Letters to Juba
...sharing experiences of 50 years of independence
It has been fifty years since most African states were granted their freedom from European colonial powers.
Looking back, the first half century of independence has for most of them been one plagued by corrupt rulers, economic mismanagement, extreme poverty, conflict, hunger and rampant disease.
On July 9th 2011, South Sudan officially gained its independence and became the world’s youngest state. As this country begins on its long and surely arduous journey towards development, one can only hope that it will avoid many of the same pitfalls and mistakes that lead to underdevelopment in virtually all other African countries.
The conditions do not look promising.
For the better part of the last fifty years there has been war between the South and the North of Sudan. Shortly after independence fighting erupted in several regions as armed rebel groups from either side of the border are demanding power. Most of the fighting is in the border regions where the oil is located. Every other week there is an attack on a village, refugee camp or oil pipeline.
About 98% of national income is derived from oil revenues. Oil has been a curse to development in so many other African countries, exacerbating corruption and stifling innovation in other productive areas.
The country also suffers from severe underdevelopment. It has the lowest literacy rate out of any country in the world: only a quarter of the population can read and write. It also has the highest infant mortality rate: one in every nine children dies before they reach their first birthday.
For a country that faces so many simultaneous challenges, where does on start? For a nation of people that have only known violence, how do you make it stop?
I want to go there to see all of this for myself. I want to contribute my little part in the birth of this new nation.
In late February 2012, my brother Yanis and I will be packing up our little VW and driving from Cape Town to Juba, South Sudan’s capital.
En route to Juba we will drive through South Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda. The journey will take three months.
Along the way we will engage as many people as we can in each country. Teachers, artists, youth leaders, doctors, elders, refugees, politicians, beggars, academics, children, journalists, dissidents and whoever else wants to share their opinions with us.
We will ask them three questions:
1. What do you think are the most important issues facing your country?
2. What do you think are the causes that lead to these issues?
3. What advice, warnings or messages of support do you have to offer to your newest African brothers and sisters in South Sudan?
1. What do you think are the most important issues facing your country?
2. What do you think are the causes that lead to these issues?
3. What advice, warnings or messages of support do you have to offer to your newest African brothers and sisters in South Sudan?
What can the South Sudanese people learn from the failures and successes of its many African neighbours? This project is based on the belief that the answer to that question is ‘a whole lot’.
South Sudan is a democracy, at least on paper. The people have the power. If the people are educated they will be able to hold their government to account.
To guide and share experiences of fifty years of independence, Letters to Juba hopes to become a pan-African platform for the sharing of ideas and knowledge that has the ultimate goal of promoting real positive change.
There will be a number of concrete outputs from this project
1. A blog in which we will detail our journey, the impressions we gather and the people and places we encounter. The blog is meant to become a platform for the sharing of ideas. We will market it widely to encourage people to submit their thoughts to the three questions.
2. A number of articles about the things we encounter during the journey, published in various newspapers and magazines in South Africa, Europe and the U.S.
3. A photo journal. It will tell the stories and show the pictures of some of the many people we speak to.
4. A youth leadership project in South Sudan. The aim of the project will be to educate and motivate future leaders of the country. Funds for this project will also be raised through donations from the public and donors.
5. A report of the key findings of our discussions with the many people we meet along the way. Our target is to collect the contributions of at least 1,000 people in the eight African countries we will travel through. We will submit this report to the Minister of Social Development in South Sudan, as well as representatives from the United Nations and various embassies. We will also try to get the findings published in an academic journal.
