CAIRO - AT the age of 14, he moved from his poor city in South Sudan to the Sudanese capital Khartoum to discover " despite his youth " that the big city was totally different from his small city. As Envy Baptist, now 35 years old, grew up, the notion that there is a huge gap between the North and South of Sudan grew with him. He is now ready to cast his vote in the forthcoming referendum, announcing his support for independence of the South from the North. "It was shocking for me to discover how huge the gap between the South and the North is," Envy told the Egyptian Mail in an interview. "I kept on telling myself that maybe it's because Khartoum is the capital, but, when I came to see the other northern cities, I knew this couldn't be the same country. " Next Sunday, the people of South Sudan will cast their vote for, or against, independence from the North. This referendum is part of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace agreement between the South and the Government in Khartoum. As many as 4 million people from South Sudan live outside the country. "Almost 100 per cent of Southern Sudanese will vote for independence," Envy said confidently. "Even if you asked a five-year-old kid from South Sudan how he would vote, he'd say ‘Independence'. That's because this has been the mainstream opinion in Sudan for a while now." There are a lot of reasons why the majority of people in the South, according to Envy, are looking forward to independence, despite the huge challenges that would face the new born country. Injustice and the unfair distribution of wealth can together describe the problems that the people with the darker skin and different accent ��" in the South ��" face every day. "There are no infrastructure, healthcare, quality education or job opportunities in the South. This Government has been overlooking the South and hence the notion that we are second-class citizens has become deeply rooted," said Envy, an Arabic-language teacher who has been living in Egypt since 2003, bitterly. From 1955 to 1972, the First Sudanese Civil War raged between the northern part of Sudan and a South that demanded more regional autonomy. Half a million people died in 17 years of war. However, the agreement that ended the fighting in 1972 failed to completely dispel the tensions that had originally caused the civil war, leading to a reigniting of the North-South conflict during the Second Sudanese Civil War (1983��"2005). The period between 1955 and 2005 is thus sometimes considered to be a single conflict with an uneasy elevenyear ceasefire separating two violent phases. Roughly 2 million people have died as a result of war, as well as the famine and disease caused by the conflict, while 4 million people in South Sudan were displaced at least once (and often repeatedly) during the war. The civilian death toll is one of the highest of any war since World War II. The conflict officially ended with the signing of a peace agreement in January 2005. With this in mind and, after around half a century of civil war, conflict, famine and disease, huge numbers of Southern Sudanese people have migrated to the North in pursuit of a better life. "Huge numbers of Southern people have either left Sudan or gone to live in the North, searching for a better education for their children and better opportunities," Envy said in his fluent classical Arabic. "But we have been discriminated against because of our skin colour, language and religion." Envy, a father of two, gave a number of examples of what he faced during his time in the North ��" from 1989 to 2003 ��" stating that, in everyday life, he was always a ‘southerner'. "Even in hospital, a northerner gets medication first. If I'm first in the queue, they'll skip me and look after him first," he recalled sadly. Being the head of the ‘Abnaa Farateet' (a Southern Sudanese tribe, whose name translates as ‘Farateet's Sons') community in Egypt, Envy speaks for his community and the people of the South Sudan in general. Envy stressed that, despite all the bad circumstances in the South, they all insist on independence. He said that the new country will be counting on its sons who have travelled throughout the past decades, studying and building their lives elsewhere. "They will be summoned back home to serve their country and take part in building it up," Envy stressed. What might disturb the dream A number of analysts and experts in Sudanese affairs have been saying that the separation of the South is mainly supported by a number of countries and international entities, adding, however, that the resources of South Sudan will be endangered if separation this goes ahead. "We are aware that there are a lot of people eyeing South Sudan and we know that they're looking forward to us getting our independence, but we have reached the point where independence is all that matters," Envy said. Despite his optimism, what worries Envy is ‘tribalism in South Sudan', which he described as the real danger that might affect independence. International indicators say that Sudan has around 600 tribes that speak over 400 different languages and dialects, split into two major Ethnic groups: the Sudanese Arabs of the largely Muslim North Sudan and the largely Christian and animist Nilotic Sudanese of the South. These two groups consist of hundreds of smaller ethnic and tribal divisions, and, in the latter case, language groups. With such a huge number of tribes, Envy stressed that the real chance for the southern Sudanese to build a strong country is by being united. "All the sons of South Sudan should come together and forget their tribal differences, in order to be able to create a country that is as good as North Sudan or even better," he explained. "Justice, freedom, respect and peace won't be attained unless the southern Sudanese trade their tribalism for nationalism. "Throughout his interview with this newspaper, Envy stressed one point over and over again: that the conflict is mainly with the Sudanese Government and system in the North and not the northern Sudanese themselves. He said several times that this separation or independence "will be ��" in southern Sudanese eyes ��" a political one, not a sentimental one". "We have lived for nearly 50 years in a state of manipulation and experiments and now it's the right time for us [the southern Sudanese people] to open our eyes and think hard," he concluded passionately. "The ship might be buffeted by rough seas, but it will eventually make it to port."
