A Mere Cross-examination Between an American Pride and South Sudan’s National Identity
By Apioth Mayom Apioth
I still think that the winner of Miss America pageant went out of line when she performed an Indian cultural dance at the last edition. No matter how inclusive America is seen on the world stage, it is still one of the hundreds of nation-states that makes up our planet earth. Indeed, America is truly a democratic state unsurpassed by few the world over. Norway and Sweden are few of the democracies ranked above the United States. However, Miss America competition is seen as a pride and lofty entity of national identity by many Americans. When America naturalizes citizens from many different cultural backgrounds, it is their utmost wish for the newly crowned Americans to represent America first before everything else. In my books, anything that brings Americans together in the time of happiness or distress is considered part of “American Macroculturalism,” while the diverse array of cultures that paint the larger portrait of America can be called “American Microculturalism.”
An American dream is one example of the many fabrics that encompasses the so-called “American Macroculturalism.” It entails that an American freedom comes with a chance to move up the socio-economic ladder after having put in a concerted effort of work. And an American Microculturalism is where an Indian folk dance comes calling in. There is no country yet in this world where every culture is happily brought to the fore and everyone goes about with their business. I don’t think the Americans would have been happier either with the Russian-American girl performing a Russian folk dance at the same pageant. That would have pinch them the wrong way. This pageant winner should have learned a thing or two from Barack Obama on his last tour of Africa. He visited many sub-Saharan African countries, going all the way to Tanzania, but in the end, he paid scant attention to the calls of many Africans to extend his visit to Kenya, the homeland of Obama Sr., his father. He intentionally avoided visiting Kenya to avoid succumbing to the political games of the American Microculturalism. If he had complacently done so, his biggest political rivals in Washington DC., would have said: “Mama there go that man, he has finally abandoned us, and now he is the village chief of Kenya; and along the way he is giving away all the American money to them.”
Shortly after South Sudan gained its independence from Bashir’s den in 2011, James Okuk, a South Sudan-based political commentator said he was thrown ashore by South Sudanese’s embassy in Washington DC, of having allowed an Ethiopian Nuer to celebrate the birth of our nation with his own cultural dance. Come on, hello! the last time I checked, the Nuers are one of the over 60 nationalities that anchors South Sudan. And if it wasn’t due to the evil machinations of a number of successive Jallaba’s regimes, the Ethiopian Nuers and the whole of Anyuak Kingdom would have been sandwiched to South Sudan. Is there any difference between a South Sudanese Nuer’s dance and an Ethiopian Nuer’s one? I don’t see any difference anywhere. Rather, what divides this community into two incompatible communities is the artificial border between South Sudan and Ethiopia.
We all have our own cultural prejudices which we conceal to greater lengths at the gatherings of the nationalities. These predesposited opinions mired themselves into the “my own turn turf or self” while we are around people different from our cultural upbringings. And so, Mr. Okuk, was defending his own turn turf in a way when he dismissed the Nuer’s dance as something inappropriate. He so wished that it was his culture that was showcased that day. If each and everyone of the over 60 nationalities ratchets up its own prejudices against each other, total cataclysmic chaos of an apocalyptic proportions would ensue. That is just one way of taking the country towards institutionalized discrimination based on tribal grouping. Beleaguering your opinions against other good citizens is one sure way of creating a society that doesn’t show allegiance to its nation. Institutionalized discrimination could lead to retaliatory attacks against the aggressors, or the society could fall into the abysmal depths of gloominess.
As South Sudan is slowly progressing towards the podium of finding our national identity, we have to do away with our inner “self/my own turf” cultural opinions and make room for power sharing and the practice of inclusiveness. Making sure that different nationalities are appropriately represented at their constituencies would mirror the communities they render service-delivery to. What drives everyone of us to compete against one another is to have a piece of the money-lavished pie that everyone is after. We all want it for our very own survival. Some people are even born good-natured and they end up not wanting to take away everything that his/her closest rival possesses. Naturally, they are laid-back and only want a scant amount of the whole pie for themselves just to survive the day. In conclusion, if Mr. Okuk and many others are not given a portion of the treasured trove according to their representation in South Sudan, they will never rest until they are paid their dues.
By Apioth Mayom Apioth. Email:generalpito@hotmail.com
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