Paper long abstract:

Turkey has strived to enhance its political and economic influence over Africa for recent 15 years. Sudan has played a central role in Ankara’s “influence-building” approach toward the continent. This policy has four fundamental pillars. These are intensifying financial activities and becoming dominant in engineering and infrastructure development, being involved in the restoration of historical artifacts, including Ottoman buildings, to “demonstrate” Turkey’s constructive capability and to “remind” its historical affiliation with Sudan, adopting a protective attitude toward Sudan and its former president Omar Al Bashir against international allegations of humanitarian crimes, and finally employing “cultural intimacy” by emphasizing the “Islamic fraternity” between the two countries and the “glorious Ottoman past,” which “protected” Sudanese people from Western encroachments. This study suggests that Turkey’s endeavor to establish political and economic influence over Sudan is closely connected with the traditional paradigm, “Millet-i Hakime (the Ruling Nation),” which became the dominant element of the Ottoman political elite’s mindset in the late 19th century when the colonial rivalry started to target the Islamic world. “The Ruling Nation” refers to the hierarchical precedence of Turks over other Muslim communities of the Empire, as well as to the protective role of the Empire in the Islamic world. This paradigm retained the mindset of the Turkish political elite throughout republican history, even though the governments found the opportunity to put it into practice in recent decades.