain were losing its 
grip on the Mideast, then of course concerns about the rights of 
black Africans would have to take a back seat. Gordon told Stead:

"The danger to be feared is not that the Mahdi will march northward 
through Wadi Haifa; on the contrary, it is very improbable that he 
will ever go so far north. The danger is altogether of a different 
nature. It arises from the influence which the spectacle of a 
conquering Mohammedan power, established close to your frontier, will 
exercise upon the population which you govern. In all the cities in 
Egypt it will be felt that what Mahdi had done they may do: and as he 
has driven out the intruder and the infidel, they may do the same. 
Nor is it only England that has to face this danger. The success of 
the Mahdi has already excited dangerous fermentation in Arabia and 
Syria." (Moorehead, p. 238)

Although the British government might buy into the Zobeir proposal, 
summed up in Churchill's words that "the Pasha was vile, but 
indispensable," the British public might have trouble swallowing the 
elevation of "the greatest slave-hunter who ever existed." (Moorhead, 
p. 253) After loud protests from the Anti-Slavery society, and 
cynical support on its behalf from the Conservative Party, the 
Cabinet nixed the nomination of Zobeir on March 6, 1884.

While it is understandable that a movie like "Khartoum" might fail to 
explore the question of how slavery had become so widespread in the 
Sudan to begin with, scholarly literature leaves much to be desired 
as well. If it is the case, as the argument goes, that Sudanese 
resentment over the outlawing of slavery helped to fuel the Mahdist 
revolt, then why would the revolt have continued after the nomination 
of Zobeir? Was this nothing but an inchoate rebellion of warlords 
over lost privileges? To answer these questions, it is necessary to 
understand how slavery had become such a running sore in the Sudan to 
begin with. Before understanding this, it is essential to understand 
the overall economic relationship between Egypt and the Sudan.

To begin with, it is necessary to understand that Egypt, which was 
part of the Ottoman Empire throughout the 1800s, was considered a 
kind of "economic miracle" prior to the Mahdist revolt. Under the 
Khedive (Viceroy) Ismail, development proceeded at a rapid rate, all 
the while accumulating debt in the fashion of modern-day "economic 
miracles" such as the Asian Tigers in the 1990s. Alan Moorehead 
states:

"When Ismail succeeded his uncle Mohammed Said in the vice-royalty in 
1863 Egypt was financially sound and even prosperous. The American 
Civil War had caused a sharp rise in the price of cotton, and the 
Egyptian crop had increased in value from £5,000,000 to £25,000,000. 
Ismail transferred his private debts to the state, increased the 
taxes, and got to work. He spent money with an abandon which eclipsed 
anything the oil sheikhs of the Middle East have achieved in the 
twentieth century." ("White Nile", p. 149)

To further complicate matters, Egypt had recently become a bone of 
contention between Great Britain and rival imperial powers over 
control of the newly developed Suez Canal. A joint project of France 
and the Ottoman Empire, Ferdinand de Lesseps's engineering miracle 
created a direct route between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. Its 
debut on November 17, 1869 was marked by lavish celebrations all 
across Egypt, including a banquet for 3000 guests in Cairo, for which 
500 cooks and 1000 servants were imported from France. Guests 
included Emile Zola, Théophile Gautier, Henrik Ibsen and other 
well-known critics of bourgeois values.

Mounting debt eventually forced the Khedive to sell his Suez Canal 
shares to Great Britain for £4,000,000. With this change of 
ownership, Egypt effectively became a British colony. 

Overseeing British penetration of the Egyptian economy was the 
aforementioned Sir Evelyn Baring, a man eminently qualified for such 
duties by temperament and family ties. Created by Sir Francis Baring 
at the end of the eighteenth century, the bank became a linchpin of 
British influence abroad. The Duc de Richelieu said in 1812, "There 
are six great powers in Europe, England, France, Austria, Prussia … 
and the Baring brothers." (Neillands, p. 29) Baring first got his 
foot in the door of the Egyptian government in 1876, when the 'Caisse 
de la Dette' (commission on the debt) put representatives of creditor 
nations in charge of various agencies. Baring and a Frenchman were 
put in charge of the Ministry of Finance, an act reminiscent of 
making a George Soros employee head of the Argentine Treasury--an 
event that actually transpired not too long ago.

The Khedive Ismail was eventually driven from office in June of 1879. 
Two years later, as Great Britain and other creditor nations began to 
squeeze Egypt in much the same fashion that Argentina and Turkey are 
being squeezed today, popular discontent provoked an officer's revolt 
led by Colonel Ahmed Arabi, a 19th century precursor to Nasser.

In 1881, Arabi was 42 years and from humble circumstances. The son of 
a rural sheikh, he had nothing going for him except honesty, 
nationalist consciousness, and--a rarity for the Turkish-dominated 
Khedival army--an Egyptian birthright. Taking note of threatening 
developments, the French and British creditors issued a joint 
statement. They would "oppose all internal and external threats to 
the Khedive and the current order of things in Egypt." (Neillands, p. 
38)

Just as might be expected, the statement touched off a rebellion. 
After Great Britain and France demanded the resignation of the 
Khedive and the formation of a new government, the proud Egyptians 
responded by naming Colonel Arabi their new ruler. To quell this 
outbreak of democracy, the French and British sent a squadron of 
warships and more than 25,000 troops that drowned the country in 
blood, beginning with a ten hour bombardment of Alexandria. Even with 
nominal French support, the ever-cynical Sir Evelyn Baring explained 
why Great Britain had to go it alone, just the way the USA must 
today: "There can be no doubt that the bombardment was justifiable … 
not merely on the narrow ground of self-defense but because it was 
clear that in the absence of effective Turkish or international 
action, the duty of crushing Arabi depended on Britain alone." 
(Neillands, p. 43)

If Egypt was to be bled dry while satisfying its creditors, it was 
only natural that it would make its colony Sudan share the pain. 
Since Sudan was not part of the cash economy and had few natural 
resources that could generate foreign revenues, Egypt resorted to a 
time-tested method, one that in fact had been pioneered in Europe. By 
imposing a tax, the Sudanese tribesmen would be forced to enter the 
cash economy. But except for ivory what did the Sudan have that could 
yield currency on the world market? The answer was human bodies. By 
imposing taxes on the ethnically mixed Arab-black Beggara 
pastoralists of the north and east, they would naturally be pressured 
into capturing black Africans of the Dinka tribes who lived in the 
south and who could be sold for hard currency.

The male slaves ended up as soldiers or cotton-picking fellaheen in 
Egypt, while the women became domestic servants or consigned to the 
harems of North Africa and Turkey. In order to line up British 
support for its initial foray into the Sudan, Egypt made all sorts of 
verbal commitments to ending slavery. The real solution to the 
problem was not in codes, nor in proper enforcement. As long as Egypt 
put pressure on Sudan to help meet its financial obligations to 
European creditors, there would be a slave trade. It was the world 
capitalist system that created a market for slaves, just as 
capitalist immiseration has created a market for prostitutes from the 
former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. To end prostitution or 
slavery, you need to end want and the commodity it generates: cash. 

We could not expect the Mahdi or his followers to develop a 
sophisticated ideological analysis of the oppression from the north. 
To the tribesmen who donned the 'jibba,' the demand was simply "Kill 
the Turks (they did not distinguish between Europeans, Egyptians and 
Turks) and cease to pay taxes." 

Piecing together the whole story on Mahdism and slavery is a daunting 
task. The English-language scholarship on the revolt is written from 
a heavily Eurocentrist perspective. One is forced to often read 
between the lines. After the death of the Mahdi, who succumbed to 
smallpox shortly after the fall of Khartoum and the execution of 
Charles Gordon, and until the British re-conquest of the Sudan in 
1896, a Mahdist state existed under the leadership of the Khalifa 
'Abd Allahi. The Khalifa was a military leader, who while lacking the 
Mahdi's religious charisma, did attempt to build a state based on 
Mahdist principles.

According to Robert O. Collins, the Khalifa banned the slave trade in 
the chattel form that it had taken during Egyptian rule. Without 
suggesting that this ban was based on anything except Machiavellian 
considerations of retaining power, Collins is unambiguous: private 
slave trading was prohibited. Without a doubt, the Mahdist commanders 
continued to retain captured soldiers as slaves in their own ranks, 
but this kind of class relationship had little to do with the sort of 
massive assault that took place prior to the Mahdi revolt. Collins 
writes, "Slatin [a European who converted to Islam after being 
captured by the Mahdi] mentions the great pomp and circumstance with 
which 400 male slaves were marched through Umm Durman; a number which 
would have caused the great slave traders of the Turkiya [Egyptian 
colonization] to sneer in contempt." (The Southern Sudan, 1883-1898, 
pp. 57-58)

In any case, the prospects for Mahdi independence and social 
emancipation were severely limited by the social and economic 
backwardness of the region and by growing pressure from the colonists 
during a period of ever-increasing European incursion. After finally 
taking control over the Sudan, the British created a civil service, 
railways, taxation, police and all the other accoutrements of 
colonial rule. Except for occasional nationalist outbursts, the 
British kept order in the country in classic "white man's burden" 
fashion. They made sure to utilize all the time-tested methods for 
keeping their subjects in line, including divide and conquer.

They sought to deepen racial divisions that had existed in the past. 
Understanding that the southern tribes felt alienated from the north 
for obvious historical reasons, the British made sure to impose 
political-geographical obstacles that would deepen the divide. Muslim 
northern Sudanese were banned from the south by law. While excusing 
the British as being protective of the victimized southerners, the 
eminent scholar P.M. Holt is forced to admit:

"The work the British administrators in opening up and pacifying the 
Southern Sudan, their devotion to duty at the cost of health and 
life, cannot be too highly praised. Yet there was an insidious danger 
in their position. Their isolation, the great burden of their 
individual responsibilities, and their immunity from criticism by the 
people they ruled, tended to confirm the idea that the system of 
administration they represented was the only possible system, and 
must endure indefinitely. The personal rule of the British 
administrators was in its origin beneficent; the mistake was that it 
went on too long." (A Modern History of the Sudan, p. 149)

Too long, indeed.

The other tried-and-tested method involved sending in Christian 
missionaries to the southern Sudan. Although "proselytization had, 
from the outset, been forbidden in the Muslim north," the "pagan 
south, on the other hand, was opened to the missionaries." Holt 
describes a situation that not only is too familiar for students of 
colonial rule, but one that anticipates Sudan's current-day problems:

"The missionaries were entrusted with the development of education in 
the south. This made possible the early, if limited, organization of 
schools at a time when the government's meagre resources were needed 
for the north. As time went on, however, the defects of missionary 
education began to appear. The sectarian differences of Europe and 
America were incongruously transported to the marshes and forests of 
central Africa. The language of instruction at the higher levels was 
English; Arabic, except in a debased pidgin form, was unknown. A new 
barrier of language and religion seemed to have been added to those 
already existing between north and south. The missionaries, for their 
part, had reason to fear that the admission of northern Muslims into 
the region would endanger the permanence of their work."

How could Great Britain have made such a tragic mistake, especially 
since it was committed to the values of Western Civilization, unlike 
the Muslim and pagan peoples of the Sudan? One can only wonder.

While we should not succumb to making facile parallels between the 
Mahdi and any contemporary figure such as Osama bin-Laden or the 
Ayatollah Khomenei, there is little question that the world is 
encountering a social-religious movement that has many of the 
characteristics of the Mahdist revolt. With the triumph over 
Communism, there has not been an End of History. Instead, what we 
have seen is a re-creation of the type of struggle that was generated 
by a set of circumstances that existed in the Victorian era when one 
superpower ruled the world. Instead of gunboats, we have B-52s.

The most important thing for the left is to come to terms with the 
nature of this revolt, which while cloaked in Islamic theology, 
addresses global inequality. If we fail to see the class divide that 
exists between the United States and its "terrorist" enemies, many of 
whom have nearly the same kinds of flaws as the Mahdists, it is very 
likely that we will be bypassed. In the Victorian era, a wing of the 
Second International opposed the colonial revolt because of the 
purported superiority of Western Values.

In a January 5, 1898 article titled "The Struggle of Social Democracy 
and the Social Revolution," Eduard Bernstein makes the case for 
colonial rule over Morocco:

"There is a great deal of sound evidence to support the view that, in 
the present state of public opinion in Europe, the subjection of 
natives to the authority of European administration does not always 
entail a worsening of their condition, but often means the opposite. 
However much violence, fraud, and other unworthy actions accompanied 
the spread of European rule in earlier centuries, as they often still 
do today, the other side of the picture is that, under direct 
European rule, savages are without exception better off than they 
were before.

"However much violence, fraud, and other unworthy actions accompanied 
the spread of European rule in earlier centuries, as they often still 
do today, the other side of the picture is that, under direct 
European rule, savages are without exception better off than they 
were before. Even before the arrival of Europeans in Africa, brutal 
wars, robbery, and slavery were not unknown. Indeed, they were the 
regular order of the day. What was unknown was the degree of peace 
and legal protection made possible by European institutions and the 
consequent sharp rise in food resources..."

For the sake of the left today, any such thinking must be rejected 
out of hand. Whatever the limitations of outbursts against 
imperialism today, they take place on our side of the class divide. 
While not endorsing the precapitalist slavery of the Mahdi, nor 
Taliban misogyny, we understand that the main enemy of progress is US 
imperialism, with all its latter-day versions of Gladstone, Gordon, 
Granville and Wolseley.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Evelyn Baring, Modern Egypt, (Routledge, 2000)
2. Winston Churchill, The River War, (Carrol and Graf, 2000)
3. Robert O. Collins, The Southern Sudan 1883-1898, (Yale, 1962)
4. Charles Gordon, Journals, (Negro Universities Press, 1969)
5. P. M. Holt, A Modern History of the Sudan, (Weidenfeld and 
Nicolson, 1961)
6. Henry Keown-Boyd, A Good Dusting, (Leo Cooper, 1986)
7. John Marlowe, Mission to Khartum, (Victor Gollancz, 1969)
8. Alan Moorehead, The White Nile, (Harper-Collins, 2000)
9. Robin Neillands, The Dervish Wars, (John Murray, 1996)
10. Brian Robson, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, (Spellmount, 1993)
11. Stanhope White, Lost Empire of the Nile, (Robert Hale, 1969)


-- 
Louis Proyect, lnp3@panix.com on 11/13/2001

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