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North African Women after
the Arab Spring
Larbi Touaf • Soumia Boutkhil • Chourouq Nasri
Editors

North African
Women after
the Arab Spring
In the Eye of the Storm
Editors
Larbi Touaf Soumia Boutkhil
English Department Mohammed I University
Mohammed I University Oujda, Morocco
Oujda, Morocco

Chourouq Nasri
Mohammed I University
Oujda, Morocco

ISBN 978-3-319-49925-3 ISBN 978-3-319-49926-0 (eBook)

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-49926-0

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017940528

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the
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tional affiliations.

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Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 CONTENTS

1 Introduction 1
Larbi Touaf and Soumia Boutkhil

2 Post-2011 Pressures for Expanded Female Citizenship

and Family Law Reform in Mena: Theorizing on Change
amidst Political Transition 11
Rania Maktabi

3 The Liberating Force of Art, Humor, and Social Media:

Women Cartoonists of the Arab Spring 53
Chourouq Nasri

4 The Arab Spring and Women’s Rights Activism on

Facebook 77
André Fecteau

5 Watered-Down Feminism: An Examination of Gender

and Revolutionary Ideals in Morocco 97
Jessica Lambert

6 Tradition and Modernity or the Ambivalent Public

Sphere: Women’s Political Participation in Morocco
Before and After the Arab Spring 121
Larbi Touaf

v
vi CONTENTS

7 Who’s Under the Robe? On Women in the Judicial

System in Morocco 135
Soumia Boutkhil

8 The Women’s Movement and the 20 February Movement

in Morocco: An Awkward Relationship 149
Lenie Brouwer and Edien Bartels

9 Mediated Femininity and Female Citizenship

in Moroccan Electronic News Sites – Hespress.com
as a Case Study 169
Soumia Ben Rochd

10 The Reform of the Moroccan Family Law and Women’s

Daily Lives: Navigating Between Structural Constraints
and Personal Agency 191
Oka Storms and Edien Bartels

11 Winds of Change: Egypt’s Islamic Family Law Between

Two Centuries (1920–2013) 211
Nadia Nader and Riham E.A. Debian

12 Women in Libya: The Ongoing Armed Conflict, Political

Instability and Radicalization 239
Asmae Khalifa

Index 251
 LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Edien Bartels Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Vrije

Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Soumia Boutkhil English and Gender Studies, Mohammed I University,
Oujda, Morocco
Lenie Brouwer Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Vrije
Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Riham E.A. Debian Faculty of Arts, Institute of Applied Linguistics and
Translation, Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt
André Fecteau Independent Researcher, Ottawa, Canada
Asmae Khalifa MA Peace and Conflict Studies, Social Science Institute,
Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey
Jessica Lambert Sociocultural Anthropology, Boston University,
Boston, MA, USA
Rania Maktabi Political Scientist, Faculty of Business, Languages, and
Social Sciences, Østfold University College, Østfold, Norway
Nadia Nader Islamic Legal History, University of California, Santa
Barbara, USA
Chourouq Nasri Department of English Studies, Mohammed I
University, Oujda, Morocco
Soumia Ben Rochd Gender Studies, Mohammed I University, Oujda,
Morocco

vii
viii LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Oka Storms Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, VU

University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Larbi Touaf English and Gender Studies, Mohammed I University,
Oujda, Morocco
 LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 2.1 Spheres of membership in the Middle East 25

Fig. 9.1 Women authors’ profiles 177
Fig. 9.2 Subjects tackled by women authors 178
Fig. 9.3 Article’s depth level 179
Fig. 9.4 Politics 179
Fig. 9.5 Women’s social role 180
Fig. 9.6 Role centred around physical appeal 181
Fig. 9.7 Type of femininity 183
Fig. 9.8 The eroticized body 184

ix
 LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1 Typology on female citizenship in the MENA region

1920–2010 18
Table A.4 Means and standard deviations (S. D.) associated with each
trait for Facebook pictures (by ethnicity) 93
Table 8.1 Comparison of the women’s movement and the 20
February movement 162
Table 9.1 Criteria of analysis chart 175
Table 9.2 Women authors’ profiles 176
Table 9.3 Subjects tackled by women authors 177
Table 9.4 Article’s depth level 178
Table 9.5 Women’s social role 181
Table 9.6 Type of femininity 183
Table 10.1 Divorce number (under juridical control) through
the years 201
Table 10.2 Divorce rate 2010–2011 202

xi
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Larbi Touaf and Soumia Boutkhil

As the whole world witnessed over the last few years, the Arab world has
been shaken, as it has never been in its entire history. Autocratic regimes
crumbled like sand castles; others started reforms that would have been
unthinkable a few years ago; social dynamics have been reconfigured and
long crushed and silenced identities came to the surface. The whole world
discovered for the first time that the monolithic image they had of this vast
region and its cultures was a media-entertained ideological construction.
Yet it came as no surprise to anyone in the region that from Casablanca to
Sanaa women played a key role in the success of the uprisings that wiped
out long ruling oligarchies in the region, ushering in an era of socio-
political change. In Fact, during the uprisings gender was never an issue;
women of all ages and from all walks of life marched in the streets of Tunis,
camped safely in Tahrir square, took to the streets in Yemen, Libya,
Bahrain and Morocco.
However, after the revolution, women felt betrayed as they were
excluded from decision-making circles. The statistics of women’s partici-
pation in politics are shocking, they hardly made 20% in the electoral lists
in Tunisia, a country that passed a law for parity prior to elections; in
Egypt women’s representation in the parliament dropped from 12% to 2%
while in Morocco, despite the increase in the number of women MPs from

L. Touaf (*)
S. Boutkhil

English and Gender Studies, Mohammed I University, Oujda, Morocco

© The Author(s) 2017 1

L. Touaf et al. (eds.), North African Women after the Arab Spring,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-49926-0_1
2 L. TOUAF AND S. BOUTKHIL

34 to 67 seats, the political parties that formed the first government after
the 2011 constitutional reform marginalized women by decreasing their
number from 7 in the previous cabinets to only 1 minister out of 33 men.
In Tunisia and Egypt, Salafist movements exerted great pressure on the
constitutive assemblies to write off women’s rights from the constitution
drafts, and every day brings news of demonstrations against gender equal-
ity across the region. All of these unsettling developments are cause for
great concern among civil society organizations, women’s rights activists
and pro-gender equality media.
What went wrong? Should we jump to conclusions and declare that the
“Arab Spring” has failed in bringing gender equality to Arab societies?
And, if the much-celebrated “Arab Spring” was about freedom, democ-
racy and equal access to resources, why were women excluded from these
rights after elections? Why didn’t women’s efforts and momentum during
the revolution pay off in the same way they did for men? Did we think
“revolution” before we thought “democracy”? What meanings do
“democracy”, “freedom” and “dignity” carry in our region? Are Arab
societies ready for gender equality? Was this idea ever on the agenda of
the crowds that took to the streets? Or was it just a male spring? Do
women have to start their own uprising in order to impose their right on
their fathers, husbands, sons and brothers? If women constitute more than
half the population in the region, why have they failed to seize the
opportunity to claim more leadership? Why did the revolution lack the
impetus for women’s rights and freedom? And most importantly, what is
the future going to look like for half the population? Is the culture in these
societies to blame for women’s poor political participation? What can civil
society do to promote women’s involvement and participation? How can
we raise youth’s awareness to the necessity of gender equality?
These and other questions should be the focus of women’s rights
activists and intellectuals. This book is a modest contribution that intends
to bring some of these issues. Ranging from anthropology, sociology,
political science, media studies and legal studies, the chapter that compose
this book approach the issue of women’s rights and gender equality in
North Africa from a variety of perspectives largely grounded in field work.
Refraining from pronouncing any definitive judgment on the current
situation, the authors seem to stress the transitory phase of these societies
and the hopes as well as the threats that this situation entails for women.
This book provides an assessment of the situation of women in North
Africa from inside. It is intended to help the general public as well as the
 INTRODUCTION 3

academic world comprehend the significance of what is going on in this

part of the Islamic World. For this purpose, the book puts the recent
developments in perspective. Indeed, since the 1990s the debates on
women’s rights in much of the MENA region had to suffer this con-
servative mantra: “Why do some people bring up the issue of women’s
rights (or citizenship) now?” raised by conservative intellectuals and
religious extremists, aided by powerful media networks, at every attempt
to question the status quo. This conspiracy theory-inspired query
became with time the living proof of the paranoid state of a large section
of Arab-Islamic intellectuals. In their view women’s rights were and still
continue to be a western conspiracy against Islam. And so any attempt on
the part of activists and scholars to question the status quo faces severe
reactions.
Whether conservatives accept it or not, the fact is that the popular
uprisings in the Arab world in the spring of 2011 were a direct conse-
quence of the absence of a real debate on the political impact of the
demographics and the socio-economic changes that the region under-
went. And instead of preparing the transition peacefully, the autocratic
regimes and their defenders kept delaying the issue until things exploded
in their faces. The uprisings have thus violently ushered in a period of
chaotic transition. This was the first time that popular discontent with
authoritarian systems of power has exploded into large-scale protest.
However, just as the “Arab spring” brought promises or hopes of freedom
and democracy, it also meant that for women a leap forward is as possible
as a leap backwards in terms of rights and equality with men. This appre-
hension, on the part of activists, addresses the serious issue of how societal
projects that have women’s citizenship as a focal point can be impacted by
internal as well as external factors.
It is a fact today that women’s conditions in North Africa have
undergone rapid changes in the last decade. However, these changes
are held hostage by a religious conservative and largely patriarchal
tradition masquerading as cultural specificity. Therefore, the impact
of the new laws and constitutional provisions on women’s everyday
lives is rendered insignificant by a conservative approach in their
implementation that finds justification in a strong sense of resistance
to what is perceived as a “westernization” of society. The discourse
of equality between men and women became thus equated with
corrupt “westernized” regimes and a very privileged elite seen as
disconnected with popular concerns. Indeed, where unemployment
4 L. TOUAF AND S. BOUTKHIL

of the youth soared in the MENA region in 2013 to be among the

highest in the world, (27.3% in the Middle East and 29% in North
Africa according to the International Labour Organization)1 the
debate over women’s rights was overshadowed by years of tyranny
and social injustice in the region. It was a challenge to bring to the
forefront the questions of equality between men and women while
people seemed plunged in despair and lack of opportunity for men
and women alike.
The disconcerting opposition to reforms that would guarantee
women access to education and better health services; provide opportu-
nity; prevent violence and promote their empowerment at all levels
(social, economic and political) remains incomprehensible to the rest of
the world. Yet we have to understand that in this part of the globe male
domination has delicately woven a myth that the family is the only sphere
that is almost divinely ordained for women. Traditionally, the Arab/
Islamic state is surrounded by various protective patriarchal structures,
and the society clings to a patriarchal system in which women’s position
within and duties towards the family are perceived as prior to their rights
as individuals and citizens. This is the case today in Morocco for example
where we see multiple examples of how the educational system continues
to promote traditional gender roles in the school textbooks and curri-
cula. In June 14, 2013 a survey of 18 000 males and females aged between
15 and 29 conducted by Mohamed Seghir Jenjar revealed that over 45% of
respondents view teaching and medical professions as the best career choices
for women because of what they believe to be the “nature of woman” herself
as caregiver, patient and educator. However, only 6% of them consider that
women can choose careers traditionally reserved for males. Even more
shocking is that the same study revealed that over 56% of university students
are females who, the study declares, have “invaded” higher education in the

1
International Labour Organization Report. “Global Employment Trends: A recov-
ery in activity, not in jobs: The Risk of a Jobless Recovery”, 21 January 2014.
“ . . . unemployment among young people has reached around 19 per cent in
Morocco, over 22 per cent in Lebanon and Algeria, 25 per cent in Egypt, closer to
30 per cent in Jordan and Saudi Arabia, around 40 per cent in the Palestinian
Authority and over 42 per cent in Tunisia”. http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/
groups/public/africa/documents/publication/wcms_234191.pdf. June 16, 2014.
 INTRODUCTION 5

last 10 years (2002–2012).2 Interestingly enough, these numbers chal-

lenge the belief that women’s growing access to education in general will
gradually contribute to the mentality change that would lead to equality
between the sexes. This process is only possible when the state has a clear
strategy based on intensive educational programs on gender and a qua-
litative review of the curricula, in addition to more presence of female
leadership figures in decision-making positions. Unfortunately, this is
not the case as the entrenched patriarchal values continue to be har-
boured in the absence of courageous attempts to adopt a gender-friendly
interpretation of article 19 of the Moroccan constitution. The educa-
tional system is a good example of this cultural confinement of active
women in positions where they cannot bring diversity to the profession.
Women make up to 33% of the formal sector workforce, while in the
informal sector of the economy, they provide for over 70% of Moroccan
households, however the number of women in decision-making posi-
tions is below 13%.3
So why, then, does women’s massive presence in the public sphere
today fail to operate the long sought-after change? In an article on
women and empowerment in the Arab World, Sherifa Zuhor argues
that

a sort of compromise has long existed “between elite women and the state.
Within this arrangement, elite women acquired more power so long as they
did not challenge the basic patriarchal structures of state and society.
Cultural authenticity is important and often relied heavily on Muslim
mores that discouraged any attacks on the patriarchal family structure”.4
(Zuhur 2003.3)

2
Fatima Yassin. “International symposium on the political movements and equal-
ity in North Africa”. Available at: http://www.almaghribia.ma/Paper/
printArticle.asp?id=165666 (accessed on June 27, 2014).
3
Fouzia Assouli (former President of The Democratic League for Women’s
Rights). Opening speech at the conference on The Family Code + 10: Experiences
and Ways Forward. Organized by the Danish Center for Research and Information
on Gender, Equality and Diversity Kvinfo, November 21-22, 2013 Rabat,
Morocco.
4
Charifa Zuhur. “Women and Empowerment in The Arab World”. Arab Studies
Quarterly. Fall 2003. 3-22.
6 L. TOUAF AND S. BOUTKHIL

As Valentine Moghadam wrote, “family law is the battleground upon

which women’s organizations, Islamists and neo-patriarchal states vie for
influence”5 (2003.2). Indeed, the discourse of women’s rights and more
generally of human rights, is caught in the binary oppositions of man
versus woman, specificity versus globalization, nation-state versus globali-
zation threats. This exacerbates emotions, and the fight for social justice
and human rights is easily overshadowed by ideological and dogmatic
struggle. This is even more relevant today as we witness violent conflicts
between different forces across North Africa and the Middle East over
questions related to women’s rights.6
Overall, In MENA countries, the issue of women’s rights is caught
between the anvil of a religion-based conservatism and the hammer of
globalization. Over the last twenty years, the Islamist’s social and political
agenda has developed faster than women NGOs’ work to promote their
cause. Recently however, women’s rights advocates developed a legalist

5
Valetine Moghadam. “Global Feminism and Women’s Citizenship in the Muslim
World: The case of Iran, Algeria and Afghanistan” paper prepared for a conference
on “Citizenship, Borders, and Gender: Mobility and Immobility”. Yale University.
May 2003.
6
In Morocco for example, the Ministry of Solidarity, Women, Family and Social
Development led by the Islamist party of Justice and Development (PJD) rejected
the previous government’s project called “the agenda for equality 2011–2015”, a
project that came as a result of long consultations with women’s NGOs, and that
sought to involve 25 public sectors to fight discrimination and violence against
women. The newly appointed conservative minister – a woman – openly opposed
the project on the ambiguous grounds that the term “agenda” is a foreign concept
that is politically loaded. Covertly however, the Islamist government ideologically
opposed the reforms that the project sought to initiate, even though they were
perfectly aligned with the provisions of the 2011 constitution. The project was put
on hold since May 2012, and so was the very meagre budget allocated to support
shelters for women victims of violence, which left hundreds of battered women
and children without any assistance. This was happening at a time when gender
based violence has reached a pandemic level affecting more than 62% of the female
population aged between 18 and 64. (Survey of ‘Haut Commissariat au Plan’
available at: http://www.hcp.ma/Etude-sur-la-violence-a-l-egard-desfemmes_
a784.html.2009. (Accessed June 27, 2014))
In March 2016, the minister finally decided to present a meaningless law
project (to fight violence against women) to the Parliament for discussion.
 INTRODUCTION 7

approach based on universal Human Rights seeking thus to depoliticize

the issue. But the opponents are still intent on inscribing the claim for
women’s empowerment in what they see as the West’s desire for global
hegemony, and so the crucial issue now is whether the process of demo-
cratization that these countries seem to be undergoing can have any sense
when half of the population are de facto deprived of their basic rights as
citizens. What needs to be done is not only to lift the religious veil that
over time came to be accepted as a natural envelop for anything related to
women but also to deconstruct the structures of domination related to the
economic oppression, the dearth of basic social services and the violations
of basic human rights. Politically, even the so-called progressive regimes
work to maintain a structure of ideological hegemony in collusion with
global economic interests and cover that with conservative, sometimes
radical religious views based on the conviction that the ambiguous dis-
course of “modernity and tradition” pays off in terms of popular votes and
legitimacy (see Chapter 5).
So many contradictions, conflicts and struggles that will certainly
occupy interested scholars for decades to come. Therefore, what this
book tries to accomplish is to present a multidisciplinary attempt at
analyzing the situation of Women in North Africa and to a lesser degree
in the Middle East. While engaging in inquiries pertaining to sociology,
anthropology, media and political science, the editors tried to retain a fine
line of critical thought that is largely indebted to the fundamentals of
critical humanities, combining the quantitative, the qualitative and the
critical methods of analysis.
The reader will no doubt notice that there is a special emphasis on
Morocco. This can be explained by the largely shared view on this country
as paradigmatic at least for the peaceful denouement of the 2011 uprisings
known as the Arab Spring. The second reason for such emphasis is that
although Morocco had already reformed the status of women in 2004,
women NGOs and activists are still struggling for basic rights for women
especially those from the disadvantaged sections of the population. A state
of affairs that raises questions and even doubts about government’s com-
mitment to social justice and the selective implementation and even the
possible pointlessness of the reforms. Taking Morocco as a paradigm for a
critical study of the conditions of women in the largely Islamic context of
North Africa, the editors want to underscore the point that regardless of
the political system (Monarchy or Republic) north African women are
under the same system of dominance that ties their status to conservative
8 L. TOUAF AND S. BOUTKHIL

ideology and socio-economic inequality in total disregard of the univers-

ality human rights to which all of the North African nations formally
adhere. In addition, the Arab World is divided in two broad categories
of political systems: monarchies and emirates on one side and republics on
the other. In the socio-political imaginaire of the region – as shaped by
propaganda – republics have always been associated with (socialist) revo-
lutionary politics and social progressivism (Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Iraq,
Syria, Yemen . . . etc.), whereas monarchies are seen as sites of conserva-
tism, traditionalism and even reaction. In this broad perspective, Morocco
stands out – at least for the past decade and particularly since the spring of
2011 – as a paradigmatic state that is building a system akin to European
Parliamentary monarchies with a progressive constitution, a bi-cameral
parliament with full and exclusive legislating capacity, separation of powers
(still only theoretical), liberal economy, political pluralism, strong civil
society, free elections . . . etc. All of these progressive aspects make
Morocco a nation that is arguably more “democratic” than most Arab
republics and monarchies. It is also a country of a thousand contrasts; until
a few years ago, Morocco, by comparison with neighbouring countries,
had the lowest rates of literacy especially among women. Yet, it also passed
one of the most progressive reforms related to women’s status and rights.
The distinctive character of reforms in Morocco during the last decade is
that they are largely triggered by popular demands, which signals the
existence of a well-organized and very active civil society.
There is now a debate on whether the so-called Arab Spring brought
any change to the gender inequalities prevailing in North Africa and the
Middle East. At least two lines of argumentation can be developed, and
considering them might help us develop a new discourse to address these
issues. The first is that the uprisings did not yet bring any profound
transformation to the situation of women just as it did not impact the
lives of other discriminated groups such as the poorer (rural) classes and
the religious, ethnic and sexual minorities. The second is that the ques-
tion of rights is no longer seen as a gift to be granted by the ruling party
or leader but rather as something to be taken by the masses. Therefore,
the general contention here is that that in light of the intense political
disruptions that the North African countries are witnessing, there is a
need for a new critical discourse on a more inclusive conception of
citizenship that goes beyond the political representation or lack thereof
to take in to account the social, economic and legislative aspect of
citizens’ rights.
 INTRODUCTION 9

Within the perspective of what is now known as “epistemologies from the

South”, this book interweaves multiple theoretical frameworks to transcend
the divisionary lines between the disciplines towards a more complex under-
standing of our reality. In light of this, the only entryway to gender equality in
this region is the development of a discourse of equal citizenship for all, which
does not dissociate the issue of gender equality from other pressing issues
related to social justice such as work, education, access to justice, decent
housing and health. Inequality in these areas is constant and is intricately
woven into the dominant oppressing political narratives that check not only
women’s but also other minorities and social categories’ aspirations to full
citizenship. This is what needs to be dismantled for change to begin.

Larbi Touaf (ed) earned his PhD from Sorbonne University in Paris, and cur-
rently teaches in his capacity as Professor of English at Mohammed I University,
Oujda, Morocco. Dr. Touaf is a Fellow of the Maxwell School at Syracuse
University, NY, and a Fulbright visiting Scholar at SUNY. He is the founder and
coordinator of The Identity and Difference Research Group and is the executive
editor of the scholarly journal Ikhtilaf. He has co-edited with Soumia Boutkhil a
number of books, including Minority Matters: Literature, Theory, Society (2005),
Representing Minorities: Studies in Literature and Criticism (2006) and The World
as a Global Agora: Critical Perspectives on Public Space (2008). Dr. Touaf is also a
translator; his latest work in this field is Lucy Melbourne’s An American in
Morocco/Une Americaine au Maroc (2008).

Soumia Boutkhil (ed) earned her PhD from the University of Paris-Nanterre,
and is currently Associate Professor of English and Gender Studies at Mohammed
I University, Oujda, Morocco. Dr. Boutkhil is a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at
Rutgers University, NJ and a founder of the Research Group Identity and
Difference. She co-edited with Larbi Touaf a number of books including
Minority Matters: Literature, Theory, Society (2005), Representing Minorities:
Studies in Literature and Ciriticism (2006) and The World as a Global Agora:
Critical Perspectives on Public Space (2008).
 CHAPTER 2

Post-2011 Pressures for Expanded Female

Citizenship and Family Law Reform in
Mena: Theorizing on Change amidst
Political Transition

Rania Maktabi

INTRODUCTION
A decade ago, Doumato and Posusney pointed out in their book Women
and Globalization in the Arab Middle East the following: Despite
demands by Islamic feminists throughout who sought to reinterpret
sacred texts in ways that strengthen the civil rights of women within
marriage, divorce, maintenance, and custody of children, “family law has
remained particularly resistant to feminist attempts at reform.”1 Yet, only a
year later in 2004, Morocco changed its family law through substantive

1
Eleanor Abdella Doumato and Marsha Pripstein Posusney, “Introduction: The
mixed blessings of globalization,” in Women and globalization in the Arab Middle
East: gender, economy, and society, ed. Eleanor Abdella Doumato and Marsha
Pripstein Posusney (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2003), 10.

R. Maktabi (*)
Political Scientist, Faculty of Business, Languages, and Social Sciences, Østfold
University College, Østfold, Norway

© The Author(s) 2017 11

L. Touaf et al. (eds.), North African Women after the Arab Spring,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-49926-0_2
12 R. MAKTABI

reforms that equalized the rights of female and male citizens, and three
states in the Gulf – Qatar, The United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain –
codified their family laws in 2005, 2006, and 2009, respectively.2 These
reforms came after the khul’ law was enacted by the Egyptian parliament in
2000 securing Egyptian women unconditional divorce.3
Pressures for reforms in family law, criminal law, and nationality law
that seek to equalize the civil rights of female and male citizens since the
turn of the millennium in different Arab states confirm an observable trend
throughout MENA4: Demands for change were evident, and substantial
reforms were made, particularly in Morocco and Egypt.5
In the aftermath of the Arab uprisings in 2011, a new electoral dawn –
most notably in North Africa – has been established. Islamist political
parties became majoritarian political forces in legislative bodies. In
Egypt, these include the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s (MB) political
wing called the Freedom and Justice party (FJP) and the Salafist party

2
A codified law was passed only for Sunnis in Bahrain. Lynn Welchman, “Bahrain,
Qatar, UAE: First time family law codification in three Gulf states,” International
Survey of Family Law 2010 (2010).
3
Diane Singermann, “Rewriting divorce in Egypt: Reclaiming Islam, legal activism
and coalition politics,” in Remaking Muslim politics: pluralism, contestation, demo-
cratization, ed. Robert W. Hefner (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
2005).
4
”MENA” refers to the Middle East and North Africa region and includes here 18
(out of a total of 22) members of The Arab League (excluding thus the four non-
Arab speaking states of Comoros, Djibouti, Somalia and Mauritania): Morocco,
Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Sudan, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Yemen,
Palestinian Authorities, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (here-
after UAE), Oman, and Saudi Arabia. A regional subdivision in MENA is a
distinction between a western part that encompasses North African states (in this
paper including Egypt) usually referred to as maghrib in Arabic; an eastern part
that includes Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinian Territories and Iraq, usually
referred to as mashriq in Arabic; and the “Gulf states” situated in the sub-region
called the khalij in Arabic and which includes Yemen along with the six member
states of the Gulf Co-Operation Council (GGC): Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman,
Qatar, UAE, and Bahrain.
5
Rania Maktabi, “Female citizenship in the Middle East: Comparing family law
reform in Morocco, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon,” Middle East Law and Governance
5, no. 3 (2013).
 POST-2011 PRESSURES FOR EXPANDED FEMALE CITIZENSHIP AND FAMILY . . . 13

an-Nour.6 In Tunisia, the government is a coalition party under the leader-

ship of the Islamist Ennahda.7 In Morocco, the Justice and Development
party (PJD). The PJD won 107 out of 395 seats in parliament after
parliamentary elections in November 2011, and became Morocco’s first
Islamist-led government. PJD leader, Abdelilah Benkirane, was appointed
prime minister by King Mohammad VI.8
In this chapter, I address the following set of questions: First, how do
we as researchers describe, understand, and theorize political transition
and democratization in MENA with reference to female citizenship three
years after the 2011 uprisings? “Female citizenship” is here seen as the
set of civil, economic, and political rights as defined in the Constitution,
the state’s family law, nationality law, criminal law, social security, and
labor laws. These laws regulate the legal capacity and autonomy of a
female citizen in the polity and structure thereby the relationship
between the state and a female citizen. In all MENA states – with the

6
In the 2011–2012 parliamentary elections The Islamist FJP got 46 per cent,
while an-Nour won 24 per cent of the vote. See “Egypt’s Islamist parties win
elections to parliament”, BBC News 21 January 2012, http://www.bbc.co.uk/
news/world-middle-east-16665748. The proportion of women diminished from
12 to 2 per cent after the 2011 elections. FIDH, Women and the Arab Spring:
Taking their place (Paris: International Federation for Human Rights, May 2012),
16. The Islamist government was toppled by a coup on July 3, 2013, leaving Egypt
under the military rule of General Abdul Fattah al-Sisi. By 25 December 2013, the
MB was declared a terrorist group after a deadly attack on a police headquarters.
“Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood declared ‘terrorist group’,” http://www.bbc.co.
uk/news/world-middle-east-25515932.
7
The other two parties are the secular centrist party al-Kutla and the leftist
Mu’tamar party where Siham al-Badi serves as Minister of women’s affairs.
(Klassekampen, 23 April 2013). Women constituted 27 per cent of the
Constituent Assembly elected in October 2011. In March 2012, 3 women were
part of the 41-members government. FIDH, “Women and the Arab Spring:
Taking their place,” 8. http://www.fidh.org/Women-and-the-Arab-Spring-
Taking, 11550.
8
“Yet another Islamist victory”, The Economist, http://www.economist.com/
node/21541058. The proportion of women elected in March 2012 did not
exceed the quote of 15 per cent set by the electoral law. One women, Bassima
Hakkaoui, serves as Minister of Solidarity, Women, Family and Social
Development.
14 R. MAKTABI

notable exception of Tunisia and Morocco – there exists a gap between

Constitutional law where the equality of male and female citizens is
stated on the one hand, and other state laws – such as family law, criminal
law, and nationality law – where male supremacy over females is valor-
ized, and male guardianship principles the distribution of rights and
obligations.
Second, rather than outlining the course of events when it comes to
women’s rights in different MENA states since 2011, my point of depar-
ture is to present reflections around an analytical framework for addres-
sing and understanding phenomena such as “change,” “reform,” and
“democratization” where female citizenship is included as a significant
parameter.9 How do different states in MENA fare with regards to
expanded or contracted forms of female citizenship in the current transi-
tional phase seen in light of tensions around family law reform between
1990 and 2010? By “tensions,” I mean the politicization of issues related
to female civil rights at the domestic level, and the way these issues are
raised, addressed, and accommodated for by the authorities in different
states.
Third, I propose that there are significant variances between
the three MENA subregions, that is, North Africa (mahgrib), the
Levantine Middle East (mashriq), and the Gulf states (khalij). In
each region, particular structural conditions permit or impede pres-
sures for widened reforms within family law that strengthen female
citizenship. These conditions are related to (i) the institutionalization
of religious law in the state’s judicial system in the form of unitary or
dual courts10; (ii) the impact of the presence of long-term stateless,
refugee, and labor force migrant populations in the Levant and
the Gulf11; and (iii) the modes in which political regimes have

9
”Reform” is a relative term and implies here changes in state laws that reduce
inequality in the distribution of civil, political and economic rights between male
and female citizens.
10
Maktabi, “Female citizenship in the Middle East: Comparing family law reform
in Morocco, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon.”
11
Rania Maktabi, “The politicization of the demos in the Middle East: Citizenship
between membership and participation in the state” (Ph.D. thesis, Department of
political science, University of Oslo, 2012), 45–53; 171–81.
 POST-2011 PRESSURES FOR EXPANDED FEMALE CITIZENSHIP AND FAMILY . . . 15

responded toward economic globalization and transnational pressures

for political liberalization since 1990.12 Each MENA state displays
different adaptations and accommodations to these factors. There are,
nevertheless, variances that not only reflect sub-regional particularities
of maghribi, mashriqi, and khaliji states, but rather re-enforce the
form and content of social, legal, and political pressures for reforms
in the transitional phases which some MENA states are going
through following the 2011 uprisings. An attention to subregional
traits within MENA provides fruitful avenues to discerning post-2011
commonalities and differences pertaining to different processes
toward democratization.
In the following, the position of family law within the legal system
of MENA states is first presented. This is followed by a table that
clarifies differences pertaining to the distribution of female civil rights
and an argument on the need for carrying on comparative research in
MENA whereby female citizenship is contextualized both theoreti-
cally and empirically in order to frame and historicize change pertain-
ing to female citizenship in MENA. I then point out the need to
do comparative work in MENA before looking at pressures for
enhanced female citizenship in MENA such as a stronger focus on
body politics, new organizational forms for social mobilization, and
the paradox embedded in the feminization of poverty along with
strengthened civil rights, particularly in North Africa, including here
Egypt. In the last section I discuss whether regional differences
between oil-rich and oil-poor states in the MENA region after the
2011-uprisings lead to sustained and deepened regional variances
between Arab states when it comes to extended or contracted forms
of female citizenship.

12
Sieglinde Gränzer, “Changing discourse: transnational advocacy networks in
Tunisia and Morocco,” in The power of human rights: international norms and
domestic change, ed. Kathryn Sikkink, Thomas Risse, and Steve C. Ropp
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). See also Laurie A. Brand,
Women, the state, and political liberalization: Middle Eastern and North African
experiences (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998). On the power of
economic globalization as principle driving force for political change, see
Clement M. Henry and Robert Springborg, Globalization and the politics of
development in the Middle East (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).
16 R. MAKTABI

WHAT IS FAMILY LAW?

Family law refers to codified rules that regulate marriage, divorce, inheri-
tance, adoption, custody, and financial maintenance of children and the
elderly.13 Contemporary Western legal systems do not distinguish
between the legal status of a person in the public and private spheres,
that is, an individual’s legal and social position within or outside the realm
of the family as a kinship system. In most Arab legal systems, however, this
distinction is central; an individual’s rights and obligations in the public
sphere are regulated by civil law, while a person’s relationship within the
family is regulated by personal status law – more commonly known as
“family law.”14 In the private sphere, family law regulates the “private
legal affairs” of citizens in matters such as marriage, divorce, custody over
children, maintenance, inheritance, and adoption. In the public sphere,
civil law regulates the constitutional, political, and social rights of citizens
regarding waged labor, education, political representation, freedom of
speech and organization in civil societies, political parties, and labor
unions.
The judicial division regarding a person’s legal status in the public and
private spheres is related to the partial secularization of the legal system in
most Arab states following the establishment of territorial states after
1920. While all legal fields in the state incorporated Western legal stan-
dards, family law maintained religious laws and tenets as principal sources
of legislation during the codification process of family law whereby rules
and norms were explicitly recorded as state laws.15 As a result, the legal
and judicial systems are not secularized, and there exists a plurality of
incongruent and – at times – competing and overlapping legal sources
that are perceived as authoritative laws within the state, a phenomenon
which has been termed “legal pluralism” within the Arab world.16

13
The terms “family law” [qanun usra] and “personal status laws” [qawanin al-
ahwal ash-shakhsiyya] are here used interchangeably.
14
Mustafa al-Siba’i, sharh qanun al-ahwal as-shakhsiyya. [Explaining the law of
personal status] (Damascus: Dar al-Warraq, 2001). 11.
15
George N. Sfeir, “The place of Islamic law in modern Arab legal systems: A brief
for researchers and reference librarians,” 28 Int’l J. Legal Info. 117(2000).
16
Maurits Berger, Laila al Zwaini, and Baudouin Dupret, Legal pluralism in the
Arab world (The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 1999).
 POST-2011 PRESSURES FOR EXPANDED FEMALE CITIZENSHIP AND FAMILY . . . 17

Family Law Reform in MENA 1990–2010

Family law is organized and institutionalized differently in each Arab state.
This diversity reflects not only the degree of religious pluralism in each
state. Equally important is the variety portrayed by the jurisprudential and
legal boundaries set and the political outcomes attained through bargain-
ing processes among rulers and ruled in each Arab state who have
responded to or resisted reforms within family law in the past two decades.
Table 2.1 represents a pre-2011 typology over female citizenship in MENA.
Three years after the Arab uprisings, the main traits of the typology remain
unchanged. However, as will be pointed out later, new forms of resistance and
dissatisfaction have been formed in the aftermath of the 2011 uprisings, paving
the way for further pressures to change existing gendered laws.

Citizenship Rights
Table 2.1 distinguishes between two fundamentally different sets of citizen-
ship rights that reflect diverging principles that underpin the distribution of
rights within the polity. As such, pressures for reform in family law entail a
contest between two fundamentally different notions of citizenship rights in
MENA: first, group-based citizenship rights reflect notions of citizens as
members of kinship structures organized along patriarchal lines, often privi-
leging male citizens over females; and second, individually based citizenship
rights are grounded in a citizen’s direct membership in the state where she
(or he) has autonomous rights guaranteed by state authorities regardless of
religious or ethnic group affiliation. Individually based citizenship is in line
with governance according to rule of law criteria and embodies core ele-
ments in The UN Convention on the Elimination of all forms of
Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) that professes gender equality.17

17
On “rule of law” and gender, see Anna Loretoni, “The rule of law and gender
difference,” in The Rule of law: history, theory and criticism, ed. Pietro Costa,
Danilo Zolo, and Emilio Santoro (Dordrecht: Springer, 2007). For CEDAW
work and reports 1979 - 2007, see http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/
cedaw/. Since 2008 CEDAW has been under the UN High Commissioner for
Human Rights, see http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cedaw/index.htm.
For the lifting of CEDAW reservations in Arab states, see the website of the
“Coalition Equality without Reservations” launched in 2006: http://cedaw.word
press.com/, accessed 18 August 2009.
18 R. MAKTABI

Table 2.1 Typology on female citizenship in the MENA region 1920–2010

Type of political regime

Hereditary One-party dominated Semidemocratic

monarchy regime

Individually Morocco Tunisia Turkey

based (2004) (1956) (1926)
South Yemen (i)
(1974–1990)
Group-based Jordan (1951) Egypt (iii) Lebanon (vii)
Morocco (1920/1938) (1951/1962)
(1957–2003) Syria (1953) Palestinian
Kuwait (1984) Iraq (1959/ Territories
Qatar (2006) Resolution 2003) (iv) (draft law 2005)
Oman (1997) Libya (1972) (viii)
UAE (2005) Algeria (1984) Israel (ix)
Bahrain (2009) Sudan (1991) (v) (1992)
(ii) Yemen (1992) Iraq post 2003?
Iran (1967 /
draft 2007) (vi)

(i) Under the rule of the revolutionary government in South Yemen (1967–1990) women obtained an
independent and equal civil status with men in marriage and divorce through Law of the Family (Law
no. 1, 1974). The law was abolished upon the unification of North and South Yemen in 1990 and the
introduction of Law no. 20 regarding Personal Status in 1992. See Lynn Welchman, Women and
Muslim family laws in Arab states: a comparative overview of textual development and advocacy
(Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2007). 160.
(ii) A personal status code was codified for the Sunni population. The personal status law that regulate the
family law of the Shi’a population remain uncodified. See Lynn Welchman, “Gulf women and the
codification of Muslim family law,” in Gulf Women, ed. Amira El-Azhary Sonbol (Doha: Bloomsbury
Qatar Foundation Publishing, 2012).
(iii) Regulations for the personal status of Muslims were formed in 1920 and a family law for Copts was
formed in 1938. In 1955, dual judicial courts were abolished and the family law of Copts is promulgated
by in secular courts, where civil judges apply – to a certain extent – Coptic family law. Shari’a based
jurisdiction is, however, often applied either due to negligence, ignorance or repression by predominantly
Muslim judges who can point at the ‘shari’a stipulation in the Constitution.
(iv) In 2003 Iraq’s at the time Governing Council passed Resolution 137, which aimed at
abrogating the existing unified code of 1959. Welchman, Women and Muslim family laws in
Arab states: a comparative overview of textual development and advocacy: 25. This Resolution is,
at the time of writing, still “at play.” Al-Ali and Pratt point that “[s]ince family law is not the
preserve of central government and the wording of the constitution is substantially loose, this
devolves authority to the regions to specify family law. [ . . . ] the current constitution enables a
system in which women are not necessarily divided by sect that allows different regions of Iraq to
implement different family laws.” Nadje Al-Ali and Nicola Christine Pratt, “The United States, the
Iraqi women’s diaspora and women’s ‘empowerment’ in Iraq,” in Women and war in the Middle
East: transnational perspectives, ed. Nadje Al-Ali and Nicola Christine Pratt (London: Zed Books,
2009), 89. The authors point further that “[t]his realizes the worst fears of many women’s rights
activists in that it opens the way for a Lebanese-type system, in which family law is governed
 POST-2011 PRESSURES FOR EXPANDED FEMALE CITIZENSHIP AND FAMILY . . . 19

according to respective membership of a religious sect.” Ibid., 88. See also “Women and the Law in
Iraq,” (December 2010), iilhr.org/documents/womenandlawiniraqEN.pdf.
(v) Sudan’s 1991 family law codified in 1991 prevails in Northern Sudan after the establishment of the
state of South Sudan in 2011. See Marianne Bøe and Liv Tønnessen, “Nye utfordringer til islamsk
feminisme: Kvinneaktivismens mange ansikter i Sudan og Iran [New challenges to Islamic feminism:
The multiple faces of women’s activism in Sudan and Iran],” Tidsskrift for kjønnsforskning, no. 4 (2011).
(vi) Iran’s Family Protection Law of 1967 was suspended with the Iranian revolution in 1979 and replaced
with a conglomerate of transitional Islamized laws and fatwas that are deemed “Islamic” by the Judicial
Supreme Council. See ʿAbd Allāh Aḥmad an-Naʿīm, Islamic family law in a changing world: a global
resource book (London: Zed Books, 2002). 108. According to Marianne Bøe, recent changes include art.
946 regarding rights of inheritance to widows changed in 2009. Deliberations concerning a draft law
presented in 2007 are controversial and not likely to be promulgated in the near future (personal
communication, 5 December 2011, forthcoming Ph.D. University of Bergen).
(vii) Each of the 18 officially acknowledged religious denominations in Lebanon has independent
jurisdiction in family law. A common institutional judicial framework for Christian denominations
was established 1951 and a similar setup was established for Muslim denominations in 1962. Aref
Zeid Az-Zein, ed. qawanin wa qararat al-ahwal as-shakhsiyya lil-tawa’if al-masihiyya fi lubnan
[Laws and regulations on personal status for Christian confessional groups in Lebanon] (Beirut:
manshurat al-halabi al-huquqiyya, 2003); Aref Zeid Az-Zein, ed. qawanin wa nusus wa ahkam
al-ahwal ash-shakhsiyya wa tanthim al-tawa’if al-islmaiyya fi lubnan [Laws and texts and rulings on
personal status and the organization of Muslim confessional groups in Lebanon] (manshurat al-halabi
al-huquqiyya, 2003).
(viii) A draft text on Palestinian code for personal status was presented in 2005, which is viewed by
women’s activists as limiting the civil rights of women and presenting a conservative profile, which does
not reflect the achievements and contributions of Palestinian women in the continuing national struggle
for an independent Palestine. The draft law explicitly requires a guardians’ consent in matters related to
marriage which the “Chief Islamic Justice has explained as primarily protective of women” and includes a
provision for judicial khul’ “giving the judge a substantive role in assessing the need for such a divorce.”
See Welchman, Women and Muslim family laws in Arab states: a comparative overview of textual develop-
ment and advocacy: 74, 119.
(ix) Israel is defined as a semi-democracy due to ethnocratic dimensions in the legal system where Law of
Nationality and Law of Return establish group-based civil rights exclusively for the state’s Jewish citizens.
See Anis F. Kassim, “The Palestinians: From hyphenated to integrated citizenship,” in Citizenship and the
state in the Middle East: approaches and applications, ed. Nils A. Butenschøn, Uri Davis, and Manuel S.
Hassassian (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2000), 210, 33. In 1992 the Basic Law of Human
Dignity and Freedom was legislated. Swirski points that this law “came short of removing the main legal
obstacle to the attainment of gender equality in Israel – the jurisdiction of religious courts in personal
status matters” Barbara Swirski, “The citizenship of Jewish and Palestinian Arab women in Israel,” in
Gender and citizenship in the Middle East, ed. Suad Joseph (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press,
2000), 320. On the institution of the “get” and female civil rights in the Jewish family law in Israel, see A.
& Shmueli Blecher-Prigat, B., “The interplay between tort law and religious family law: The Israeli Case,”
Arizona Journal of International & Comparative Law 26, no. 2 (2009), http://www.law.arizona.edu/
Journals/AJICL/AJICL2009/BlecherPrigatShmueli.pdf.

By 2010, there existed a substantial structural difference between

MENA states where female citizens, notably in Tunisia and Morocco,
had secured basic civil rights on an individual basis within family law. In
the other states, female civil rights were still to a larger extent mediated
20 R. MAKTABI

through group-based citizenship within particularly three sets of laws:

family law, criminal law, and nationality law.18
Among the striking features reflected in the typology is that female
citizens in MENA have since 1990 acquired wider civil rights through
parliament in relatively homogenous states with unitary court systems than
in multireligious states with dual court systems. Some of the explanation
may be provided within a state-building perspective: Institutional reforms
during the 1950s in Tunisia, Egypt, and Morocco established unitary
courts, curbed clerical judicial authority over family law, and weakened
the resilience of conservative religious authorities. Four decades later,
renewed pressures for reform in these North African states after 1990,
particularly with the impact of economic globalization, yielded a sharper
focus on female civil rights. In the two multireligious states of Syria and
Lebanon, by contrast, the sustaining of dual courts since the establishment
of independent states in the 1940s safeguarded the judicial autonomy of
clerics and enabled them to resist pressures for family law reform more
forcefully. In Syria and Lebanon, little or no change occurred because the
interests of political and religious authorities converge and bolster group-
based citizenship in ways that perpetuate sectarian group membership
which constrain the civil rights of female citizens.

Why Compare Female Citizenship in MENA?

More than a decade ago, the American-Lebanese anthropologist Suad
Joseph commented on the scarcity of comparative research in her intro-
duction to Gender and Citizenship in the Middle East: “[a] generation of
feminist theorists have been investigating Middle Eastern state structures
[18 works listed]. Few studies [ . . . ] have established a systematic basis for
comparative analysis of the rules and practices of citizenship throughout
the Middle East.”19
The aftermath of the 2011 uprisings provide an opportunity to
indulge into comparative work on female citizenship for three reasons:

18
Maktabi, “The politicization of the demos in the Middle East: Citizenship
between membership and participation in the state,” 96–103.
19
Suad Joseph, “Gendering citizenship in the Middle East,” in Gender and
citizenship in the Middle East, ed. Suad Joseph (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse
University Press, 2000), 29.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 In 1901 the imports of cotton goods had already reached their
former level, amounting to about 28,000 kantars. But the trade is
growing rapidly: in 1902 the imports had risen to 38,000 kantars.
Considering that the population is no more than a third of what it was
in 1881, this is striking testimony of the good effects produced by just
government and a railway. The imports from India have, of course,
fallen away. Scents are far below their former figure, but the imports
of flour and rice have risen; 343 tons of flour and 43 tons of rice were
carried in 1901, and 733 tons of flour and 108 tons of rice in 1902.
Tobacco, oil, and petroleum are also increasing. There is also a very
important article of import which reflects both the improved
purchasing power of the Soudan and the increased production in
Egypt; this is sugar. The railway carried 1,700 tons in 1901, and
nearly 3,000 tons in 1902. Soap, likewise of Egyptian manufacture,
also appears in the returns to the extent of some 140 tons a year.
As for imports so for exports Suakin was the chief channel of
trade before the rebellion. But a good deal also went by Korosko and
the Nile, principally gum, senna, coffee, and ostrich feathers. An
inappreciable amount, probably, also filtered through to Egypt by
Assouan or Assiout. Far the biggest item of the recorded trade was
gum. The export for three years was—
Kantars.
1879 144,706
1880 135,646
1881 150,861

Next came cotton, cleaned and uncleaned, averaging about

20,000 kantars per annum. Coffee amounted to about 7,000 kantars,
principally from Kassala and the Abyssinian frontier. The Soudan is a
land of strange diseases, but it is also a land of medicines. Besides
tamarinds, as much as 3,300 kantars of senna was exported in
1880. Ostrich feathers from Kordofan and Darfur came to about 200
kantars, and there was also about half that amount of guttapercha
from the Bahr el Ghazal. Miscellaneous exports included skins and
hides, mother-of-pearl from the coast, mats from Kassala, and ivory.
 To-day gum-arabic is still easily first among the exports. The best
kind of gum is the white gum produced from the gray-barked acacia,
called hashab; there are also inferior kinds called talh, or latch,
produced from the red-barked acacia. The gum is used for giving a
glaze to linens and other woven fabrics, for stiffening cotton-stuffs
and calicoes, and for making sweets and chewing mixtures.
Kordofan is the home of the gum trade; a good deal, but chiefly the
inferior kinds, comes from the forests of Sennar and Kassala, but
nearly all the best white gum comes from Kordofan, especially the
part round Taiara between Duem and El Obeid. Here there are
limitless forests of hashab. The taking of the gum does not
permanently injure the tree, and the only obstacles to its gathering
are the distances to be travelled without water, and the lack of
labour. Every new well means a fresh productive area, and people
migrate temporarily from other parts of the Soudan for the gum
harvest. Most of it is brought down by boat from Duem, some directly
on camels from El Obeid to Khartoum, where it is sorted on the
beach. Of this first-rate white gum the Soudan has practically a
monopoly, and when the Soudan was closed to trade its price went
up enormously. This naturally brought out substitutes: inferior gum
from West Africa came into use, and glucose also took its place. Still,
there was a good demand for it after the re-occupation of the
Soudan, and in 1900 the price was still 65s. per cwt. Since then the
production has gone up by leaps and bounds, but, unfortunately, this
has been accompanied by a great fall in prices, at one time as low
as 27s. 6d. per cwt. The figures of the export trade are:
Kantars.
1899 41,963
1900 60,912
1901 170,781
1902 220,000

The trade has now far outstripped its former limits. To a young
country, a profit of some £200,000 a year divided between the
merchants and producers on the one side and the Government on
the other by means of royalties and railway receipts is no mean
advantage.
 As for the other former exports, the trade in ostrich feathers from
Kordofan and Darfur has begun again, and there seems no reason
why it should not be developed. Ostriches are farmed successfully in
Egypt near Cairo, and the conditions are even more favourable for
their establishment in the Soudan. Nor is it unlikely that the Soudan
will be able to supply a part of her own tobacco and sugar, which
now bulks so largely in the imports. In former days the sugar-cane
was cultivated largely in Dongola and along the Nile in Berber
Province. The fertile plains around Kassala bore crops both of sugar-
cane and tobacco. The district of Fazokhl, beyond Rosaires on the
Blue Nile, used to produce 1,000 kantars of tobacco per year. It is
also found in Fashoda; and in the south-western part of Kordofan,
where the soil is the richest in the province, both tobacco and sugar-
cane grow easily wherever there is water, to say nothing of the Bahr
el Ghazal. The coffee came principally from that part of the country
which has since been taken over by Italy or Abyssinia, and, though it
is grown in Kassala, the trade in it is not likely to come to very much.
This coffee, however, which is of the Abyssinian kind, and not a first-
class coffee, is still quoted in the London market at about 50s. per
cwt.
But the most promising feature in the old returns is the 20,000
kantars of cotton, even though as yet the trade has not revived.
Though the figure is in itself insignificant, it is a proof that the thing
can be done. Cotton is indigenous in the Soudan. It grows wild in
Fashoda, although the native Shilluks seem never to have taken
advantage of this circumstance, preferring to go completely naked.
Most of the former cotton export came from Kassala. The Khor
Gash, a tributary of the Atbara, comes down in flood during July and
August, and partly inundates the plain, leaving behind a rich alluvial
deposit—splendid cotton soil. There was formerly a cotton factory in
Kassala town. In the districts of Gallabat and Gedaref cotton is now
actually being grown, and it is proving the foundation of increasing
trade with Abyssinia. Abyssinian merchants eagerly buy up all that
can be grown. Further south, in Sennar Province, the valleys of the
Dinder and the Rahad were once very famous for cotton, which was
also largely imported into Abyssinia. Here, too, the cultivation is
increasing as the people settle down. The district of Tokar, near
Suakin, along the Khor Baraka, produces, perhaps, the best quality
of all the cotton in the Soudan. It, too, in former days produced very
much more than now. While along the Nile itself, in the
neighbourhood of Khartoum and in Berber and Dongola Provinces,
enough cotton is grown to supply small local industries, in which a
rough white cloth is woven, one of the few local manufactures in the
Soudan. Beyond a doubt, not only is there a great deal of land
admirably suited to grow cotton in the Soudan, but also the climatic
conditions, given only water, are peculiarly favourable.
Cotton and its culture are thus no novelties to the inhabitants of
the Soudan. The point is the water; it all comes back to water and
irrigation. If the Soudan is to be of any real interest to the cotton-
spinners of Lancashire, its export must be counted not by a few
paltry tens of thousands of kantars, but by hundreds of thousands,
perhaps by millions. And for that there must be irrigation works on a
large scale. The soil is there in the Ghezireh and elsewhere, the
climate is there, the water is there, and the irrigation works will come.
But once again, there is no need for hurry. The interests of the whole
Valley of the Nile have to be considered. The undertaking is too large
to be gone into without the utmost care and patient deliberation.
It is eminently satisfactory that the Government is fully alive to all
the possibilities. They have started an experimental farm at Shendi,
where trials are being made of different sorts of cotton, of different
methods of culture, and of different periods of sowing, as well as
calculations of the cost of production and of carriage to the ginning
factories in Egypt. Already some most interesting and important
results have been obtained. It has been definitely shown that the
cotton which is sown in June and July promises better, both in quality
and quantity, than that sown in the autumn or in March and April. At
that time the heat is not so great, and the river is rising, so that the
cultivator gets his water during the most necessary time at the least
cost, because with the least effort. If this is confirmed, it is extremely
important, for the water will be taken at a time when the Nile is high,
and when, therefore, Egypt can afford to allow it to be used without
suffering in the least degree, apart altogether from new Reservoir
works.
 As regards quality, it appears that the cotton grown, if not so good
as the very best kinds of Delta cotton, is at least as good as, or
better than, the best American, both in colour and staple. It is
calculated that at the present time 1 acre producing 4 kantars will
produce gross receipts of 1,060 piastres, against an expenditure of
1,000 piastres, showing a profit of 60 piastres, or 12s. 6d. per acre.
But when the new railway has reduced the cost of fuel for the
pumps, and also the cost of carriage, the expenses will be no more
than 700 piastres, showing a profit of 360 piastres per acre, or 75s. It
is estimated that the new railway will reduce the cost of freight by 50
piastres per kantar, and, wherever the Soudan has its own ginning
factories, the profits will, of course, be all the greater, because only
the prepared product will be carried. There is at present sufficient
local demand for cotton to make it generally more profitable to sell it
on the spot than to carry it to Egypt, but as the production increases
it will soon outstrip the local demand. Any private capitalist investing
money in cotton in the Soudan would be able to buy and clear land
on the river in Berber or Dongola at from £5 to £6 per acre, so that
he would get a very reasonable return on his investment. He would
have the further advantage that in the Soudan two of the worst
cotton diseases, ‘worm’ and ‘hog,’ are unknown.
Cotton and corn are the two great foundations on which the hopes
of commercial prosperity in the Soudan are founded. The Negro
Soudan is still comparatively unexplored, and its resources cannot
be estimated. There is, however, a chance that the Bahr el Ghazal
will do great things in rubber. Rubber-trees are known to be plentiful;
rubber has already been produced in small quantities, and
specimens of absolutely first-class quality have been obtained. But it
has yet to be shown that the best kind of creepers are numerous,
and also that they can be successfully tapped without killing the
plants. So far, it does not seem likely that the Soudan has any great
sources of wealth underground. Iron is found and worked in small
quantities in the Bahr el Ghazal, and at least two ore beds are known
in Kordofan, but there is no fuel to work them, and no means of
transporting the ore. As for gold and the precious metals, several
prospecting licenses have been issued and search is being eagerly
made, but, except the copper mines of Hofrat-en-Nahas, nothing has
been discovered at present. The only known gold-bearing district,
the Beni-Shangul, is now included within the territories of Abyssinia.
Gold was formerly worked in this district by the Egyptians, not at a
profit, and perhaps, in any case, it is no great loss to the Soudan
(even if it had not already been occupied by the Abyssinians), for
that gold may not be discovered in the Soudan is the earnest prayer
of every official in the country. The true wealth of the Soudan, such
as it is, lies in its water and its soil. A find of coal would be a very
different matter, and much more valuable than gold, but, though
discoveries are constantly being rumoured, coal is not yet.
No account of the commerce of the Soudan would be complete
without a mention of those wonderful people the Greek traders.
It is well known how, on the day after the Battle of Omdurman, a
Greek arrived in the town and opened a store with all kinds of goods
brought somehow from Suakin. This man is now a prosperous and
wealthy merchant, with large shops in Khartoum and Halfa, and a
finger in every sort of commercial undertaking. He is no longer alone
in the field. Whether it be true or not that trade follows the flag,
undoubtedly the Greek trader follows the British flag. They are said
to be principally Ionian Islanders, so perhaps they have a hereditary
liking for it. Just as from Alexandria to Halfa every town in Egypt has
its Greek traders, carrying on business as storekeepers, dealers,
and innkeepers, so, from Halfa to Gondokoro, from Suakin to El
Obeid, every town in the Soudan has its Greeks. They are
ubiquitous; in Khartoum and Omdurman alone they number about
800. One wonders what they were all doing before the Soudan was
open. Some of them, no doubt, stayed on right through the Khalifa’s
time.
As a vulture scents carrion from afar, so the Greek scents any
possible opening for trade with the natives. The gum trade, the
feather trade, the corn trade, all are in his hands. There is nothing
that a native wants, however humble, from beads and kerosene-tins
to silver, that he will not sell, exactly in the form required. Naturally a
gambler, there is no speculation that he will not undertake, no risk he
will not run. He can stand any climate, he can live in native huts, and
eat native food. He may be unscrupulous in his dealings, and he has
to be sharply watched by those in authority, but as a trade pioneer in
a new country he is invaluable, and his enterprise contributes largely
to make life possible for more exacting Europeans in desolate
places. Some day, perhaps, when the Arab has mastered his
methods of trade, he will find his match, but at present he holds the
field.
 CHAPTER XXI
TAXATION, REVENUE, AND EXPENDITURE

At the beginning of every year the Soudan Budget, with the

estimates of receipts and expenditure for the year, has to be
submitted to the Egyptian Council of Ministers. The total amount to
be granted to the Soudan from the Egyptian revenues is then
decided, and any consequent alterations in the Budget made. The
Governor-General and the Financial Secretary are responsible for
seeing that the total sum so granted by Egypt is not exceeded, but
while this limit is observed, credits can be transferred from one head
to another without reference to Cairo. Any special or unforeseen
expenditure can be defrayed by Egypt by special grants sanctioned
by the Egyptian Council of Ministers, and the Egyptian Minister of
Finance has at all times the right of inspection, audit, and
supervision of the Soudan Government accounts. Practically, of
course, this means that the finances of the Soudan are subject to the
control of the British Financial Secretary and the British Consul-
General at Cairo, but that the Soudan Government exercises a very
wide discretion as to the disposal of its revenues once realized.
The revenues of the Soudan are therefore at present made up
from three sources: first, taxation, fees, licenses, etc.; secondly, the
receipts of certain earning departments—e.g., railway, steamers,
post, and telegraphs; and thirdly, the contribution from Egypt. Of
these the third is still, it must be confessed, the most important, but
the first is steadily growing. Strictly speaking, the second should not
be included, for although the earnings of these departments are
materially increasing, and although without them very little could be
done, their annual accounts do not as yet show a profit, for various
reasons that will be explained.
The principles of taxation are not new. Many of the taxes are the
same in kind as those which were formerly in force not only under
Egyptian rule, but also under the Khalifa’s. It was wisely decided that
no innovations should be introduced based on Western notions,
unless they were unavoidable. The taxes are of a kind to which the
people have long been accustomed, but, of course, great care is
taken that they shall be fixed at a moderate rate, and that no one
shall pay more than is actually required by law. It was the uncertainty
of the amount to be paid, the illegal imposts levied by the collector
on his own account, and the dates at which they were collected, that
made the old taxes so often cruel and ruinous. The uncertainty of the
amount to be paid had, however, an attraction for the Oriental. It
varied with the circumstances of the year. The Government wished
to get all they could, and in a good year they exacted a most
excessive amount; but in a bad year they took little or nothing at all.
According to the Western system a fixed moderate amount has to be
paid every year, and a whole or partial failure of the crop is not
considered any excuse. The latter system is, of course, far the most
just and economically sound, but it lacks the elasticity of the other. It
is the constant endeavour of European administrators in Oriental
countries to endeavour to combine the advantages of both systems.
In the Soudan the system of petitions direct to the Governor-General
is a means to secure this result. When adequate cause is shown, he
is able to remit taxation wholly or partly, and there have been several
cases in which he has done so, notably in Berber and Dongola
Provinces in 1900, when the low Nile caused a great deal of land to
be thrown out of cultivation. Of course, such remissions are inclined
to play havoc with a Budget framed on careful estimates. It cannot
be helped, and at any rate it is only one of many difficulties which
have to be encountered in balancing a Soudan Budget. Unforeseen
expenditure often becomes necessary, but happily during the last
two or three years the receipts have been increasing unexpectedly
also.
Although the taxes remain the same in principle, a comparison
with the former state of things shows the difference in the methods of
assessment and collection to be so great as to amount to a
revolution. Then, as now, the Government in the Soudan was,
according to the general rule in the East, the admitted owner of the
soil, and the cultivator had to pay a tax amounting to one-tenth of the
produce for its use. The actual sum to be paid included all other
taxes, as house-tax, animal-tax, and so on. Each district was rated at
so much in the Budget; this sum was divided among the villages and
communes until the individual cultivator was reached. The nomad
and other tribes which did not cultivate the soil were assessed at an
annual tribute, according to their wealth in camels, cattle, and
horses. In Berber and Dongola the tax was not on the produce of the
land, but on the instruments of irrigation. It varied according to the
instrument and according to the quality of land. One sakieh was
calculated to be capable of watering 8 acres, and if more land was
cultivated an increase was made in the tax. It has already been
mentioned how these water-wheels were often taxed in a sum far
beyond their possible earning capacity. It was the same with the
assessment of the districts and the tribute of the tribes. The official
estimates were seldom or never realized as far as the public
exchequer was concerned (although the bullying tax-collectors took
much more for themselves). Arrears accumulated, in spite of every
effort, and became a direct incentive to discontent and revolt. In the
year 1879 the deficiencies of the amounts actually received below
those estimated ranged in the different provinces from 10 to 60 per
cent. The figures of the Budget were, in fact, pure fancy, especially
when the country was disturbed. But the thing was even worse than
it looked. Districts and tribes, though they might not pay all that was
asked, paid a great deal more than they could afford, and
consequently, as the money had to be found somehow, they found it
by indulging in the only prosperous trade—that of slavery. In other
words, the Soudan lived largely by expending its capital.
Owing to the alteration in the boundaries of the Soudan, it is
somewhat difficult to calculate what the amount raised in taxation
from the present territories amounted to. As nearly as can be made
out, it was about £360,000 a year nominally, with a nominal deficit on
the whole administration in the same provinces of £70,000 a year.
Absolutely nothing was spent in the development of the country;
salaries, rations, and clothes for the army of occupation made up
almost the whole of the expenditure.
 As compared to this, the actual sums raised in the Soudan by
taxation during the last four years have been as follows:
£E.
1900 95,000
1901 155,000
1902 190,000
1903 200,000[7]

But the conditions are so different that nothing can really be

deduced from this comparison. The figures show clearly that the
country is advancing steadily. The burden is lightly borne. It would be
very easy to exact far more than this without any positive discontent,
but it would be a most unwise policy to do so, for it would be at the
expense of its future progress.
The taxes are no longer assessed by the district. The tribute from
the nomad tribes is the only exception to the rule that the
Government deals directly with the individual taxpayer. They are no
longer collected by irregular and irresponsible bullies; they are
payable at the most convenient seasons, and they are moderate in
amount. So great a difference in detail is almost a difference in
principle; but the names are the same. Of the whole collected the
receipts from land-tax and ushur are about a quarter—i.e., about
£50,000 a year. The land-tax proper is no longer levied according to
the instruments of irrigation, but, as in Egypt, according to the
acreage and situation of the irrigated fields. Land irrigable by wells
and foreshore land irrigable by flood pays 20 piastres (4s.) per acre;
land on the mainland irrigable by water-wheels and shadoofs, 30 to
40 piastres; and land on islands similarly irrigable, 50 to 60 piastres.
All other lands—that is to say, lands which depend for their water-
supply not on irrigation, but on rainfall—are taxed at the rate of 10
per cent. ad valorem on their produce. This tithe is called ushur. At
first it was paid almost entirely in kind, but it is now collected as far
as possible in money, and, as the money in circulation increases,
payment in kind—a most inconvenient form of payment—will be
altogether abolished. The date-tax—2 piastres (5d.) on every date-
palm that has begun to bear fruit—is akin to the land-tax. It produces
some £15,000 a year.
The land-tax in some form will be the staple of the future revenues
of the Soudan. Every year as population increases and more land
comes under cultivation it will form a larger proportion of the total
receipts. In many of the remote parts of the country, owing to the
great distances and the small number of officials, it is hardly yet in
working order, but with improved organization all may be expected to
bear their just share of taxation, and the receipts will benefit
accordingly. Any large scheme of irrigation and cotton culture will, of
course, send up this branch of revenue by leaps and bounds.
Second in importance to the land-tax, and for the time being
exceeding it, come the royalties charged on exports of gum, ostrich-
feathers, ivory, india rubber, and a few other articles, at the rate of 20
per cent. by weight. The extraordinary growth of the gum-trade is
mainly responsible for this item, which makes up another quarter of
the taxation revenue. Ivory receipts can hardly be expected to come
to very much, but ostrich-feathers and rubber will probably show a
marked increase in future years.
Other minor receipts were estimated in the Budget for 1902 as
follows:
£E.
Animal-tax 9,500
Tribute from tribes 8,000
Ferries and fisheries 4,000
Sale of salt 1,530
Stamped paper 1,200
Customs 5,400
Slaughtering dues and market fees 5,200
Road-tax 2,000
Rent of Government lands 1,300
Boat-tax 1,000

All these taxes are familiar in the Soudan. Some of them,

especially those small in their results—and there are a good number
more of less importance than those named—will probably be
abolished as soon as the country is able to stand the immediate loss.
But as yet even the most objectionable in principle do not act as
restrictions to trade. They only distribute the burden of a very light
taxation, so as to make all classes contribute something, and the
Government is still so poor that even a few hundred pounds are of
very great importance.
The Customs are set down as producing only £E5,400, and this
demands a word of explanation. £4,500 of this is taken at the port of
Suakin, the remainder on the land frontier in Kassala and Sennar.
The Customs on the land side, small as they are, show a steady
increase; those at Suakin have been constantly decreasing, as trade
is more and more diverted to the Nile Valley route. But all Customs
duties on goods coming to the Soudan on this side are levied at the
Egyptian ports, and retained by Egypt. The duties are 20 per cent.
per kilo on tobacco, and 8 per cent. ad valorem on all other goods. In
the year 1903 it is estimated that the sum thus retained by Egypt will
amount to £E70,000, but this has not been taken into account in
calculating the Soudan revenues.
As for the profit-earning departments, their profits are as yet
invisible—invisible, that is, as far as their accounts are concerned,
though visible enough in the increasing prosperity of the country.
Still, the actual takings of the railway and the post and telegraphs
mark progress. They stand for three years:
Railways. Post and Telegraphs.
£E. £E.
1900 38,412 7,900
1901 75,808 9,000
1902 85,000[8] 11,000[8]

But these receipts are far from being any criterion of the actual
amount of work done. They exclude all that was done on
Government account. Up till 1903 all passengers, goods, and
messages on behalf of Government were carried free of charge. But
it was found that this system tended to extravagance. A department,
for example, wishing to buy dhurra for Khartoum, was apt to buy it at
Dongola, possibly at a cheaper rate, and have it brought by rail for
nothing, rather than buy it locally and disburse something for the cost
of local camel or mule transport. This was good business for the
department, which had only a certain credit allotted to it, but waste
from the point of view of the railway, by which the cost of transport
was borne. Now each department is charged in the books of the
railway or post-office for all services actually rendered. The change
is, of course, only one of book-keeping, but it is a good instance of
the way in which good book-keeping works towards economy. With
this alteration the working of the profit-earning departments makes a
much better appearance. The estimates for 1903 are:
Receipts. Expenditure.
£E. £E.
Railways 143,970 143,777
Post and telegraphs 24,428 34,800
Steamers and boats 69,028 86,223

The maintenance of the army in the Soudan is the item most

affected by this alteration. The sum to be paid to the Egyptian War
Department is set down at £E193,658 for 1903 as against
£E122,548 for 1902.
The Steamers and Boats Department has been too recently
organized for an opinion to be formed upon its working, but the
Railways are soundly and economically managed. The increase of
traffic has made it possible to reduce the ratio of working expenses,
though the high price of fuel is still a great obstacle. Besides the
ordinary expenditure there has also been a good deal of capital
expenditure, which was very necessary considering the haste with
which the line was laid down as a purely military railway. These
sums are: In 1899, a special credit of £E390,000 for the completion
of the line from the Atbara to Khartoum; in 1900, a special credit of
£E15,000 for culverts and bridges on the same portion of the line,
and a loan of £E55,000 for general development and purchase of
rolling-stock; and in 1902-1903, a loan of £E528,000 (spread over
five years) for the same purposes; and a special advance of £10,000
for the survey of the proposed Suakin-Berber line. All these sums,
together with an advance of £E31,000 for the improvement of the
harbour at Suakin, have been found by Egypt. The Soudan pays 2½
per cent. on the loans.
The nature of the country makes it inevitable that the postal
service should show a loss for some time; but the telegraph service
would show a profit over actual working expenses, but for the fact
that so much is expended every year on extension, and this is
credited to ordinary expenditure. £E18,500 was, however, borrowed
from Egypt in 1900 to meet a special difficulty. The wooden poles
were sometimes devoured by white ants, and were also liable to rot.
After various experiments it was found best to bolt the poles on to
steel bases, and it was to meet this emergency that the loan was
contracted. The new plan has been found to answer admirably, and
it has also facilitated telegraph extension, because the shorter poles
(12 ft. 6 in. instead of 18 ft.) make a much more convenient load for
a camel. Besides the wires along the railway, there is now
telegraphic communication from Berber to Suakin, Suakin by Tokar
to Kassala, Kassala to Gedaref, and Gedaref to Gallabat. A line from
Gedaref connects at Messalamia with a line down the Blue Nile from
Khartoum by Wad Medani to Sennar, which then crosses over to
Goz Abu Goma on the White Nile, and is continued to Fashoda.
Another line runs from Khartoum to Duem, on the White Nile, and
thence to El Obeid. In time the telegraph will be continued south to
Uganda, and whenever this takes place the telegraph tariff
convention arranged by Mr. Cecil Rhodes for through communication
between Alexandria and Cape Town will come into force.
If the gross takings of the railways, post and telegraphs, and
boats, are included in the revenues of the Soudan, the Budget wears
a more imposing aspect than if only the net expenditure of each of
these departments is included. The estimates for 1903 stand thus:
£E. £E.
Expenditure— Civil 624,226
Military 193,658
817,884
Receipts 428,163
Deficit 389,721
 By starving the administration it would be possible to make this
deficit a great deal less, and, on the other hand, it would be very
easy to make it a great deal more. A country which has been going
steadily, even rapidly, backwards for so many years affords unlimited
opportunity for capital expenditure. Indeed, a large part of its
ordinary expenditure is really capital, so far as it is incurred for
permanent buildings, railways, telegraphs, and all the other
machinery, not only of government, but of elementary civilization,
which were all entirely wanting. The item of public works bulks very
large in the civil expenditure. It is inevitable that the expenditure
should increase with the development of the country, but it is a
satisfactory symptom that it is not increasing so fast in proportion as
the revenue. The civil expenditure, too, goes up, while the military
expenditure goes down. In the following table only the net
expenditure on railways, etc., is included:

Expenditure.
Military (including
Civil. Total.
Gunboats, etc.)
£E. £E. £E.
1899 230,000 281,000 511,000
1900 271,000 282,000 553,000
1901 330,000 222,000 552,000
1902 350,000 193,000 543,000
1903 380,000 193,000 573,000

The richer provinces in the Soudan might prosper very much

faster if they were allowed to devote the whole of their own revenues
to the development of their own resources. But, of course, the whole
receipts have to go into the common purse, and then be doled out
again in the interests of the country as a whole. Naturally, there is a
tremendous fight every year between the Mudirs, who are
responsible for the provincial budgets, and the central Treasury. Two
provinces stand out prominently in the matter of profits—Kordofan
and Dongola. Dongola had pride of place at first, but then Kordofan
passed in a stride, through the revival of the gum trade. But Dongola
is still a good second, in spite of her railway difficulties, through the
date-tax and the land-tax. Two-thirds of the whole amount raised by
this latter tax is supplied by her. Halfa Province, or, rather, District,
also shows a good profit by means of the land and date taxes. The
Ghezireh Province, the kernel of the Soudan, makes a favourable
appearance. Sennar just pays its way. The others all show a deficit.
Khartoum, of course, stands in a different category, as also Suakin.
But Berber and Kassala may soon be expected to redeem
themselves. Fashoda is as yet very undeveloped, and naturally the
Bahr el Ghazal, only just occupied, comes well at the bottom of the
list. That this order of financial merit will be maintained unchanged is
most unlikely.
It will be noticed that the estimated deficit for 1903 was some
£E390,000, and this is Egypt’s contribution towards the current
expenses of the year. The same sum was contributed in 1902, and it
has been agreed that this subsidy shall be continued at the same
figure for some years to come. The approximate amounts so
expended in former years were: 1899, £E385,000; 1900, £E417,000;
and the same in 1901. On the basis of this contribution, which is
called ‘Insuffisance,’ the estimates for the Soudan are drawn up.
Considering all the difficulties in the way of accurate calculations, it
speaks well for the Soudan officials that their expectations have
been so nearly realized. In 1899 and 1900, when the accounts were
finally made up, there were found to be deficits of £E23,000 and
£E40,000. But in 1901 the finances of the country took a great turn
for the better, and, although expenditure exceeded the estimate, this
excess was so much overbalanced by unforeseen increase of
receipts that sufficient surpluses were realized in 1901 and 1902 to
make good the deficiencies of the two previous years. During the
years 1899-1903 Egypt has therefore expended close upon
£2,000,000 in these annual grants; she has also paid over, partly as
special credits and partly as loans, another £1,000,000 for capital
expenditure on railways and telegraphs, as already mentioned.
There are deductions to be made from this sum of £3,000,000 in
calculating the actual cost imposed on Egypt by the Soudan; but as
these are the actual amounts on which the Soudan Budget is
calculated, they must be set down here.
 It sounds, perhaps, a strange thing to say that the Soudan
finances are in a sound condition when such sums have to be
contributed by Egypt, but such is certainly the fact. The great feature
is the recuperative power of the country, so markedly displayed since
1901, and there can be no doubt that if, with Egypt’s help, the two
principles of low taxation and irrigation can be steadily applied, they
will produce, if not as great, yet a similar result to that which they
have produced in Egypt itself.
 CHAPTER XXII
THE COST OF THE SOUDAN TO EGYPT

The Nile Valley presents some peculiar examples of political

organization. At one end of it is Uganda, a British Protectorate under
the administration of the Foreign Office. At the other is Egypt,
nominally an independent despotism, tempered by international
Boards of Control in several departments, notably finance, and
paying tribute to a suzerain Power—Turkey—but in the military
occupation of England. Between comes the Soudan, where, except
at Suakin, the British and Egyptian flags fly side by side. It is ruled by
a Governor-General, joint representative of the King and the
Khedive, whose acts have to be approved by the British Consul-
General at Cairo, and it is jointly occupied by the troops of both
Powers. If it is difficult to decide upon the exact position of Egypt,
what shall be said of the Soudan? International jurists have in it a fair
field of problems on which to exercise their wits, not to mention the
peculiar status of the Lado enclave. But whatever imaginary
difficulties may be conceived, one thing is certain: the hoisting of the
British flag leaves no doubt of the fact that the Soudan is not in any
way a part of the Turkish Empire. The difficulties and complications
which have been caused in Egypt by the Capitulations and the
consequences derived from them definitely cease with the
boundaries of Egypt. It is easy to see that those who framed the
Convention of 1899 were thoroughly determined on this. Article VIII.
lays down that the mixed tribunals shall not extend to the Soudan,
except Suakin, and, to further preclude any chance of international
trouble, it is expressly stated that no Consuls or other foreign
representatives shall be permitted in the Soudan without His
Britannic Majesty’s consent, and that no special privileges shall be
accorded to the subjects of any one or more Powers to trade, reside,
or hold property, within the limits of the Soudan.
 Otherwise, there was no reason why the Soudan should not have
been placed in exactly the same position as Egypt, whatever that
may be. In every other respect it is, in fact, in the same position as
though the Egyptian flag flew alone, especially in the matter of cost.
When the British taxpayer is looking at a map of the world in order to
get some satisfaction for his Imperial expenditure, and casts his eyes
over Africa, he doubtless comforts himself with the reflection that in
the Soudan England governs, but Egypt pays, and wishes that other
portions of the Empire were managed on similar principles. England
governs, and Egypt pays, but the division of labour is not unfair. If
the Egyptian finds it hard to realize the meaning of a veiled
Protectorate, the more unsophisticated Soudanese would find it
totally impossible. The flag is a visible symbol which appeals to him
directly, and contributes largely to the maintenance of peace. Many a
tribe submits contentedly to British dominion, which would
indignantly scout the idea of submission to Egypt alone. As a matter
of fact, the British Government does contribute something in money,
for it bears the cost of the British battalion at Khartoum and its
barracks. Still, it is to the Egyptian Treasury, and not the British, that
the Soudan has to look, and it is worth while to estimate rather
closely the sums which Egypt has to find, and the advantages which
it gains in return.
The cost of the Soudan Campaign from the opening of the
Dongola Campaign in 1896 to February, 1899, was £2,345,345,
made up as follows:
£
Railways 1,181,372
Telegraphs 21,825
Gunboats 154,934
Military expenditure 996,223
Total £2,345,345

Since then, up to the end of 1903, the ordinary expenditure of

Egypt in the Soudan has been, as was shown, about £2,000,000,
and the capital expenditure about another £1,000,000. In other