But Juba, You Were Supposed To Be The Good One!

So the world's youngest country, South Sudan, has alegedly just squashed down its first coup. They have successfully carried out the Sudanese legacy of political strife, and yet again, gunshots fill the streets with the familiarity of rivalry. Yay or nay?

Neither. This could be just another post about my "expert" opinion (because we all know everyone who is bold enough to state their opinions on such matters, usually thinks they're an expert of some sort) on the state of affairs in South Sudan. Or I could go on and on about how grateful I am that the state is steering clear of what would have been another heavy load on it's plate. But I won't. The idea that has been itching at my surface is more fitted to the grand scheme of things. 

Legacies?

As soon as I heard about the turbulence surrounding the coup, two completely contradictory thoughts struck my mind. The first was "Oh my God! I hope this does not escalate into another civil war, with the South Sudanese people getting caught in the midst of it, yet again." and the second was "Hah! So much for "ethnic" rivalry. I can't wait for the details behind this whole matter to go public, it will be a good waking call."

Here is why I think that. For as long as I can remember, Sudan and South Sudan have always been at each other's throats. The country has witnessed decades of civil war, and for the longest time I was made to believe that this was a war of ethnicity. The 'Arabs' of the North are at war with Black-Africans of the South. (Or in weaker relays of the story, they'll tell you it's just another Christian minority being victimized by the wicked Muslims.) For as long as I remember, any paper or article that spoke about the North and the South did not fail to distinguish the rivalry along ethnic, religious, or racial lines. Which in my humble opinion, is pure bullshit. I don't mean to say that there aren't any distinct differences between the two Sudans, but these differences hover over the (once) whole country. Sudan has always held different ethnicities within its borders. For ages, this has resulted in new cultural fads, so that the Sudanese individual, whether he identifies as an Arab or an African, inevitably carries a legacy from both cultures. Whether you like it or not, we are all bottles of 2-in-1 products. Anyways, I'm going on a tangent that's not the point.

The bigger picture is, this absurd simplification of a multilateral issue that has plagued Sudan for a long time, is now coming to show its real teeth. Many of the commentaries on the recent coup have had a surprised undertone to them. Especially the ones who've grown used to calling it an ethnic/religious/racial dilemma, you know, the outlets who have only bothered to examine the issue's surface. They, of course will not understand what's really going on right now.  I mean technically, the South is all parts black-African now. They've gotten rid of the evil Muslim majority. So what's the problem? Why isn't this new Sudan working, Goddamn it?! 

My idea is because they (as in the bigoted commenters and, to an extent, the South Sudanese public) have address a problem that did not really need addressing. The problem was not that the North despised the South for their religious/racial belongings, therefore exploiting there resources and killing them mindlessly. The problem, at heart, is not an idealogical one. These are all means of polarizing ends and adding oil to the fire. The problem is a natural one. Resources. It has always been, and will always be a problem of resources.

Every single entity (as far as my research goes), whether they identify themselves along idealogical, religious, racial, or ethnic lines, has this obsessive want to over-eat. Every one wants the bigger piece of the pie, because no one believes there is enough pie to go around. (Economists will tell you there isn't, but let's assume we all just want enough pie to satisfy our hunger, minus the idea of profit.) Thus, no matter whose narrative it is, Somalia or South Africa; be it a democracy, or an islamic dictatorship; the bigger man always wants to eat the smaller man's pie. So what does he do? He calls the small man black, or Christian, or whatever, and then exploits him. The world of course believes it and says, look at this! Smh. Another bigoted African state going at it like hyenas and monkeys. Poor them. When will they learn how to steal like civilized human beings (because let's face it, we've yet to see a euphoric corruption-free country that truly shares its pies equally and fairly.)

Thus our ill-management has bred these trust issues that tempt men to plan coups and dishevel a fragile state, as is going on with South Sudan now. Almost every Sudanese individual, in this day and age, has trust issues with "the other" especially if they are in power. Which is only normal. If you lived for decades, seeing power corrupt whoever it touches, you'd have an issue with it too. If you grew hungry, oppressed, illiterate, and distraught every time you stood farther and farther away from the leading group, you would hate "the other "too. So, I think we need to stop calling it an idealogical problem. We need to peel this  nasty colonial skin off of our minds, and stop drawing the problem along racial/religious lines. We need to grow up and look our demon in the eye! We need to admit that we are incompetent, as a nation, and as state leaders. Then we need to seek therapy. Yes, therapy to cleanse our systematically brain-washed souls, so that we can fix what's really broken. Our bellies.

Anyways, the point is, if you were one of those people who though, NO! Juba, you were supposed to be the sane Sudan. The good one that has fought to gain its freedom. The one who knows what the struggle looks like, and therefore works long an hard to give her people that light at the end of the tunnel. Good news, you're not alone. Bad news, you've been looking at it wrong all this time. Sadly, it seems only natural that the coup would take place. The average student only knows what he is taught, and this is what Sudan's history has taught us. Impatience. We all want our country to be the glorious state it (assumedly) once was. But more importantly we want our basic human rights. So we fight everything standing in the way of that, except our own incompetence. We fight the British, then we fight the South/North, and now we(as northerners) are fighting extremist Muslims, while the South fights a superficial ghost of democracy. Our neighbors are only our friends so long as we have the same enemy, upon which we can hang our dirty coats of failures.  Each time we are victorious over (what we think is) another demon, we are left frustrated because our problems fail to disappear with that victory (be it independence, another political coup, the subduing of a rebellious ethnic minority, or the partition of the Sudans). That is why as soon as our joint enemy is out of the equation, we look to our neighbors and our neighbors look onto us in search of another scapegoat, or coatrack. Meanwhile, we remain malnourished, pain-stricken, illiterate, poor and cold. All problems of resources, because we can neither trust "the other" to give us our basic human rights. Nor can we identify with "the other" to give to them like we give to our own.