Independence Day

Tomorrow, July 9, 2011, is the official independence day of the Republic of South Sudan.  Out of the ashes of war and destruction that have covered this land for decades a new nation will be born.  A nation of more than 200 disparate tribes spread across an area the size of Texas will be officially united.  The people here are eager and excited for this day, but the most pervasive sentiment seems to be relief.  It has been a mere six years since the CPA (Comprehensive Peace Agreement) was signed between North Sudan and South Sudan and while peace has been mostly sustained during that time there has still been much uncertainty about South Sudan's future. Tomorrow will, hopefully, bring real renewal to the people and land that have suffered so much for so long.

Today there is still fighting that began a month ago in Sudan along the border in Abyei (Unity State) and the Nuba Mountains (South Kordofan), which are the areas rich with oil.  While there is some concern that the fighting will migrate south most people think that it will be contained in those areas which are so valuable because of the oil.  Several hundred miles lie between us at Harvesters (at the very southern tip of Central Equatoria) and the current conflict so we are, fortunately, far removed from the violence.

This week I've been teaching my students their new national anthem.  They are teenagers who remember the war and the sound of Northern Antonov planes flying overhead, who have lived in squalid refugee camps after fleeing their homes, who have seen their fathers and mothers die, and many who have been orphaned because of it.  They sing loudly and vibrantly, as if each word is bursting forth from a spring filled with all of their hopes for their futures, as if each word can redeem the pain of their pasts.  Yet they don't know the meaning of most of their own anthem.  Abundance, harmony, justice, liberty, prosperity, reign, patriots and martyrs are words unknown to these teenagers, so we are learning.  We are learning the things they are proclaiming for their country with their own mouths, and perhaps if they understand the words they sing they will live them out.  For if they praise God with their lives, and their lives speak of harmony, justice and liberty, and they sing songs of freedom, and live with joy, then surely prosperity and peace will reign in this place?

On Monday I came across Benjamin Franklin's speech at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and Foreign Policy's 2011 Failed States Index.  Sudan currently ranks third from the bottom, just above Somalia and Chad, on the list of the world's failed states.  I am reminded of statistics that have become far too familiar: half of the population doesn't have access to clean water, 85% of adults are illiterate, a 15-year old girl has a greater chance of dying in childbirth than finishing school.  

Sudan needs help, it needs billions of dollars in foreign aid and investments to create basic infrastructure and public services, it needs leaders who will seek peace and stability above wealth and power, people who will choose to build roads and construct plumbing systems before creating new cities in the shape of animals (true story, go ahead and click on that link), it needs a justice system that will prevent people from seeking their own revenge, it needs a generation of people willing and eager to work menial jobs to bring this country from its primitive roots into the 21st century, and on and on.

  

Yet I too subscribe to the words of Benjamin Franklin spoken 224 years ago, "that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured... in the sacred writings that 'except the Lord build they labor in vain that build it.' I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall be become a reproach and a bye word down to future age. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing Governments by Human Wisdom, and leave it to chance, war, and conquest."

So today, on the eve of the birth of the world's newest nation I pray a simple and conclusive prayer: that God, who removes kings and establishes kings and who brings nations into existence would continue to guide, protect and prosper the people of this land so that they may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity.

And I sing with the people of the new Republic of South Sudan:

Oh God, we praise and glorify you for your grace on South Sudan,

Land of great abundance uphold us united in peace and harmony.

Oh motherland we rise raising flag with the guiding star,

And sing songs of freedom with joy!

For justice, liberty and prosperity shall forever more reign!

Oh great patriots, let us stand up in silence and respect,

Saluting our martyrs whose blood cemented our national foundation. 

We vow to protect our nation.

Oh God bless South Sudan!