South Sudan: Bittersweet independence

Muzungu Diaries provides an eyewitness account of the independence celebrations in Juba, South Sudan:

‘The actual independence ceremony took place at the Dr. John Garang Mausoleum, the final resting place of the father of the nation. He died in a helicopter crash in 2005, the cause of which was never satisfactorily proved, and throughout the morning’s festivities a flag-draped statue of him dominated the crowd close to the dais.

‘The mausoleum is sited within a large walled field, and by 8am there was a giant crowd of people from throughout Sudan, most forming small circles to celebrate around drums. We arrived just after 7am, and were soon festooned in South Sudan flags, greeting everybody with “South Sudan Oyeeee!”

‘There are over 200 ethnic groups in South Sudan, and there must have been representatives of most at the mausoleum. We walked around, talking to people and marveling at the worrying amount of bullets, both spent and live, which still litter the ground. At one point we found a live .50 round, a very large bullet indeed. I fetched a security officer, who without ceremony but with a wry grin picked it up and headed for the gate. The atmosphere was one of a music festival, but more men in leopard skin (print and real) than you would usually see. Sadly I know very little of the different tribes there, and while I could spot different Northern Uganda traditional dresses and dances no problem, I can’t claim the same of South Sudan, so you’ll have to put up with the slightly insulting catch-all of “South Sudanese tribesmen”.

‘When Garang’s statue had been unveiled Ryan and I took a walk to witness the parade, and were invited up onto an SPLA car to get a better view. Then we returned to the mausoleum just in time to witness the raising of the flag. As the flag began to rise, thousands began to cheer and wave their own flags. Finally as it reached the top a rare gust of wind blew through, spreading it out. The crowd went beyond everything they had managed all day, and the emotion was clear throughout. So many people suffered and died for that moment.’

CNS Blog has another eyewitness account of the Southern Sudan independence celebrations, this time from Father Christopher Townsend, secretary for communications of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference:

‘On the eve of independence in South Sudan, I was sitting under trees with a small community of neighbours in an area called “High Jerusalem”. The afternoon leading to the evening had an atmosphere I can only describe as high point South African — the sort of feeling we had during our own transition in 1994 and the feeling of the World Cup 2010. I had even heard vuvuzelas. Flags everywhere.

‘Sitting near the Nile, in the insect dark, we were celebrating a meal. The South Sudanese had decided on this night of liberation that there would be a type of Passover Seder. Stories of pain, oppression and slavery were followed by stories of hope. Bread was shared, songs and the new national anthem was sung, candles were lit and there was dancing — the quiet, eager dignity of a people set free.
“I couldn’t help thinking that this is what we should have done in 1994 — encouraging neighbours to take their time to share stories. But maybe we weren’t ready, with our apartheid living and apartheid minds. Maybe it is something that we can imitate though — a chance to tell stories and listen, not to public hearings, but the personal TRCs among neighbours....

‘On the day [of independence">… the Jubilation of seeing the flag raised, the quiet confidence of a new constitution and country was only outdone, for me, by the ‘hand of god’ moment when the power failed before [President Omar"> al Bashir could start speaking. When he eventually finished, the crowd gave him a very polite, almost English, clap and then spontaneously stood up and waved him off. Priceless. An unmistakable sign…

‘The Republic of South Sudan has a long way to go — the lack of development and infrastructure is chronic. Many Southerners who were in the North have fled south to few schools and less opportunity.

‘But arriving at the very little Airport of Juba, six months after departing after the referendum, clearly shows how great the energy is for explosive growth — South Sudan is a country of enormous potential.’

AW Blogs’ M. Jalal Hashim comments on the discriminatory practices instituted by the Sudanese government against Sudanese of Southern origins:

‘On 22nd June 2011, the Ministry of Labour issued a general directive to all government departments to enforce compulsory retirement on any Sudanese of Southern origin as a direct consequence of denationalizing them, i.e. stripping them of their Northern Sudanese nationality. Another similar directive was sent to the private sector. Accordingly, tens of thousands of Northerners of Southern origin have been purged from Civil Service. To add hurt to insult, official farewell parties were made at the altar of this civil genocide. Many of these infamous parties were televised and broadcast. These cynical parties were held in ‘honour’ of those a majority of who have never seen the South and who have been living in the North for most of their lives…

‘Nothing can be more erroneous as those people are not Southerners as such; they are simply Northerners of Southern origin in the same way as the Minister of Interior (Ibrahim Mahmoud, who is responsible of the Civil Registry and nationality) is a Northern Sudanese of Eritrean origin. In his days as a university student in Egypt, he even used to preside over the Eritrean Students Union...

‘The national, regional and international NGOs and civil societies institutions, and the free Pan African elites and intellectuals worldwide cannot maintain their ethical and moral integrity if they allow this state fascism and apartheid orientation in the Sudan. They must not be blackmailed into capitulation. We have all to stand up and face this new wave of state racism… The Sudanese Northerners of Southern origin are being officially discriminated against by the government of Khartoum. This is taking place as part of a process of demographic engineering in the course of which African people in Darfur are being replaced by Arab groups brought in from Niger; African Nubas are being replaced by Arabised groups in Southern Kordufan and Abyei; the Beja of Eastern Sudan are being replaced by fanatically Islamist groups from the Eritrean and Egyptian peasantry; the Nubians in the far North are being replaced by Egyptian peasants brought from over the delta.’

Ibishblog’s Hussein Ibish believes that the independence of South Sudan is a wake-up call to the Arab world:

‘The loss of a large, formerly integral and oil-rich part of an important Arab state is obviously a huge blow to Sudan. Moreover, it may prove a significant blow to the Arab world as a whole, since South Sudan's relationship with the Arabs in general is still in question. It has been offered Arab League membership, but whether it will accept that, or even the alternative of observer status, remains unclear. Meanwhile, it is cultivating strong ties to sub-Saharan African states, the West and Israel.

‘The reality is that if northern Sudanese and other Arabs are distressed at this development, as they reasonably might be, they have no one to blame but themselves. The almost unanimous yes vote in the secession referendum reflects the grim and bitter treatment of the southern provinces by Khartoum for many decades.

‘The north gave the southern Sudanese no reason whatsoever to wish to remain part of the united Sudan and every incentive to embrace independence at the soonest possible date. This history is by no means exclusive to Sudan, but reflects a broader problem throughout the Arab world of ignoring peripheral regions, oppressing ethnic and sectarian minorities, and utterly failing to produce societies inclusive of their heterogeneous populations…

‘The Arabs ought to take this opportunity to learn yet another bitter lesson about the dangers of chauvinism and intolerance, although there is no evidence that they are presently doing so.’

Sudanese Thinker makes a clarion call to the Sudanese to use the Internet in general and social media in particular to tell their own stories themselves:

‘I don’t know about you, but with the bittersweet Independence of South Sudan, something in me has forever shifted. That’s it. I’m done just being mostly a blogger. It’s time to play a more proactive and strategic role.

‘I think I speak for most if not virtually all Sudanese tweeps when I highlight the following points:

‘Generally speaking, western media coverage of Sudan is simplistic, biased and counter-productive. The narrative needs to change to reflect the realities.
Sudan’s narrative in Western and American political discourse needs to change, and we can’t merely rely on our super cool diplomats to do the job. We can and should speak up for ourselves. We can and should engage in conversation with anyone willing to listen, and such people exist. For instance, I recently connected with @sam_a_bell, the former Executive Director of Save Darfur by accident on Twitter. And now in less than two weeks, I’m scheduled to meet him in person in Washington DC over tea for a friendly chat and debate.

‘There’s so much injustice and suffering happening in Sudan that needs to be exposed and broadcast to the world, and framed with all the necessary nuances and important contextualization.

‘We’re too dispersed right now, and lack coordination, let alone achievable goals and strategies. Heck, I bet there are so many pro-democracy Sudanese out there in the world who crave the kind of intelligent, informed and useful discussions we regularly have. (Some of these people are your friends. You know them. Bug them to join Twitter! Teach them. Give them a one-on-one new media “workshop” if needed.)’

Colored Opinions reveals that the independence of South Sudan has rekindled secessionist dreams across Africa, including in the Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of Congo:

‘The secession of South Sudan has sparked a wave of secession speculation and secession dreams around the world. And obviously we also witness the resurfacing of the ‘Kivu secession’ lobby with the usual ‘Congo is a failed state’ argument and predictably Rwanda backers opportunistically jumping on board.

‘Laura Collinson, a Canadian working with the Government of Rwanda through the International Growth Centre eagerly retweeted the article by G. Pascal Zachary titled ‘After South Sudan: The case to keep dividing Africa’ [in which"> Zachary suggests, referring to a paper by Pierre Englebert, in that article, just like pro-Kagame propagandist Andrew Mwenda on twitter, that secession might solve the Kivu problem. Pascal Zachary does add that there is no evidence suggesting a majority of Kivutiens would want secession.

‘It's outsiders who have promoted the case for secession of Kivu. Apart from several policy experts abroad dreaming of turning Congo from a failed to a success state, we should not forget the Ugandan and Rwandan journalists aiming to give legitimacy to the RPF backed rebel group CNDP of Laurent Nkunda in eastern Congo.

‘Would secession of Kivu solve Congo's problems, as suggested? Would the FDLR problem suddenly disappear? Would it address the grievances of both Rwandans and Congolese? Offering secession as solution to the political problems in the region is like throwing oil on the fire.’

Method to the Madness lashes out at the Caine Prize for favouring stories that perpetuate (negative) stereotypes about Africa:

‘One of the most depressing things about being from an African country, and I suspect it is the same for being from any post-colonial society, is the need to seek validation abroad or by Western standards. You can be the best writer ever, but if a bunch of white guys in academies don't see it, you're not. This applies to disciplines outside of literature as well. It's really as simple as that.

‘That is what is so extraordinary about the Caine Prize. Folks call it the "African Booker Prize", and with the mantle of premier African literary award comes the weight that The Booker, The Pushcart, The Pen or any other literary award doesn't have - the burden of representation, of validation, of choosing by dint of one's position the face of and state of African literary scene...

‘Writers write. Readers have opinions. It's really that simple. One has a right to put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard and churn out just whatever (s)he pleases. I certainly did not like Hitting Budapest, a plotless story that does not seem to have a point beyond "these kids are poor and live squalidly and you should pity them", but I do not really care about Bulawayo; she can write whatever she wants. I'm madder at the Caine Prize for seeming to favor stories of a particular strain, the ones that are less about characters and the network of trip-wires that make up their humanity and more about flattening characters to render them tools to make a political point, and absolving them from the basic responsibilities that come with writing a good story. I'm madder at them for not asking for complexity, and buying into an oversimplified narrative of Africa - poverty, war, disease, starving/fighting children -- just like most Western media does. I'm madder at the Caine for saying that this collection of stories is the best they could get out of Africa. I'm mad because I and so many people out there know that that is not true.’

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* Dibussi Tande blogs at Scribbles from the Den.
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