LITERATURE AND NATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST

heather j. sharkeyessays, book and film reviews, stories and plays. Both journals agreed that apoem or other literary creation was nationalist (qawmi), or served the nationalcause, if it was locally descriptive or socially relevant – rooted in the experiences,customs and physical settings of the Sudan. Two types of poetry fit thisagenda: nature poetry (portraying Sudanese environments) as introduced byHamza al-Malik Tambal; and praise poetry in support of new social and technologicaldevelopments. For social criticism (as opposed to praise), however, proseforms began to take over from poetry. For example, in essays and short storiescontributors questioned Sudanese marriage customs and stirred up heated andsometimes angry debate. Some argued radically that wives should be highlyeducated, that prospective spouses should meet before marriage, and thathusbands should treat wives as partners and not as underlings (Sharkey 1998a:351–8).More than any other publications of the colonial era, al-Nahda and al-Fajrsought to highlight features and values that made the Sudan Sudanese, realisingthat the Sudan as a territorial entity was too new to have a manifest primordiallogic. Muhammad Ahmad Mahjub was one of those who used their pages toconfront nation building head on. Bearing such titles as ‘Nationalist Sentimentand Our Need for It’, ‘The Duty of Writers to Their Nation and Their Art’ and‘National Poetry’, Mahjub’s essays testify to a time when literary activity offeredthe highest forms of political and social debate (Mahjub 1970).Nationalist poetry had its heyday in the 1920s and 1930s – years when theBritish banned open political organisation, but also when the locally-runperiodical press was just beginning to develop. From the late 1930s, periodicalscontinued to flourish, though poetry became less central to them: instead newsstories, domestic and international, took centre stage, along with editorial essays.This trend had even become more obvious in al-Fajr, towards the end of its run,when its editors decided to reduce literary content for the sake of greater newscoverage.With independence still years ahead (and not even visible on the horizon),nationalism by the late 1930s had not reached its logical conclusion, withliberation from colonial rule. So why then did poetry wane in importance, evenamong the most ardent proponents of nationalism, when there was so much leftto do? A few points stand out.For a start, in 1938 the regime allowed the formation of the GraduatesGeneral Congress, a consultative assembly in which only educated Northernmen could serve. In this way, the government relaxed its ban on organisedpolitical activity and enabled the graduates to participate in governance in avery limited manner, by discussing and offering suggestions on certain domesticissues, such as education. Arabic poetry and literary activity in general came toseem less important as leading intellectuals focused new energies on political— 172 —www.taq.ir