Letter from Sudan # 6

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It is wrong to think of these invasions of other countries as wholly evil or detrimental to the ‘host’ nation; the schools of El Messelemiya were all built by the British, albeit using local labour, and the same applies to the massive irrigation schemes in the vicinity and all across Gezira Province.

In the cities, the presence of the colonial power is still felt in some of the administrative buildings with the main placebo to Victorian jingoism being the pattern of streets and squares in the nation’s sprawling capital, Khartoum. After the defeat of the Mahdist forces by Kitchener at the Battle of Omdurman, the city of Khartoum was planned, laid out and built in the configuration of the Union flag. This architectural imposition at the hands of representatives of an outraged Britain after the death of General Gordon has its advantages; particularly if like me you find yourself in a city that has few signposts or street names that are intelligible.

In a city that is arranged in the pattern of something as boringly regular as the Union flag, finding my way back to the hotel in a street on the other side of town is simply a matter of counting and remembering. Kitchener’s idiosyncrasies had some advantages after all, and so, it could be argued, did the colonalisation of Sudan: some for the Sudanese and a lot for the British in the way of raw materials extracted by a cheap and plentiful supply of labour.

In the case of Sudan, this was its high quality cotton and some of its other crops. But good or bad, right or wrong, what’s done is done. The point is surely that Britain’s development as a world power and at one time, the most wealthy nation in the world, was aided immeasurably by Sudan, as well as other countries such as India.

In this, Britain was not alone. The French, Germans, Spaniards, Belgians and the Portugese have all had their day as former colonial powers – with varying amounts of success. In 1987, all that remains of this country’s former ‘glory’ is the English language and various constructions to its memory. Colonialism in that form is dead, without recourse to vast amounts of force; the Russians’ experience in Afghanistan is stark testimony to that. Colonialism is dead and the developing countries will have to make their way in this brave new world of ours without the luxury of an annexed, satellite country to provide them with the goods they lack.

Any parallel between the developed nation’s historical progress and that or so called ‘Third World’ nations is likely to be a hindrance rather than a blueprint for economic or social success. Sudan and countries in a similar position will have to look to their own resources to get them on the path to the destiny they so earnestly seek. This may sound like the beginning of an argument in favour of stopping aid to them, it is not.

Foreign aid, whether it is in the form of interest free loans, farm machinery, or food for the hungry, is vital and should be continued. But donor countries should avoid the mistake of projecting a Western view of the way things ought to be in such countries as Sudan. The large scale introduction, for instance, of cash crops, high yield varieties that depend upon expensive chemical fertilizers and pesticides from the West can and does have far reaching effects that are both physical and economic in their implications.

Poorly thought out land use in the tropics can lead to a land that is permanently devoid of fertile topsoil and is no longer of any agricultural use.

To return to the well-educated minority; the main people to benefit from them are often neighbouring countries – the oil rich states of further north, who are able to tempt the more adventurous among them to its schools, universities and commercial enterprises. There is nothing individually reprehensible in this; a man has to look has to look after his best interests as he perceives them. In the interests of the nation at large, however, this is not much help, and while I am not advocating the suspension of such opportunities for personal, financial improvement, I am suggesting that the implications of such a ‘brain drain’ should be considered, particularly when such opportunities have cost the nation so high a price particularly when that country ca n ill-afford the expense in the first place.

The problems remain. Are they without a solution that would not impinge on civil liberties, or not? My main plea for these countries is that we in the West do not inhibit the finding of such a solution by imposing too narrow a view of what constitutes the good life. After all, if we are the model which others seek to emulate, they are in a poor way indeed and the un wanted byproducts of affluence might be come to be eternally regretted by countries whose crime rates and societal problems are a fraction of our own.
Robert L. Fielding