South Sudan and the nation building!
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" Disagreement does’t mean disapproval." Oprah Winfrey.
By Dhano Obongo
I have been delving in a debate within myself as to what could
possibly be the proper way to expound a presentation to offer to my
dear countrymen in the wake of the opening of a new year. I concluded
however, that the above-mentioned concept seemed the suitable subject
to consider.
Apparently, South Sudan is a new nation, therefore, nation-building is
imperative to debate and discuss among our intelligentsia community.
The crux is that, nation-building is nothing more than creating or
erecting a national identity under the authority of a government. It’s
sometimes explained as national development, or the wide procedures
through which nations come into existence.
Virtually, the objective of a nation-building is to amalgamate within
geographic bounds the people of that region into a state, which is
politically steady and sustainable over time.
Now, the central question becomes: who exactly are the nation’s
builders? In our humble judgement, they are the ethnic members of a
state who use inventiveness to change the national community through a
governmental authority. Overall, their agendas embrace national
security, education, public affairs and economics, among others.
In addition, we have recently observed nation-building transforming
newly independent countries on the continent of Africa as well as in
the Balkan countries. in essence, nation-building in regions cut out
by the former colonials authorities or empires, developed without
regards to frontiers. The process of nation-building altered many
countries to become sustainable and communicative national entities
with a spirit of nationalism among ethnic communities.
More so, the concept of nation -building embraces the formation of a
national language, national airlines, national stadiums, national day,
anthem, flag and folklore, etc.
At a deeper level, however, national character is developed and
purposely built among diverse ethnic groups becoming a nation. That
holds truth in several recently created countries where the colonial
exercise of a policy to divide-and- rule resulted in ethnically varies
inhabitants.
Many fresh countries have been overwhelmed by tribalism and clan
fostering jealousy between ethnic groups within the nation. In some
circumstances, this caused their near breakdown. A living example was
the efforts by Biafra in Nigeria to split the Federal Republic of
Nigeria in 1967. Consider the request of Somalian community in the
Ogaden region of Ethiopia for whole freedom!
The Rawanda’s massacre in the 1990’s , plus the earlier glitches
experienced by former united Sudan, can also be linked to the lack of
resolving the double apartheid of racial or religious unity with in
the country!
Meanwhile, socio-political history has often shown problems in uniting
countries with similar ethnic make-up, but diverse colonial
experience. Fruitful examples like Cameron do exist, but
disappointments like the Senegambia confederation confirms the
difficulties of bonding francophone and Anglophone regions.
Ironically, there has been some misconception between the usage of the
term nation-building and that of state-building. Yet the two terms are
always practiced interchangeably in North America continent.
Thus, the two terminologies have equally thin and different meaning in
the political science arena. The first referring to national identity,
where as the last to infrastructure and the institutions of the
country.
Nonetheless, the political scholars’ argument has been troubled
further by the reality of two very diverse schools of thoughts of
state-building as a native procedure.
The misperception over terms means presently, nation-building has come
to be used in a totally diverse perspective. With reference to what
has been briefly defined by its advocates as " the use of armed force
in the aftermath of a conflict to underpin an enduring transition to
democracy." In this logic, nation-building would be better referred to
as state-building. The later implies careful determination by foreign
authority to a concept or connection of the institutions of the
national power, agreeing to an example that might be adequately
acquainted to the foreign authority, yet is always considered foreign,
and even undermining. by this logic, state-building has
characteristics of huge investment, armed forces, provisional power,
and the practice of publicity to communicate government strategy
and/or policy.
South Sudan, as a brand-new nation, can learn from those nations,
which gone through their nation-building, as well as their
state-building challenges.
Ambassador, Dhanojak Obongo, is the author of the book titled: Clash
of Two Cultures. He was the Deputy Head of Mission of the South Sudan
Embassy in the United States of America, from 2012-2014. He also
served as State Minister of Finance in his native state of Jonglei. He
can reached for comments at [email protected].
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