So what happens to the north after secession?

With only 10 days to the referendum and talk of whether it will happen or not essentially dead (hint: its going to happen), what happens next is the new exciting topic.

In the South many of those who will be voting for unity (however many secessionist, especially soldiers believe this too) are preparing for what they see as the intra-south war between the Dinka and the rest of the various tribes/ethnicities/nationalities/whateveryouwannacallit. Although this view have mainly came from Equatorians who really only see a clash between the Dinka and the 'united tribes' of Equatoria, without consideration of anyone else, not even the second majority Nuer peoples. However, this is merely the speculations of average everyday people and I'm sure that GoSS has a strategy to deal with these issues - because at the end of the day, a civil war would only really happen if the politicians and tribal leaders decide it. They are the ones to incite hate in their communities towards others, and at the same time, they are the ones able to stop an escalation into war - if they choose to. Low-level inter-tribal conflict will essentially continue, but merely on a criminal level as it has throughout history.... Bla bla bla

ANYWAY......

What is interesting now is the ripple effect of the South's exhibition of a successful struggle. Now that the referendum has shown that success and freedom can be granted to those who try, we have begun to see a forthcoming revolution in the north. Well, at least that is the feeling I got when I read these headlines the other day:
Sudan opposition gives NCP ultimatum to hold constitutional talks
and
SPLM North threatens to use violence against Sudan's NCP
But the thing is, they are too late, and Bashir made some pretty strong arguments against them with his classic beautiful rhetoric.

"Whoever wants to overthrow the government can lick his elbow....."

In case you didn't get it, to lick one's elbow is physically impossible......so is to overthrow the government....at least through legal channels. As he argues, the NCP was a democratically elected government

"The government is not a revolutionary council or any government that can be ousted but it is the Sudanese people,"

And yes, I fully meant it when I said democratically elected government. Now I don't care about what you have to say about how valid the elections were and whether you witnessed some terrible electoral crimes, because at the end of the day, the election observers and the wider international community did not oppose the results or the credibility of the whole process.

It seems that at the time, people (locally and internationally) were too focused on ensuring that the election just happened so that the next milestone (the referendum) could be reached. Now that we are all reaching that milestone, the troubles that we chose to leave behind is catching up with us. Bashir now sits very comfortably in his position, with no legally legitimate threat to his power. SPLM in the South had sacrificed the right of the people in the north by getting Yasir Arman to stand down during the April elections as a compromise to NCP to ensure SPLM's dominance in the South (as it did to so many independent candidates in the South, what ever happened to Alfred Gore?). The international community (as non-biased as it is) didn't want to rattle the cage too much and was content with the two major sides being happy. And then of course there were those parties who tried to boycott the elections but were essentially left to stand alone with their dick in their hands with absolutely no love or support.

So, once again everyone settled for the easy path at the time of crisis and once again, they will pay for it. Everyone made sacrifices by turning a blind eye, or withdrawing from the process, but in the end Bashir still came out on top......you really do have to hand it to the crafty little fuck.