Attempts to create an Obedient and Subservient Elite

Fathi Hassan Osman

After the colonial attack on Africa in the eighteenth century with the aim of plundering Africa’s wealth and harnessing its human resources to serve its capitalist goals, Britain was at the head of those countries, and was known as the empire on which the sun never sets, so it colonized four-fifths of the world, most of the countries of Africa, Asia and Australia. The road was not paved with roses and jasmine, so the African peoples defended their land, honor and freedom with a desperate defense, but colonial superiority was the result of firearms in the face of traditional weapons of swords and spears. British colonialism perched on the chest of Africa for more than half a century, during which period there was continuous resistance on the part of the African peoples, accompanied by the colonizer’s attempts to create a subservient and obedient political elite. The establishment of schools in Sudan, for example, was not aimed at creating awareness and enlightenment among the people of Sudan, but rather the goal of colonialism was to graduate a number of clerks, accountants and administrators to help them manage the affairs of the country and work to westernize them culturally by teaching curricula in English and imposing colonial dress of trousers, shirts, belts, suits and ties. (Uniform) during working hours and in the colonizer’s attempts to create a new political class that follows his intellectual footsteps, the idea of ​​clubs with limited membership was an example of graduates’ clubs and providing access to major English newspapers and magazines and attempts to falsify public awareness by establishing radio stations to promote colonial propaganda that considers that colonialism came with the aim of taking the hand of backward peoples on the path of progress and prosperity and rescuing them from the clutches of ignorance and backwardness. The policy of British colonialism was precise and had far-reaching strategic goals. The establishment of railway lines, the Gezira Project, and the construction of spinning and weaving factories in Lancashire aimed to link the Sudanese economy to the British economy and create a political class subordinate and obedient to Britain. Even upon achieving independence, these groups became an agent of colonialism that implemented its policies and goals. This policy succeeded in some countries and failed in Sudan despite the establishment of graduates’ clubs and the establishment of Charles Gordon College, one of the most prominent generals of the British government (killed by the Mahdist Revolution forces) in return for his distinguished services. The English people immortalized his memory by collecting donations to build Gordon Memorial College [1902], which became the nucleus of the University of Khartoum after independence. The policy of industry failed. An obedient and subservient elite to Britain as a result of political differences between two currents in the Graduates Conference, which was recognized by the colonial administration in Sudan. However, the Graduates Conference in 1937 wrote to the colonial authorities, demanding the right to self-determination for the people of Sudan, led by Ibrahim Ahmed, one of the founders of the Umma Party in 1945. The political division in the Graduates Conference was the result of a disagreement between the call for unity with Egypt and the call for the independence of Sudan. This was the birth of the independence groups [the Umma Party] and the unionist parties [the brothers, the National Unionist Party, and the People’s Democratic Party].