The breakup of Africa's largest country will be a sad event. Smaller countries have fewer resources with which to face a potentially hostile global environment. Smaller countries unnecessarily duplicate national services. Most importantly, the process of breaking countries apart necessarily is a horrible waste of human life.
Secessionist movements in the Sudan and Congo have ready access to outside weapons while potential secessionist movements in California or Michigan have no access at all. Period. That's the difference. The Michigan Militia can tell a heartfelt story of how they are aggrieved just as well as any secessionists anywhere in the world, but nobody is shipping cargo planes full of arms to them.
Given weapons, the US would treat secessionists just as brutally as Gaddafi treated Benghazi.
Unfortunately, the global South has a much smaller proportion of people who've had the luxury to gain an understanding of the harm that is done taking large countries and breaking them into small pieces and of the increased weakness and vulnerability of smaller countries compared to larger ones.
There are good days and bad days. The day Mubarak left office was a good day. The day Sudan officially separates is a bad day. And on both good days and bad days we have to just keep moving forward.
2 comments:
Might (northern) rump-Sudan be better off as part of Egypt?
More generally, I think the problem in Africa is too many arbitrary borders drawn by the colonial powers.
The new Southern Sudan is also land locked. These guys are going to have so many challenges in the future.
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