It is Time to Try Different Approaches to Resolving the South Sudan Crisis
Naivety in its height may dictate that lazy people conceive of the
conflict in South Sudan as being one dimensional or linear. Unfortunately, that
has been the case to many, including those who are charged with the
responsibility to propose some solutions to the crisis that has so far seen the
youngest nation record the worst humanitarian crisis of our time. If and when
we view the conflict from single dimensional-viewpoint; we fall into the same
trap of attempting a single solution to the conflict. There is no single
solution to the conflict in South Sudan either, not necessarily because it is
not one conflict but also because each conflict in South Sudan is complex in
its individuality. If individual conflicts are as complex and need more than
one solution, how much more will the multiple conflicts that there are in South
Sudan?
There is not one war in South Sudan; there are many wars with the worst being that one with people actively
fighting without knowing why they are fighting. It is normally not easy, but can
be possible to end a war whose owners are fighting for something that is known,
because in such a situation, those involved may stop the war if and when they
achieve, in part or in whole, what they are fighting for. But how do you end
wars in which fighters do not know what they are fighting for?
We have some wars in South Sudan that are being
actively fought by combatants who have no slightest idea of what they are
fighting for. We are being treated to similar old and tired narrative – it is a
tribal war. Which tribe is fighting which tribe in South Sudan and why? Often
times tribe is the lazy way of interpreting wars - especially when such wars
occur in Africa. In reality most – if not all so called tribal wars – have
nothing tribal in them. It is an easy-to-arouse sensational means of provoking
people to fight when and during a time when owners of real wars want to
(mis)use “their people” to pursue narrow – often selfish personal gains. The
result would be – as is the case in South Sudan – thousands of people being
recruited and deployed to actively and passionately fight for what they know
not.
For us to resolve the issues in South Sudan, we
must be willing to reject as false, the simplistic analyses hurled our way.
Let’s accept that many people and nations are fighting in South Sudan and
interests are as varied and diverse as there are actors. Crossing of such
interests at various stages and levels has led to a web of intricate wars whose solution must and can never
be linear and/or single dimensional. Let none suggest one solution to end the
crisis in South Sudan. Actually let none pretend they know the solution to
ending the wars in South Sudan. I suggest we give innovation a chance. Let us
have a thoroughgoing investigation into the real and actual causes of the wars
in South Sudan and let us be open to numerous creative strategies to attempt
solutions to the troubles bedeviling the country. Multiple multi-level
multi-stakeholder approaches may be our best bet. Horizontal
ethic of organizing, which favors democratic inclusion at the grassroots level; one
that empowers the people, organizes them and deploys them to give birth to
pragmatic workable strategies to untie the web of conflicts will clear the way
for South Sudan. Nothing stops us from experimenting on creating and managing
change processes that can activate civil, military, religious,
ethnic fusions to untie the nods of wars in South Sudan.
This would entail the courage to reject as
false track one initiatives such as those of IGAD because they simply are not
going to offer any solution to South Sudan. The processes in Ethiopia are not
only far removed from the realities of the people of South Sudan – especially
those actively fighting without reason – but also based on false grounds. They
won’t work.
It is Time to Try Different Approaches to Resolving the South Sudan Crisis
Reviewed by Ibrahim Magara
on
September 26, 2016
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