South Sudan adopted Kenya’s worst habits
6 min readA common feature of intelligence — even among animals — is to learn from one’s experience. But what should distinguish humans from other animals is the ability to learn from others’ experience, too.
Thus, if your neighbour dies drinking kumi kumi (hooch) at Mama Wakanyi’s shebeen, it is expected that you will not be found patronising the same place the next morning, however thirsty you might be for throat irrigation.
But not in Africa. South Sudan, the world’s newest State, spent decades in gestation, its leadership scattered all around Kenya as their Arab countrymen in the North used them for target practice, as slaves, and as clay pigeons to shoot at for fun.
As most oppressed peoples do — something Kenyan politicians have forgotten — South Sudanese took up arms and started a long civil war, which only recently resulted in Independence and self-rule.
During the civil war, they lived all over Africa and the world — in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and the West. Some even managed to trek all the way from Juba to Israel.
One would reasonably expect that South Sudan, being the world’s and Africa’s newest country, would avoid the most obvious pitfalls that African States have faced in their attempts at self-governance. Could be wrong. But one gets the sad feeling that South Sudan is quickly joining the bandwagon of poorly run African states.
Unfortunately, the stakes are much higher for Juba because the population is still armed and has a long experience of fighting bush wars.
President Salva Kiir has to deal with problems that would make even the toughest village chiefs quake. His own tribe, the Dinka, don’t like it that the president has crafted a Cabinet that includes representatives from other tribes in the country. They whine that the few Cabinet and State offices held by Dinka “do not reflect the community’s contribution to the independence struggle”.
Discontent
It appears they, too, want to ‘eat’, just like the ruling elite in many newly independent African states, Kenya included, gorged their tribesmen on the fat of the land.
What cannot be ignored, though, is the discontent and bloodshed that is spreading in the new country. Some NGO even says South Sudan is the place likeliest to experience genocide within the next few years. In the massive Jonglei State — nearly five times the size of Rwanda — for instance, two tribes are involved in vicious civil war. And they are armed with assault rifles, not bows and arrows.
In just one spate of fighting last week, more than 500 people went missing, which is military jargon for presumed dead.
Oil
Corruption is stifling the new State, too — the South Sudanese appear to have heartily taken to heart the Kenyan tradition of kitu kidogo. Corruption is so bad that the cost of doing business in the new country is among the highest in the world. Everyone is on the take and ministers are said to ask openly for bribes to approve deals.
The oil economy just makes it worse. In Africa, where there is oil or minerals, there is phenomenal corruption.
Is it really that hard for the South Sudanese to learn the lessons of the rest of Africa and avoid our shared misfortunes?
http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/InsidePage.php?id=2000054331&cid=349¤tPage=1
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