TO EASE SUFFERING—Angola Middle School eighth-grade publications class students present Julia Duany of South Sudanese Friends with a check for funds raised through a bake sale and other activities last week. Duany addressed eighth-graders on the plight of the South Sudanese in the beleaguered, civil war-torn country. (Star photo by Yvonne Paske)

Sudanese peacemaker brings message to middle school
 
The Evening Star, Tues., May 16, 2000, Page A3
By YVONNE PASKE
 
ANGOLA -Gesturing emphatically with her long, tapered fingers, Julia Duany of South Sudanese Friends spoke passionately and eloquently of the political unrest, poverty and strife in her native country in a presentation for Angola Middle School eighth-graders Monday.

While descriptions of her countrymen's suffering tied in nicely with a class study of the book, "The Diary of Anne Frank," other connections tied Duany to the United States and even Angola.

Duany's son, Duany, is well known to lovers of college basketball as a player for Wisconsin, where he is a teammate of Angola's Charlie Wills.

Duany co-founded South Sudanese Friends with her husband, Wal, to work with others to bring peace to Sudan while helping the enslaved and impoverished in South Sudan. She is an associate professor at Indiana University.

Duany opened the presentation with a film on daily life in South Sudan, and detailed the poverty woven into the fabric of life there. "Young people there don't have these opportunities," she said. "Here you take things for granted. You have McDonald's, parents, theaters, clothes--so many T- shirts and shoes you don't know what to do with them. But what about other parts of the world?"
Duany said her message did not intend to distress listeners, but to educate them on another view of the world. "Can you go five hours without potato chips or pop? No. In Sudan, children can go 5-10 days with nothing but water. You may ask, how did this happen.?" she queried the students.

She traced the roots of the division between North and South Sudan to British colonialism in the late 19th century. "In the north were Muslims with Islamic and Arabic culture. In the south we still maintain our Africanness. Also, missionaries have converted many in the south to Christianity," she said of the cultural differences. The colonial government concentrated development in the north, which got schools, hospitals, roads--the vestments of civilized society, she said. The government left all southern development to missionaries, which gave most people a standard two years of education, and that largely concentrated on Bible reading, she said.
"So there was a disparity in development," Duany said. "There were no schools, roads or health care in the south. The colonial government wanted two different countries. Today, you must have a passport to go between the two countries," she said. In 1948, divided Sudan merged through an agreement made by Egypt, he north and the colonial government, she said. "They began to attempt to Islamize everything, and the southern Sudanese revolted. They said, 'Now, you are becoming a Muslim in one day. ' We rejected that."

The years 1972-83 saw a Socialist government and peace between the north and south, but in 1983 an Islamic government gained power. "This law said an eye for an eye, a leg for a leg. There was no court system. We rejected Islamic law. We said, 'We cannot be Muslim, we have African traditions and civil law,"' she said.

"From 1983 to the present there has been fighting, with the result that 2.9 million people are dead, two generations of people have no education, farmland is destroyed, and there is no health care," she said.

She implored the United States government to join in a treaty banning North Sudanese land mines in the south. "We need as human beings to see how other parts of the world are. The holocaust is still around, maybe not in Europe, but somewhere in the world," she said.

"The U.S. government must get involved to prevent these atrocities and bring about peace Talk to your parents and teachers. Everyone must get involved to help. When there are bad policies around the world, no one wants them. But you can make a lot of change by connecting with human rights organizations and churches.

I think we can change the world," she said. Duany's husband is now engaged in writing a constitution to govern South Sudan, she said. "This constitution would respect the rights of the individual and not exploit the citizens. We in the south have had enough of the northern government that doesn't allow other ways of thinking. We want a democratic, elected government," she said.

In a question-and-answer session following her presentation, Duany detailed the level of respect the Sudanese exhibit to each other. "Some kids think parents are dumb. No, we are very smart," she said. "In South Sudan, you never say no to your parents. There is lots of respect for parents. We say, 'Listen to your teachers, they are like me, they are older than you and know better than you.' We need to begin to respect each other. If I look a little different it doesn't mean I'm bad. We need to respect those boundaries," she said.

Eighth-grade publications class students showed their heightened awareness of the Sudanese situation by presenting Duany with a check for money raised through a bake sale and other activities they organized last week. "You could be feeding an entire village with this check," she told students.