Independence is over-rated

Yes, that’s what I said: over-rated. Despite the inspirational words, the declaration of July 4, 1776 didn’t change much. Seven years of war ensued. That didn’t settle it either: the British continued to interfere with American shipping, so we fought another war in 1812 (-15). Friendship with Britain did not begin until late in the 19th century, and the “special relationship” is a product of the 20th.

My Kosovar and Southern Sudanese friends are discovering that things haven’t changed much.

The NATO/Yugoslavia war over Kosovo ended in June 1999. Seventy-six countries have recognized Kosovo since its independence in February 2008, but Belgrade is using Russia to block Kosovo’s entry into the United Nations General Assembly, which is the modern world’s equivalent of universal recognition. Pristina is now engaged in discussions of practical issues with Belgrade, with modest results, but good neighborly relations are still far off. The promise of eventual EU membership–much sooner for Belgrade and much later for Pristina–may keep things on track, but there are no guarantees.

Sudan’s independence will be declared July 9. Despite extensive arrangements for this eventuality in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed between Khartoum and Juba in 2005, things are not going smoothly. The Abyei region is still contested, despite two arbitration decisions. Ethiopian peacekeepers are now being deployed there, after Khartoum’s army displaced more than 100,000 people last month. There is instability in two northern states, Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan, where southern sympathies are strong (and some of the sympathizers armed). There are still no agreements on crucial issues: citizenship for northerners in the South and southerners in the North, division of assets and debt, as well as oil revenue and oil transport from the South through the North.

Independence can be declared, but it is sovereignty and statehood that really count. Neither is a function of saying, only of doing. They are acquired through practice, not expression. The three concepts are often confused, and in a well-established state they in fact are congruent. But they are three distinct concepts: statehood depends on the existence of an organized distribution of political power, sovereignty on the state having a monopoly on the legitimate means of violence, and independence–a relative term–on the sovereign state being able to make its own decisions without seeking the approval of others. Neither Southern Sudan nor Kosovo is yet a fully independent sovereign state, though I trust both will make it in due course.

There will be a lot of ups and downs along the way. There certainly were in the United States. The Washington, DC I visited as a child was a segregated city, not by law but by preference of the white majority. Many times while I served abroad in the U.S. Foreign Service I was asked whether a black president was possible. I always said “yes,” but I wasn’t at all sure it would happen in my lifetime. It did, and a lot of people had to change their conception of what it means to be American for it to happen (which is why I’m not surprised that some haven’t changed and are still worrying themselves about the President’s birth certificate).

This process of infusing new meaning into old concepts is important to acquiring statehood and sovereignty: an inclusive concept of what it means to be Southern Sudanese or “Kosovan” is vital to organizing political life and exercising a monopoly on the legitimate means of violence. If some people are excluded, or demoted to second class citizenship, the state will be less than worthy and sovereignty less than complete. So I conclude with Marvin Gaye’s effort to infuse new meaning into an old German drinking song, not so much because I like the results, but because I like the process: