National commemorations in South Sudan should be understood within this general context. There is a strong public discourse about the virtue of fostering national cohesion and disgust for ethnic preference, and Independence Day celebrations provide an excellent opportunity for giving expression to this sentiment. Moreover, as an instrument for the creation of national identity, the celebrations present the discursive setting within which visions of the nation and its accomplishments can be explicitly debated.
It’s high time for South Sudan to demonstrate a strong commitment toward, inter alia, the following values.
First, good governance; rooting out corruption, upholding human rights, and adherence to the rule of law are essential conditions for successful development. As former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said, “Good governance is perhaps the single most important factor in eradicating poverty and promoting development.”
South Sudan in recovering from crises must engage in process-driven constitution-making to produce an agreed-upon governing process characterized by the separation of powers, with effective checks and balances, including a robust and politically active civil society; an independent judiciary; and a viable, free, and independent press.
The process through which the constitution is designed and adopted must be participatory and inclusive enough to allow for all relevant stakeholder groups to participate—from the development of constitutional principles to the actual design and ratification of the constitution. It is especially important that historically marginalized South Sudanese be empowered to participate fully and effectively in the constitution-making process. Among the 10 States and 3 Administrative Areas, each must produce a set of constitutional principles to inform, guide, and constrain the drafters. Such principles should ensure that the constitution safeguards against abuses of power. Importantly, each constitution should have a robust amendment process, one that can effectively prevent the manipulation of the constitution by opportunistic executives to remain in power indefinitely, as we are currently experiencing in the country.
All States and Administrative Areas, with the aid of civil society, should develop and implement education programs to help citizens understand and appreciate the constitution and its provisions, and recognize the law as a tool that they can use to organize their private lives and resolve their conflicts, including those arising cattle raiding and continuous communal fights. Programs for empowering youth and women could be particularly fruitful.
Each State and Administrative Area should engage in regular dialogue, where necessary, to revisit such important governance issues as the centrality of human rights in the structure of the country’s constitution, as well as a strong and independent judiciary. Countries should also ensure that governance is inclusive of women and youth, who have historically been forgotten, as well as cultivate transformative leadership in all levels of government.
Finally, each State and Administrative Area citizens, especially its Legal and Constitutional Scholars, including those in the Diasporas, should play an important role in shaping the institutional and legal environment for the transformation of South Sudan’s governance architecture during the next decade.
SECONDLY, the Health and Education; investment in schools, health care, and immunization provide for healthy and educated citizens who become agents of development. It is proved that a country’s development is primarily based on its people and its resources. However, it ultimately depends on the people only, as to what extent they can use the scarce resources efficiently in order to achieve a rapid rate of development and breakthroughs in innovation. As people play the most important role in shaping the status of the country; education is responsible for shaping a person.
Today, South Sudan faces various issues including rebellion, discrimination, tribalism, poverty, and gender inequality. Proper education for everyone can eradicate these problems from its roots and would lead to a better country with higher standards of living. In the long term, education reaps greater benefits; educated kids today will develop a very civilized and moral society tomorrow. The human mind has a great potential to achieve radical developments in society. And to reap the benefits of the human mind, education is the most important step to work on. It is an investment which is crucial for development of every being. Education has the ability to transform a person and provide a perspective to see their lives from a different view.
THIRDLY, Sound Economic Policies that Foster Enterprise and Entrepreneurship; more open markets, sustainable budget policies, and strong support for development will unleash the enterprise and creativity for lasting growth and prosperity. But because of our recent focus on civil war after independence, we have, in many ways, neglected the need to promote economic progress and development in our own backyard. We need to pay equal attention to encouraging national economic deal and promoting appropriate policies in our realm, so that the citizens of South Sudan can share the benefits of globalization. But this is not a simple task!
So while sound banking systems are a great civilization advance, unsound systems can represent a profound threat to society. Captured by vested interests, the banking system can quickly become a ‘despotic power’ – to quote Geoffrey Ingham, the Cambridge sociologist.
Today the process of central banks creating credit out of thin air is known to the public. The purpose of central bank credit creation is to provide their ‘franchisees’ – private commercial banks – with financing. The idea is then that this credit cascades down through the private banking system, and finances projects in the real domestic economy.
Unfortunately, the Central Bank of South Sudan has lost control over the credit creation process. They have sanctioned national capital mobility and embrace ‘light touch regulation’. They both decline to and are unable to regulate credit creation by their domestically licensed ‘franchisees’ – private, commercial banks. As a result, and with time, the unregulated finance generated by commercial banks tends to gravitate away from sound, productive activity undertaken in the interests of society, and towards high, short-term gains won from reckless and often fraudulent credit inflation, gambling, and speculation.
It is of vital importance that South Sudan establishes the ‘public goods’ – institutions, legal and regulatory frameworks – needed to manage and regulate its domestic money systems in ways that are stable and sound. Such a monetary system must be designed so that it becomes servant to, not master of, the economy – and stimulates and supports domestic economic priorities, not the priority of international financial institutions. In particular a sound banking system should support labor-intensive activity in areas such as agriculture – vital for its recovery from internal conflict.
This article, therefore, examines the varying perspectives on the nation-building opinions by looking at debates surrounding the country’s independence anniversary celebration. To do this, the leaders should focus on how the country’s political, economic, and cultural development has been assessed by both ordinary citizens and the international observers. Even though national day celebrations are intended to mark a period of heightened national unity during which citizens and leaders recommit themselves to the “national cause”, they also tend to magnify contentions over the nation-building plans. Owing to the emotional feelings that these celebrations evoke and the open-ended nature of the nation-building projects, rival political factions prefer to use such occasions to assert competing narratives of the nation and to contest authorized visions of the future. Because of this, national day celebrations provide a rare opportunity to study contestations and negotiations that are embedded in the process of nation-building.
It’s time to promise ourselves on this awaiting 9th of July that we will always work hard to keep South Sudan on the path of success, growth, and peace. Let’s serve our country with all our hearts and live up to the true meaning of what it means to be South Sudanese!
The writer is a 3rd Year Student, School of Law, University of Juba, and a Human Rights Sympathizer. The ideas expounded here are his own, except for the critical quoted references, and he can be reached for comments via gatluakbakham@gmail.com
