South Sudan voting for its independence, and we will have a secular country in six months, in one month we will come to know about it! I see it as India-Pakistan of Africa with one country with single defined state religion/language while the other being multicultural and secular (and corrupt). Whatever it may be, I congratulate south Sudan (or the name they call it in two months) all the very best.
All southerners need to do is to turn up at least 60% and vote at least 51%, and boom! There is very little chance that South will vote for unity (after all things happened) that would be unfortunate. Good news is, so far they dint find anyone who wants to vote for unity (look at us! Celebrating defeat of unity 🙂 ). There is also a tiny chance that north will deny the independence for south (as happened in Burmese election). But for the time being let’s not put this idea into their head.
I will be celebrating it with a Champagne, in February, so will billion others around the world. This probably will be most celebrated divorce ever, for a million reasons. A small fraction of those million reasons I can think of are:
- Peace! After couple of million killed over couple of decades.
- Home rule, spending its own money on their own country!
- There will be roads, schools and hospitals in south! Which rest of the world built centuries ago? (Fact: First tar road out of any town in South Sudan being laid in 2011)
- Multi-cultural! Good to have no dominant culture which decides how rest of the tribes can be flogged!
- There is international community to help newborn country. BTW Did I mention George Clooney is my favourite actor?
Once advice for South, don’t be precious on Abyei region. We have a similar situation here, we call it Kashmir.