Hunt is on for South Sudan’s New Name

By Eric Sande

JUBA---It is three days into the zealous voting by the people in South Sudan at a referendum that will go into the books of history to determine whether the South remains united with the North or secedes, yet some institutions in the south have already ignited the proclamation of victory.  

South Sudan's media is predicating independence and the Daily Citizen published by veteran South Sudan leader Joseph Lagu proposes that the new nation should be called the Nile Republic.

The newspaper puts it that the new name would be to recognise the most important geographical feature on earth running through this territory and discard any connection with the phrase Sudan because it is, inherently racist with a bad memory trigger.

The Nile, which is the world’s longest river, cuts through the South Sudan and its name should be adopted by the new republic so as to inspire international imagination for a new nation, indicates the editor.

"The obvious nation for us to claim as free, proud and dignified Africans is Nile Republic," the report says and adds that the phrase Sudan, though referring to the Land of the Black people has, historically been a euphemism for domination of Africans by Arabs.

Other proposed names include; Cush, New Sudan, or plain old South Sudan , but none has yet won general agreement, let alone captured the public imagination.

Could it be ideological delusion that makes the leadership not arrive at one name? It is claimed that the rebel group that led the south to the 2005 peace deal which paved the way for this week’s independence referendum was only very belatedly converted to the partitionist cause.

One Christian group has been vocally campaigning for the new country to be called Cush after the nation mentioned in the Bible as extending across a large part of northeast Africa to the south of Egypt.

According to Alier Ngong Oka, Director General of Water Resources Management, Ministry of Water Resources & Irrigation, Government of Southern Sudan, the word Cush in the Bible is well established by biblical scholars to refer to the land of the black people. This did not refer to a mere 640,000 km squared patch of land, which is the area of the present South Sudan. But in addition to the present Sudan, it also covered parts of Ethiopia and possibly Chad and Central Africa Republic. “This makes ‘Cush’ an ambiguous geographical piece of land we can only claim to be part of, because our land is not the same as the old ‘Cush’. Therefore, Cush does not refer to us (South Sudan) alone and as such is not the right name for our new country”, says Oka.

“Cush has no direct relationship with the south,” says the culture minister in the regional government, Gabriel Changson Chang, “It will be South Sudan, until later on if we think of changing it,” he added.

Chang insists that any proposals for a rebranding of the new nation must come through him, and that the name is going to stay the same - at least for now.

On other issues most parts of juba flies the proposed Coat of Arms and National Flag, a significance of becoming fully autonomous.  

The military band on the other hand is quick to test run an English seven-stanza song expected to be adopted as the National Anthem. The proposed anthem was created from submissions and entries made by South Sudanese in South Sudan and the Diaspora.

The flag is ready with clear resemblance of the Kenyan one when inverted and without the shield and spears in the middle. South Sudanese flag has an additional blue triangle from the left side of the rectangular cloth pointing to its centre with a yellow star.

Another important economic issue is whether the south should stick with the Sudanese pound or adopt its own currency. Probability leaves it at a possible change of currency yet to be known.

The world awaits the reconstruction of the new southern Sudan with assumption that it secedes from the North bearing in mind that the south is not starting from scratch. It already has a 100,000-strong army – the Sudan People's Liberation army – and ministries in key areas such as finance, health, education and foreign affairs.