Time for South Sudanese to pen their own history?
Experts gathered at a book launch on Thursday, August 8, in a bookshop in Juba said that local writers need to do more to chronicle the young nation’s history.
‘Dealing with the Government in South Sudan’, written by Dr. Cherry Leonardi, a British historian and lecturer at the University of Durham was launched at Leaves Bookshop, a local nonprofit initiative. The event sparked questions as to why the South Sudanese were not telling their own history.
The cover of ‘Dealing with the Government in South Sudan’.Fellow colleagues in the Juba University should study and publish research. The President has also done a good thing by retiring many officials, who can now begin to write,” said Taban Lo Liyong, a University of Juba professor and author of many books. It is through publishing that the University could contribute substantially to documenting the history of this nation.”
He noted that national scholars were disappointed to see their history being written by foreigners. Part of the lack of locally written research is because many potential authors are involved in the government, he said.
John Makuol, a doctoral student attending the event, said the colonial period had undermined respect for traditional history, via a modern education which stigmatised traditional practices. When the children of the chiefs were sent to schools during the colonial era, all African traditional values were regarded as evil, backward and valueless. This belief has continued to shape the whole education system in the succeeding generations.”
All African traditional values were regarded as evil, backward and valueless.”
A lack of historical documentation has beset the world’s newest country. The country’s borders are blurred and depend on international arbitrations, such as the ruling on Abyei borders by the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in 2009. Meanwhile, Britain, South Sudan’s former colonial master plays a key role in the negotiations on disputed borders.
Part of the problem in writing a local history comes down to an absence of archives. Most information is held in libraries in Britain. Until recent archiving projects, documents were a low priority in South Sudan and often rotted due to ill-storage. This information gap has led many writers to focus on recent decades of post-colonial history, covering the era following the outbreak of the first Sudanese civil war.
Archives in South Sudan: moving time”.
Asked about ‘Dealing with the Government in South Sudan’, British historian and lecturer at the University of Durham, Dr. Leonardi said she was inspired to write about South Sudan’s traditional authorities when she found out that there was already a government within a region under guerrilla control (Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army [SPLM/A]) in a visit to Yei (Central Equatoria State) in 2004. This was before negotiations had concluded on the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).
The book delves into the core of South Sudan’s history, presenting comprehensive chronological developments in the traditional administrative system extending back to the early nineteenth century to the present-day government of South Sudan. She explains why chiefs have remained at the core of local government and justice in South Sudan over the past century.
