The Nuer Nation


Book Description

The book describes nation as a group of people with strong cultural ties and political identity that is both self-defined and acknowledged by others; a group of people that have exercised political and traditional control over their destinies in the fast and still see such control as possible future strategies. It explains and studies the Nuer as a Nation, not as a tribe; their roles in both Sudans. The Nuer people are known for being independent and proud people who are arguably Africa most proficient warriors. Based on kinship relations their state is characterized by a strong commitment to the dignity and freedom of the individual in the context of a society founded on strong communitarian values. From their first encounters with hostile foreign forces the Nuer have been universally known as fierce fighters who have uncompromisingly insisted on the territorial integrity of their land and the right to the unfettered expression and determination of their culture and language. It is this spirit that animated and enabled the Nuer to be the first people to argue for the implementation of federalism in Sudan in late 1940s, secession of the Southern peoples from Sudan as far back as 1980s and early 1990s for independent of the Republic of South Sudan. From those years to the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, the Nuer people have consistently maintained the cause of an independence South Sudan. Thus, South Sudan in no small way owes its existence to the tenacity and sacrifice of the Nuer people. The 2013 Juba genocide on Nuer has, however, reveal that the Dinka government in South Sudan has been pursuing a policy of Dinka socio-economic domination of South Sudanese society. While Dinka ambitions in this regard were known to the Nuer even in the midst of the struggle for independence. The level of reckless hatred the Dinka displayed against the Nuer people has solidified the unspoken conviction held by the majority of Nuer that South Sudan should be divided into independent nation states. In this book the authors present arguments for and against the proposal that the Nuer should separate from South Sudan prompted by civil war and hatred bickering to form a distinctly Nuer homeland. A central to the argument in this book is a reorienting of South Sudan not as a nation, but as a region composed of over 64 nations and ethnic groups many of which inhabit clearly defined and well-known, if not, easily demarcated borders. In this important respect the volume compares South Sudan to pre-Westphalian Western Europe and argues that just as Europe was able to achieve peace largely by breaking apart empires into smaller nation-states so should South Sudan ideally be split up into its constituent lands. We maintain that the creation of a Nuer homeland will be good not only for the Nuer but that it will directly help secure the long term peace and development in the region. The proposed borders of the Nuer homeland subsume only the lands that belong to the Nuer tribes, and are, therefore, the national estate of the Nuer people. Hence the volume shows that the Nuer are not to be understood as a tribe, but the Nuer as a nation in the classical sense composed of tribes. The Nuer, therefore, satisfy all the conditions required for consideration as a nation. Having satisfied all conditions for nationhood this book advances the claim that the Nuer people are within their rights to in calling for their own nation state. The book touched the JCE and Kiir''s forces brutality beyond reach; burning the Nuer and other people alive, beheading human, feeding human on human flesh and drunk them with blood of their dead relatives. It views why the world must be ashamed of covering up crimes in South Sudan. And evaluates the effect of Dinka elders'' 200 years'' ''born to rule'' 2015 master plan and their leaders'' rhetoric statements in rejection of peace with non-Dinka provoking wider possible resistance against the Dinka Domination and possible breaks.




The Unique Background of the Nuer Nation


Book Description

This book is the short brief expression of the Nuer background. Since Nuer history is Oral and the transfer becomes difficult, I designed this book as the step to find out and to research all significant histories which our societies went on in the past. Furthermore, this kind of history book is designed to remind and inspire our people to go further on research to find out the full important history of Nuer Nation. It could help us to understand our past and would show us our oneness since past periods. Nuer are the peoples with unique and very interesting history in south Sudan as well as in Africa. But if we live just without putting our ability to discover those kinds of events, we will be annulled by the false world historians. Unquestionably, in every moment our people made hits. Nuer people are the peoples with equal opportunity, right and obligations over their land. They made a significant history during their expansion, colonialism and in the national civil war of Sudan. In my conversations with Nuer elder peoples, I was impressed to hear these important histories. our society It is what led me to write this book. History as the genius language, I suggested to every reader of this book to contribute in the expansion of our story to provide a true, full and significant history of.




Gender, Home & Identity


Book Description

Analyses the experiences of exile and return of Nuer women and men of all ages and how they negotiate and reshape gender identities and relations in the context of prolonged war and violence.




Empire and the Nuer


Book Description

The documents edited here cover the significant events in the contact, conquest, and pacification of the Nuer from 1898 to 1930. They contain some of the earliest 20th-century ethnographic descriptions of the Nuer and their Dinka and Mabaan neighbors. Together these sources provide a historical context for further understanding Evans-Pritchard's ethnography, as well as a more detailed understanding of the events that led to incorporation of the Nuer into the colonial state.




The Nuer


Book Description




Nuer Prophets


Book Description

This is the first major study of the Nuer based on primary research since Evans-Pritchard's classic Nuer Religion. It is also the first full-length historical study of indigenous African prophets operating outside the context of the world's main religions, and as such builds on Evans-Pritchard's pioneering work in promoting collaboration and dialogue between the disciplines of anthropology and history. Prophets first emerged as significant figures among the Nuer in the nineteenth century. They fashioned the religious idiom of prophecy from a range of spiritual ideas, and enunciated the social principles which broadened and sustained a moral community across political and ethnic boundaries. Douglas Johnson argues that, contrary to the standard anthropological interpretation, the major prophets' lasting contribution was their vision of peace, not their role in war. This vision is particularly relevant today, and the book concludes with a detailed discussion of events in the Sudan since independence in 1956, describing how modern Nuer, and many other southern Sudanese, still find the message of the nineteenth-century prophets relevant to their experiences in the current civil war.




Chosen Peoples


Book Description

On July 9, 2011, South Sudan celebrated its independence as the world's newest nation, an occasion that the country's Christian leaders claimed had been foretold in the Book of Isaiah. The Bible provided a foundation through which the South Sudanese could distinguish themselves from the Arab and Muslim Sudanese to the north and understand themselves as a spiritual community now freed from their oppressors. Less than three years later, however, new conflicts emerged along ethnic lines within South Sudan, belying the liberation theology that had supposedly reached its climactic conclusion with independence. In Chosen Peoples, Christopher Tounsel investigates the centrality of Christian worldviews to the ideological construction of South Sudan and the inability of shared religion to prevent conflict. Exploring the creation of a colonial-era mission school to halt Islam's spread up the Nile, the centrality of biblical language in South Sudanese propaganda during the Second Civil War (1983--2005), and postindependence transformations of religious thought in the face of ethnic warfare, Tounsel highlights the potential and limitations of deploying race and Christian theology to unify South Sudan.




Next Time They'll Come to Count the Dead


Book Description

“[A] vivid, gripping account of inhuman cruelty, laced with rays of hope and courage and dignity amidst the horrors” (Noam Chomsky, leading public intellectual and author of Hopes and Prospects). A dramatic true story of men and women trapped in the grip of war, Next Time They’ll Come to Count the Dead is modern crisis reporting at its best. For six weeks in the spring of 2015, award-winning journalist Nick Turse traveled on foot, as well as by car, SUV, and helicopter, around war-torn South Sudan, talking to military officers and child soldiers, United Nations officials and humanitarian workers, civil servants, civil society activists, and internally displaced persons—people whose lives had been blown apart by a ceaseless conflict there. In a fast-paced and emotionally powerful fashion, Turse reveals the harsh reality of modern warfare in the developing world and the ways people manage to survive the unimaginable. Next Time They’ll Come to Count the Dead isn’t about combat. It’s about the human condition, about ordinary people thrust into extraordinary circumstances, and about death, life, and the crimes of war in the newest nation on earth. “The average journalist follows the herd of others. A bold one like Nick Turse goes to where the herd isn’t. His searing reporting in this book brings alive the suffering of a country that the United States, midwife to its birth, has largely forgotten.” ―Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold’s Ghost and Mirror at Midnight




Grass-roots Justice in Ethiopia


Book Description

This book presents a timely review of the relations between the formal and customary justice systems in Ethiopia, and offers recommendations for legal reform. The book provides cases studies from all the Region of Ethiopia based on field research on the working of customary dispute resolution (CDR) institutions, their mandates, compositions, procedures and processes. The cases studies also document considerable unofficial linkages with the state judicial system, and consider the advantages as well as the limitations of customary institutions with respect to national and international law. The editor's introduction reviews the history of state law and its relations with customary law, summarises the main findings by region as well as as on inter-ethnic issues, and draws conclusions about social and legal structures, principles of organization, cultural concepts and areas, and judicial processes. The introduction also addresses the questions of inclusion and exclusion on the basis of gerontocratic power, gender, age and marginalised status, and the gradual as well as remarkable recent transformations of CDR institutions. The editor's conclusion reviews the characteristics, advantages and limitations of CDR institutions. A strong case is made for greater recognition of customary systems and better alliance with state justice, while safeguarding individual and minority rights. The editors suggest that the current context of greater decentralization opens up opportunities for pratical collaboration between the systems by promoting legal pluralism and reform, thereby enhancing local level justice delivery. The editors conclude by proposing a range of options for more meaningful partnership for consideration by policy makers, the legal profession and other stakeholders. In memory of Aberra Jembere and Dinsa Lepisa. Cover: Elders at peace ceremony in Arbore, 1993.




Collapse of a Country


Book Description

The first Canadian diplomat to be posted to war-torn Sudan, Nicholas Coghlan was a natural choice to lead Canada’s representation in the new Republic of South Sudan soon after the country was founded in 2011. In late 2013, Coghlan and his wife Jenny were in the capital, Juba, when it erupted in gunfire and civil war pitted one half of the army against the other, Vice-President Machar against President Kiir, and the Nuer tribe against the Dinka. This action-focused narrative, grounded by accounts of meetings with key leaders and travels throughout the dangerous, impoverished hinterland of South Sudan, explains what happened in December 2013 and why. In harrowing terms, Collapse of a Country describes the ebb and flow of the war and the humanitarian tragedy that followed, the Coghlans’ scramble to evacuate South-Sudanese Canadians from Juba, and the well-meant but often ill-conceived attempts of the international community to mitigate the misery and bring peace back to a land that has rarely known it. Coghlan’s stark narrative serves as a lesson to politicians, diplomats, aid workers, and practitioners on the breakdown of governance and relationships between ethnic groups, and the often decisive role of international development representatives. Fast-paced and poignant, Collapse of a Country gives an insider’s glimpse into the chaos, violence, and ethnic conflicts that emerged out of a civil war that has been largely ignored by the West.