Refleksi : Apakah domino efek Sudan bisa merambat ke NKRI? http://www.smh.com.au/world/neighbours-fear-division-of-sudan-may-have-domino-effect-20110110-19l8h.html
Neighbours fear division of Sudan may have domino effect David Smith January 11, 2011 Southern Sudanese queue to vote at Wunrok town in Warrap State. Voting will last for one week. Photo: Kate Geraghty JOHANNESBURG: If Southern Sudan, why not Southern Nigeria, or Northern Ivory Coast, or multiple Congos? The Sudanese vote has implications for all of Africa, signalling that the borders drawn by colonial cartographers are no longer sacrosanct. Some fear it may spur the Balkanisation of the continent. ''The referendum in Sudan could have a domino effect,'' said Shehu Sani, president of the Civil Rights Congress in Nigeria. ''It is likely to be infectious to other parts of Africa in the sense that most countries . are divided along the lines of Christians and Muslims.'' The continent's arbitrary borders - blind to ethnic, cultural and political faultlines - were drawn up by European powers at the Berlin conference of 1884-85. When the colonies began gaining independence 50 years ago, the Organisation of African Unity (now the African Union) declared the borders immutable because the alternative would look like a smashed window pane of thousands of warring states. Eritrea broke away from Ethiopia in 1993 after nearly 30 years of war, but it had already been a separate entity in colonial times. So the sundering of Sudan, Africa's biggest country, would represent an unprecedented challenge to the historical status quo. It is being watched closely in Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, which has its own, sometimes violent, schism between a predominantly Muslim north and largely Christian south. ''What's happening in Sudan is raising a lot of fears, particularly in Nigeria, which is a colonial creation,'' Sani said. ''It was thought the defeat of Biafra [a secession attempt in 1967 that led to civil war] had made division impossible, but Sudan is rekindling the thought.'' In recent weeks the political crisis in Ivory Coast, where the President, Laurent Gbagbo, is resisting calls to step down, has provoked fears of renewed civil war, broadly characterised as between northern Muslims and southern Christians. Permanent separation could seem a tempting long-term solution. But divisions in Ivory Coast are more complex than religion alone. The same is true in Sudan and Nigeria, which has more than 250 ethnic groups. If, as expected, Southern Sudan votes for independence, there are likely to be at least a few corners of Africa taking heed. Somaliland is seeking international recognition of its breakaway from Somalia, rebels in the Cabinda enclave demand separation from Angola, and Morocco has resisted proposals for a referendum on the independence of Western Sahara. Questioning the old certainties is healthy, said Greg Mills, director of the Brenthurst Foundation, a Johannesburg think tank whose focus is African development, and author of Why Africa is Poor. ''The fixing of borders and the absence of debate about them has protected misrule,'' he said. ''Sudan points the way forward for some countries, but not all.'' Guardian News & Media [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Post message: [email protected] Subscribe : [email protected] Unsubscribe : [email protected] List owner : [email protected] Homepage : http://proletar.8m.com/Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
