South Sudan: One month in.

“Don't wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions. So what. Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident and more and more successful.”

Mark Victor Hansen

It's been a little bit over one month since The Republic of South Sudan raised its' flag in honour of the countless lives who, while spilling blood sweat and tears, fought for independence.  It was a moment to remember for sure.  As memorable as it was, there is still much work to be done.  Flag raising is not governance and that fact cannot be forgotten.  It matters not how one gets to the race; what matters is how one performs once the race gets started.

That said, from most accounts South Sudan is still traveling a rocky road.  Currently there is strife and conflict in the Abyei and South Kordofan provinces, the fertile and oil rich regions respectively.  Both North and South are to share oil royalties from South Kordofan.  But after decades of fighting, I would have hoped that they would be tired at this point.  Is this really how nations are formed?  How many more people have to shed blood for true peace to finally take root?

I mean with so many other issues that new nations, new governments have to deal with, there is no time for further strife.  Women's health issues, fiscal policy, education of citizenry, infrastructure, both domestic and international affairs, these are the main matters of concern for any government.  Or should be.  And especially for a place like South Sudan.  I can't imagine having to fight for my life, after having watched my father and grandfather and other family and friends fight for 40 plus years.  I can't imagine what the feeling is to wake up to mass graves and still have to pick up the very tools responsible for such death.

Thankfully for me, I never had to struggle in that way.  I was blessed with being born in a locale that was free from all that.  But I know that if I rest on those laurels, if I concern myself not with the state of affairs and the state of the lives of the people who are suffering still, then my "lofty birth" was of little consequence.  Even more important, in my life, that of the response or lack thereof from the Rastafari community.  For being one of the few voices who have for the last 80 plus years, championed for the rights and freedoms for Africans in the land, I have seen few and heard even fewer articles or speeches about the continued atrocities.

Actually, I have not met many Africans from in the Diaspora, who are even aware of South Sudan.  Then again, come to think of it, there is even less awareness in these parts of the famine and violence in Somalia.  I guess I'm hoping that from this there might be more conversation, more action from my community.  Few words that they are, simple as the sentiment may be, it is not unlike a whisper in the wind, with hopes that even the trees might hear its' plea.

Hold strong South Sudan.  We have not lost sight of you and know that, while being a scant few, some of us are readying ourselves to your cause.