Rice in the Sudan, little fuss all morning.

international | crime and justice | other press

Thursday July 21, 2005 15:05

by iosaf

Sudan. Khartoum. Dharfour.
Condolence Rice is "trouble shooting" the region at the moment and had scheduled a visit to the refugee camps to monitor conditions there and in particular the conditions of women.

This morning at the press conference held with the President of Sudan and the US secretary for trouble shooting, Sudanese guards "man-handled" [sic] both the western journalists accompanying Miss Rice onboard her USAF jet but also members of her staff.

Miss Rice reboarded her jet, and at about 11h00GMT the schedule went wrong, demands for apologies were made, US network TV smarts from the injury to its dignity, and the women of Dharfour camp became less important.

Sudan has apologised.

at some point in the last two weeks of february 1884 General Gordon "the Pasha" began to meet his end at the hands of Muhammad Ahmad al-Mahdi.

He had returned to Khartoum to "evacuate" Egyptian troops which had been loyal to Victoria's empire.

Through those long years of reading psalms in his tent, looking at the moon, singing hymns, and being the model bachelor abroad of Victorian engurland he had mapped the upper Nile, reaching as far as resent day Uganda, he had worked (as many others) to eradicate the slave trade.

One of the merchant class to whom he naturally offered protection "as he began to face his end" pointed out as the siege began that the lights Gordon's office attracted fire. Gordon, known as "the pasha" is said to have ordered the merchant to be held in his room at gunpoint as more lanterns were brought saying :

"When God was portioning out fear to all the people in the world, at last it came to my turn, and there was no fear left to give me. Go, tell all the people in Khartoum that Gordon fears nothing, for God has created him without fear."

the siege ended on the 26th of January 1885

Muhammad Ahmad al-Mahdi's troops broke into the city [and it is siad my some historians acting against his orders] killed Victoria's christian soldier in Khartoum.

The British public had garnered their imperial adventure by this point with numerous heros, whose attributes in every way of life were held up as rôle models at home and abroad. Many more heros thus held the public attention than the initial solely (and often disreputable) commercial years of imperial expansion, or indeed the napoleonic wars when heros of such scale were numbered in less than a dozen.

Gordon of Khartoum, the Pasha, the martyred warrior-saint had died.

Gladstone took the rap. A non cyphered telegram had been sent from Victoria's imperial hq, her little palace on the isle of Whyte.

"& does Mister Gladstone feel the loss of Gordon?" it asked.

Who was Muhammad Ahmad al-Mahdi?

Is his historiography different? Would we better understand the XXI century if knowing that mostly we have not grown up with the memory of Gordon Pasha, we had grown up with the memory of al Mahdi?

Links to the Condolence Rice story.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1121912426225
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-07/21/content_3249819.htm
http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,,2-11-1447_1741238,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5156332,00.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/?feed=TopNews&article=UPI-1-20050721-07324300-bc-sudan-rice.xml