“What building a state and what building a society means … is for people to come together, discuss, and agree on a shared way forward.”

“When they come to power through military means, they tend to then rely on those same instruments to wield power.” —Peter Biar Ajak

Independence!! A war won; a people freed. New challenges, but also new possibilities. “Our people were overjoyed … It was an amazing achievement after enormous suffering and sacrifice. … it was something beyond what words can describe,” says Peter Biar Ajak, a young leader from South Sudan, who was imprisoned for his political activism and then escaped a hit squad before he found exile in the United States. South Sudan achieved its independence in 2011—but the exaltation soon turned to ashes: “The last nine years have been absolutely awful for our people.” 

Why? “We had a leadership that did not have a vision, a leadership that could not organize and mobilize our people to discuss what sort of society and what sort of state that they wanted to create,”Ajak asserts in a New Thinking for a New World conversation with Alan Stoga. “Instead of shepherding our people toward a new future, the leadership became focused on entrenching itself in power, in looting resources.” 

The backstory, he explains, is that the leader of South Sudan’s revolution, John Garang de Mabior, mobilized supporters with the vision that Sudan was built on “the domination of one religion, one ethnic group.” Breaking free of that oppression was the motivating force of the revolution, but Garang died before he could articulate a more positive vision. And, Ajak argues, that’s the problem: “We are a country that has not gone through the basics of forging a shared future and a shared society. What is required is for our people to have that conversation to discuss what sort of society they want to create, what sort of state that they want to create.”

Ajak recognizes that what has derailed South Sudan’s path towards democracy is common to too many Central and East African countries. Revolutionaries who come to power through what he calls “militarized politics” naturally see force as the primary means of retaining their power. This produces a “politics of violence, because the only way in which that can be effectively challenged is through violence.” The leaders who fought for independence “understand destruction; they used destruction as a tool for gaining liberty.”

The problem is thus twofold. On the one hand, “violence is extremely disempowering,” Ajak says, because it precludes any mobilization of people through consensus and discussion. On the other, a new country like South Sudan “has to be built, and these guys are not builders; they understand [only] destruction.” He argues that revolutionary leaders—in his own country and elsewhere—pervert power to sustain themselves in office and basically “pretend that politics is taking place.”

Fragile States in Africa Today

*Source: Fund for Peace, Fragile States Index 2020

For Ajak, replacing that faux politics requires a real conversation among citizens to create “a shared vision for society.” In effect, he argues that what is needed is a “social contract … negotiated by everyone, by all the people. It’s something that has to be widespread.” That’s hard enough, but Ajak is persuaded there is a bigger problem: “A social contract is … something that is living, that is negotiated and renegotiated from generation to generation, because challenges change, needs change, aspirations change.” In other words, a successful, sustainable democracy requires the continuous engagement of citizens who constantly renew the social contract with their leaders. 

Peter Biar Ajak recently spoke with Alan Stoga as part of the Tällberg Foundation’s “New Thinking for a New World” podcast series. Hear their whole conversation below, or find us on a podcast platform of your choice (Itunes,  Spotify, Acast, Stitcher, Libsyn).

Peter Biar Ajak is the Chairman of the South Sudan Young Leaders Forum, Senior Advisor to the International Growth Centre, and Founder of the Juba-based Center for Strategic Analyses and Research.  Peter was previously the In-Country Economist for the World Bank and Coordinator of Policy and Strategy in the Office of the Minister of National Security in the Office of the President.  In these roles, he facilitated the creation of South Sudan Development Plan, South Sudan Growth Strategy, and South Sudan Vision 2040 and he drafted South Sudan’s White Paper on Intelligence & Security, the National Security Policy, and the National Security Act. Before that, as South Sudan’s independence referendum approached in 2011, Peter founded South Sudan Wrestling Entertainment (SSWE), a private company that uses the South Sudanese indigenous sport of wrestling to promote peace and reconciliation among the tribes of South Sudan. Peter received his BA in Economics from LaSalle University, Master of Public Administration in International Development ((MPA/ID) from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, where he was a Public Service Fellow, and will receive his PhD in Politics & International Studies from Cambridge University in October 2020. He spent 18 months in jail as a political prisoner for his criticism of South Sudan’s president, Salva Kiir.