Mid-East
Clip 2: The Sudan
2 min 55 sec
Taken from the documentary Mid-East (1945)
Original title classification not known – this clip chosen to be G
Availability of the complete title
Curator’s clip description
Muslim pilgrims from Nigeria pick cotton in the agricultural fields of the Sudan to fund their journey to Mecca. The cotton is bagged and transported by camel and rail to the ginning factories (see clip three) where the seed is separated from the lint. Agricultural industries have been established in the region and local farmers work with the government and cotton companies. In one region of the country, the Sudan medical service maintains 53 medical dispensaries including a medical assistant. The service also visits schools. Education institutions are shown as well as a midwife who attends to a woman about to give birth.
Curator’s notes
Hurley refers to the Sudanese farmers as only recently being ‘poor nomads’. The understanding for contemporary audiences would have been that the development of agriculture is a positive outcome of the British and Allied influence in the area. The cultural context of the Sudanese is not considered. The comment about not sending their girls to school is therefore based on Eurocentric assumptions about gender equality and rights.
Lauren Williams, curator
