{"id":35,"date":"2019-10-23T14:05:57","date_gmt":"2019-10-23T13:05:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/willowberridge\/?p=35"},"modified":"2019-10-23T14:05:59","modified_gmt":"2019-10-23T13:05:59","slug":"civil-uprisings-and-islamism-in-sudan-some-thoughts-on-a-review-of-my-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/willowberridge\/2019\/10\/23\/civil-uprisings-and-islamism-in-sudan-some-thoughts-on-a-review-of-my-book\/","title":{"rendered":"Civil Uprisings and Islamism in Sudan: Some thoughts on a review of my book"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I went to work today and picked up my subscription of Sudan\nStudies<\/em> (number 60, July 2019), which included a review by its editor Gill\nLusk of my book Civil Uprisings in Modern Sudan. <\/em>I am grateful for the\nmany compliments in the review, although I note the author disagrees to an\nextent on the presentation of my arguments regarding the role of the Islamists during\nthe October Revolution in 1964.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I see in one passage that the reviewer takes issue with is\nwhere I write that al-Turabi, who participated in the 1964 October Revolution\nand was a vocal spokesman for a shift to a democratic system at the time,\nshared the same ambiguous attitude towards democracy many others with the\n\u2018modern forces\u2019 of Sudan who participated in the 1964 and 1985 transitions. The\nreviewer finds this point \u2018hard to swallow.\u2019 Specifically, I wrote that to\nunderstand the motives behind his 1989 coup we need to appreciate that he\nshared the attitude of \u2018more secular branches of the modern forces\u2019, in that he\nmaintained \u2018that \u2018democracy\u2019 would be implemented after suspending \u2018democracy\u2019\nfor a period to prevent \u2018anti-democratic forces (the \u2018sectarians\u2019 being the\nculprit in both cases) from exploiting \u2018democracy\u2019 to prevent \u2018democracy\u2019\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As any political theorist will tell you, democracy is a\nnebulous concept and Sudanese politicians have advocated different forms of it\nthroughout Sudan\u2019s post-colonial past \u2013 liberal representative democracy,\nilliberal representative democracy, direct democracy, multiparty democracy,\nno-party democracy, sectoral representation and so on. Al-Turabi justified\nusing force to remove the 1989 parliamentary democracy by maintaining that the\nmultiparty one-man one vote system was exploited by neopatrimonial religious\norders (the Khatmiyya and Ansar) who used networks of patronage and familial\ninfluence to manipulate the public vote. He also maintained that with these\nnetworks removed, a genuine direct democracy based on the prototype of the 7th<\/sup>\ncentury Islamic state would emerge. Al-Turabi was the classic opportunist\nmaverick, but even opportunistic mavericks need some intellectual framework and\neffective political discourse to justify themselves. I fully accept the\nauthor\u2019s point that the Islamists\u2019 rise to power was facilitated by their\nexceptional organizing skills, financial strength, adoption of Marxist-Leninist\nfront tactics and infiltration of security networks \u2013 this is discussed in some\ndetail in my subsequent book on al-Turabi. However, they did also need to\ncreate an effective political discourse for their ideology to gain the traction\nthat it did. Al-Turabi\u2019s musings on the merits of no-party democracy in his al-Shura\nwa\u2019l-Dimuqratiyya<\/em> (Consultation and Democracy), published in the 1980s,\ndraw on debates about the pitfalls of multiparty parliamentary  that emerged during the era of the first\ntransitional government in October 1964.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 It is often maintained,\nsomewhat simplistically, that the first October government was dominated by the\nSudan Communist Party. In fact, a select group of communists, alongside members\nof the Popular Democratic Party influenced by Nasser\u2019s Arab Socialist Union,\ngained control of the first transitional cabinet and fought for the institution\nof a mixed electoral system whereby the number of \u2018geographic\u2019 or \u2018one man, one\nvote\u2019 seats would be reduced and direct sectoral representation of various\neconomic groups \u2013 workers, farmers, etc \u2013 would partially replace them. After\nother political groupings \u2013  particularly\nthe Umma Party, which benefited the most from one man one vote democracy \u2013\nthwarted their efforts, a number of the communists who were particularly active\nduring the October period like Farouk Abu Eissa and Ahmad Sulayman were also\nbackers of the next military coup in 1969, which eventually introduced a system\nof sectoral representation within a one party system based on Nasser\u2019s Arab\nSocialist Union \u2013 the Sudanese Socialist Union. Their perspective was based on\na vanguardist approach rejected by the mainstream of the Sudan Communist Party\nunder Abd al-Khaliq Mahjub, which lamented that October  was a revolution of the \u2018petit bourgeois\u2019 and\nalso distanced itself from the 1969 coup on the grounds that it was impossible\nto pre-empt via military putsch<\/em> the structural changes needed to\nfacilitate economic and social revolution. After his rift with Abd al-Khaliq,\nwho was later executed by Nimeiri\u2019s regime, Ahmad Sulayman \u2013 one of the most\npowerful communist figures in the transitional October cabinet – went on to\njoin forces with al-Turabi and play a major role in planning the Islamist\nseizure of power in 1989. This is why I wrote that al-Turabi shares the\nambiguous perspective regarding what democracy constituted of many within the\n\u2018modern forces\u2019 who shaped October. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It may come across as surprising to those more familiar with\nhim on account of the crimes perpetrated by his regime since 1989 that\nal-Turabi in 1964 acted as a champion of democratic transformation in the\ncountry, delivering a speech to students at the University of Khartoum that\ngalvanized them against the regime. He later maintained that this speech was\ninspired by the principles of the \u2018egalit\u00e9, libert\u00e9, fraternit\u00e9\u2019 which he had\nembraced during his time studying the French Revolution at the Sorbonne. Of\ncourse this does not mean that we should endorse the statements of the likes of\nthe Turabist al-Wan<\/em> editor Hussein Khogali<\/a>, who has used this legacy\nto maintain that the Islamists represent the true democratic heritage of the\nOctober Revolution, and encouraged Islamists to demonstrate on the 21 October\nanniversary on that basis. The leading Islamists are pushing for a quick return\nto elections today precisely because they do not want the transitional\ngovernment to undo 30 years of Islamist rule. However, as a historian I cannot\nescape the fact that al-Turabi and the Islamists  were leading protagonists during October,\nalong with the other main Khartoum based political forces of the day – the\ncommunists, Arab nationalists, Umma and so forth. The Islamists adapted to\ncivil politics just as much as their rivals. If anything, the fact that the\nleadership of the October Revolution was dominated by al-Turabi and other graduates\nof the University of Khartoum, which was at the heart of Sudan\u2019s \u2018developmental\nstate\u2019, should remind is that revolution was shaped by a much more narrow elite\nin comparison to today. Al-Turabi\u2019s journey from democrat to coup-planner, more\nthan anything else, is indicative of the limited distance between civil society\nand state in Sudan\u2019s history.[i]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is one of the ironies of Sudanese politics that al-Turabi\nat that time was closer to being a supporter of liberal democracy than some of\nhis secular opponents in the Sudan Communist Party and Popular Democratic\nParty, on the grounds that he believed that \u2018sectarian\u2019 parties who benefited\nfrom it \u2013 especially the Umma Party \u2013 would act as a bulwark against the\ncommunists. He increasingly became a champion of illiberal representative\ndemocracy in the late 1960s, when he used the principle of absolute\nparliamentary sovereignty to justify the banning of the Sudan Communist Party,\nand then when the Sudan Communist Party was less of a threat following its\nfatal showdown with Nimeiri in 1971 moved towards appropriating the communists\u2019\narguments against liberal multiparty democracy and using them against the\n\u2018sectarians\u2019. He also drew heavily on anarchic models of direct democracy, in\nwhich decentralized committees would bypass party politics, that were advocated\nby old colleagues in the Marxist-influenced Islamic Liberation Movement such as\nAbdullah Zakariyya.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This political discourse was genuinely effective in elite\ncircles at the time \u2013 al-Turabi\u2019s Islamists frequently dominated student union\nelections in the 1970s and 1980s, and won 23 out of the 28 \u2018graduate seats\u2019\nreserved for the educated classes in the 1986 elections. It is tempting to\npresent al-Turabi as a cartoon villain \u2013 \u2018eccentric and chilling, with his high-pitched\ngiggle\u2019, as the author notes in her review. However, the risk is that if you\nassociate all the failings of Sudanese politics with one man and his movement,\nyou risk overlooking broader structural failings at the heart of the\nKhartoum-centered state and may assume that removing the Islamists will solve\nall the problems that have beset it since well before 1989. The social and\neconomic gap between the riverain centre and marginalized regions predates\n1989, as does the damaging legacy of British colonial exploitation, as does the\npolitical and economic hegemony of the military, as do the wranglings over the\nmerits of multiparty politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Al-Turabi may have been an opportunist whose regime\ncommitted appalling abuses against its population, but he was able to get into\nthe position that he did because he formed a political discourse that offered a\nhope of an escape from \u2018sectarian\u2019 and patrimonial politics, state\ncentralization, and the cultural legacy of colonialism. That his regime subsequently\nfailed to rid Sudan of any of these malaises, and that al-Turabi like many\npopulists elsewhere was a part of the system he purported to rail against,\nshould not distract us from understanding his appeal at the time.  He was able to co-opt elite Darfuris, such as\nthose who launched the 1981 regionalist Intifada and his successor as leader of\nthe Popular Congress Party Ali al-Haj, by promising a political model that would\nprevent domination by the Khartoum. Of course it was the nature of al-Turabi\u2019s\nhubris – or ideological opportunism, depending how you read him \u2013 that he\ninsisted that the establishment of direct and decentralized democracy must be\ntied to the politics of religious revival, since his official position was that\nhe was striving to create a political system that had already obtained in the 7th<\/sup>\ncentury past. But when the reviewer writes that \u2018disciplined cadres outdid the\nSudan Communist Party in Leninist techniques\u2019 she is herself acknowledging that\nthe line between secular and Islamist politics in Sudan\u2019s pre-1989 history is\nat lot more blurry than at first seems.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

[i]<\/a> For\na useful analysis of the relationship between \u2018civil society\u2019 and the\n\u2018developmental state\u2019 in the context of post colonial uprisings in Sudan and\nthe rest of Africa, see Branch and Mampilly, Africa Uprising<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

References<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Berridge, W.J., Civil Uprisings in Modern Sudan<\/em> (London:\nBloomsbury, 2015)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Berridge, W.J., Hasan al-Turabi: Islamist Politics and\nDemocracy in Sudan <\/em>(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Branch, Adam & Mampilly,\nZachariah, Africa Uprising: Popular Protest and Political Change<\/em>\n(Chicago: Zed Books, 2015)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ibrahim, Abdullahi Ali, \u201cThe 1971 Coup\nin Sudan and the Radical War of Liberal Democracy in Africa\u201d, Comparative Studies of Africa, Asia and the\nMiddle East<\/em> 16 (1996), 98-114<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Warburg, Gabriel, Islam, Sectarianism and Politics in Sudan<\/em>\n(London: Hurst, 2003)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I went to work today and picked up my subscription of Sudan Studies (number 60, July 2019), which included a review by its editor Gill Lusk of my book Civil Uprisings in Modern Sudan. I am grateful for the many … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8133,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/willowberridge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/willowberridge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/willowberridge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/willowberridge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8133"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/willowberridge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/willowberridge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/willowberridge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35\/revisions\/36"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/willowberridge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/willowberridge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/willowberridge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}