The White Nile Chaos: Let’s Calm Down and Revisit our Collective History on the Nile Waters and the Jonglei Canal Project

By Makneth Achiek, Kampala, Uganda

Monday, July 11, 2022 (PW) — The issues that have recently dominated South Sudan’s national discourse are things deeply rooted in history. Whether we are for the dredging of the Naam River or not, if we don’t remind ourselves of where we came from as South Sudanese, it would be very difficult to keep our fears under control and be humble about our views and opinions.

It is absolutely disgraceful seeing some of our leaders, intellectuals and activists, turning the conversation on the dredging of rivers and resumption of excavation of the Jonglei Canal into a quarrel. Any government project that is meant to serve the interests of citizens must have policies that ignite pride and patriotism among all citizens, but it becomes a tragedy when those policies fragment rather than unify our society. All thanks and applause should be given to President Salva Kiir for his timely intervention in this matter.

Over the past few days, we have listened to many stories, but none answers our curiosity. We have seen communities frame their emotional motives as moral motives and inflicted their illusions upon others with an air of self-righteousness. We have heard some of our political leaders chastising those who oppose the project, but none of them cares to recall that persuasion can’t be achieved through intimidation!

Right now, social media is boiling over with partisan dramas. Many of the lesser things concerning our future have been drilled into our minds, but greater things have not been brought to our attention. South Sudanese civil populations are less trusting of Egyptians; this mistrust evolved during the Turco-Egyptian, and Anglo- Egyptian rules of the then Sudan. Even though the time and circumstances have changed, the mistrust has persisted to this day and is now being expressed in form of prejudice and negative emotions toward the Egypt-backed project on the White Nile. We need to remind ourselves that the highest authority in the world is a human feeling, and whatever the government intends to do with that project should be based on careful consideration of the emotional features of all south Sudanese.

In case we forgot, slavery in Southern Sudan was introduced for the first time by Egyptian rulers. When Turco-Egyptian rulers organized an expedition along the Nile in the 1830s, it was not for the benefit of the then Southern Sudanese. They were motivated by the desire both to discover the source of the Nile and to procure more slaves. The shocks caused by the slave trade in our communities have not yet fully disappeared. Stories containing how our peoples were dehumanized had been passed from the lips of one generation to the next.

Today, our communities recall memories of the slave trade and rekindle grievances precipitated by past experiences. Those who suffered in one way or another still see some resemblance to the action of the past in the present involvement of the Egyptian government in our national project. We can’t blame our people for the kind of mistrust they have toward Egyptians, the norm of mistrust is one of the things that protected our ancestors against slave raiders, and it is the only thing that can protect us now from manipulation and exploitation. How our peoples feel about this project might be dismissed as some sort of irrationality and paranoia, but we should not be worried; a minimum of irrationality and paranoia are necessary for this situation if we want to stay inside history and benefit from the Nile water resources.

Again, the Anglo-Egyptian conquest of Southern Sudan was based on the need to secure the White Nile headwaters for the Egyptians’ benefit. The swampland of South Sudan was brought into world focus after Great Britain conquered Egypt and took control of the Suez Canal. The invasion of Egypt by the British greatly angered France because the Suez Canal was dug by Frenchmen using French financial resources and technology and therefore it was natural among the Europeans that France, not Britain, should have the upper hand in Egypt.

After all the diplomatic attempts to have Great Britain withdraw failed, France opted to take control of the White Nile with the intention of regulating its flow. In 1893, Mr Victor Prompt, a French engineer, conducted a public lecture about the possibility and practicability of obstructing the Nile waters. Victor suggested to the French government that “a dam could be built across the Upper Nile and used in such a manner as to put Egypt in danger of either drought or rampaging flood waters”. The French leaders applauded Victor’s lecture and in 1895, the French government issued an official endorsement of the expedition to Fashoda to secure and control the headwaters of the Nile. In July 1898 the French expedition under the command of captain Marchand arrived in Fashoda and signed a treaty with the Shilluk kingdom.

After receiving the news of the presence of French troops in the Upper Nile, Great Britain threatened to declare a full-scale war on France if Captain Marchand refuses to withdraw. France withdrew her forces from Upper Nile on November 3, 1898, after realizing that, her military capability at the time was quite deficient. We should all recall that one of the problems faced by the British officers after securing the While Nile was what to do with the people; their mission was to secure the Nile Valley for the benefit of the Egyptians and to make sure that no other colonizing power is allowed to establish administration along the white Nile.

The image of South Sudan produced since 1880 is full of damaging stereotypes. In all 19th-century exploration kinds of literature, what is now South Sudan was described as an inaccessible swamp inhabited by archetypal savages – a place whose people were incapable of meeting the challenges of the modern world; all of these had origin in the Egyptians’ desire to have the indigenous communities along the White Nile destroyed.

When one group prepares for war against another, whether they are tribes or nations, first they must demonize the enemy, and demonise we were. In practice, however, South Sudan’s indigenous communities along the Nile still face a number of external threats and challenges to their continued existence and cultural heritage. As long as our regional leaders fail to recognize the conspiracy in this project, or fail to respect the emotional features of all South Sudanese and as long as Egyptians’ greed for water remains the driving force for this project, we are doomed to miseries and uncertainties.

The value of the Sudd swamp is not just a cup of water we drink, it symbolizes life itself. Apart from its resources, it is a major source of security and defence for the local populations. All the Nilotic peoples who survived the slave trade, and the series of wars that occurred in South Sudan, owe their survival to the “toic”. No Nilotic leader in his/her natural state of mind can suggest something that has the potential to suffocate this important ecological system in our land. If there is a need to dredge our rivers, it should be a scientific research program, not a charity endeavour. Why were the Egyptians so quick to donate the dredgers? We should first pay attention to the intention of the giver before we appreciate the kind of gift received.

The ancestors of the current Egyptians did not like our forefathers; What madness makes us believe their descendants would save our peoples from floods? Lest we forget, the Jonglei canal was initiated by Egyptians to retrieve the lost volume of water in the swamp region, never was it for the interest of the local populations.

It is very unfortunate some of the prominent leaders in the Greater Upper Nile region are not critical and deliberate; much of their thinking is based on what effortlessly comes to mind. When they are demanded to provide leadership, they reach for simple solutions and use mental shortcuts much of the time – wielding natural disasters and peoples’ despair as weapons to be used for political mobilization. All they did was open an old garbage container full of festering resentments and call it a solution!

Generation of Nilotic peoples had coped with many severe floods before, what is making things difficult for this generation is a lack of unity. Communities no longer aid each other when the need arises because bad politics and populist politicians have blasted the rock upon which Nilotic Moral Community rested. The networks of exchange that were used to link our peoples are mutilated. This reality has subverted the public morality in the Region, leaving our communities trapped in an equilibrium of uncooperative behaviour and mistrust. Instead of cooperating to overcome the challenges of floods, our people are instead eyeing each other with increasing suspicion. Pathetic!

Before we even talk of dredging our rivers, there is a need for the people along the White Nile valley to dredge their mental faculty in order to break the spell of self-deceptions. The most practical thing we need now is a good mind with a good concept to guide our collective behaviour and to be used as an instrument to measure the current realities.

Approximately sixty per cent of the Greater Upper Nile populations, particularly Unity State, are being warehoused either in UMISS POCs, IDPs camps or refugee camps, and all our youth could ask for is the dredging of the Naam river. Something must be wrong with our memories! We need to cultivate better consciousness among the people, more than we need the dredging of our rivers.

Every young person in the Greater Upper Nile or Unity state should know that the old way of doing things is no longer working. The old story has collapsed and no new one will ever emerge to replace it until we change our approach to the world and evaluate the world’s realities around us in terms of where we want to go or what we want to do as a Nation. If the young people fail to tune their consciousness to the demand of the time, then the community will remain at the risk of living on an ad hoc basis, just operating as reactionaries.

The war between the Arab world and black men in South Sudan is not necessarily over. The fact that our borders are not clearly defined requires us to examine carefully what enters our land from North Sudan to avoid the potential risk of Islamic expansionism and occupation. Unity State is one of the frontline States in this situation, and every young person in Bentiu should be critical of Egypt’s operations in the land. If we are not careful with our national sovereignty, Unity State will be a contested area just like Abyei. We need to do some soul searching and reflect on the reason why the area was named Unity State: unity with what or whom?

The author, Makneth Achiek, is a South Sudanese and can be reached via mkdagoot@gmail.com.

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