LITERATURE AND NATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST

arabic poetry, nationalism and social changeNorthern Sudanese, almost all of whom (that is, about 98 per cent of livingGordon College secondary-school graduates in 1929 3 ) were government employees.Authorities accomplished the latter by calling errant poets before Boards ofDiscipline, which left permanent records in personnel files, regardless of theoutcome of a case. To challenge the regime in poems, essays or speeches was toendanger prospects for salary raises, promotions and job security – a risk notworth taking for most men, who often supported extended families on theirincomes (Sharkey 1998a: 237–330).Politics nevertheless slipped into poems obliquely. In 1914, for example, theEgyptian editor of a Khartoum newspaper sponsored a contest which called forodes in praise of the first ‘Turkish’ airplane landing in Cairo – an exercise meantto evoke sympathy for the idea of the Ottoman caliphate while highlighting thetechnical capacity of Muslim peoples (Najila 1964: 16–19). It undoubtedlyhelped, from the government’s point of view, that the Sudanese winner was nota young effendi (modern educated type) who might be susceptible to Egyptiannationalist ideas, but rather a placid, respectable sheik of the older generation.(The man in question, Muhammad Umar al-Banna, had in fact been an officialMahdist poet in his youth.) The newspaper was able to print the winning entry,although British authorities were generally wary lest Egyptian expatriates interestthe Sudanese in a wider Arab nationalist or pan-Islamic cause.By the time World War I had ended, British concerns about Egyptians weregrowing as widespread discontentment mounted within Egypt. In 1919, Egyptiansof all social classes rose in revolt against the protectorate in Egypt and demandedthe right to self-determination. The young educated Northern Sudanese drewinspiration from these uprisings, and in the next four years began increasingly toquestion the British presence on their own soil. Thus emboldened, somecomposed incendiary poems, which a few dared to recite in the open or sent toCairo for anonymous publication, while others gathered clandestinely to criticisethe regime (Najila 1964, Jibril 1991, ÆAbd Allah 1991).Khalil Farah (1892–1932), a Post & Telegraphs employee by day, became asub rosa poet-resister by night, as a member of the secret League of SudanUnion, which flourished in the early 1920s. After work in Khartoum, he and hisfriends gathered at a café where they shared poetry, listened to music and talkedpolitics into the early morning hours, and where they sometimes preparedinflammatory anti-British proclamations for posting around town at dusk. KhalilFarah not only composed poems, but set them to musical accompaniment assongs, using the Æud as his instrument. In addition to love songs, he composedmany songs for the nation, extolling the country’s beautiful landscapes, noblepeople and magnificent Nile river. Much to the dismay of Intelligence Departmentofficials, some of Khalil Farah’s nationalist songs (notably those incolloquial Arabic) became popular in northern cities, where they propagated— 169 —www.taq.ir