Daily Sitka Sentinel And The Arrowhead Press

Interpreting News
by J. M. Roberts
A. P. News Analyst

The British and Egyptians
are going to get out of the
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, unravelling
135 years of history.
The Egyptians hope to go
back, in the belief that, unprepared
for complete independence,
the country will prefer
attachment to Egypt when it
votes later on.
An Egyptian king in search
of gold and precious stones conquered
the area in 1820. But
Egypt has so much trouble with
the natives that Britain, by
then Egypt's boss, had to take
over.
In 1874, Britain sent Chinese
Gordon up the Nile to succeed
Sir Samuel Baker, another British
governor. Ten years later a
native rebellion swept the British
out of Khartoum, and Gordon
was killed. Gen. Kitchener
was sent up, took over and rebuilt
the city along modern
lines. It was he who, having
become famous as Lord Kitchener
of Khartoum, died on a
torpedoed ship early in World
War I.
It was during these upheavals
in the Sudan that the native
spearmen rushed and broke a
British square, a formation
much like the ancient Macedonian
back-to-back phalanx,
but made up of riflemen. And
Rudyard Kipling, for once submerged
his famous imperialistic
feelings. He gave way to typical
British
sportsmanship
with the lines:
"So 'ere's to you, Fuzzy
Wuzzy, at your home in the
Soudan:
You're a poor benighted heathen
but a
"First class fightin' man."
The fuzzy-wuzzy to this day
has made no great political progress.
He lives in a land where
man need do but little to support
himself in the manner to
which he is accustomed, which
isn't much to the American
way of thinking, but suits him
all right. Most of them, though
proud and careful of their
herds, want no houses or other
material possessions to burden
them. Indolence is a way of
life.
Now, through the agitations
of a few seekers after independence,
they are facing great
change. They may even have to
seek a national name. The
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan is merely
one division of the Sudan,
which historically stretches
from the Atlantic to the Red
Sea, and is divided into several
political units.
At this very moment there is
a revolt of southern Sudanese
tribes against the Khartoum
government. The rebels have
offered to surrender, but only
to the British, who are keeping
hands off and preparing to
withdraw in November.
In the meantime, the Sudanese
are beginning to learn the
price of independence, which
is virtually being forced on
them because of divergences
between the British and the
Egyptians.