Egyptian nationalists’ childhood intimacy with Sudanese household slaves shaped their Nile Valley unity politics

Evidence

Egyptian nationalist activists who grew up in large households in the upper echelons of society came of age under the care of domestic slaves and servants, the majority of whom were Sudanese. Slaves would have thus been part of nationalists’ pronounced sense of home, and not only the physical household but also the traditions of family structure that bound these Sudanese servants to them. … But why did she propagate this issue so strongly, to the point where, as she herself wrote, the issue of the Sudan began to appear synonymous with the issue of women’s rights in Egypt? — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 846