Egyptian nationalists framed Sudan as family bound to Egyptian dictates, silencing Sudanese protest

Evidence

Notwithstanding the originality of Lutfï al-Sayyid’s viewpoint, several themes embedded in Egyptian nationalistic constructions of the Sudan over the sixteen years between 1894 and 1910 still framed the Sudan’s image. Islam’s adhesiveness no longer glued the two territories together, yet the people in them were still family, still sharing blood and experience, sharing all privileges—but they shared all these only as dictated by Egyptians, in keeping with Egyptians’ sense of themselves. As long as the Sudanese respected that sense, their participation was welcome; but if they registered any protest against Egyptian views on the Nile Valley, as the Mahdists clearly did, they were rendered invisible. To writers in the paper al-Jarïda, even the name Sudan, with its implication of geographical, cultural, and political distinction from Egypt, made the place and its people too separate and autonomous. The idea of Egyptian domination of the Sudan loomed vibrantly; the belief in empire was still stoked by Egyptian nationalists. But the true masters of empire building, the British, gave up nothing. Though the nationalists in this chapter analyzed and adopted the instruments of cultural and political hegemony so well used in the British empire, they were still nowhere near to regaining their authority over the Sudan, or their own country. — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 779

Categorization

• XREF: Extends the reader’s Egypt-vs-Sudan comparison: Egyptian nationalist paternalism toward Sudan parallels the internal hierarchy within their own anti-colonial project.
• SEED: Angle: how an anti-colonial nationalism recreated colonial hierarchies internally — Egypt’s cultural-imperial claim over Sudan while still subjugated by Britain.