Click the link below to read and listen to Prof. Mahmood Mamdani’s recent talk on South Sudan at Makerere University:
http://mak.ac.ug/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=448&Itemid=298
“Let me ask one question to begin with: who is the self in what we know as self-determination? In 1956, when Sudan became independent, that self was the people of Sudan. Today, in 2011, when South Sudan will become independent, that self is the people of South Sudan.That self, in both cases, is a political self. It is a historical self, not a metaphysical self as nationalists are prone to think. When nationalists write a history, they give the past a present. In doing so, they tend to make the present eternal. As the present changes, so does the past. This is why we are always rewriting the past” – Mahmood Mamdani on Implications of South Sudan’s Referendum
Quote Source:
http://mak.ac.ug/documents/mamdani/ProfMamdaniPaperSSudanReferendum.pdf
