Letter from Sudan # 5

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Today, Tuesday 25th August, is a national holiday – it is the anniversary of the prophet Mohammed’s (PBUH) pilgrimage from Meccah to Medina, over 1,000 years ago. This day is also the beginning of the year 1407 and so the people of Sudan take their rest.

The heavy rains of the night before all but prevent movement on any but the major roads. People will celebrate in the villages although some will try to get through the mud to their wives in nearby villages and towns. Equally, some will be destined to be disappointed and will have to stay in their temporary homes.

In Sudan the migration to towns and cities from poorer, rural areas is popular with the better paying jobs going to those who have attended the nation’s universities. The wives and children stay in the village while the menfolk go off to earn the higher wages in the city, saving money to send to their families, returning home at such times as these. Education here is a passport to these better paying jobs with those that fail to attain these standards staying to live and work in the place they were born.

The may sound all right and proper to Western ears and one can hardly criticize those who avail themselves of the advantages that an education can bring. However, in the larger scheme of things and disregarding individual motives for a moment, this migration to the towns and cities by the more talented and differently able of the male population in not necessarily in the best interests of the Sudan and its drive to relative prosperity.

In a country that is mainly agricultural, an increase in non-producers in terms of food produced is, in the long run, bound to produce a top heavy layer of bureaucrats and service workers who will ultimately depend for their existence on the people who till the soil, and any attempt to imitate the course of development of a former colonial power such as Britain is destined to end in the misappropriation of resources.

In thinking about our own development as a trading nation, it is vital to remember that the act of colonialisation of countries like Sudan represented a vital ingredient in this development, and it is surely folly to suppose otherwise.

Robert L. Fielding