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]