Reconciliation and Identity In South Sudan (16)

A theoretical analysis of the church’s role in reconciliation processes and the challenges reconciliation efforts face in South Sudan.

In this section I will take what we have discovered in the previous sections of the analysis and put it all together. I will explain how the importance of Ubuntu in South Africa can serve as a blueprint in inferring the importance of a common understanding within a reconciliation process. I will explain why this common understanding is so vital and how we can use practices within reconciliation and restorative justice theory to help foster it.After going through the theoretical explanations of its importance, I will present how this would be best implemented as indicated by the theoretical analysis and the empirical data uncovered in the previous chapter.What we have seen throughout this chapter is that much of the systems and structures reconciliation and restorative justice theories depend on are absent in the South Sudanese context. Without these structures reconciliation can prove both difficult and problematic.Much of what would aid a reconciliation effort, such as a proper judicial system, simply isn’t present. As we have seen earlier in the chapter; reconciliation is essentially a renegotiation of identities, one that require a common ground across identity-divides to be nurtured and fostered. Here the concept of national-identity can be helpful. It is with this as our point of departure that we look at reconciliation theory in a different light. Namely; as a number of practices that work to reshape and restructure identities.Creating a national identity does not necessarily require people to dive into terrible events of the past. While reconciliation highlights the need to acknowledge suffering and victims of oppression, it is arguably too soon for South Sudanese. The structures around the process could be considered as too weak to hold the country and people together while digging into that difficult past. Perhaps it would be more beneficial for a people to engage in story-telling about their common and separate pasts, in an effort to begin a positive national-identity creation conversation. South Sudan is in many ways a new country, where a number of tribes and peoples have come together to form a state made up of formerly unlikely alliances. Each tribe has long historical and cultural roots, with their own religious aspects, as well as cultural and linguistically differences.At the same time they have all been involved in the same war against Khartoum and have all been at a state of war for almost half a century. While not unified the people here have interacted at some level over many generations. What the empirical data from Wunlit seem to suggest when viewed through our theoretical lenses; is that there is significant power in storytelling, utilising imagery as well as sharing myths and stories. This is also supported by reconciliation theory, which highlights acknowledgement of the past, and acknowledgement of suffering victims as a key element in achieving reconciliation among peoples. However, these ideas could also perhaps be employed with great effect in establishing a shared national understanding of each other as one people. A Dinka telling a story of how his family was slaughtered by a Nuer regiment, and vice versa, might result in acknowledgement of their suffering at the hands of each other, but perhaps it would be more beneficial for the Dinka and Nuer to come together in a different way.To tell each other stories of how the past half a century at war with the North affectedtheir families and their own lives, to talk about their common struggles, rather than the issues they have with each other, and to tell stories from their own culture and history to each other.They could beneficially engage in a process where villages from one tribe met with villagers from another, and quite simply told each other stories, not with the goal of finding similarities to define what being South Sudanese is, but rather to create a better understanding between the peoples, and thus create a naturally evolving understanding of what it means to be South Sudanese. One which the South Sudanese themselves define through their own cultural, historical and personal lenses. We will come back to the arguments for this later in the chapter. For now we will concentrate on why a commonidentity is a necessary foundation for reconciliation. To explore this I will use the South African concept of Ubuntu, a concept that played an important part in the theological and theoretical development of reconciliation practices.In speaking about Ubuntu, Bishop Desmond Tutu pointed out that when the black population of South Africa had suffered at the hands of apartheid, all of South Africa had suffered - it had harmed Ubuntu. This use of South African concepts to tie the black and white population together as one people served as a basis in understanding the suffering inflicted upon the other as having hurt the entire population. It was a common-identity that people could relate to. Apartheid had not just harmed the black population, it had harmed them all because of Ubuntu. Perhaps for reconciliation between tribes in South Sudan to be effective it would be necessary to tie South Sudanese together as one people through a concentrated national identity creation effort. In such a process it may be beneficial to employ reconciliation strategies such as truth-telling, using stories to create inter-personal connections and work through the past to help create the foundation for a unified national-identity. This in turn could provide a common understanding among peoples of South Sudan, which could serve as a basis for a continued effort to reconcile the different tribes within the country. Without a common understanding, efforts of reconciliation can run the risk of not being able to explain why reconciliation is desirable or what reconciliation truly entails.Once again we can look towards South Africa, the concept of Ubuntu provided both an understanding of what reconciliation would mean - namely the restoration of Ubuntu - and why it was necessary - The actions had harmed Ubuntu and there was a transcendent duty to restore it.It is this common understanding, that sense of unity that there is a noticeable lack of in South Sudan. One respondent described the process of creating a national identity as horribly neglected. As Cecilia Clegg points out reconciliation is about renegotiating identities in such a way that there is a will for co-existence. Thus converting a we vs them mentality into a collective us mentality. Yet without a process to establish what us would entail, it may perhaps become difficult to see what has to be reconciled. It lacks a foundation to build reconciliation from. Perhaps in order to better lay the groundwork for reconciliation between tribes it is necessary for the people involved to better understand what it means to be South Sudanese. In such a national-identity creation process it is equally important to know what makes each tribe and culture different, as it is to know what makes us all the same. To foster a common understanding of what it means to be South Sudanese it is perhaps necessary for South Sudanese to tell each other the stories of what makes them what they are. To sit down Dinka to Nuer and talk about their ancestors struggles, the myths and stories told by their forefathers, their experiences with cattle herding, to speak man to man and woman to woman as people, openly. Without any other goal other than to talk together to foster a better understanding between peoples.Here we have to keep in mind what Braithwaithe writes about cultural adaptability and cultural sensitivity, as well as restorative justice theories presented by Llewlyn and Philpott. In order for reconciliation, and in this case national identity creation, to be possible it has to involve the local communities and for it to be effective it requires people who know the culture, language and history to be involved. A South Sudanese identity has to evolve naturally from the cultural background it exists in. Here the South Sudanese churches have shown the ability to maintain trust between different groups, while at the same time being perceived as working wholly for the South Sudanese people.They have also shown themselves to be capable of adapting cultural practices, traditional mediation techniques and rituals to both get people together, to talk to each other and to resolve issues and conflicts that have appeared unsolvable at times. For the best possible impact, the church has to be actively involved in planning, creating and undertaking such a process. This ensures that all the cultural bells and whistles are present to ensure a holistic approach. Organising such meetings through the church ensures cultural sensitivity at the smallest community level, their lack of direct contact with the state power ensures that the process is owned entirely by the people and not guided by the state or any other organisation or overarching power. At the same time they have by far the broadest formalized and structured network in the country. They have a structure in place that can implement the process throughout the country and have the presence to continue it over a longer period of time.As we can see both in the NCC and NCA strategies for implementation, the church is perhaps the most important partner on the local level. They are both very clear that the church is the key facilitator for projects on the grassroots level and the most expansive network available that has influence in virtually every single local community in the country. As Braithwaithe points out only actors that are close to the community they intend to reconcile has the necessary understanding and knowledge of how reconciliation may best be adapted locally. The church which both has a governing body in the middle range through the SSCC and a local influence through various churches, has both the capacity to facilitate projects on a large-scale while simultaneously being aware of the local curiosities which can have an impact on the project’s success.They perceivably have the trust of the population. Therefore it is important that the church be involved and largely in charge of any project designed to improve local relationships between peoples, as they would provide a neutrality that any such process would be reliant on.In order to achieve a positive national identity process, relationships between all peoples would have to be improved. As the NCA and NCC both point out, women have a unique perspective of the future and the current conflict.Women are generally perceived as more oriented towards the future, as well as being more willing to put aside their differences for the future of their children and families. On this basis ensuring that women from various tribes and peoples can come together and discuss the past, the future and the present with other women could provide a unique stepping-stone for reconciliatory efforts. With that in mind; it could be as vital to have women to women conferences as people to people conferences. To have women from different ethnic and tribal backgrounds come together and simply talk to each other in an effort to redefine the threatening other. While men may hold the political power, the effort to help create a positive national-identity has to be done within all elements of the grassroots level. Here women play a significant part in every-day life. As Cecilia Clegg notes the societal peace - the will to coexist - is created and maintained by how we handle every-day life situations.