Most people know Luol Deng as a basketball player for the championship-contending Chicago Bulls. As a Celtics fan, it pains me to acknowledge that is a very good basketball player, and I wish the Celts had him. But Luol has even bigger things on his mind these days than a run at an NBA championship.
Luol hails from the southern part of Sudan, which on January 9 is going to commence voting for its long-delayed chance at independent statehood. More than a half-century ago, colonial administrators from Britain and Egypt ensured that North and South Sudan were rammed together to create a new Sudanese nation, which since then has been completely dominated by northerners. For pretty much the entire time, southerners have fought for their right to independence.
For their freedom.
Last Friday, my friend Luol got a chance to register for this historic vote. He registered in Chicago as part of a world-wide effort to allow as many southern Sudanese as possible to participate.
Luol talks about the importance of this moment in South Sudan's history in this video.
As someone who has been in and out of southern Sudan for nearly 25 years, it is amazing to watch the resolve of the southern Sudanese people as their moment on the world stage nears. A peaceful, efficient registration process yielded millions of voters eager to express their sentiments about the future of the South. We can all support the birth of this new nation by making our voices heard for peace.
Visit www.sudanactionnow.org to see how you can get involved and cast your own vote for peace between North and South Sudan.
John Prendergast is Co-Founder of Enough, the anti-genocide project at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C.
Follow John Prendergast on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JP4Enough
The late Dr John Garang was avowedly for a united Sudan - as well you know, John.
You're trying to hoodwink gullible (if caring) ordinary Americans that South Sudan is just another simple 'Black African' liberation tale.
It's not.
Stop the activist revisionism of Sudan's history.
"More than a half-century ago, colonial administrators from Britain and Egypt ensured that North and South Sudan were rammed together to create a new Sudanese nation."
Why de-legitimise Sudan, John?
Yes: south and north Sudan are very different in terms of culture, terrain etc.
But, then again, aren't, say, Biloxi, Mississippi, and Boston, Mass??
Marseille compared to Paris??
In other words, who says that a country has to be completely homogenous for everyone to live together under one roof?? That conditionality only seems to apply, at least amongst Americans, to Sudan.
Indeed, rather than praying for secession, you and other 'Sudan watchers' should be the BIGGEST SUPPORTERS (rather than the BIGGEST OPPONENTS) of keeping Sudan unified: why not cite the US's own recent experience (civil war over the confederacy, slavery, Jim Crow laws etc) as proof that a country with a traumatic history can escape its past - and stay together as one??
Moreover, with technology, financial integration, better labour mobility all breaking down barriers, the global trend is for countries to get closer together, not further away; so why, then, should Sudan be an exception??
Conflict exists everywhere.