British colonial authorities indefinitely detained a Sudanese nationalist on invented grounds

Evidence

If one life sums up the tragic irony of the historical situation concerning Egypt, Great Britain, and the Sudan, it is that of Alï abd al-Latïf. Although he had been sentenced to three years in prison after the 1924 uprising, the British would not release him when his sentence was up. Rumors spread throughout the Sudan and Egypt that he had lost his sanity. But Kurita writes that recent interviews with his wife and other members of his family have proven that it was not his mind that was the problem but the refusal of the British authorities to release him to any part of the Sudan.As a “detribalized negroid,” Alï abd al-Latïf seemed to have no native home or district, yet his demonstrated political popularity determined that the British would not let him anywhere near Omdurman or Khartoum. — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 1056

Categorization

• BMF: The indefinite detention of a politically popular figure rendered mute and invisible evokes Changez’s marginalization and voicelessness in ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’ — the state’s refusal to let a charismatic voice speak.
• SEED: Angle: the ‘detribalized negroid’ classification as colonial administration’s bureaucratization of identity — how colonial categories of race/tribe became instruments of internal exile.