Friday, March 29, 2024

Sudan Tribune

Plural news and views on Sudan

The Independence of South Sudan is long overdue

by Steve Paterno

July 17, 2011 — The evolution of South Sudan as an entity that constitutes a nation state, just like any of the African countries, has its roots in colonization of Africa during European Scramble for Africa in late 19th century. Contrary to the myth of a United Sudan, a disastrous experiment, which actually failed to survive, South Sudan evolution into a nation state contrast that of the Northern Sudan. Perhaps the only thing the South and North Sudan has in common throughout the history is that the two are explicably linked by the Nile River. Otherwise, the South and North of Sudan are regions of different entities.

When the British and Egyptian jointly colonized Sudan, with all the good judgment, they immediately determined that the South and North of Sudan must be administered separately, given the fact that in all practical sense, the two regions are different from one another. The Anglo-Egyptian rulers instituted a colony of South Sudan to be governed under a Closed Districts Ordinance, where Northern Sudanese access into Southern Sudan is strictly restricted. Lines were clearly drawn on the sand and even on the mud to mark the boundaries and the distinctions.

The good British administrators at the time had good reasons for drawing those boundaries as they have been proven with time to be like prophets. Among those British officials, was a prominent administrator in Sudan, K.D.D. Henderson who warned his government that those Northerners are either “raiders or traders” in South Sudan. He went on to explain the horrific role of the Northern Sudanese and he said, “when not slave raiding they were poaching elephants or hunting giraffe or lifting cattle. When they condescended to do a little trading, they usually swindled the unsophisticated Nilote or paid him with counterfeit coins. As for the professional trader, the Jellaba, he in baronial eyes was an equally undesirable immigrant, battering on the villages, selling rubbishy goods at a vast profit, and introducing venereal disease.”

Even though slowly maturing during the colonialism, South Sudan was recognizable as a nation state, growing on its own pace to independently join as one of the nations of the world. By 1940s, as the notion of self determination was gaining momentum throughout the British colonies, the fact of South Sudan evolving as a distinct entity was becoming very apparent. There was serious considerations and debates as to whether South Sudan would be cast together with East African countries, the North Sudan, partially with each, or it would be allowed to exist on its own accord.

A British inspector general from the Lado Enclave (the present day, Equatoria region) put it bluntly in a policy release by outlining that “little can be done for the Negro provinces whilst they are starved so as to turn over all available funds to the Arab provinces, and whilst they are subject to the laws and
regulations made for the benefit of the latter…So the Negro provinces should be put in a class by themselves, under a vice-governor…and allow to work their own salvation…”

This view was actually shared by many British Civil Servants who were working in South Sudan. After the Unification of the South and North of Sudan in a policy known as Sudanization, which was put in full motion by early 1950s, one of such British Civil Servant wrote in disgust that “without protection the Southerners will not be able to develop along indigenous lines, will be overwhelmed and swamped by the North and deteriorate into servile community hewing wood and drawing water. To pretend that there are not fundamental differences between them is like covering up a crack in the tree trunk with moss. Such process, like any obscuring of the truth, is unsound.”

Such accurate assertion was later proven to be correct by Commission of Enquiry, which investigated the 1955, Torit Mutiny, when the Southerners revolted against the would-be independent Sudan. In its report, the Commission wrote in part, “since the Southern Sudanese benefited very little from Sudanization they found little or no difference between conditions now and conditions previously; and independence for them was regarded as merely change of masters. We feel that the Southern Sudanese by finding themselves holding secondary positions in the Government of their country have a genuine grievance.”

Unfortunately, that “genuine grievance” of South Sudan, though obvious, has not been acknowledged soon enough. It has taken decades of bloody wars, millions of precious lives lost, untold destructions, and displacement of millions. The resilience of South Sudanese people and their relentless struggle for freedom and justice has finally paid off. Let the entire world welcome the new country of South Sudan and its people with a huge hug, for all along the people of South Sudan have been journeying the long walk for freedom.

Steve Paterno is the author of The Rev. Fr. Saturnino Lohure, A Romain Catholic Priest Turned Rebel. He can be reached at [email protected]

6 Comments

  • Michael Angelo
    Michael Angelo

    The Independence of South Sudan is long overdue
    Good analysis brother Steve, keep it up. Fact needs to be told like you put it. I agreed with your point that North and South never have anything in common except the confluenc of Nile River. We are always proud to be Sudanese by nothing after all these years.

    Reply
  • Wadjon
    Wadjon

    “The Englishman said it, must be true…”
    It is interesting to learn what the English said about the situation of Southern Sudan under Northern influence in colonial times.
    It would be much more interesting and effective to hear Southern Sudanese saying it themselves without using “The Englishman” to justify.
    I’m not Sudanese (North or South), I do not know all that is being said about the history of Southern Sudan, but I have never heard or read yet a southerner telling the story of slavery for example, the ancient history as well as the latest in the 90’s. Using Southern people’s experiences/ ancient-traditional talk on that matter. Are there Southern intellectual writing on that? Giving testimony of how it feels to be called an Abd? And so on…
    Or is that subject taboo among southern people, I mean, do people chat on this subject ?
    I hope to be wrong, but it seems to me that free open speech on those matters has not come yet in Southern Society. The fact that the author of this article had to enroll the Englishman to speak seems symptomatic.
    Prove me wrong… I’d love it.

    Reply
  • Wadjon
    Wadjon

    The Independence of South Sudan is long overdue
    Censorship, ya webmaster? Delete wadjon tawaaaali! Thanx.

    Reply
  • Steve Paterno
    Steve Paterno

    “The Englishman said it, must be true…”
    Dear Michael and Wadjon,

    The first recorded facts I know of about South Sudanese, officially advocating for their cause during the colonialism, was at the 1947 Juba Conference. At that conference, the Southern representatives spoken very well as to the future fate of South Sudan, which will have no connection to the North. Unfortunately, the 1947 Juba Conference has been misinterpreted to fit the agenda of Khartoum. Khartoum is driving this narrative by insisting that the Southerners agreed for unity of Sudan at the Juba Conference. Sadly thpough, even some South Sudanese who never read the right history bought into this false narrative by casting those who participated at the Conference as sellouts, while these people had nothing to do with the forced unity of Sudan.

    In his own words, the British official, James Robertson, the then Civil Secretary who organized the Conference dismissed this claim of agenda of unity being agreed at the 1947 Juba Conference. He said, “I thought that before advising the Governor-General in Council about this matter I ought to satisfy myself about the capacity of the Southerners to sit in a Legislative Assembly and play a constructive part in the discussions and deliberations…I looked upon the conference solely as a means of finding out the capabilities of the Southerners, and it was therefore quite inaccurate for some people to say later that at the Juba Conference the Southern representatives agreed to come in with the North…The only decision resulting from the conference was taken by myself. I decided that I could, after what I had seen of the Southerners who attended, endorse the recommendation of the Administrative conference, and ask the Governor-General-in- Council to accept its proposal that the new Legislative Assembly should be representative of the whole Sudan.”

    Remember, the reference to the “Administrative Conference” is when Northern Sudanese met in 1946 in Khartoum, organized by the British to chat the way forward for Sudan’s self determination. It was at that Administrative Conference the unification of South and North Sudan was agreed, not at the 1947 Juba Conference. Southerners were deliberately excluded from participating in that Conference, nor were they even consulted on this subject, let alone if they even endorse the idea.

    By 1951, a Constitutional Amendment Commission was formed for the entire Sudan. The voices of South Sudanese at the Commission was stifled. When a transitional government was formed in 1953, ahead of Sudan’s self determination, Southerners were yet excluded, hence the recipe for the long armed struggle, starting with the Torit Mutiny in 1955 to the present.

    In essence, the Southerners have always made their case, though ignored and have not been taught in history classes.

    Steve Paterno

    Reply
  • Makuer Mabor Mangar
    Makuer Mabor Mangar

    “The Englishman said it, must be true…”
    Good analysis Steve, on the historical differences of north and south Sudan….But where does your analysis leave the fates of other historically marginalised none-Arab Sudanese namely Darfurians and Nubians to be precise??

    Reply
  • Steve Paterno
    Steve Paterno

    “The Englishman said it, must be true…”
    Makuer,

    Remember, there are also distinction between the South Sudanese and the other marginalized Northern Sudanese Africans. An average South Sudanese cannot differentiate a Nuba or Darfuri and to some extend, even consider them Arabs or Jallaba, because of their cultural orientation. Even among the Nuba themselves, they do have some sections that they consider to be of Arab orientation.

    However, with the South now as an independent country, those Northerners of African origins will eventually in the long run be drawn and reorient toward Africanism. This will very much depends on South Sudanese relationship with these marginalized Africans in the North.

    Steve Paterno

    Reply
Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.