Can South Sudanese really find a unifying nationalism?

Quest for a unifying nationalism

Can South Sudanese really find a unifying nationalism?

By Opoka Christopher Arop

 

Jewish nationalism is both stained and washed in blood [Israeli invasion of Lebanon in June 1982]. German nationalism is wrongly or rightly inscribed with memory of Adolf Hitler’s reign. Palestinian nationalism has followed a seemingly preordained path. This path screams that, for any nationalism to be accepted, its pursuit is in blood; it does not however specify whose blood: blood of the innocents, or blood of the terrorists?

With the recent outburst of militaristic contest between the majority Dinka and Nuer ethnic groups in the top echelons of a known divided national army, questions have arisen; questions that attempt to place nationalism at the center of an independent Republic of South Sudan.

This division has left other ethnicities and their assumed claim to nationality and power, as obsolete and unattainable without a clear similarly dominating role in the army, police, national security, prisons among a host of known and unknown security operatives in the new nation-state.

Nationalism can both be an ideology with specific constituent ideas or a set of sentiments, loyalties, and emotional predispositions.

In South Sudan, nationalism is rather defined along party lines as broader strokes, more times than many, embracing dictatorship as an undertone to this collective unity.

Outside Africa, nationalism emerged in the course of the development and maturation of the European nation-state.

For many Europeans and later African nationalists, no distinction was made between loyalties to the state as a system of authority (what the likes of Ali A. Mazrui, have termed vertical allegiance.) To most nationalists, one’s own state or nation was entitled to supreme loyalty.

In the history of Europe, nationalism emerged with the decline of two paramount allegiances �"the erosion of more localized feudal fiefdoms, on the one hand, and the decline of the transnational influence of the church in Christendom, on the other hand.

Defeudalization and the beginnings of secularization left a fertile ground for new foci fidelity.

The treaty of Westphalia of 1648 had been the midwife of the new nation-state. By the eighteenth century, nationalism had become one of the ideological forces in Europe.

Defeudalism and detribalization haven’t successfully taken root in Africa, neither in the new Republic of South Sudan. And this is by no means a fault to be baptized upon any tribal or ethnic entities singly or whole.

Notions of Dinkaism are as commonplace as Nuerism, as is Ma’di’ism, depending on content of debate, geography, education, mis-education. The Azande are as pious to defend their identity as are the Balanda, the Shilluk adorn their king with unquestioned dictatorial authority, while the Acoli regalia in song and dance has triumphed years of deculturalization [with writers license]. So we are all innately tribal as is the urge to kill when tranquility is disturbed with undue regard.

Blame appears to be purported in vogue among Dinka elite in politics, army as well as business, culture, education, Nuerism is pitched against Equatorianism and regionalism tendencies are enmasse.

Jean-Jaques Rousseau made a distinction between the “general will” and “will of all.” ‘General will,’ he said, was an inviolate will of the nation while the ‘will of all’ was specific to the wills of the citizens at any particular moment in time.

The “general will” was superior to the “will of all”. The nation was more enduring than its citizens at any particular moment in history.

In South Sudan, there is a real and dangerous tendency of a regional “will” based on selfish allegiances enduring more than a national will, and the influence and affluence of tribal and clan will within echelons of majority tribes have proven higher.

But perhaps, a greater test for this preclusion awaits us all. Awaits us far away from the recent disagreements between the President and his former number two. Whether or not a combination of a Dinka and a Nuer as top two will be agreed based largely on their numerical advantages in line with number of rebel factions as opposed to a deliberate mix and blend of characterizations intended toward peace, tranquility and fight against corruption on the other, remains a stag question!

Rousseau’s thought subsequently influenced nationalism in Francophone Africa. In the Eighteenth and early Nineteenth centuries, nationalism was often combined with liberal values.

Prince Otto Von Bismarck was among the first great European conservative nationalists and authoritarian unifiers. Was Dr. John Garang ever going to live up to these similar characteristic ideals? Can Garang’s earlier predisposition to rid the liberation struggle of those who didn’t agree with his vision for a new Sudan stand today’s disagreements in Addis Ababa over the claim for need for reforms within the SPLM party?

A much worse example of right-wing European nationalism combined with militant unification was, of course, Adolf Hitler, in the Twentieth century.

In Africa, one might identify Tutsiphobia among the Hutu in 1994 as the nearest equivalent of genocidal Nazism.

The current turmoil between the Dinka and Nuer has been watered upward as about larger issues than tribal leadership contentions and blessings to corruption. Away from a culture of conflicts fueled by political patronage to different variations of tribal legitimacy in their attempts to control natural resources, above and below the earth’s crust; an explosion is eminent. This will lead to more serious carnage and another theme in the book of GENOCIDE GAMES.

Perhaps with very few pages, but worth millions of lives, and livestock if I may add, IGAD mediators must choose sides between humanity and genocide and quickly.

In Africa, the anti-colonial struggle gave birth to both localized nationalisms and pan-African movements. A desire to build an empire can itself be a goal of nationalism. This is the case in South Sudan. A force is at play to dominate and rule. Whether this force be the Dogo, Bongo, Logir or Jur, the results will pretty much be at par. It is their degrees of multi-culturalisms and accommodative definitions of a shared national interest that will matter most in the end.

While Dr. Riek Machar and his colleagues may not accept defeat, realistically speaking, President Kiir is not weak. He has the backing of key business interests, who will stop at nothing to keep him at the top. Too many contracts are at stake; forget about oil at the moment, what about contracts for military equipment, military assistance, other minerals, the Nile waters, pensions for retiring commanders and civil servants. The process is ever the more complex, and it will not be a decision by the Dinka and Nuer that will resolve this battles and an upcoming war.

The rest of South Sudan will have to choose what role they play in the chess games between Camp Kiir and Camp Riek. The other choice is to reject being pawns.