Sudan Archive

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But the feeling of justice, but our observer Mr. Wells made us understand that the British people do not know Ghadrūn, and there is no way to know us except through Ghadrūn and its demise. And among the curious things that happened was that the English press wrote that the head of the delegation was Mr. Ali Al-Mahdi, meaning, of course, Mr. Ali Al-Mirghani, and this was correct in Khartoum. Although the London trip, and even if it failed politically and did not achieve what I hoped for, it was socially beneficial for us. We saw a world and a culture that had never crossed our minds. Some of us were surprised when we saw the English working in menial, ordinary professions, as it was imprinted in their minds that the English were created to be rulers. In London, I rode an airplane for the first time, and Sheikh Ali Al-Toum and Sheikh Ibrahim Farah were with me, and the plane flew us in the London sky.

The 1924 Movement I presented that the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the shrinking of the Caliphate's shadow had an impact on the resurgence of the Egyptian national movement. The ongoing events in Egypt since their beginning in 1919 had an echo in Sudan, stirring political awareness among the educated few and city dwellers. Egyptian newspapers began to call for the unity of the Nile Valley, and most of the educated in Sudan were swept into the current of this movement. The tangible manifestation of these calls was the rise of the 1924 movement, as this movement was nothing but an extension of the Egyptian national movement. Although I admire the qualities of manhood and patience that distinguished the members of the White Flag Society, I do not consider the 1924 movement to represent the true demands of the Sudanese people. This led me to call for the slogan that I adhere to to this day, which is (Sudan for the Sudanese). This slogan later became the slogan of the independence movement in Sudan, and then the slogan of everyone after independence. I began to advocate for this principle, and a number of educated people gathered around me, and the Ansar were, of course, the popular support on which I relied in this advocacy. As for the means I saw fit to adopt to achieve independence, they were summarized in demanding that the government train Sudanese in matters of governance and administration and gradually hand it over to them, and work to raise the standard of economic life by establishing agricultural and commercial projects. Some opposition newspapers and politicians labeled this as a policy of cooperation with the rulers or separatism, and they labeled the pro-Egyptian policy as a boycott policy. They were led to this view when I looked at it from a very different perspective, which is the interest of Sudan alone. For the sake of Sudan alone, I opposed the two countries, and for the sake of its interest alone, I befriended them. This is my path, from which I have not deviated.

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