Welcome to Nationhood, South Sudan!

Welcome to Nationhood South Sudan, please accept my sincerest hope that you’ll be successful and prosperous. The whole world would reap benefit from a North and South Sudan that could find someway to keep even an uneasy mistrustful peace, but I have my doubts that this will have a happy ending. Sudan has been locked in a bloody civil war between North-South longer than my twenty four years on the planet. The North is primarily Muslim, while the South contains many diverse Christian and African tribes. Wrapped within this conflict is the much publicized Darfur genocide that has attracted the attention of various Hollywood A-List celebrities. The people of Southern Sudan voted to secede from the Northern half a couple of years ago, creating great fear among genocide experts and human rights advocates of a new round of violence and or ethnic cleansing as the date for South Sudan independence drew nearer.

I share similar worries, the North and South Sudanese have been fighting for a long time. Although, the wishes of the South Sudanese people to be their own nation deserve the up-most respect and protection, I’m very much afraid that the only accomplishment we’ve achieved is creating a conflict between two states North-South Sudan rather than a civil war between the two groups within one “unified” Sudan. The reality is that in the North, many of the key genocidal players are still in place and the people of the South now that they have independence will have all the more reason to fight to keep it should the North mount any incursion into the South. Again, I wish the Sudan’s luck and I hope I look back in a year and am made a fool, but for now I’ll play the cynic.