Ismail Kushkush lends his ears to the testimonies of two women from southern and northern Sudan. Their words reflect the dilemma facing many Sudanese pondering how their lives will be altered by the likely outcome of the referendum deciding the future of the south and the whole country Stella Gitano is a talented young southern Sudanese writer with a serious problem: she is from southern Sudan and her husband is from the north. This past week, millions of southern Sudanese are expected to have voted in a referendum on whether to remain in a united Sudan or to become independent. "I am happy that my people will achieve their dream of independence, but at the same time I am sad that my family may split," said Gitano, 31, the mother of two, reflecting on the referendum that will likely lead to the creation of an independent state in southern Sudan. "One of us will become a foreigner no matter what," she says painfully about herself and her spouse. "If I stay in the north, I will become a foreigner, and if my husband goes to the south, he will become a foreigner." The destiny of her two children, however, concerns her even more. "Our children will be caught in the middle, and we wanted to raise them as Sudanese." Her husband is from the northern city of Atbara and belongs to the Jaalin Arabs, the largest of Sudan's Arab tribes. Gitano herself is a member of the Equatorian Latoka tribe and originally from the city of Torit, where the first bullets were fired in the first Sudanese civil war. Both are activists who met at functions promoting unity four years ago. "He is a few years older than me, but we met while fighting ideas that divide people," she says. The question of citizenship rights for the thousands of southern Sudanese in the north and the thousands of northern Sudanese in the south has yet to be determined by the two ruling political parties, the National Congress Party (NCP) and the Sudanese People's Liberation Movement (SPLM). Gitano is cautiously hopeful. "We have not decided yet where we will stay, but if matters are arranged and things are secure, we will stay either in the north or south," she says. If this is not the case, "we might move to a third country," she adds. Growing up in Khartoum, where her family moved from Torit when the second Sudanese civil war started in 1983, Gitano spoke Latoka and Juba Arabic at home, a popular pidgin language in southern Sudan. Today, she is a writer who has gained attention with stories like Everything Here Boils and A Lake the Size of a Papaya Fruit, which reflect the experiences of refugees and the pains of war. She writes her stories in Arabic. "I was born in the north, educated in the north," she explains. She blames the central government for the likely outcome of the south's referendum on independence. "If there had been greater understanding and openness by the centre, things could have been different. But unfortunately this did not happen," she says. "It is this that has made southern Sudanese vote for independence." However, she sees Sudanese society on the whole as being open and accepting of others. "It is not the politicians who are crying but the ordinary members of society. Southerners accept northerners, and northerners accept southerners," she says. Unable to register to vote in the referendum two months ago as she was delivering her second child at the time, she says that had she been able to vote she would have gone against the current. "I would have voted for unity," she says. Still hopeful that this may be the outcome, Stella Gitano says she will continue to work for unity, even if the south becomes an independent country. "If separation happens, and the south moves towards Africa and the north moves towards the Arab world, they will both discover that the closest people to either of them were the people they have separated themselves from," she concludes. In January of each year, the blue, yellow and green flag of independent Sudan, which brings together the Nile, the desert and the country's fertile land, decorates the house of Ismail Al-Azhari, father of Sudanese independence. This year, however, there is a long black sash draped across the house's wall beneath the independence flag, letting everyone know that its residents are in mourning. "We should bow our heads in sorrow," says Abeer Osman, the 41-year-old granddaughter of Al-Azhari as she reflected on the referendum for the independence of southern Sudan. Southern Sudanese went to the polls this week to vote in a referendum on whether to remain part of a united Sudan or to separate from it. Most observers believe that the southern Sudanese will choose to become independent. "We shouldn't have pushed them away from us, the northern Sudanese. We should have managed things differently," says Osman sadly, dressed in a black dress and tarha (head covering) to express her grief. Osman thinks that the lack of democracy during most of independent Sudan's existence is to blame. "Democracy was only practised for 11 years out of the 55 years of independence," she says. "That's only a fifth of the period." The first Sudanese civil war broke out late in 1955, months before official independence, as southern Sudanese feared that they would be dominated by the northern Sudanese. "When Ismail Al-Azhari was in power, he told the government to deal with the issue with sensitivity," she says of her grandfather, whose black-and-white pictures cover the walls of his house where Osman lives. On 1 January 1956, it was Al-Azhari who raised the flag of Sudanese independence from Britain and Egypt. However, escalating civil war in the 1990s took its toll on the country, Osman argues. "The scale of the war skyrocketed, casualties increased and infrastructure was destroyed," pushing the southern Sudanese toward separation. "I don't want to deprive them of seeking independence and joy, but I want them to understand that their departure is having a murderous effect on many of us." Her southern Sudanese friends have different views on the matter, but she's tried to convince them to vote for unity nonetheless. "I asked them, how will you handle your property, your children's schools, your work?" she said. Osman is also concerned that the likely independence of southern Sudan could have a domino effect on the rest of the country. "This could be the end of Sudan as we know it," she says. "Darfur could ask for the same thing, followed by the Nuba Mountains and the Blue Nile State." War in Darfur erupted in 2003, when rebels took up arms against the central government, accusing it of discrimination. The war has since caused the deaths of tens of thousands from violence, disease and malnutrition. Meanwhile, the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile State are conducting popular consultations at the same time as the referendum on southern Sudanese independence, with a view to deciding the future of the regions and whether they should join southern or northern Sudan. "We used to take pride in Sudan, a land of one million square miles," Osman says. She is upset that "northerners are not involved in these matters and cannot say anything." Nevertheless, Osman is hopeful that history may yet salvage her dream, and that of her grandfather, of a united Sudan. "I believe we could be united again sometime in the future," she says. "If there are good intentions backed up by good actions."
