Am I really the 'first'?
On the fake news of the archive
Hello, wonderful readers, from a tiny island in the middle of the North Sea.
We’ve made it to the quarter mark of the 21st century, and I’m trying to find out whether or not I’m the first Sudanese person to visit the glorious hunk of rock that is Fair Isle.
I tend to think ‘firsts’ are overstated. Usually the reality is closer to ‘first recorded’ rather than ‘first in actual history’, because the thing might have happened, only without anyone around to write it down. History tends to excel at erasing the existence of minoritised groups altogether, forget doing us the honour of recording our comings and goings, inventions and innovations1.
But I do wonder. If someone from Sudan had landed on this tiny isle, reachable only by boat or tiny plane, what did they make of it? What did they do?
Home to over 10,000 puffins (during the warmer seasons, I’ve yet to see one) and the origin of the ‘fair isle’ knit, I’ve spent the week mostly walking, thinking, teasing out creative knots and reading (as one of the judges for the Stella prize this year, I’ve got a lot of reading!). There’s something about the remoteness of places like this that I find invigorating. For someone who was born in the desert, I sure love being surrounded by endless, open sea.
Fair Isle’s remoteness does mean access is limited by the weather, and so I found myself stuck in Lerwick (the capital of Shetland) for a week as we waited for the wind to ease, the ice to clear, the frost to melt and the conditions to allow us to pass. In an effort to keep myself busy, I visited the Shetland Museum and Archive, and to my surprise, I found there was indeed a recorded connection between these Isles and my homeland2.
The first was a series of letters by one Basil Spence to his mother in Shetland. Major Spence served in Sudan from 1914 to 1924 as a doctor, later returning to Shetland and elected MP for Shetland and Orkney from 1935 to 1950. I could not find any record of a Sudanese friend coming to visit him on the isles.
Trawling through old digitised records of The Shetland Times, I did find a story about a journalist from Sudan who visited in 1990, however it was with some disappointment that I learnt ‘George’ was not in fact Sudanese, but Greek. Perhaps I was being unfair, I thought, as I searched for a copy of his novel ‘Blue Nile Boy’ to aid my determination. But something tells me George’s experience of Sudan might not be quite representative.
Beyond Basil and George, I also learnt about something called the ‘Sudan United Mission’, which churches up here in Shetland were quite involved with. Now, I’m going to tread carefully here because I’ve yet to furnish myself with all the facts, but I gotta admit y’all, it’s not looking great. It’s giving colonial. The founders, German Karl and Lucy Kumm, were explicit about their mission to ‘combat Islam’ and spread the Church to the ‘Christless millions’ in Sudan and across the Sahel. The language in their work about the people they were hoping to ‘save’ is about as dark as you imagine.
I’m trying to learn more about what the Sudan United Mission did in Sudan (they’ve renamed themselves a few times, now are ‘Pioneers UK’), though again, the only records I can find are by the Church and not those who were subject to their evangelical efforts. As you can imagine, it’s largely self congratulatory. Subsequent academic papers I’ve been able to find also echoes the celebratory sentiment, pleased at the Mission’s efforts to ‘check Islam’s advance into pagan areas’. Charming.
How to find out what the mission actually did on the ground? I’m no anthropological researcher, but I’m not sure the answers are to be found in the British archives. That said, given Sudan is deep into the second year of this god-awful counter-revolutionary war, it feels unlikely I’ll be able to access alternative first-hand accounts any time soon3.
So we must continue to write! We must continue to record4. We must continue to tell our story, no matter how mundane, because one day in 100 years, someone might come looking, and this way, they’ll find something. A trace. An imprint. A message to say, we were here5.
How are you all feeling, folks? Pensive, as I am, about our place in the world and what to do with it (is it obvious I’m bordering on the existential?). Burnt out by the year already (fires, racial warfare, politics)? Refreshed, rejuvenated, hopeful perhaps (the ceasefire in Gaza allowing some room for hope)?
Would love to hear from you in the comments below. I wish you all a kind and gentle Sunday. I’ll be curling up with a hot water bottle and this new Gaelic show set on my favourite isle, the Isle of Harris (although Fair Isle is nipping at Harris’ heels for the top spot).
Paid subs, I’ll be in your inbox mid-week with a bulging links round up. Everyone else, see you next Sunday, inshallah!
I mean, even the organisation I founded, Youth Without Borders, does not mention myself or any of the original team on the current website. Being erased from the record does not even have to be intentional. It can be the result of not knowing, not having the time or the resources to record, or not even knowing the story’s importance.
Note, I was not focusing my research on whether anyone Sudanese had visited Fair Isle specifically, but whether there was a record of any Sudanese person on all of Shetland.
Happy to take advice on this!
Yo, I found my blog from THIS TIME TEN YEARS AGO. Surreal, surreal, surreal.
I think I’ve become obsessed with the archive, whose stories are told, how we write ourselves into them. Like, for example, I recently remembered that I was part of an oral history project in 2016 where Ghena Krayem interviewed Muslim women in Australia, and my old old old school blog (from 2012 - 2020) was also archived by the National Library of Australia. Fist pump, yeh! I’m part of the archive, in Australia… but that’s only what, 23 years of my life? Will this substack ever be archived? By which nation state? Or will we see more open-source type archives, living digitally and compiled by community, begin to proliferate? So many questions, so many possibilities… and then sometimes I wonder - is this all just an ego trip? Why do I feel it so important to be remembered?
Well, we know the answer to that, don’t we?
You are important Yass. You are Australia’s great loss X
Thank you for this. The intelligent questions you posed in your article are important ones, as the minimalsation of 'minority groups' increases, in mainstream media.
Having you as a judge for the Stella was a great idea, a woman further marginalised by having come from Sudan, surely deepens the strength and importance of this prize in general, and you important part in regards to the Prize in particular.
Brava to you!