The Secession of Upper Nile Region: Brazen but not Ridiculous

 

By Kuir ë Garang (Editor)

Dr. Deng Bol Aruai. 

Photo: Courtesy of Dr. Deng Bol Aruai's Facebook Page

The proposal by Dr. Deng Bol Aruai (DBA) for the secession of the Upper Nile region from South Sudan is fascinating. It is neither ridiculous nor is it acceptable. It is a double-edge sword. Looked at carefully, one can find a silver lining in the proposition not only for Upper Nile but for South Sudan. I will come back to this silver lining.

How Dangerous?

But it can also be a very dangerous proposition. Meaning it can be used by power and ethnic entrepreneurs and megalomaniacs to create elite-centered, infra-national micro-states useful for resource control. The interest of such people is not freedom, democracy or the provision of services to the people. It is only the change of guards and the center of power.

This is what postcolonial African leaders did. They fought European colonial powers only to become the very colonial potentates and extractive politico-capitalists, quasi-foreigners subjecting their people to the same control structures. As Frantz Fanon has argued in The Wretched of the Earth, some freedom fighters were not fighting the oppressor for freedom; they were fighting the oppressor for a chance to be like the oppressor.

SPLM leaders, as many of us are aware, have done the same thing. They got rid of Khartoum’s elite only to assume the same oppressive and marginalizing governance modus operandi in Juba.

In other words, Dr. Deng’s proposal could provide a political, social and economic currency for those whose interest are small fiefdoms, some pseudo-feudal states they can control.

Because I have not talked to Deng Bol to ascertain the deeper social, political and economic issues behind his proposal, I want to be circumspect about assuming his motives. I will therefore leave my cautionary statement at that.

And I have not forgotten. Secessionist processes can be bloody and protracted.

Of course, Deng Bol is not ignorant of this. Political independence is never given away peacefully. Southern Sudan (Sudan), Katanga (DR Congo), Biafra (Nigeria), Taiwan (China), Tibet (China) and Western Sahara (Morocco) are good examples of how centers of powers can make even a peaceful quest for independence, even on sound grounds, bloody and terrifying.

A Chance for Reflection?

But the proposal can have a silver lining: A chance for a deeper reflective, reflexive process.  Why? People who want to protect the status quo usually treat revolutionary ideas with disdain. Trying to understand either the revolutionary proposal or the reason for which such proposals are suggested in the first place serves no purpose for them. Instant disdain and categorical rejections of such proposals are the first and only responses. Rationalizing or analyzing to find out their possible usefulness to them is a waste of time. Preposterous!

But why?

If the power structure benefits the powers that be as it is, they see no reason to change it.  “If it ain’t broke, why fix it,” as the Americans would say. That new ideas should be considered rationally and factually without being discarded a priori is still foreign to us. It should not be.

But in South Sudan, it is not only those in power who dismiss revolutionary ideas before they are considered thoroughly. Even those who have been left utterly destitute and despondent by a broken, rotten system in South Sudan still protect it, astonishingly. These are the people unashamedly calling Deng Bol names.

What we have failed to learn, and I am not sure why some of us learn it and others have not, is that you don’t have to accept a given proposal for you to treat it with the respect it deserves. Before one dismisses and administrative or political proposal, it is prudent, even professional, to consider its merits and flaws before rejecting it.

Considering the merits and flaws of any revolutionary (read bizarre) does not make you beholden to its acceptance. It only shows that your leadership is mature, sophisticated and resistant to superficialities.

Calling Deng Bol names or considering his mobility issues pre-conditions for national leadership only reflects the depravity of our society. We can reject Deng’s proposal without descending into needless emotional paroxysm draped in ableist nonsense. We can rubbish his ideas (not him ad hominem) by asking him to provide political, economic and social justification for his proposal, brazen as it appears to many of us.

Rejecting the Proposal

I reject Deng’s proposal for the same reason I reject ethnic federalism. That Bahr El Ghazal is the problem is either a wilful disinformation, because I do not think Deng Bol can be misinformed about the suffering in Bahr El Ghazal, or he is using it as a negotiation instrument not for himself but to force President Kiir and members of his court (in a European medieval sense) to pay attention: That the country may disintegrate.

For all the king’s courtiers to stick their heads in the mud thinking that everything is business as usual would have to be abandoned. If they realize Deng’s proposal is only a tip of a gigantic socio-political ice-berg, that is.

There is a Movement in the Equatorias for secession. There is also a campaign by some Nuer for independence of Nuer Nation (Rol Naath). The presence of administrative areas such as Ruweng and Pibor is symptomatic of secessionist sentiments writ small. These are all about discontent with someone or with some maladministration of some authority.

Before once dismisses Deng’s proposal mindlessly, one needs to ask oneself: What has motivated Deng to propose such a radical idea? The “why?” matters more than what happened or what is proposed. We also need to remember that “normal” ideas have never brought any change. Radical ideas, which become “normal” with time, bring about change. Think about all revolutionaries! How normal were their ideas?

But Deng knows very well that Upper Nile, Bahr El Ghazal and Equatoria have their internal problems. The moment the scapegoat has escaped, the internal scapegoat is created. While I agree the departure of President Kiir and some of the men around him may usher in a possible change in our political culture, I think secession breeds other problems. Some of the people destroying South Sudan around President Kiir are from Upper Nile. What would we do with them once we secede?

There is therefore no guarantee that Upper Nile as a sovereign state would be any peaceful and developed. What has sons and daughters of Upper Nile done so far in their own states, counties and bomas? Do they have existing social, political and economic practices that can be considered prototypes of a prosperous sovereign state writ small? No! Is it coincidental that all administrative areas are in Upper Nile? No! Internal discontent!

Is Dr. Deng showing promising signs of what Gregory Burns calls a transformative, moral leadership? No! Is there transparency in Deng’s initiative? No! In fact, Deng has already started to use “decrees”, a bad sign from the beginning for democracy.

But as much as I think Deng Bol’s proposal is wrong-headed, I also believe Deng is making us rethink some of the issues we take for granted. That is the silver lining. People should not belong to the same country just because we think it is right, normative. They should belong in the same country because all the elements that make one feel like what Philosopher Robert Paul Wolff calls “a full citizen” exist.

What does this mean then?

Let us learn the art of entertaining ideas we don’t like before we reject them. Ideas are not wrong because we don’t like them or because they come from people we don’t like.

The Message

Here is my main message. As a country of diverse ethnic groups and political opinions, let’s get used to the idea that citizens can table proposals, any bizarre or ridiculous ideas, regarding how the country should be governed. We don’t have to accept them. But we must consider them as ideas coming from fellow citizens.

Dismissing ideas a priori is a luxury of petulant children or those who status quo is profitable. As Machiavelli has argued in The Prince, those who are used to immoral governance methods that benefit them see no reason for change

Taken with a more philosophical and political grain of salt, Deng’s proposal is neither bad nor is it good. Its results, positive or negative, depends on who operationalizes it.

We can reject it but still use it to reflect deeply on the state of affair. Or we can use it to think about alternative forms of government. Hasn’t federalism, or decentralization as some politely call it, been the popular demands of the people of South Sudan since the 1950s? Wasn’t confederation one of John Garang’s administrative proposals?

Who governs us is irrelevant. How they govern is all that matters.

______________________

Kuir ë Garang (PhD) is the editor of the TPR. 

Youth Marginality and Marginalization: A conversation on the Crisis facing South Sudanese youth in Australia

Kuir  ë Garang (Editor)

 

Photo: Refugeeresearchonline.org

September 20, 2025

The following quotes are from my conversation with Dr. William Abur and Dr. Santino A. Deng. 

"You know, there's no any child that can be born as a bad child, for example. No, a child can be a difficult child...based on where the child is raised, based on the environment, based on the family situation, based on the school, based on the community, what the children do. So now with this current climate of the technology, some of the parents don't even know what the kids are doing as Dr. Santino mentioned it before. They can be in a room and the parents are happy. saying, well, my children are inside, they are not out. But they don't know what they are doing, who are the people that they are engaged with. And that is a bigger issue within a number of families. The conversations also don't break through. You know, the relationship between the young person and the parent, when that relationship is broken, it is hard for the parent to be able to play their role.

 The other burden that the parent are facing, most of the parent are struggling with work and the life generally. So they don't have enough time where they can be able to engage with their kid and especially with a teenager to be able to find out how they are going, you know, what is happening. Because it is important, we human being, need check-in. We need check-in to be...

 For example, children, those teenagers or younger children, they need check-in, you know, someone to come and have a conversation with them and say, hey, how did you go at school? How was the day? How did you go at work? How was your day? Those kind of check-in are very important. Psychologically, they are very useful. And this is where you find out that, okay, the person may be open up to talk about, you know, there was incident that happened at school.

 Or there was this that happened that made me upset. That is lacking that conversation. The basic check in. I would say the parent need to step up to be able to do just a simple check in a simple evaluation to check in your kit. Even though they are inside, you need to be able to knock knock at the door and come in and say hey, how is your day? How are you going?"  ~ Dr. William Abur.

 

~ Dr. William Abur.

"I think when we talk of parents, there are a lot that they can do and I am mindful and I understand that some parents might be struggling with other things, language barriers among others and the web, juggling web and so on. And sometimes being maybe some single mothers is really struggling with, you know, with the primary parenting support and trying to put the put on the table as well. But there are a lot that they can do. I have done some work a few years ago, maybe about seven years ago here in one of the school. And I was asked to do some work with a kind of the children that go to school, young people themselves and teachers in school so that I can get their perspective.

 It was one of the schools that was getting overwhelmed and have never been exposed into diversity before. And what came out of that report that I did was a lot of young people were saying, some of the things that I was mentioning earlier, saying that most of the time when they have issues at a school, they report to the teachers, most of the time they're getting ignored, even sometimes.

they get blamed for being the victim. so what happens sometimes they may end up fighting, taking law into their own hand because nobody is actually responding to their complaint and they become more victim and get expelled. Sometimes they get discouraged and told, you can't do this subject. Actually, William know very well that they work in some school here, maybe told that, this is too hard for you, you can't do it.

 Some parents proved some of their teachers wrong and said, I have to do it or go into another school and actually succeed. Some young people, may give in, but support become very crucial. I came across some example where young people were supported by their parents and some relatives and they actually succeed in so many ways. So what they told me was young people in particular."  ~ Dr. Santino A. Deng

                                                          ~ Dr. Santino A. Deng

 

Most immigrant communities face a host of challenges when they settle in a new countries. This is a historical problem. Meaning South Sudanese in Australia are not the only immigrant and refugee group to be in such a situation. South Sudanese in Canada have faced, and continue to experience,  similar problems among the youth. 

These problems, which Dr. William and Dr. Santino have addressed, include the following: 

1. Being neglected by teachers and school administrators
2. Being faulted when they are not at fault
3. Stereotypes and prejudgments
4. Racist treatment by the police
5. Overrepresentation in the criminal justice system
6. Cultural disconnect between home culture and host culture
7. Lack of appropriate, community role models
8. Lack of parental attention due to pressure from work and life
9. Misconstrual of what it means to be an Australia, Canadian or American
10. Incentivization from gangs and criminal to run criminal errands

Youth workers and scholars who study youth issues are familiar with these issues. They are characterized by overt and subtle issues of social marginalization and institutional neglect. 

On Sunday, I had a conversation with two South Sudanese Australian researchers as the beginning of what I think will be a protracted conversation. 

I wanted to unpack these problems from the perspective of researchers and from the Australian context. These researchers are Dr. William Abur, a lecturer at the University of Melbourne and Dr. Santino A. Deng, a researcher working for the government of Victoria, Australia. 

I asked them to lay out the issues within the Australian context, and to propose possible expert solutions. 

The following is our conversation.

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Kuir  ë Garang (PhD) is the editor of TPR. Follow me on X: @kuirthiy Instagram: @Kuirthiy