Egyptian officials shaped Sudanese identity only through media, not administrative power

Evidence

With less of a grasp on the instruments of power, Egyptian officials in the Sudan had a more difficult time trying to shape Sudanese political identities. In addition to nationalist volunteers previously mentioned in British intelligence reports, several local committees, made up of Egyptian army officers and bureaucrats, tried by means of a pamphlet campaign to inspire the Sudanese to support Sa`d Zaghlül and join them in destabilizing the Britishled government. This met with some success, but pamphlets took time to spread through the population, and then reached only a small fraction of Sudanese. There were also Egyptian efforts to participate in the burgeoning press of the northern Sudan, such as the weekly Rä´id al-südän, which began publication in 1913. This Arabic journal sponsored poetry competitions and asked readers to elaborate on works by well-known Egyptian nationalist poets like Hafiz Ibrahïm,Ahmad Shawqï, and Mahmüd Samï al- Barüdï. As Heather Sharkey points out, this journal offered a platform on which northern Sudanese contributors could argue that “pagan, superstitious, or otherwise ‘un-Islamic’ customs were thwarting hopes for new Arab glory in Sudan.” Thus, cultural links with Egypt apparently were prized as a way of reinforcing those elements of Sudanese culture that were not “African.” — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 840

Categorization

• XREF: Contrasts directly with the author’s earlier handling of British vs Egyptian colonial tools, feeding the reader’s Egypt-vs-Sudan comparative thread.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: whether the anti-African pan-Arab framing these Sudanese poets absorbed prefigured post-independence Sudanese identity politics and the later north-south divide.