Negotiations and morality: the ethnicization of citizenship in post-secession South Sudan

Abstract

In 2011, two days prior to its declaration of independence, South Sudan adopted a new nationality act and set up a bureaucracy to handle citizenship-related issues. Despite striking similarities with Sudanese bureaucratic traditions, the paper argues that South Sudan altered the overarching logic of its citizenship and moved towards an ethnic definition, in which applicants chiefly have to prove their ethnic affiliation. While Sudan stratified its citizenship regime and thus discriminated against people among its citizenry, South Sudan preselects its applicants. The paper, through the analysis of stories of citizenship applicants, seeks to investigate how people who do not immediately fit into the imagined categories of good citizens, cope with the situations. On these shaky grounds, where evidence is indecisive, bureaucrats and applicants invoke moral arguments, and thus – through these moral negotiations of citizenship – constantly redefine the state.

Keywords:

• South Sudan
• citizenship
• ethnicity
• morality

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the guest editors Katrin Seidel and Timm Sureau for organizing the conference ‘Emerging South Sudan: Negotiating Statehood’ at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in 2013, and for their constructive editing process of our Special Issue. I would also like to thank the conference participants for their comments on an early version of the paper. Dan Rabinowitz, Andreas Dafinger and Adrian Grama read and commented on a draft version.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Funding

This work was supported by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research.

Notes

1. I use the term “South Sudan” when referring to the sovereign country while “Southern Sudan” is used for the pre-independence period.

2. The Sudan People's Liberation Movement is the governing political party in South Sudan. Together with its military wing, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLM/A) fought against the Khartoum government during the Second Sudanese Civil War (1983–2005).

3. Assal, “Nationality and Citizenship Questions in Sudan. See also Idris, Conflict and Politics of Identity,” 93–108.

4. Jus sanguinis (latin: right of blood) is a principle of nationality law in which citizenship is granted by dint of the parents’ citizenship. By contrast, jus soli (right of the soil) is the right of a person to acquire citizenship born in the territory of a state.

5. Assal, “Nationality and Citizenship Questions in Sudan.”

6. Alex De Waal. 2009. “Who are the Sudanese?” African Arguments, December 14. http://africanarguments.org/2009/12/14/who-are-the-sudanese

7. Assal, Nationality and Citizenship Questions in Sudan. Abdulbari, “Citizenship Rules in Sudan”. Idris, Conflict and Politics of Identity, 93–108.

8. As my interview with a Catholic priest shows in the second half of the paper, Sudanese people from the peripheries have sometimes felt that the state was denying them citizenship.

9. Mamdani, Citizen and Subject, 3–34 and 183–217.

10. Cited by Massoud, Law's Fragile State, 78.

11. Assal, “Nationality and Citizenship Questions in Sudan.”

12. Abdulbari, “Citizenship Rules in Sudan.”

13. Interview with Augostino Madout Parek, Director General of the DNPI, Juba, South Sudan, February 2013.

14. SPLM, Manifesto, 13.

15. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) is a set of agreements signed by SPLM/A and the government of Sudan in 2005, leading towards the independence referendum of Southern Sudan.

16. The quote is from a speech of Dr. John Garang de Mabior in Rumbek on 15 May 2005.

17. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement (see note 18 above) declares that the borders of South Sudan should follow the British colonial borders of 1 January 1956. In practice, due to a number of issues, it is a gargantuan and highly contested issue, with vast territories (Abyei is the most well-known example) still not demarcated. See Johnson, When Boundaries Become Borders.

18. Interview with a policeman, name and rank withheld, Juba, South Sudan, May 2013.

19. IOM was responsible for the out-of-country registration and voting during the referendum. IOM set up voting centers in nine countries. Interview with IOM project coordinator, name withheld, Juba, South Sudan, May 2013.

20. Human Rights Watch, Sudan: Don't Strip Citizenship Arbitrarily.

21. Mamdani, “Citizen and Subject.”

22. For the history of the role of the chiefs in creating and recreating the state, see Leonardi, Dealing with Government.

23. Seidel, analyzed the new citizenship regime of South Sudan and showed how civil war leaders – now the political elite of the sovereign country – conceptually reframed themselves from belonging to “indigenous” communities to “autochthonous” ones, all while marginalized Equatorian groups were beginning to use the political category of “indigenous”. Seidel, “Negotiating South Sudanese Nationality”. Interesting arguments develop from the lack of the list of “indigenous ethnic communities”. For instance, members of the Ketebo community of Eastern Equatoria petitioned the State Legislative Assembly to include them on “the list”. As the petition reads: “we are writing through esteemed office; the August House of EES [Eastern Equatoria State], presenting a petition on attempts to exclude (sic! include) Ketebo from the list of Nationalities or ethnic Communities in EES. We shall be grateful if our rights are defended and granted by our beloved State Legislative Assembly. May God bless your efforts.” Peter Lokale Nakimangole. 2013. “Katebo Tribesmen Seek Ethnic Recognition.” Gurtong News, September 25. http://www.gurtong.net/ECM/Editorial/tabid/124/ctl/ArticleView/mid/519/articleId/13140/Katebo-Tribesmen-Seek-Ethnic-Recognition.aspx

24. Agamben, Homo Sacer, 4.

25. John Stephen Juma. 2012. “National Identity Cards Launched.” Gurtong News, January 4. http://www.gurtong.net/ECM/Editorial/tabid/124/ctl/ArticleView/mid/519/articleId/6260/National-Identity-Cards-Launched.aspx

26. 2013. “Ugandan BodaBoda Riders Flee Juba Over Harassment.” The Red Pepper, August 26. http://www.redpepper.co.ug/22330/ For a general and more academic overview of the background and implementation of the decree and the diplomatic row between Uganda and South Sudan following the issue, see Jok and Mayai, Emerging Diplomatic Row.

27. Throughout my year of fieldwork at the DNPI, I never witnessed outright corruption in the office. Rumors of corrupt officials are also widespread in rural cities as well. In Yambio, the capital of Western Equatoria State I heard countless stories of Congolese businessman buying South Sudanese passports.

28. Seidel, “Negotiating South Sudanese Nationality.”

29. Mamdani, “Citizen and Subject,” 3–34.

30. Although there is a long-standing tradition of the mystification of official papers in South Sudan; see for example Hutchinson's description of the fetishization of papers by Nuer. Hutchinson, Nuer Dilemmas, 283–288. On the ambiguous usage of papers and identity documents in contemporary South Sudan, see Marko, “We are not a failed state.”

31. In addition to the card and passport itself (250 pounds), the applicant pays for an Age Assessment Certificate, photocopies, passport-size photographs, and sometimes for the consultants. Even the very application form costs a few pounds. And if applicants need documents or lack witnesses, they are met with additional costs. Stories of chiefs demanding a few dozen dollars for statements are also widespread.

32. Conversation with an undocumented car mechanic, Juba, South Sudan, March 2013.

33. HM Passport Office. 2011. “International Passport Comparisons.” https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/international-passport-comparisons And Kasmiro, Simon. 2013. “S. Sudan Issues Costly Passport for Businesspeople.” Voice of America, July 17. http://www.voanews.com/content/south-sudan-business-passport/1704142.html

34. Hou, Akout Hou. 2013. “Free National ID Cards for South Sudan Refugees.” Voice of America, March 27. http://www.voanews.com/content/free-national-id-cards-for-south-sudan-returnees/1629733.html

35. For a description of the multilayered, bifurcated nature of the citizenship office, see Marko, “We are not a failed state.”

36. Bilakila, “The Kinshasa Bargain,” 21.

37. Trefon, “Introduction: Reinventing Order,” 9.

38. Ong, “Flexible Citizenship,” 123.

39. Sadiq, “Paper Citizens.”

40. Johnson, “When Boundaries Become Borders,” 90.

41. Ibid., 94.

42. To protect their identities, I have changed the names and altered the life stories of my interviewees. Interview with Alek, Juba, South Sudan, June 2013.

43. The official South Sudanese naming system, enforced by the DNPI, consist of four names. After the given name(s) the patrilineal ascendant's name follows. Using this naming system – which also follows the logic and practice of the Dinka and Nuer naming systems – kinship relations between a witness and an applicant can easily verified. The system is vehemently opposed by some Equatorian ethnic groups.

44. Interview with Father James, Yambio, South Sudan, April 2013.

45. Series of interviews and conversations with George, Juba, South Sudan, between February and November 2013.

46. SPLM-N is the Sudan People's Liberation Movement – North operating in Sudan's Blue Nile and Kordofan (Nuba mountains) provinces. During the civil war they fought alongside the SPLM but the new state of South Sudan could not support them openly following independence. Many members of the SPLM-N feel betrayed by the new state and argue that SPLM reneged on John Garang's vision.