New cities: or, a study in old politics
By Nicki Kindersley
Many countries have started cities from scratch, including Dubai’s island cities, the logically-named Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, and even Nairobi, a rail depot selected as the administrative city of Kenya by the British. While new, shiny cities are planned across China, Korea and the Arabian Gulf, another potentially new city has been proposed in the recently independent country of South Sudan.
Called Ramciel (or Ramshiel, depending on spelling), the new capital of South Sudan has re-emerged after independence as a purported government scheme, formally announced as a long-term plan on 2 September, 2011. Previously the pet idea of a very few government ministers, rubbished by a surveying company that advised that the allocated land was entirely unsuitable, and then put to one side – apparently – in the excitement over independence, it seemed unlikely to bear fruit.
But now the Southern government has announced plans to complete basic infrastructure around Ramciel – whose location is very vague, and whose size has been a subject of debate – within the next five years. The location is already shrouded in destiny by claims (unreported before independence?) that Ramciel had apparently been selected by the late John Garang himself, the guerrilla leader and first President of the South who has become one of the few common national symbols, and whose face covers the new currency. The idea of a clean slate is extremely attractive in light of the current capital, Juba, being a rapidly-expanding warren of endless NGOs, new squatter towns of returning refugees and jerry-rigged construction work. Like the parliamentary area of Delhi, built in classical style by Lutyens, the artistic impressions of Ramciel delineates a functioning, established and credible seat of government and centre of state that is often sorely lacking in Juba. It even has a Facebook page.
As James Okuk at the Sudan Tribune has pointed out, the question of why to move the capital is well-covered. There have been legitimate concerns over the rapid expansion of Juba onto land traditionally owned and used by the local Bari communities; while the Southern courts are not up to speed with new legislation, a new judiciary and a huge caseload, land claims continue to be riddled with corruption, problems with documentation, arbitrary seizures and squatting. Juba is also firmly in Equatoria state in the south of South Sudan, while Ramciel is central, which might ease some of the frustrations over the monopolising of infrastructure and investment.
However, as Okuk points out, the question of ‘how’ to relocate – and, as an aside, whether relocation is even necessary – hasn’t been properly asked. There are huge amounts of investment in Juba already, including an entirely new road layout, embassies and factories, let alone the tarmac put down and the statue of Garang erected for Independence Day. How the huge and constantly growing number of citizens of Juba, their homes and land rights are to be relocated is a major unasked and unsolved issue. These criticisms – as with the criticism of the actual site’s unsuitability and remoteness – have been raised by opposition leaders, but not by the government itself.[1]
This is an authoritarian solution to a diplomatic problem; it’s already been pointed out that local Bari council leaders have offered further land around Juba. Proper local politics, investment in good land tribunals and judicial training, and re-investment in official land titles would be sensible but boring. Even the President has told officials to ‘feel at home’ in Juba for another twenty years. For a poor country with a short-term oil bonus and massive ambitions, the idea of just ‘starting again’ to avoid these issues is a cop out and a distraction tactic. ‘New cities’ like Ramciel are old politics.
Nicki Kindersley is a PhD student at Durham University, studying the political activities of Southern Sudanese migrant communities in Greater Khartoum. She blogs at Internally Displaced (http://internallydisplaced.wordpress.com).
