South Sudan: Manipulating the Positive Spirit of Fderalism
6 min readBy David Mayen Ayarbior, Juba, South Sudan
August 2, 2015 (SSB) — On Friday 31 July 2015 the Center for Peace and Development at the University of Juba organized a public lecture on federalism in relation to South Sudan. Panelists eloquently presented their conception of why federalism was a good system for South Sudan. I was humbled when one of the panelists, comrade Acuil Malith, glanced over the purpose of my book “House of War: Civil War and State Failure in Africa,” (2012) which exposes the impracticality of excessive centralization of political power in sub-Saharan Africa.
The presenters’ insights into the concept of federalism highlighted various dimensions from which the debate on this gratuitously controversial topic could be rationally examined by all literate and semi-literate politicians and compatriots. The concept is wide-ranging and elastic such that different analysts could examine it from various angles and individual countries could shape and reshape it for serving their peculiar purposes.
Like all social science debates, federalism remains a concept that is detached from its application until its framework is built and implementation modalities agreed upon by all its constituent units. For that reason, there is no ground whatsoever for a country to fear federalism, since it is essentially a framework structure with a positive spirit until such times when society shapes its elements. In other words, because of the concept’s undeniable positive outlook, countries have always positively responded to federalism and embraced it when tabled.
The positive spirit in the concept of federalism derives from its unreserved recognition of all regions and ethnicities within a country. As humans naturally constitute various linguistic and ethnic groups, denial of their inherent dignity and worth has been responsible for civil wars and wars between states, irrespective of country or continent. Such denial has been responsible for the protracted civil war which was championed by South Sudanese against Khartoum’s insidious centralization of political and economic power.
Because federalism allows a state to recognize its constituent social units, which recognition continually translates into sustainable and peaceful mingling of members of these units; needless to underline that almost all federal states in the world are socially tolerant and economically progressive. Such tolerance and environment of sustainable peace emerges from a reciprocal relationship of recognition between the state and regions.
While various reasons abound, there could essentially be two main objectives for adopting federalism. It may either be motivated by a desire to preserve diversity in unity, or creating unity out of diversity. The former objective transpires when few or big units of linguistically and ethnically distinct communities agree to come together and form a state that will be governed by a central (federal) government in collaboration with lower tiers.
In essence, federalism will be characterized by a higher degree of autonomy to be retained by the constituent units (lower tiers), while they voluntarily relinquish areas of common defense and foreign policy to the federal government. Norway and Canada are examples of using federalism as a means to preserve diversity in unity.
The later, creating unity out of diversity, often leads to technical intricacies because it applies to countries that are composed of numerous and diverse ethno-linguistic groups, such as South Sudan and almost all countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Its main maxim is: creating one out of many- i.e. building a viable nation-state out of fragmented linguistically distinct tribal or ethnic communities. This motto informs South Sudan’s embrace of federalism since 2005 and call for it since 1947. Here, federalism is deemed a necessary foundation for peaceful nation building.
Having said the obvious about federalism, which is its irrefutable positive spirit, the other phase of the concept, the practical one, is where the extent of positivity gets measured. Considering the fact that there is no monolithic structure called “the federal structure” of government, recent calls for federalism in South Sudan by anti-establishment elements have been disingenuous, to say the least. These calls have, unfortunately, been employed by duplicitous militaristic politicians only for scoring political points through ethnically dividing the country as they wage senseless wars against the state and people.
While patriotism entails that politicians be duty-bound to intellectually and peacefully present their perspectives on the direction a country ought to take, dogmatism influences unpatriotic ones to build political carriers by exploiting ethnic fault-lines. It makes them coat their individualistic ambitions with colorful and progressive garments such as the one inherent in the positive spirit of federalism, which they project as their own aspirations for the country.
So that the federalist debate and indeed South Sudanese are not diverted by abstractions, material proposals on percentage allocations between federal and state governments must be presented on the table by advocates of the system. Since federalism is neither the creation of South Sudan’s anti-establishment elements nor their exclusive desire, it is more useful that they present a full structure of the type of federalism they envisage, rather than praising the undeniable positive spirit of federalism. By any means, praising federalism is not an argument but stating the obvious, which is not useful except as a tool of dismal politicking.
In the practical sense, South Sudan is already a federal state because CPA decided so and its citizens desired so. The fact that the country has two tiers of government (federal in Juba and state at State levels); bicameral federal legislature (one for national affairs and the other for State affairs); State high courts and federal appeal courts; all governors, ministers, MPs, civil servants in states originate from that state- which in some views should be revised. All this means that federalism exists in both structure and spirit. Hence, peacefully agreeing on percentage allocations of powers between the two tiers of government, in terms of political federalism and fiscal federalism, is what could be argued if the current allocations are not satisfactory.
Trying to argue that South Sudan is not already a federal state signals that someone is either just argumentative by nature or design, or wholesome ignorant of the fact that federalism has no unique structures beyond these aforementioned general frameworks. And for such argumentative or ignorant individuals to go further and call for federalism in South Sudan, it exposes a hypocritical desire to appear as federalists while others are not.
To set priorities right, let the federal government in Juba expeditiously connect the ten existing federal states with roads and electricity grids, and tributaries for permanent mechanized irrigation schemes and clean water provision. The ten state capitals ought to be equally developed as magnetic urban centers where social amenities and service deliveries such as ten sizable referral hospitals, numerous schools, sporting facilities, and universities are focused. This is not to suggest that other smaller units such as counties are thrown to oblivion.
Reaping the fruits of federalism could be much easier if the country judiciously applies resources for infrastructure development and supplements that by asking for external loans in kind as opposed to loans in cash. Connecting and developing these already densely populated urban centers could be the nucleus upon which South Sudan can expand service delivery to all regions in the country.
David Mayen Ayarbior is the Press Secretary in the Office of H.E. the Vice President, James Wani Igga. He could be reached at dmayend@yahoo.com .
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