President Kiir is a "Constitutional President" not a 'Democratically Elected President!"

Most of us in South Sudan are not independent thinkers even when we pretend we are! Some South Sudanese writers and thinkers in Southern States of the country support Federalism not because they’ve actually looked into the inherent benefits to the constituents of the region but because the majority of the citizens embrace it given their flimsy understanding of the system, or because vocal voices in their areas support it, or that, they believe, it’ll give them an opportunity to get rid of the ‘occupiers’ on their land.

None of the supporters of Federalism has ever advanced any convincing reason that’s not either reminiscent of the infamous 1980s ‘Kokora’ or the regionalized tribalism and regionalist sycophancy.  States have governors, parliaments, state MPs, State laws. We somehow have a system that’s structurally resembling other Federal Systems in the world. What is lacking is to actually give more powers to the states and limiting president’s interference in state affairs.

And those who oppose Federalism do so because they support the government and the government opposes it. And the government has absolutely no credible reason advanced in opposition to the system and why they think Federalism would be bad. The only reason they have is that Riek has rekindled the flame of Federalism. This is not the first time Riek has done something like this. Riek feeds on popular aspirations of the people and exploits them.

Self-determination wasn’t a darling of the SPLA/SPLM until Dr. Riek and Dr. Lam made it their focal point in Abuja I in 1992. It was only one of the alternatives in Dr. John’s famous multi-layered Vend Diagrams but not the preferred alternative. UNITY of Sudan was! The two doctors wanted to outsmart Dr. John Garang. However, the way Dr. John changed astonished not only the doctors, but Garang’s friends in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Garang embraced Self-Determination to the chagrin of the Nasir duo and even made it central to Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA); giving birth to Referendum!

Riek and Lam had met an ideological propagandists, ideological chameleon, and also, an ideological wizard who couldn’t be outsmarted.

So folks who oppose Federalism are doing so because people they support don’t like it. They’ve not presented any convincing reason why they oppose it.

This is our major problem. We ally based on irrational positions we hide in ideological, tribalized regionalism and intellectualized tribalism.

We don’t think for ourselves!

That’s why we hear time and again from South Sudanese officials and government supporters that President Salva Kiir Mayardit is a “democratically elected president” of South Sudan!

No! President Kiir was a democratically elected president of the government of ‘Southern Sudan.’ He’s a CONSTITUTIONAL President of the Republic of South Sudan. There was no election held after the independence of South Sudan! None!

Racism vs. racism: Racial pride vs. Radicalization of Racial pride

Racism is simply the idea that one’s race is better than any other race. This is a natural perception, assumption or feeling about one’s race. Taking it in itself by itself, it’s benign. We all believe that there’s something special about ourselves or our race. This is a natural feeling about one’s self no one should be denied. We all can express it all we want.

Europeans can pride in who they are and Africans can pride in who they are.

If pride in one’s race isn’t the problem then what’s the problem?

While a simple pride in one’s race is acceptable, the application of that pride in one’s race is what we need to keep our eyes on. Some people believe that their race is the best and stop from there…they don’t go any farther.  Others believe their race is the best but take it a little farther. They either flaunt the success of their race with flamboyant arrogance or they use that pride to make sure that others feel bad about their race. In a word, they use the pride in their race as an instrument to not only pride in their race, but to make sure that other races are not only put down, but that the conceptual distance between themselves and other Races is greatly increased.

One might feel bad or sad when put down through racial pride but that’s not the evil of racism. That’s more about one’s emotional strength then it’s about any truth about races.

But that still, by itself is not the problem!

So being proud of your race (even with excessive edge) is not the problem. And using that pride in one’s race to put others down, while bad, isn’t the major problem in what we consider the evil of ‘Racism.’

So what’s the problem with race and Racism?

A feeling about one’s self is innate. It’s not something you create! While it might be enhanced by some factors within one’s social environment, one’s general feeling about oneself is natural. So one’s feeling about one’s race is a bigger version of one’s feeling about one’s race.

Feeling about one’s self à pride in one’s family à pride in one’s collective group à pride in one’s race
This is simply a natural progression and there’s nothing wrong or unnatural about it.

Here’s where the problem lies when it comes to racism.

There are effectivizing factors that play into racism to make it either effective or affecting. These are the instrumentalizing issues I call Instigating Factors. And these are the factors that determine the evils that originate from racism.

Some of these factors are

-          Hatred
-          Power
-          Wealth
-          Bigotry (religious or otherwise)
-          Poverty