The long occupation of the Ottoman Turk Muslims in Sudan through the Arab Egypt, and the subsequent Arab slavery and the ripe slave market of Sudanese had a profound effect on the inferiority complex of every Sudanese psychic.
The Sudanese political leadership suffers of this mental Arab Egyptian slavery, still after decades had passed. One Sudanese intelligentsia who studied literature and sociology in the UK once said, "the Arab-Muslim-Egypt-master still lives in every Sudanese rich or poor, illiterate or literate Sudanese. The very word Sudan in itself comes from the Arabic word aswad what the Egyptians use interchangeably with Abid which is slave. To the Egyptian establishment, Sudan is still a land of slaves where they can order them anything whether it is to attack others or burn their own languages and identity to protect Egyptian interest. This will sound familiar to some of you who have seen Arab mental slavery close to home.
Taken from the BBC: In our series of Letters from African journalists, Zeinab Mohammed Salih writes about the horrific racial abuse black people experience in Sudan. For BLM in Sudan: link is at the bottom.
Slave traders 'glorified'
The racism goes back to the founding of Khartoum in 1821 as a marketplace for slaves.
By the second half of the century about two-thirds of the city's population was enslaved.
Sudan became one of the most active slave-raiding zones in Africa, with slaves transported from the south to the north, and to Egypt, the Middle East and the Mediterranean regions.
Zebehr Pasha, the great slave dealer, whom General Gordon wishes to appoint as Governor of the Sudan, illustration from the magazine The Graphic, volume XXIX, n 752, April 26, 1884image copyrightDEA / BIBLIOTECA AMBROSIANA
image captionAl-Zubair Pasha Rahma was a powerful slave trader
Slave traders are still glorified - a street in the heart of the capital is named after al-Zubair Pasha Rahma, whose 19th Century trading empire stretched to parts of what is now the Central African Republic and Chad.
Historians say he mainly captured women from the modern-day Sudanese areas of Blue Nile and the Nuba Mountains, as well as South Sudan and Ethiopia's Oromia region. He was also known for his slave army, made up of captives from South Sudan, which fought for the Ottomans.
Another street is named after Osman Digna - a slave trader and military commander, whose lucrative business was curtailed by the then-British colonial administration when it moved to outlaw slavery.
The practice was only officially abolished in 1924, but the decision faced strong resistance from the main Arab and Islamic leaders of that era, among them Abdelrahman al-Mahdi and Ali al-Mirghani, who many believe had slaves working on the vast tracts of land they owned along the Nile River.
Zeinab Mohammed Salih
BBC
The superiority complex of many Arabs lies at the heart of some of the worst conflicts in Sudan"
Zeinab Mohammed Salih
Sudanese journalist
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They wrote to the colonial administration urging them not to abolish slavery, but their request was ignored.
The two men, along with their political parties - Unionist and Umma - continued to wield enormous influence after independence, entrenching notions of Arab superiority in the new state by reserving almost all jobs for Arabs and failing to develop areas inhabited by black people.
Mahdi's grandson, Sadiq al-Mahdi, served as prime minister from 1966 to 1967 and again from 1986 to 1989, when Mirghani's son, Ahmed, became president in a coalition government the two men had formed.
Two Sudanese academics, Sulimen Baldo and Ushari Mahoumd, publicly alleged in 1987 that they had uncovered evidence of some northern-based Arab groups enslaving black people from the south. They say these groups were armed by Sadiq al-Mahdi's military - and were the genesis of the Janjaweed militias, which were later accused of ethnic cleansing in Darfur.
Sudanese top opposition leader and former premier Sadiq al-Mahdi addresses worshippers during Eid al-Fitr prayer marking the end of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan on June 5, 2019 in Omdurman, just across the Nile from the capital Khartoum.image copyrightGetty Images
image captionSadiq al-Mahdi has been on the political scene for more than 50 years
The slave-raiding allegations were denied at the time by the government of Ahmed Mirghani and Sadiq Mahdi, who remains influential in Sudanese politics and is close to the current government, which took power after the overthrow of Mr Bashir in 2019.
21st Century slave raids
The superiority complex of many members of the Arab elite lies at the heart of some of the worst conflicts to hit Sudan since independence, as black people either demand equality or their own homeland.
The southern slave raids were widely reported to have continued until the end of the civil war in 2005, which led to the mainly black African South Sudan seceding from Arabic-speaking Sudan five years later.
The women and children abducted by Arab groups to work for a "master" for free often never saw their families again, though in some cases their freedom was controversially bought by aid groups such as Christian Solidarity International.
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Read full article: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-53147864