The End of a Dream
By DESMOND STEWART Khartoum AA T breakfast on the 17th The Morning News was on sale in the dining-room of the Grand Hotel, built fifty years before for the compatriots of Lord Kitchener and now swarmed through by polyglot travellers (with the appalling service that follows on appalling guests). Alitalia crews, with an imported cook and Italian food; pallid mem- sahibs breaking their BOAC flight on the way from Nairobi to London; someone who looked like the Sultan of Lahej, but as the temperature was above ninety and the fans were whirring I never bothered to find out: Although the revo- lution was several hours old, no one knew about it. The Morning News carried a strenuous denial from the Prime Minister, Abdullah Khalil, that he was planning a coup, as had been alleged by the New York Herald Tribune. It was not until half-way through the morning, when I was on my way back from the adjoining zoo (I have never seen such happy animals), that someone told me that there had been a revolution. I borrowed a bicycle (Khartoum is the only Middle Eastern city where a bicycle is not only safe but pleasant, under shady trees) and toured the city. No one Showed any emotion whatsoever. A crowded taxi passed me, black to its windows, and a cheerful driver gestured with his hands: what does it all mean?
No tear was shed by anyone for the party politicians. And Abdullah Khalil, with the rest, was dismissed. If he had planned the coup, as was alleged, the coup had of itself planned him out.
The moment of the revolution was mildly sur- prising; that it had happened was not. Behind ' the order and calm there was discontent. The cotton crop was unsold, soap and other goods were unobtainable (the Sudanese are cleaner than any people in Europe) and independence had brought no fruits, except to those in power or in Parliament. A young man had told me at a cocktail party (which reminded me by its setting and guests of the Old Iraq), 'No educated person is satisfied here. There will certainly be a revolu- tion, and it will come from the army. The only question is whether it will be led by the old reac-. tionary. officers or the young revolutionaries. Either way we shall progress. Once we have got rid of the politicians, we shall not get them back. If the revolution is reactionary, there will be another one, quite soon afterwards.'
The first reaction to the coup among the Sudanese was to study the names of the officers to see which friend was in, which out. There were no arrests, no blood was spilt. There was no curfew, 'except the natural one which shuts Omdurman soon after ten and Khartoum itself not much later. The one cabaret, named incon- gruously after General Gordon, continued to overcharge and to thump Italian music under the immense sky. A study of the -names showed that a balance.had been struck between officers whose main aim was stability and those whose ambition was to imitate the achievements of Egypt. With sage prudence the Commander-in- Chief, Ibrahim Abboud, refused even to discuss foreign affairs and spoke frankly only about in- ternal reforms. Prudently sage, because Sudan's foreign policy is so obvious as not to need dis- cussion : it depends on friendship with Egypt, and friendship with anyone abroad who will con- tribute to Sudan's economy by trade or capital investment. No Country in the world was more bound to a policy of non-alignment by its own self-interest.
In Khartoum both Egyptians and British, for once, shared the same pleasure. The Egyptia,ps did not seem worried that the coup was not ex- plicitly Nasserist; and the British watched with- Out many tears the removal of a parliamentary system copied from their own. Was this the first sign of an understanding between the United Arabs and the United Kingdom?
Certainly the old regime was dangerous to both Egypt and the West. The British and Egyptians, in their condominium, educated a variegated elite which seems, for talent and in' dustry, remarkable, though admittedly not numerous. This elite should be running the country unhampered; they are the permanent civil servants whose continuity has enabled the change-over to take place so smoothly. Under the' parliamentary system these educated men, lacking tribal or sectarian strength or the money that can override even these considerations, did not gain influence in the country; often they enjoyed less than under the British; the best of them could be overridden by the whims or in- terests of party politicians. The army, at least possibly, may give this elite the chance to improve the Sudan.
But having said reassuring things about the revolution, one must insert the question-mark that goes with all tyrannies, 'however public-spirited. The Commander-in-Chief, the avuncular Ibrahim Abboud, at his first press conference showed that he had no intentions of reviving the old system; that he intended to form an advisory body, picked by himself, from 'the good men' in the country; that while there would be no censorship onlY good news could be sent freely. If no one Was in prison, the freedom which had appeared so remarkable on November 10 at least seemed less secure. 1 myself was asked to leave the country as soon as possible on Thursday; then, asked to stay on Saturday. What had happened? Rumours were various : that the coincidence of my arrival a week before the coup was too great; that a pale British official had been seen at the CID before my interrogation, clutching a torn Spectator; that I had been indiscreet in the bar of the Grand Hotel (this cannot have been true, as I avoided its heavily ex-colonial atmosphere, preferring the less resonant terrace overlooking the Blue Nile). Whatever the cause, the intervention of a reso- lutely fair-minded Ambassador and the lobbying of a Sudanese friend withdrew my ostracism, and a British official who had cancelled his invitation to me to attend his dinner party, 'in view of the unfortunate circumstances which have be- fallen you, and my own rather prominent position in this country,' repeated his invitation when he learnt that I had been invited to the Ambassador's garden.
This tedious sub-social gossip illustrates the dangers latent ika military regime, where visits to the CID by pale-faced or dark-faced delators may cause two days' bother to visiting writers; my own 'clearance was followed by the obscura- tion of another correspondent whose messages t° his London newspaper had annoyed a censor. Admittedly these incidents are mild and small; neither I nor my successor was arrested, insulted or taken to the airport. (To be taken to the frontiers is still impossible; after sixty years of British rule there is no real road to Port Sudan, and to reach the southern capital of Juba takes sixteen days.) But tyranny, like the"Nile, has small beginnings, and the dismissal of the deputies and the locking of Parliament may be a necessary, but is not a happy, event. The end of.a liberal drearti, even if the dream was as unreal as those induced by hashish, is only pleasing to those like MY would-be, would-not-be, would-be host : 'I'm all for it, old boy. Not a bad idea if someone like. General Templer did the same thing back home. The African night sky hears strange confessions.
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