Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Note on Transliteration
- List of Abbreviations
- Prologue
- Introduction: Nationalism and Memory
- PART ONE THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT IN SUDAN 1919-1923: Transnational Perspectives
- PART TWO THE REVOLUTION OF 1924: Organization of the Movement and its Spread to the Provinces
- PART THREE IDEOLOGY AND STRATEGIES
- PART FOUR THE 1924 PROTESTERS: Reconsidering Social Bonds after the First World War
- Appendix 1 Telegrams of the White Flag League and Other Protesters
- Appendix 2 Sources on Members of Political Associations in 1924
- Bibliography
- Index
- Eastern African Studies
8 - The Sociology of Colonial Education and the 1924 Insurgents
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 June 2021
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Note on Transliteration
- List of Abbreviations
- Prologue
- Introduction: Nationalism and Memory
- PART ONE THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT IN SUDAN 1919-1923: Transnational Perspectives
- PART TWO THE REVOLUTION OF 1924: Organization of the Movement and its Spread to the Provinces
- PART THREE IDEOLOGY AND STRATEGIES
- PART FOUR THE 1924 PROTESTERS: Reconsidering Social Bonds after the First World War
- Appendix 1 Telegrams of the White Flag League and Other Protesters
- Appendix 2 Sources on Members of Political Associations in 1924
- Bibliography
- Index
- Eastern African Studies
Summary
When I arrived at Kober prison, I met ‘Ubayd alḤājj alAmīn. We had the opporunity to be in one cell to continue our laughs. After being in one class in college, now we were in one cell in prison.’
In 1924, the White Flag League managed to connect to various social constituencies through its structure. However, three groups stood out as being the most significant: civilian employees of the Sudan government; army officers; and skilled and unskilled workers, small traders, and artisans. In an earlier chapter reference was made to Erickson's idea that one of the prerequisites for the formation of secret societies is mutual trust among prospective members. Thus, recruitment usually works through relatively tight and previously established networks: friends, neighbours, or colleagues. How these bonds were formed is explored in this and subsequent chapters. Here, I study the structure of colonial schools and the career paths of educated Sudanese: the way in which education shaped their lives as a whole, from the types of employment open to them after school; the city to which they were sent to work; the type of people they met and the networks developeḍ This chapter is closely connected to the one that follows, which focuses on the officers of the Egyptian Army, because civilians and officers followed the same curriculum until the end of primary school.
Education policy and its social and political consequences in the period starting from 1925 has been studied extensively, but the era in which people like ‘Alī ‘Abd al-Laṭīf and ‘Ubayd al-Ḥājj al-Amīn attended school – between 1905 and 1925 – has received far less attention. It is crucial to the events of 1924, however, in the light of the fact that colonial sources describe White Flag League members as ‘low’ government clerks, in contrast to their ‘smarter’ (Arab) superiors supposedly loyal to the governmenṭ However, there is scattered evidence here and there in the records of 1924 that the picture was more complex than that, such as a remark made by a colonial officer that ‘Blacks’ had risen to ‘unnaturally’ high positions through education.
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- Lost NationalismRevolution, Memory and Anti-colonial Resistance in Sudan, pp. 182 - 205Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2015