Maybe some of you have heard, or perhaps this is breaking news for you, but we've just welcomed another country into this world.
South Sudan raised it's flag at a ceremony yesterday, amongst cheering crowds and the playing of their new national anthem. While the road ahead for the Southern Sudanese people is still uncertain, there is much hope stirring in the public opinion.
It will be particularly interesting to see how those who will now be classified as a unified Southern Sudanese people integrate. As you can see on the map to the right, South Sudan does not contain one dominant culture, but rather a mixture of both homogeneous and heterogenous cultures. This may distinguish the future of the new country from Sudan, which is predominantly Arab Muslim. We'll be keeping our eyes on this fledgling of a country, particularly on the new border lands (the map gives away a little on how some of the Arab majority areas have been legally separated from from Sudan, and one can safely assume that the separation of lands, families, tribes, and cultural groups are not as neatly set apart as may be implied by such a nicely color-coded map).
The United States was one of the first handful of countries to recognize South Sudan, with
President Obama speaking words of encouragement to the new nation. (On a completely unrelated note, one could take his speech and replace "South Sudan" with "Palestine"; we can only hope that such encouragement of autonomy can be universally given by the United States, but that is yet to be seen)
Have you heard about the birth of South Sudan, or have other government protests of this Arab Spring captured more of your attention? Post comments and thoughts below, we'd love to hear from you!
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