Author Archives: yok5164

After decades of brutal civil war that left about two and a half million dead, the devastated and vastly underdeveloped southern part of Sudan secured independence in 2011. The world’s youngest nation came into existence amid great challenges. Secession from Sudan marked as a major milestone and a fresh opportunity for South Sudanese, but massive state-corroding corruption, political instability within the ruling party, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), and persistent tensions with Sudan over the sharing of oil revenues left South Sudan deeply vulnerable to renewed conflict. Actually, I recognized this movement itself as one of the great challenges and revolutions that Africa is currently suffering and confronting from its political brutalism.

On December 15, 2013, tensions between factions loyal to President Salva Kiir, of the Dinka ethnic group, and those aligned with his former Vice President, Riek Machar, of theNuer ethnic group, exploded into fighting on the streets of Juba, the capital city. South Sudan’s dramatic return to war has torn communities apart and left countless thousands dead. As of September 2014, 1.8 million people were still too afraid to return to their homes.

In order to secure a durable peace, South Sudan’s warring elites need to begin to feel the consequences of their actions. Negotiations led by the East African Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), which includes Kenya, Ethiopia, and Uganda, have so far failed to yield an agreement. Although neighboring states have threatened to impose punitive measures, including asset freezes and travel bans, on individuals obstructing the peace process, deadlines have passed without action. The regional heads of state have met over a half a dozen times to discuss the situation in South Sudan, but these extraordinary summits have done little to stem the violence. Without regionally and globally enforced sanctions on key individuals and credible threat of prosecution for mass atrocities and human rights violations, the civil war looks set to intensify

Even with this hard suffering and hardships, since 2012, Sudan and the newly created South Sudan have been excluded from the index but that will change when enough data on both countries is again available. That may take another year or so. The index shows nations fluctuating in their absolute ratings, although their rank in the index is less likely to change. The countries that improved the most in the last year were Ivory Coast, Guinea, Niger, Zimbabwe and Senegal. It is quite hard to hear much about those places in the media. But the five nations that slipped the most (Egypt, Libya, Guinea-Bissau, Central African Republic and Mali) are in the news a lot.

Indexes like this have become increasingly common and popular, except with the leaders of those nations shown to perform the worst. Because all these indexes use data that is verifiable it is difficult for the poorly performing leaders to dismiss them out of hand. That puts pressure on the poor performers to improve, or face the wrath of a population that is better informed of why they are getting screwed. Most of the poorly performing nations are also dependent on foreign aid and these surveys because donor nations to apply pressure as well. And the most important thing is that more and more people began to having interest on African society with careful eyesight.

Blog Assignment #5

Anti colonism activities

The Mahdist movement under the leadership of Mohamed Ahmed Almahadi had a significant role in mobilizing the national passion and feelings of the Sudanese people. There were also some tribal and national movements at that time, but they were very weak and the connection between the Sudanese people themselves was also weak which made these movements loose their strength and ability to have an effect.

But the National People Movement was strengthening and affected by events in Egypt that took place after the First World War and the 1919 revolution .So for the first time in the Sudan the secret movements activities appeared, calling for revolution and demanding independence, this issue had spread among the Sudanese people. A new cultured and educated class of people emerged while a large number of the Sudanese people were affected by the patriotic feeling and belief which dominated the concept of every one and which was initiated by the Egyptians working in the Sudan who were affected by the 1919 revolution.

Meanwhile Britain worked to deepen the concept of the (Sudan for the Sudanese). In 1921 a secret association was formed named the Sudanese Union .Its members were the Students of Gordon college (now the University of Khartoum) which was under the administration of the colonialism, Meanwhile the white Brigade movement was formed and it was established by Ali Abdullatif, This movement played a vital role in the 1924 revolution while the national movement had called for unity with Egypt .On its side Britain called on its supporters from the tribal leaders to confront this movement .

Due to the violence practiced by the British expedition against the revolutionists and the terrorist methods of suppressing them, the Sudanese resort to the secret activities against colonialism and patriotism grew among the cultured class and was affected by different motives. Meanwhile the Egyptian army withdrew from Sudan for the second time in December 1924 AD after the assassination of sir le Stack, the governor general of the Sudan in Egypt, which sparkled a great unrest in the Sudan. In February 1938 AD the graduate’s congress was established comprising a great number of members from the cultured and educated people .It started its activities by providing social services then transferred to the political work and called on for the independence of the Sudan. Meanwhile, following the return of the Egyptian army to the Sudan, Britain worked for the issue of separating the Sudan from Egypt from one side and the separation of northern Sudan from its South from another side. The 1936 agreement between Egypt and Britain had focused on the condominium agreement which was signed in 1899 AD and stipulated that the governance of Sudan should remain shared between the two countries though Egypt tried to cancel this agreement and realize unity between the Sudan and Egypt. Long negotiations took place and then Egypt presented the case to the security council in 1947 AD which abstained from taking any decision then the Egyptian government from its side in the 8th of October 1951 repealed the 1936 agreement. The Egyptian July 1952 revolution was preceded by an Egyptian / British negotiations on the Sudanese affair and when the revolution erupted in the 23rd of July 1952 the Sudanese affair was decided to be separated from the issue of the British withdrawal from the Sues Canal in any negotiations between the two countries.

Blog 4

The concept itself of the slavery is neither specifically differentiated nor certainly separated. Slavery used to exist in every colony which is the most stupid things that is totally outraging. The legalized practice of enslaving blacks occurred in every colony, but the economic realities of the southern colonies perpetuated the institution first legalized in Massachusetts in 1641. There are still common points in use of slavery; it is the labor demand for agricultural system and economic viability. On the other hand, from the beginning history of the United States, there are several differences between the colony era of the United States and that of Africa.

Puritan New England, Virginia, Spanish Florida, and the Carolina colonies engaged large-Long time ago, when Native Americans were enslaved by the Europeans, they were able to escape due to their familiarity of geographic factors or so. Scale enslavement of Native Americans, often through the use of Indian proxies to wage war and acquire the slaves. Some Native American tribes held war captives as slaves prior to and during European colonization, some Native Americans were captured and sold by others into slavery to Europeans, and a small number of tribes, in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, adopted the practice of holding slaves as chattel property and held increasing numbers of African American slaves. Although twenty Africans brought into Virginia in early 1600’s by virtue of the slave trade, they actually became indentured servants and then gained freedom at the last. However, by the 1640’s, practices of enslaving had been established in Virginia and within following two decades, had achieved legal recognition of the entire nation. As the effect of slavery in America, the British army, eager to debase the colonial economy, freed many slaves as they moved through the American South. Many slaves in the North were granted their freedom if they agreed to fight for the American cause. Although a clear majority of African Americans remained in bondage, the growth of free black communities in America was greatly fostered by the War for American Independence.

On the other hand, although a few native America groups were enslaved in colonial America especially between the 1670s and the early 1700s in Carolina, where predatory raids victimized, Africans, for several reasons, became America’s prime bondsmen. Indians were familiar with the terrain and could thus easily run away, and there was fear that their enslavement would bring about continual warfare and also disrupt the lucrative fur trade. Europeans, because of their color, could escape and be mistaken easily as free person. It is still really hard to accept the fact that Europeans in the past had classified people by color and discriminated them without any respect or something regarding to the very basic human rights.

In the early 17^th century, European settlers in North America turned to Africa slaves as a cheaper, more plentiful labor source than indentured servants who were mostly poorer Europeans.

One of the presidents of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, had mentioned that “those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves”, and this is absolutely true for everyone regardless of race, gender, age, and any other perspectives that each person might have. The desperate wretches that several European invaders had brought was based on willingness to steal and enslave men by violence and murder for gain, which was rather lamentable than strange. Men are not commodity, thus should not be traded or something. As people are not convicted of forfeiting freedom, they have still a natural, perfect right to it and the government whenever they come should, in justice set them free and punish those who hold human being in slavery. Certainly, one may, with as much reason and decency, plead for murder, robbery, lewdness and barbarity, as for this practice. They are not more contrary to the natural dictates of conscience, and feeling of humanity; they are all comprehended in it. Slavery is one of the most notorious perceptions that should never realize ever again and furthermore, qualified education through lessons from the past would be persistently needed at the same time.