History knows no boundaries: A historical perspective of the Republic of South Sudan
The portion of this article was posted in 2013 before the crisis of South Sudan has begun, titled as “Credit can be given to where it belongs” on the local forum by the same author of this current article.
By Dr. Simon Wuor Gai, Nebraska, USA
June 3, 2016 (SSB) —- The purpose of this article is an attempt to clear the air pollutions regarding some writers’ arguments that the self-determination of the Republic of South Sudan was brought to being by the current SPLM in-Opposition’s leader, Dr. Riek Machar, as opposed to the late charismatic leader, Dr. John Garand de Mabior. Thus, the aforesaid argument has been up in the air after the signing of the CPA, which culminated in secession for the independence of South Sudan in 2011, spearheaded by the incumbent president, Salva Kiir mayardit after the demise of Dr. John Garang de Mabior in the suspicious presidential helicopter crash on July 30, 2005.
Therefore, the argument was real and intense between the debaters without any compromise from each side till this hour when writing this piece of work. In other words, each side is convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that their side of the story was the historical fact. If one has to pose a question to either side, does each side has any objective data to support their conclusions whether or not the Independence South was brought to being by either Dr. John Garang or Dr. Riek Machar?
By using the aforementioned question as a guide in the preparation of this short and brief article, this author will point the finger at scholarly research articles, which are written by professional researchers and third parties, who have no special interest from each side. Rather, they reported their findings on the basis of the scientific evidence. Although the author is cognizant that this paper will not fulfill the function of the standardized scholarly peer-review article, this writer will not hesitate to present some historical facts offered by the professional researchers and world scholars, who have no particular interest between the tribes of South Sudan’s politics.
With that being said, my article of 2013, titled as “Credit can be given to where it belongs” was an opinion article, assumption; or otherwise, it was based on personal knowledge without any objective data collected prior to its preparation. Like any citizen of our nation, I might have had biases, personal assumptions, prejudices, misinterpretations, generalizations, personal interest, among the other.
However, today article is validated by scholastic arguments to answer some folks’ claiming that the independence of the South Sudan was brought about as a result of Dr. Riek Machar’s argument to fight only for the Independence of South Sudan. In this context, the said argument earned Dr. Riek Machar a third nickname dubbed as “The Champion of the Self-determination” and “Champion of the Democracy” as such. While this writer was dissatisfied with the stolen credit; otherwise, let me call it as plagiarism in academic terms, I was forced to write the opinioned article mentioned above by personal knowledge.
Thus the today article, titles as “History knows no boundaries…” has drawn on some historical facts written on the basis of scientific evidence. I, therefore, came to the conclusion that my opinion article of 2013 had a correlation with those peer-reviewed journal articles already written in the field of human science by different academic and practitioner-scholars. In that article, I argued that Dr. Riek Machar did not bring about the self-determination as his supporters alleged.
With that in mind, it has to be noted that history knows no boundaries and that credit can be given to where it belongs. For instance, the Buffalo Soldiers (African-American Cavalry Soldiers) in American History were not denied their credit when they fought in an American civil war in 1866, although they were not fully recognized U.S citizens at a time. They were given the name of Buffalo, suggesting that they were the best fighters and braves as a Buffalo. In the same line of reasoning, any phenomenal event, achieved by one of our citizens must be given to him/her whether or not she/he comes from a big tribe, small tribe, male/female, grown-up adult, child, and elderly.
To repudiate Dr. Machar’s proponents by using scholastic language, I will argue that the idea of South Sudan Independence was in existence since 1947 in line with the existence scientific evidence. Therefore, it is not Dr. Machar being an inventor of self-determination of South Sudan as his supporters claimed. The idea came from South Sudan Independence Movement (SSIM) of Anya Anya one. Historical facts indicated that Southerners asked British Gov’t since 1947 in Juba Conference to have their own federation, which was rejected on the grounds that they were not intellectually matured enough. To use the exact excerpt, the following quote came from the scholastic work of Mbogo (2013) as he put it:
“The British government selected the seventeen delegates to the conference, who were virtually all on its payroll as tribal chiefs, junior officials, or police officers. Despite those inhibitions, some of them expressed their fears that northern politicians would outmaneuver them and that they would be underrepresented in the assembly, with only 14 percent of the seat…Nonetheless, the British officials joined the three northern participants in insisting on a unitary system and persuaded most of the southern delegates to support that concept on the grounds that the South would benefit tangibly: the region’s isolation end and the south would gain its fair share of civil service posts (Ambogo, 2013). Also, interested readers are referred to Lesch (1999).
In addition to the above historical facts, scholarly evidence indicated that Torit Mutiny took place in 1955 prior to Sudan Independence in 1956 from the British government. While the historical data are beyond the scope of this article, this author incorporated a portion of it only to validate the historical fact to repudiate Dr. Machar’s proponents’ arguments that Dr. Machar was a champion of self-determination. With the conclusion of this evidence presentation, I will now shift the gears back to the main theme titled as, “History knows no boundaries…”
Although we love our country, as evidenced by our thoughts, and actions on the daily basis, we need to rely on scientific evidence and that nobody can be robbed of his credits or denied his/her contributions to our nation. As a result, I am not suggesting that Dr. Machar did not contribute to the liberation struggle of our nation. Rather, I am saying that giving him credit, which is contrary to scientific evidence by itself is a crime punishable by law. For instance, intellectual property law allows a lawsuit against anyone who happens to commit a plagiarism or copyright violations. Dr. Machar himself has a copyright on his intellectual work when he has received his doctorate in Great Britain awhile back. Today, if you and I go to the archived database, copy his dissertation, and present it to the world as our scholarly work, he will take you and me to court where you and I can suffer in terms of reputation, monetary value, and imprisonment. In this context, the question becomes, why such an educated man allows people to plagiarize on the behalf of his name as if he were not aware of intellectual property laws?
To answer my first question, used as a guide for the preparation of this piece, as to whom brought about the Independence of South Sudan. It was Dr. Garang, who picked up the idea of liberation, but restructured the mission statement for the sake of gaining some alliances from within Sudan so that the war could be won and easy on the Southerners. For example, he was able to gain an alliance with people of Blue Nile, people of Nuba Mountain, and those of Sadig Al Mahdi and dissidents of the regime in Khartoum at a time. Once again, interested readers are referred to Garang’s Modalities (2002).
As we all know the history of our nation, we all know the strengths and the limitations of Dr. Riek, which are beyond the scope of this article, to say the least. Therefore, scholastic works proved it beyond a shadow of doubts that it was not Dr. Riek, who brought about the separation of our nation from the north. But he could be a part and parcel of it like any other private citizen, such as you and I. Therefore, giving him this credit is a theft of intellectual property of another person, punishable by laws. With the conclusion of the first question, I am now ready to answer the second question, as to why Dr. Riek remained silence over the stolen credit on his behalf.
Well, traditionally, if one knows that one of his children has stolen a neighbor’s item, and he/she does not question a child and subsequent discipline over it, the child will continue doing so. This is because the silence over the theft neighbor’s item means acceptance and appreciation to the said child from the family figure and role model. Therefore, Dr. Riek needs to come out clearly and tell the people of the South Sudan that he has accepted the stolen credit or clear his name out from it. Personally, I was compelled to clear the air about this argument because I do not feel good about it. Dr. Riek himself as a Doctoral degree holder has a copyright on his dissertation. I wonder why a man of caliber like him would be in such a position of deceiving his subordinates.
Finally, my personal message is that we need to put the history of our nation straight to where it belongs. Otherwise, the scientific community will define it for us. Let us not fight over what one did not achieve. I always sum it up with one sentence. We all contributed to the liberation struggle of our country either directly or indirectly, and this is a fact. As a result, nobody can be denied from that contribution, but let us not steal credit from each other because history would not appreciate it. At the same time, empirical evidence is everywhere about our country. Meaning, one may be caught red-handed if they try to steal credit somewhere because of favoritism.
As scientific evidence indicated, there is nowhere to be found that Dr. Riek Machar has brought about the Independence of South Sudan. If a man was not able to deliver it to the people of South Sudan while he signed 1997 Khartoum Peace Agreement, then why would he deliver it through the SPLM, which was spearheaded by Dr. John Garang and only welcome him back to the movement as a brother. Please let us tell the truth. The Bible puts it that “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” John 8: 32. Similarly, the country is ours and saying the truth will set us free. In other words, history knows no boundary. With that in mind, if we fail to present the history correctly, academic researchers will define it for us.
For those of you who will take time out of their busy schedule to read this article, I thank you in advance. South Sudan Oyeeeeeeeeee!
Dr. Simon Wuor Gai, the author, is a resident of the U.S and a recent postgraduate with a doctoral degree at the Colorado Technical University, Colorado, USA. He is also an employee with the state government in Good Life State of Nebraska. He can be reached at simongai22@gmail.com
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