By Michael Vasquez
There is a lot of concern about how to narrate the history of the Gulf and the Sudanese. The sort of soft power of the Sudanese and their role in quietly and, in some ways, invisibly administering the state at the crucial moment of its first independent articulation is very little talked about. This also came out in a conversation with Sheika Hoor from Sharjah, she was like, “Actually, you know, all of my dad’s advisors are Sudanese.” And when I began speaking to other people, they were like, “Oh yeah, I’ve always wondered what was up with these Sudanese figures who seem to be mysteriously high-placed but there’s no story about them.”
Following up on that, I realised that Ibrahim El-Salahi and Tayib Salih both lived in Doha in the 1970s and they were both employed by the Ministry of Information and Culture. In fact, Tayeb Salih was the minister of culture at one point.
The demand for Sudanese migrants in the Gulf actually was a reflection of the University of Khartoum and many other schools in Sudan, which were incredible. They were some of the best in the region, by which I mean the whole of the Middle East and North Africa. So, there was very good, specialised knowledge – so doctors, lawyers and teachers from Sudan were very much in demand across the Gulf.
This article features in a special, Arabic-only edition of the Chronic, published in June 2015 as “Muzmin”. The issue, which examines the division of “North” and “sub-Saharan” Africa and Ali Mazrui’s concept of “Afrabia”, was designed in collaboration with Studio Safar (Beirut) and presented at the 12th edition of Sharjah Biennial.
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