Railways and Resistance

Idris al-Sanusi’s claims to political authority grew in direct relationship to the spread of the colonial state after World War I. One of the primary objectives of negotiations for both parties was the expansion of railway networks in the Cyrenaican interior. Railways symbolized Italy’s arrival as a modern imperial power. For Idris, railways also promised to secure a Sanusi monopoly over trading routes as a source of political authority. The emphasis on railways, however, led to a loss of support from Idris’s political base. Railway construction threatened to undermine the dominance of Sanusi-affiliated tribes over trans-Saharan trade routes based on their access to camels and water supplies. Facing the dissolution of support for his position as a colonial intermediary, Idris al-Sanusi left for self-imposed exile in Egypt in early 1923, months after the rise of a fascist movement in Italy that embraced a virulent form of nationalist expansion.