Scrap that – things afoot in Juba

Juba politics is inscrutable at the best of times; the cabal around Kiir, the definite occasional torture and daily harassment of journalists and nosy people, and the general militarisation of the town over the last two years is notable and really forestalls any real understanding of inner politics when you’re not at the forefront of an embassy – or even then.

That’s not to say it’s impossible or unsafe to live here.  I’ve arrived back in Juba after five days in Aweil (more later) and there are no signs of an impending coup as far as I can see, and frankly the airport is a good first place to look for that kind of thing.  Everyone is drinking their beers at 4pm like usual.

But the key thing is, my last post is redundant; now that Kiir has stripped Machar’s powers back to the constitutional limits for a vice-president, he has also cancelled the ‘reconciliation’ conference.  So that’s one fewer trips to Juba for me, when I leave for Aweil in five weeks.

The Sudan Council of Churches, Riek Machar and ‘a journey of national healing’: thoughts on peace and reconciliation in South Sudan

Peace, national healing and reconciliation have been discussed as fundamentally necessary agenda items for South Sudan since independence nearly two years ago. These ideas are steeped in South African post-apartheid and Rwanda post-genocide legacies, and there is no shortage of people and organisations wanting a piece of this psychological restitution game – or proposing ways (or more often, the problems) of doing it.

The key issue for a while has seemed to be a lack of political will for such a huge and complex project. If anything, government understandings of the war have been going the other way: there is a well established, government propagated single historical narrative. ‘We’ fought together, died together, bound by the same united ideological desire for an independent ‘South’; internal divisions were the product of machinations from the evil North; the war, peace and finally independence were all won by ‘bullet and ballot,’ and nobody voted against independence in 2011.

Doodles of the speakers from the Rift Valley Institute/Centre for Peace and Development Studies Juba Lectures 2013

Paleki Matthew Obur, South Sudan Women’s Empowerment Network

Juba Lectures Day 3: South Sudan’s death penalty; free speech; the role of traditional law

The podcasts for all of the Juba Lectures 2013 are available online to download for free – and it’s worthwhile, as the debates this week have been dominated by South Sudanese voices asking questions and making strong points about how they see (or want to see) the basis of Southern political, cultural and social life built in the constitution.

Last night’s debate focused mainly on the basis of laws – and therefore social and political justice – in South Sudan.  Much of the conversation revolved around the death penalty, still legal and carried out regularly here; execution – and the ability of which courts, traditional or legislative, to carry it out – served as a focal point for concerns over how conservative Southern society should be; whether “traditional” justice should be changed fast or actually codified and preserved as is; and the inability of youth and other marginalised people to challenge older generations and vested systems.

Equality, ethnicity, and mutual understanding: evening two of the Juba Lectures 2013

Thursday night was also well-attended at Juba University for Jacob Akol’s talk on the concept of the House of Nationalities in South Sudan; the panel then led an open debate on issues of language, women’s positions, traditional justice and marriage systems, mother tongues, the rights to move within the South and the invisibility of disabled people in the country.

The podcasts for all the lectures can be found on the RVI website.

Debate was lively, but no progress was made on how it would really work to incorporate and ‘deal with’ ethnicities in South Sudan through the constitution and elsewhere in national life. As one speaker said, “one nation, one culture, one language hasn’t got us anywhere in the last fifty years.”

“No constitution is permanent”: writing a new constitution for South Sudan

The Juba Lectures 2013 have started, and I am exhausted: I organised the speakers and panels in the last three weeks as the local Rift Valley Institute hand here, and have spent most of my time running around Juba on the back of a motorbike trying to meet a variety of VIPs and activists of various stripes to speak on the constitutional process in South Sudan.

Professor Akolda Tier, the chairman of the Constitutional Review Commission and a quiet, academic and conservative man, was our keynote speaker last night, on a panel set up to focus on practicalities: is there the political will to actually create a new constitution, and would it involve a consultative process?  Why has the commission still not started, despite it overrunning its mandated period?  Is the two year extension a political move designed to put off elections in 2015?  Etc.

Conference doodles

I do concentrate, I promise! But I also find my notebook – which is a kind of field diary of everything – gets filled with illustrations of the people and conferences I go to, including listeners, ranters, speakers and other idlers like me. So here are some small cartoons of the past week, and from the Rift Valley Institute Sudans course in Lukenya in May. (All copyright is obviously mine, but if you’re illustrated here and want it taken down, or would like to use any of them, please get in touch.)

Oystein

Cherry

International Sudan and South Sudan Studies Conference 2012

The Sudan Studies associations of the US and UK – who both accept international members – held their international conference this week in Bonn, Germany, which for the first time dealt with two countries instead of one.

Many conferences and events so far have struggled with this change and the resulting re-balancing of the debate.  Douglas Johnson called in his keynote for a clear integration of wider Africanist and other literature in Sudan studies, which has a sometimes deserved reputation for separatism and isolation.  It’s possible that – despite the likelihood that South Sudan will become the field of Africanists and Sudan will be integrated more into Middle East and Northern African literature, and therefore become more intellectually separated – this wider integration will help to encourage a sense of the Sudans in a broader intellectual debate than previously.

The conference incorporated every aspect of a traditional Sudanist meeting: there were many excellent papers and a few off the wall ones; some new and exciting students; historians being asked for comments  on contemporary problems; stray politicians and diplomats making the usual statements; and comments (with personalised histories and statements) instead of questions.

The conference also reflected the stresses of the last eight months: as was noted, many panels were concerned with development, conflict, “identity”, international relations and “nationbuilding”.  History was thin on the ground in comparison to problematizing the present and debating the future.  Events are moving fast in both Sudans, and there was a sense of impatience, concern, hope and a demand for plans, even among the old guard.

Footnote: I also met a few lovely people who apparently read this blog: very exciting!  I will try to be more diligent in my posting…

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The Sudan Studies associations of the US and UK – who both accept international members – held their international conference this week in Bonn, Germany, which for the first time dealt with two countries instead of one.

Many conferences and events so far have struggled with this change and the resulting re-balancing of the debate.  Douglas Johnson called in his keynote for a clear integration of wider Africanist and other literature in Sudan studies, which has a sometimes deserved reputation for separatism and isolation.  It’s possible that – despite the likelihood that South Sudan will become the field of Africanists and Sudan will be integrated more into Middle East and Northern African literature, and therefore become more intellectually separated – this wider integration will help to encourage a sense of the Sudans in a broader intellectual debate than previously.

The conference incorporated every aspect of a traditional Sudanist meeting: there were many excellent papers and a few off the wall ones; some new and exciting students; historians being asked for comments  on contemporary problems; stray politicians and diplomats making the usual statements; and comments (with personalised histories and statements) instead of questions.

The conference also reflected the stresses of the last eight months: as was noted, many panels were concerned with development, conflict, “identity”, international relations and “nationbuilding”.  History was thin on the ground in comparison to problematizing the present and debating the future.  Events are moving fast in both Sudans, and there was a sense of impatience, concern, hope and a demand for plans, even among the old guard.

Footnote: I also met a few lovely people who apparently read this blog: very exciting!  I will try to be more diligent in my posting…