Attractive unity versus attractive separation

Atok Dan Baguoot

“A nation which has forgotten the quality of courage which in the past has been brought to public life is not as likely to insist upon or regard that quality in its chosen leaders today - and in fact we have forgotten,” said John F Kennedy.



It is in every Northern politician mine in the Sudan that unity is to be made attractive whereas the Southern Sudanese politicians talk of possible separation of the South if the North fails to present beautiful courtship in the process of awaiting for referendum of the South comes the D-day when the so called marginalized masses of the South, Abyei area and popular consultations for the two States of South Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan. The two faceted scenarios are being seen as a matter of recycling political retirees to continue enjoying the status of governance in the name of self determination and unity. The whole issue is just the bitterness of losing power to public through democratic means. Unless attractive unity is in the interest of political class, it will always remain unattractive to public but unless attractive separation is availed to public, it will also remain unattractive to political families or the dynasties of Sudan.

Why should separation be made attractive for the marginalized Southern Sudanese and the rest? This actually answers the myth associated with five decades struggles posed by the people of Southern Sudan. Frequent sophisticated Japanese Toyota cars on our roads without social amenities does not answer the question of the lost of two millions lives but it even presents the same scenario which provoked the cause of series of rebellions because marginalized population is still denied resources and a say in the kind of governance in spite of their long and bitter struggles.

Alternatively, our fortunate political class in the South would have opted for attractive separation if NCP fails to provide impressive and attractive unity as far the greed laid in the peace pact. This in fact attributed to rampant insecurity which most of our political class mispronounced as tribal hatred. It is actually expression of resentments of which each and every tribe feels marginalized by the other tribe yet it isn’t the fact. Out people are unable to discover the genesis of their problem and where it positions itself because they are kept busy of NCP bad deeds. All these came about because the government policy of financial devolution is not that very clear and that’s why monies end up in state headquarters without reaching the population in Payams and Bomas. Some people termed it as corruption which contributed to lack of services to people but unless the system was deliberately designed to make poor remains poor and rich to maintain the status quo.

Some people do describe the current isolated settlement pattern in Juba to be one of the reasons. Hai Amarat in Juba where almost GoSS Ministers are concentrated was deemed appropriate because there, good roads, light, and water services are available to political families because it is them to decide where to take development to. These are simple facts which fuel chaos among our people and it is undisputable couple to severe hunger over the entire region. Residents of the political families in that very place do go to foreign countries for health check to where the rest of their asylum families stay.

For separation to be attractive there must be government of the people for the people and by the people where constitutional post holders are among the population to have direct influence over the governance. For separation to be attractive clouds of doubts of which GoSS is criticized can be cleared through a transparent leadership and it can be done by bringing corrupt suspects to book. Let go for election so that government of appointment is put aside since it interferes with participation of people in the governance. Let constitutional post holders go and build their houses in their respective constituencies for development to be closer to people because 90% of the current MPs don’t have houses in those places they represented. Lastly, both attractive unity and separation were resultant forces of premature independence Sudan obtained in 1956 from Britain. So the whole story of the protracted struggle the South underwent would just be a vicious cycle of moving away from Anglo-Egyptian Condominium (independence) to Sudanization and from Arab hegemony to Africanization and finally to resource controlled or looting state where ruling class will emerge as victory but not the local Southern Sudanese. Mathematically, it can be stated as Anglo-Egyptian condominium versus Sudanization and giving to Arab Hegemony in sideline of Africanization + ruling class state where chaos are inevitable but avoidable through the elimination of corrupt practices.