188 thE sudan handbookreported to a British governor of one of the nine or so large provinces.
For the majority of Sudanese, it was the provincial or district government
that was the hakuma, with perhaps only a vague sense of a distant capital
‘on the river’, as Darfuris put it. Over the twentieth century increasing
numbers would visit or move to Khartoum, but for rural communities
the local town has remained the seat of government.
Since independence, local government offices have been staffed by
Sudanese civil servants, yet they have retained something of the alien
origins of their predecessors as far as local society is concerned. There
is something about entering government employment, military service
or even urban life that is seen to remove a person from their original
community and transform them into the bureaucratic, uniformed repre-
sentatives of the hakuma. This is less stark if the government officer at
least comes from the area in which they are employed, but in many
periods it was government policy to deliberately locate them outside
their home areas. In the 1950s, Equatorian chiefs complained that new
southern local government officers were being transferred too rapidly,
before they had a chance to get to know a district as their British prede-
cessors had. Unsurprisingly, there is a widespread belief that local
interests and cultural particularities can only be understood by those
originating in that locality, or at least by those who have lived there for
many years.
The principles of detached neutrality and institutional hierarchy that
underpin bureaucratic government have always been at odds to some
extent with the moral and social principles that govern local communities
across Sudan. Many Sudanese have become adept at operating under both
sets of principles. Yet government employment is still seen to alienate
individuals from local society, restricting the authority and effectiveness
of local government officers. At the same time rulers and politicians have
sought to create institutions that are more easily controlled by patronage
and political manipulation than professional bureaucrats might be (and
which offer a cheaper means of administration than salaried graduates).
Local communities, meanwhile, have needed effective negotiators andThe Sudan Handbook, edited by John Ryle, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo and Jok Madut Jok. © 2011 Rift Valley Institute and contributors spokesmen who could defend them from government demands and
(www.riftvalley.net).