Things Stay the Same

In Sudan, voter registrations are now being accepted in preparation for the country's first election since the split with South Sudan. Unfortunately, many potential voters have no interest in participating.

There's more in this article. Basically, Sudan has had the same president for 25 years, and he is still a candidate despite promising that he would step down. As a result, most people in Sudan don't see the point in voting, because they know it's not a fair election and that he'll win regardless of the results.

The people's assumption is probably correct. The current president has all kinds of human rights violations on his record, and has refused to appear in court about the issues. Even so, I can't help wondering if the people's apathy makes things easier for him. If everyone assumes he's going to win, then that's less trouble for him. But since the assumption is probably correct, a significant opposition among the people would not accomplish much. It's a depressing situation.

I have never lived anywhere with this kind of problem, so I don't know what things are like for the people of Sudan. I don't know what the best course of action would be. All I know is that without fair elections, nothing will change - and if people know their actions don't matter, there will be no desire for that change to occur.

I almost forgot about the blog this week, but when I was on Facebook, I was linked to this by the National Geographic page. It's a short video about an African-American community that, because their ancestors were brought to islands off the southeast cost of the country and remained isolated, ended up retaining a lot of their culture to this day.

I remember these people being mentioned in my American history class. Even though they are American, this still relates to African history because it derives from the slave trade. The truth is that the slaves brought to the Americas managed to retain quite a bit of their culture. This particular group was able to hold on to more than usual. So now, recording and preserving that culture is being viewed as important.

It's a bit early for a blog post, but I found an article that looked really interesting.

It's basically about the king of Swaziland, and how rich he is compared to the ordinary people in the country. This is to be expected of royalty, but given that Swaziland is a fairly poor country, as well as a small one, it just seems all the more unfair.

The article goes on to explain that Swaziland is one of the last absolute monarchies left in the world, and it goes into detail about what that means. Apparently, the people have mixed opinions about the way their country works. Some are fine with things the way they are, but others think it should change.

It's fairly long, but it's an interesting read.