Minimal hegemony in Sudan: exploring the rise and fall of the National Islamic Front

ABSTRACT

This article adopts a Gramscian approach to exploring the political economy behind the rise and fall of the National Islamic Front (NIF) in Sudan. It traces the NIF’s rise from the 1960s, with particular attention to the class character of its hegemonic project and shifting ideology. Reading its reign through the lens of minimal hegemony, it critically explores how neoliberal restructuring produced a narrow but powerful ruling bloc at the expense and marginalisation of different social groups, and how shifts in international relations intertwined with social transformations across Sudan to reproduce new forms of dependency. Paying attention to the uneven nature of capitalist development and resulting antagonisms during this period, it explores why the NIF was unable to forge an integral hegemony, ending with the crisis of authority that overthrew Bashir and the emergence of social forces that continue to contest its cultural, political and economic project.

RÉSUMÉ

Cet article adopte une approche gramscienne à l’exploration de l’économie politique qui sous-tend l’essor et la chute du Front national islamique (FNI) au Soudan. Il retrace l’ascension du FNI à partir des années 1960 en accordant une attention particulière aux caractéristiques de classe de son projet hégémonique et à son idéologie changeante. En lisant son règne à travers le prisme de l’hégémonie minimale, l’article explore de manière critique comment la restructuration néolibérale a produit un bloc dirigeant étroit mais puissant aux dépens et à la marginalisation de différents groupes sociaux, et comment l’évolution des relations internationales s’est entremêlée avec les transformations sociales à travers le Soudan pour reproduire de nouvelles formes de dépendance. En prêtant attention à la nature inégale du développement capitaliste et aux antagonismes qui en ont résulté au cours de cette période, il explore les raisons pour lesquelles le FNI n’a pas été en mesure de forger une hégémonie intégrale, aboutissant à la crise d’autorité qui a renversé Bashir et à l’émergence de forces sociales qui continuent de contester son projet culturel, politique et économique.

KEYWORDS:

• Sudan
• Gramsci
• hegemony
• political Islam
• transformism
• neoliberalism

MOTS-CLÉS:

• Soudan
• Gramsci
• hégémonie
• Islam politique
• transformisme
• néolibéralisme

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Roberto Roccu, who acted as a supervisor on an earlier version of this article during my studies at Kings College London, for his generous and helpful advice, constructive feedback and countless book loans. I am also grateful to M. S. Taha for access to his endless library, Gassan Suliman for his support, and to A. Osman and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. All opinions and errors are mine.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 References to the NIF throughout this article are intended to refer to the party of the Muslim Brotherhood which came to power in 1989, the movement preceding the party, and the faction that remained in government as the ruling party after 1999 (known as the NCP). For the purposes of clarity, I use the term NIF throughout.

2 At first glance, these recall Fanon’s depiction of the colonial world as split in two. But where Sekyi-Otu (1996) illustrates how Fanon constructs these dualisms only to then show us how they fall apart on closer inspection, for many Subaltern Studies scholars these dualisms are the end point.

3 Personal correspondence with SCP member active during this period, 2020. See also al-marxiyya w-al-thaqafa (al-Junid 2003 [1968]). This was translated by al-Junid Ali Omar in 1968 and republished in 2003, and includes translations of ‘Marxism and modern culture’ and ‘Some aspects of the southern question’. A possible exception is Joseph Garang’s (2010 [1971]) Dilemma of the southern intellectual, which covers similar themes to ‘Some aspects’ and could have been influenced by the latter essay.

4 A key difference that Sekyi-Otu notes is the absence of a singular hegemonic class or social group capable of leading in Fanon’s (1963) Wretched of the earth as he constructs and deconstructs the revolutionary capacity and limitations of the national bourgeoisie, proletariat, peasantry and lumpenproletariat. In Gramsci’s case, his argument takes us from the hegemony of the bourgeoisie to formulate a proletarian hegemony; for Sekyi-Otu, Fanon struggles to locate a singular hegemonic ‘subject’ and prioritises this common vocabulary and structure.

5 Writing about this period, the Sudanese artist Hassan Musa (2010, 76) argues that Sudanese Marxists were the first ‘to pay attention to exhibitions as a legitimate form of public action with very rewarding political output’.

6 Turabi (2009) outlines how the NIF’s ideology appealed to women; however, Hale (1992) illustrates that these were largely middle-class women, while Osman (2014) further shows how it marginalised working-class and non-Muslim women in particular.

7 ‘Newer’ forms include the replacement of Bashir-era popular committees with resistance committees, while older forms include the (re-)emergence of independent unions and particularly the doctors’ union which openly contested the protester death toll given by the NIF.

8 For more on some of the fissures between the professionals and the perceived ‘underclass’, as well as divisions across class, ethnic and regional lines, see Clinic Road (2019).

9 The SPA originally called for protests on 25 December 2018 in favour of raising the minimum wage (Radio Dabanga 2018); following militant demonstrations elsewhere these became explicitly anti-regime protests.

10 During the March 2019 general strike, for example, one relative and protester responded to being asked whether he was on strike with the affirmative and asking ‘do you think I am not a watani?’, a word that can perhaps be uncomfortably translated into ‘patriotic’ or ‘nationalist’. Striking was therefore seen as a national duty by many, going beyond being an economic activity to one that resonated with and reflected a form of national consciousness (personal correspondence with protester in Khartoum, March 2019).

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Shahenda Suliman

Shahenda Suliman works as a senior policy advisor for a trade union and has a background in organised labour in Sudan and the UK. Her current research explores memories of incarceration among Sudanese Marxists during the Nimeiry era, and prior to this she worked as a labour researcher.