اخبار السودان – وطن نيوز
اخر اخبار السودان اليوم – اخبار السودان العاجلة
W6nnews.com ==== وطن === تاريخ النشر – 2026-04-04 13:00:00
21 hours ago Siddiq Al-Zailai 250 visits Siddiq Al-Zailai Introduction: This is the fifth book in the series of documents on the Sudanese trade union movement. The first book was published entitled: Documents of the Labor Affairs Authority, the first official union in the history of Sudan. The second book is: Documents of the Intercessor Ahmed Al-Sheikh. The third book is entitled: The struggle of unions against colonial rule. The fourth book published documents of the trade union movement during the first national government. Excerpted passages from the introduction to the first book about this project are as follows: “The idea of collecting documents of the Sudanese trade union movement began in 2006, when I was preparing an academic paper, on the Sudanese trade union movement, to be presented at the World Conference of Social Movements, which was held at Manchester Metropolitan University, that year. What aroused my interest, and in fact surprised me, was the lack of references on the Sudanese trade union movement. I know the trade union movement and its history. Long, I read some of what was written about it, and I heard about the movement from generations of union leaders, when I was supervising the daily page on news of the mass movement in Al-Midan newspaper, during the Third Democracy from 1985 to 1989. During that period, I met hundreds of unionists, from different trends and groups, and heard from them the stories of their struggles, sacrifices, experiences, and practice of union democracy. Which was distinguished by it at the local, regional and global levels. Therefore, I decided to do something, and my interest began in searching for the documents of the trade union movement and collecting and preserving them in a manner appropriate to them. This was done by collecting everything that was issued by it (books, booklets, memoirs, statements, newspapers, magazines, photographs, posters, audio recordings, handwritten manuscripts) during the life of the trade union movement that began at the end of World War II. I applied through the Institute of Labor Studies at London Metropolitan University (where I worked). The British Library to fund research, within the framework of its global project to save endangered documents. The first stage was to conduct a feasibility study for the research project. I submitted an application to fund a full project, and it was approved. I visited Sudan several times to complete the project, the first time in 2009. During my field work, painful facts were revealed to me about what happened to this unique history, as it is the preserver of our national documentary heritage It is responsible for collecting and preserving all Sudanese documents. It only has a few of the booklets issued by the Sudanese trade union movement. As a more dangerous and painful example, the painful history of the trade union movement’s documents reflects that a union like the Railway Workers Union, with all its glorious history and its huge contribution to the struggle against colonialism and against dictatorial regimes, has only a few documents that compare to the unions of lawyers, doctors, teachers, workers, engineers, university professors and textile workers (the list is long). There is not enough room to mention them all. I visited the offices of the Sudanese Trade Union Federation, the leadership of the trade union movement and its national symbol, and I found an archive for the period from 2002 until the day of the visit. What is strange is that that archive is only the minutes of the meetings of the executive office of the union. Thus, in a suspicious way, the entire heritage of the Federation of Trade Unions, long, diverse and distinguished, has disappeared. The exhaustive research journey continued, and the search trips led me to go to the office of the General Registrar of Trade Unions (currently called the General Registrar of Labor Organizations), for his role. The pivotal and influential figure in union work. After strenuous efforts to meet him, I had a few minutes of meeting with him. When I explained my purpose of the visit, his response was brief and decisive, saying that he does not keep any document after six months have passed. What is strange is that this completely contradicts the Central Documentation House law, which Al-Bashir personally signed, as it confirms that the Documentation House is responsible for all public documents, and that it is the only body that decides to keep or dispose of them when I spoke about it Lieutenant General Taj al-Din (Director of the Document Collection Department), whose response was shocking and reflects the extent to which the Sudanese state has reached under the rule of the Islamists (I mean, what should I do?) The visits continue and I go to the office of the Legal Affairs Department of the Armed Forces to ask about the military trials that took place against civilians, especially the famous trial of Al-Shafi’ Ahmed Al-Sheikh, in which he was sentenced to five years in prison. The director replied that I needed to bring a letter from the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, agreeing to provide me with the information I requested. Then I was convinced. With the impossibility of reaching the Commander-in-Chief, the search trip led me to the offices of the Security Presidency, and the reason is that the security apparatus, over the years that passed through our country, confiscated thousands of documents from those who were arrested. I explained the purpose of the visit to the receptionist. He asked me to write a request and leave it at the reception and leave a phone number. When I did not receive a response, despite a period of time, I visited the security offices again after that, to inquire about my request, and the response was always: (We did not receive a response from the leadership), and then finally they asked. I, arrogantly, did not come again. I traveled to the city of Atbara, hoping to see an organized and comprehensive archive. I was surprised that there was nothing. Even some important historical photos were displayed in a glass panel in a veranda, which caused them to fade under the strong rays of the Atbara sun. Despair did not enter my heart, so I began to go to the homes of former trade unionists or to their families. I succeeded in making some visits, and I was happy with what I found in the house of Prof. Sayyed Ahmed Mahmoud from the documents of the teachers’ movement, but I was disappointed in most of the rest of the visits. What I wrote above is a severe summary of many months of visits to official bodies and union offices and visits to the families of current and former unionists. The results were shocking and painful. The reasons for the loss of union documents are as follows: • The most striking example is the burning of all the documents in the railway workers’ union in Atbara Witnesses to the fire said that the fire had been burning for three days.• Lack of attention to the importance of the archive, which led to its neglect and loss as a result.• There is no culture of proper preservation of documents, protecting them from various factors.• The failure of the Documentation House to reach the unions for all their documents, or to enlighten them of their importance or the correct basis for preserving them.• Some union leaders took the documents with them to their homes after the end of their union term, as if they were private property. The project succeeded, despite all the difficulties and obstacles, in collecting thousands of union documents, Which was neglected and at risk of being lost. A copy of the collected material was deposited in the Central Archives, so that it would be available to new generations of researchers, and a copy was deposited in the Muhammad Omar Bashir Center for Sudanese Studies at Al-Ahliyya University, as well as in the British Library in Britain, and another was deposited in the British Trade Union Library located at London Metropolitan University. The destruction that occurred to the documents of the trade union movement makes this fifth book (The Period of the Abboud Coup) depend on secondary sources, which were unfortunately issued mostly, if not to say, from that period All the documents of that period have been lost, or neglected in an unknown place. Therefore, we relied on written materials and not the original documents, which constitutes a deficiency in the book. We confirm that these sources contain the opinions of those who issued them, but we intended to republish them to provide the reader with information about an important period in our modern political history. As an example, we publish excerpts from the book of the trade unionist Haj Abdul Rahman, as well as excerpts from the book of the trade unionist Ali Muhammad Bashir, who were on opposite sides of the unions of that period It completes the picture and makes it more objective. In addition to publishing what was published in the book “A People’s Revolution” issued by the Communist Party, it of course carries the party’s vision of the events, but it contains dozens of important statements and information. This book includes six chapters: • A brief introduction that connects the reader to the idea and beginning of the project to document the Sudanese trade union movement, and reveals the extent of the destruction that occurred to the documents of the trade union movement, and the obstacles that the implementation of the project faced during the field work in Sudan. • The first chapter is a chapter that was taken from a book entitled “A People’s Revolution” issued by the Sudanese Communist Party The most accurate and documented work of the struggle against the first military rule. Although it contains the Communist Party’s vision of the trade union struggle during that period, the reader will see a large number of union documents and details. The book details the battles that the trade unions fought, and how the first military government dealt with them. • The second chapter is entitled The Farmers’ Masses in the Struggle Against Dictatorship, and it is taken from the same book, A People’s Revolution, and this chapter adds to what the previous chapter presented about the struggles of the trade unions, and details the struggles Farmers against the military dictatorship.• The third chapter contains an analysis of the idea of a general political strike, and the planning and preparation that took place to accomplish it years before the outbreak of the glorious October Revolution.• The fourth chapter is part of the book of trade unionist Haj Abdel Rahman, which was published under the title: Features of the History of the Trade Union Movement, and deals with those six years. Trade unionist Al-Hajj is one of the founders and leaders of the Railway Workers Union. The fourth chapter is a chapter from trade unionist Ali Muhammad Bashir’s book “From the History of the Trade Union Movement in Sudan, in which he is exposed to trade union work during the period of military rule. Trade unionist Ali is one of the founders of the trade union movement for railway workers. Chapter Five includes the full text of the Trade Union Law of 1960 AD, which replaced the original law of 1948 AD. It is the law that was issued after local and international pressure in rejection of the decision to dissolve the unions, after the coup. Directly, and abolishing the existing trade union law. • Chapter Six is a booklet entitled Considerations in Trade Union Organization, which was issued as part of a series issued by the Labor Office of the Ministry of Information and Labor, which issued a large group of booklets during the era of Abboud, which it called “the monthly book.” It described the purpose of its publication as: “specialized studies in the field of labor and workers.” It is “a simplification of the facts and a new approach in explaining the topics that aims to introduce the ordinary reader to the main features of the economic and social composition of human resources in Sudan.” • Conclusion: This book provides an overview True to the preparations and battles that preceded the outbreak of the October 21 revolution, which could not have been or won without the many long battles fought by the various national democratic forces of varying degrees of strength, breadth and depth during the past six years, this shows the inaccuracy of the claim that the revolution broke out because of the university symposium and the assassination of the martyr Ahmed Al-Qurashi. Yes, that was the spark that ignited the popular and trade union anger accumulated over the years. The destruction of the original documents made us rely on secondary sources, despite the fact that those sources were tainted. From the tyranny of the partisan or subjective vision and attempts at justification. For example, what we quoted from the book A People’s Revolution contains a political party’s view of the events. We also notice the sharpness in describing the violators as opportunists, agents, etc. As for Hajj Abdel Rahman’s book, although it was not focused on his personal role during its presentation of the events, and was largely objective in presenting those pages of the history of the trade union movement, we note, from his writing, the close connection that linked the Sudanese unions to the international trade union movement, and the support The continuous progress you provided is something that we lacked during the transitional period after the glorious December Revolution, which made the leadership of the workers’ union affiliated with the Islamist authority move alone in the global sphere and practice extensive misleading about the reality of the union situation inside Sudan. Ali Muhammad Bashir is a loyal union leader and has a long experience in union work. He is characterized by excessive self-centeredness and a great ability to be intolerant of others no matter how long it takes. I met him during my field work, and I noticed that he did not forgive What happened since the 1950s, when he was a communist, and he turned against the Communist Party on the pretext that the party was issuing orders to the trade unionists, and it did not and would not accept orders from any party. I asked him about the information that when Mohamed Ibrahim Naqd visited Atbara after the uprising, he asked to visit the homes of all the union leaders, from all directions, and that Ali Mohamed Bashir did not welcome him and only met him at the door and did not say hello to him. His response to me when I asked him about that was: I thanked him for the visit Enough. Another note is that, despite his close experience with the trade union movement, he neglected important events, and I cannot be certain whether this was intentional or due to forgetfulness. For example, he ignored the elections that took place in May 1964 and were won by Musa Matta’s wing, which was a supporter of the regime. I noticed that he presented some events in an unrealistic way that was closer to police stories than the well-known, institutionalized trade union work. Examples of this include the breaking of concrete and bringing it from a nearby area Al-Dahmer and his obligation to wear prison clothes while he was detained and not imprisoned, and also that the military governor of the Northern Territory personally stood (waiting) in a street in his vehicle, to be sent personally to follow up on Muhammad Bashir, and another incident was that he handed the union’s letter warning of a strike to the secretary of the General Director of the Railways and made him sign the receipt without knowing the content of the letter. Then he added, after the topic of the letter came out in the official circus, and other things that the reader will find, his opponents accuse him of that the Abboud regime rewarded him By granting him a mission to Germany for a period of 9 months and then appointing him to a leadership position in vocational training in Khartoum, and he did not deny this and mentioned it in his book. The important thing is that we provide the reader with information about that period, which I hope will benefit the reader interested in the history of our country, which led to the lack of original and primary documents to our reliance on secondary sources. Despite this failure, there are lessons for the present and future of union work siddigelzailaee@gmail.com See also: Siddiq Al-Zaylaee The dialogue continues with Dr Nahid Muhammad Al-Hassan about her important article: Where did the comrades go?
