In our lifetimes, in Africa in the post-colonial experience,
right from the onset of the period of independence, there
has been a tendency to suppress culture and ethnic diversity
in the ostensible favour of national unity. What we have seen
in the 50-odd years of this experience is that these efforts
have hardly managed to entrench unity or suppress ethnic feeling.
This experience includes the tensions which opened the way
to the Nigerian Civil War in the 60s and the secession attempt
of the Igbo in Biafra; the Ewe secessionist movement which
followed the division of Togoland and the incorporation of
British Togoland into pre-independence Ghana under the auspices
of the United Nations; the simmering tensions between Akan
and Ewe in Ghana; the Northern minorities and the Southerners
in Ghana, the Northern nationalities and the South-west in
the Cameroon; the Fang and the non-Fang in Gabon; the Ovimbundu
and the Bakongo in Angola; the constantly fissiparous tendencies
in the Congo; the Lendu / Hima divide, the Luo, Kalengin,
Kikuyu triangle of tensions in Kenya, the Masai Kikuyu in
Kenya, the Hutu Tutsi divide in Rwanda and Burundi, allegations
of Xhosa-nostra in South Africa to explain the dominance of
the Xhosa in the African nationalist front, the problems in
the Casamance (Senegal), the Liberian ethnic tensions and
the closely similar Sierra Leonean situation, plus more all
go to point out that firstly, ethnic diversity and possible
tensions are not exclusive to any single country in Africa.
Even in relatively homogenous ethnic societies like Somalia
and Lesotho, there are still possible ethnic fissures in the
body politic. In the case of Somalia, this is manifested along
lines of clanship and in Lesotho it comes out as putative
cleavages between the Bafokeng clan and the Bakwena clan.
In Namibia, one often hears of tensions between the Ovambo
and some of the demographically lesser nationalities. In the
contemporary tensions in the Ivory Coast ethnicity has become
a potentially serious fault-line. In Chad, the north and the
south co-exist precariously. In Ethiopia, nationality tensions
have been, in part, responsible for the tensions we have seen
since the end of the Haile Selassie era.
What all this goes to show is the following; it is not possible
to sweep ethnic realities in Africa under the carpet with
the justification that they are expressions of tribalism and,
like the proverbial ostrich, pretend in the name of national
unity that they will vanish forever. It is rather better to
acknowledge these cultural differences and give them democratic
expression, celebrate them democratically and let people live
in co-existential diversity in which there is both shared
and interpenetrative cultural space and diverse cultural space
for different ethno-cultural groups. Tolerance is a key value
for this.
In recent years Uganda has made some limited progress in
this respect. The strengthening of the Ugandan kingdoms has
been recognizably beneficial for ethnic relations in the South
of the country. Political solutions in the North are long
overdue.
Most Africans on the continent live in tradition-bound communities
in which age-old cultural values and behavioural patterns
govern their everyday lives. These values supervise and socially
control behaviour and define their being as Africans in their
everyday lives. Overwhelmingly, these communities are rural
and most people hardly ever travel outside their ethno-linguist
world or beyond linguistic communities familiar to them. In
this sense most rural Africans are ethno-linguistically and
culturally localized and the recognizable solidarities, which
guide their lives are ethno-culturally fairly circumscribed.
This is the cultural world of the majority of Africans. They
are generally tolerant communities and anthropologically invariably
have interpenetrative and joking relations with their neighbours.
Tensions arise when the leadership of these communities or
the elites exploit ethno-cultural differences in order to
invariably gain access to resources and other benefits. Thus,
it is not ethnicity per se which causes conflicts and tensions,
but rather, the use to which they are put by rival elites.
Southern Sudan consists quintessentially of tradition-bound
African ethno-linguistic and cultural groups. The area is
overwhelmingly rural. Cultural affinities are strong and maintain
intense socializational solidarities on the African people.
It is hardly possible to socially order the society without
recourse to tradition and cultural values and it is necessary
to recognize values, which have held the societies together
in spite of the extended ravages of war. Indeed, Africans
have been able to resist Arabization on the basis of their
cultural values and realities. If peace is to remain and be
sustained in the Southern Sudan it is necessary for Africans
to be empowered with their cultural belongings; what they
know and what they have. The House of Nationalities is a brilliant
idea of how to recognize the cultural diversity, the linguistic
variation and the ethnic affinities which exist on the ground
and which order and socially control the lives of the people.
It will enable the Africans of the Southern Sudan to consult,
build, share cultural space and provide a forum to discuss
issues, which impinge on their realities as historical and
cultural entities. The House of Nationalities would meaningfully
strengthen social order at the community and village level.
It will serve as a bridge between the people and other societal
superstructures. The House of Nationalities should not be
conceived as a challenge to democracy but rather as a complement
to democratic institutionalization. It will protect Africans
against Arabization and cultural subjugation.
In the past, in my experience of the Southern Sudan in the
early 80s, the elites were able to exploit ethnic differences
in order to gain and maintain posts, and the successive Khartoum
regimes have been able to adeptly exploit ethnic differences
through the Southern elites. The House of Nationalities will
help to protect the Southern Sudan against such tendencies
in the future. Customary usages of a judicial kind, land adjudication
issues, conflict resolution at the macro and micro level,
and the dispensation of goods and services would be meaningfully
mediated by the House of Nationalities. Thus, using the age-old
institutions the House of Nationalities should provide a sure-footed
institutional basis for building a new democratic society
in the Southern Sudan
