Marking, Renaming our Cities, Streets and Historical Locations

I thought about this in the first year of my arrival from United States of America but there has been a great news that, in the previous and even the most current (Transitional Constitution of the Republic of south Sudan 2011), granted National Legislative Assembly and state’s assembly a right of changing names of locations, historic sites and the residential locations or any others insulting names all across nation’s state.     There was a political motivation that made National Congress Party and successor’s regimes from Khartoum to change names, of our symbolic statues, historical locations and some people’s names in South Sudan. The objectives was so  simple, they aimed of changing the cultures of the people in South,  the major things that former oppressors, they treated us very bad and I will list just a few categories or histories:  First of all, they changed historical sites and residential locations in capital city Juba, or others southern Sudan’s cities. All these names the Arabs brought were insulting to us and our cultures, identities, once again its derogatory words. I noticed some locations had been given names during the revolutionary war days (south – north).  For instance, we have places inside Juba town, such as Suku rogalmafi, Atlabara, Suku libasmafi and Konyokonyo … etcThe same things happened in Wau Western Bahr El Ghazal state, where those of (Hai Jallaba and Hillafahal) were named.And also in the state of Upper Nile, Malakal town had its tale.It was also practiced greatly in Northern Bahr el Ghazal state Aweil.   The same National Congress Party, screwed-up a geography when they had politicized geographical locations of Northern Bahr El Ghazal state, Aweil. Can the state in which Aweil falls be ever be located in a direct north geographically?, Until now we call Aweil as a northern state,  nonetheless, we had had Bahr El Jabal state before signing of Comprehensive Peace Agreement CPA, 2005 in which the state’s name was changed into its recent one as Central Equatoria state.The last point, on the same page it’s changing names of southerners who converted to Islam religion. That had started long time ago before the government of President al-Bashir of Sudan a lot people had their names changed when they entered into Islam. You know individuals from Dinka, Nuer, Shulluk and Bari who became Muslims. Their family names were changed to be called Mohammed, Abdullah, Ali or Osman, all these concepts were practiced by northerners to show a level of their imperialism toward us.         Mentioning all lists of sites, those were named by Arabs from north Sudan! It’s insulting and outrageous to you as a person in your respective state, to all of us. They have done, what was expected of our enemy!  But what  hurts you and me  most of all,  it’s  when southerners  know  something that  ethically and morally wrong, they are staying without saying even a word about it , that is the only bad of us.   But there will be some advantages from this demanding of changing and remarking of sites, residential locations, especially on one point only or maybe two points. We want to modernize local cities and towns all across nation’s states. That requires a proper marked house addresses, library, public offices,   businesses, locations and the reasons to do so. It’s  because deliberation of sending mails services, letters and gifts cards that post office may want to serve the citizens. To close my point, there must be someone to take charge or whole institution that can be held responsible for any wrong doing in the country or at least to be solving a problem. Therefore, I would suggest that South Sudan National Legislative Assembly should be leading this front because it falls into their constitutional responsibilities to introduce a bill and legislate it. Secondly, it’s already mandated in our national constitution but the main work lies heavily on state’s local constitution. They have rights of changing all names that insulted ours such as, the ones I had listed above. But it has to be endorsed by South Sudan national legislative assembly in Juba.
Political Analyst and columnist: On “the Citizen” newspaper, Juba, south SudanContact email: shaankout@hotmail.com