Bonds of Silk

The title of this book was inspired by a Sudanese chief speaking of the British: "When they tie your hands, they tie you with silk, not with iron chains" (p. 120). Similar quotations fill Bonds of Silk, mainly the words of Sudanese elite men and the Britons who ruled them. Both rulers and ruled felt the ambivalence of the silken bonds. For the Sudanese, they were the bonds of a regime which brought welcome peace but repugnant foreign rule. The British, too, found their power to shape events restricted by the very people whom they had come to administer. Francis M. Deng and M. W. Daly largely let their Sudanese and British contributors speak for themselves. After a short foreword by Prosser Gifford and a ten-page introduction, the book is divided into three parts. Each part examines Sudanese-British relations, between about 1930 and the postcolonial era, from the perspective of a particular group: British officials; northern Sudanese leaders; and southern Sudanese leaders. The reminiscences of these men—thirty-one Britons and seventeen Sudanese—were collected in written questionnaires and taped interviews by Deng from 1973 to 1981. The structure of the interviews and questionnaires,