The lecture examines the role of Sudan in Western foreign policy imperatives in the immediate postwar/early Cold War period. Archival research shows that the status of Sudan acted as a poison pill for Egypt and Britain (the co-domini), with both countries using the question of Sudan’s self-determination to harden diplomatic positions that were contradictory, while United States officials, constrained by their limited understanding of the vexatious postwar dimensions of Anglo-Egyptian relations vis-à-vis Sudan, sought to avoid Sudan being used as an obstacle to a negotiated settlement. On the one hand, the British upheld the question of Sudanese self-determination to forestall quitting the region and surrendering its military presence in the Canal Zone as tensions surrounding Arab-Israeli relations escalated. On the other hand, the Egyptian Government, dominated by Wafdi nationalists, held firm that any negotiations over the future of Sudan could only take place after Britain had ended its military presence in the Canal Zone. The lecture argues that the subrosa decision by the British Government in 1951 to disagree with Egypt over Sudan because of its moral implications rather than over Britain’s increasingly controversial presence in Suez doomed efforts at negotiating a new Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of Alliance and this set the stage for an accelerated British evacuation of both Sudan and Suez.
ZOOM Meeting Link: https://cuhk.zoom.us/j/99088684183
3943 8541
