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This week, the trials of separation, whether for a country splitting in two, or a married couple seeking a divorce. South Sudan becomes the world’s 193rd country this weekend, and many are wondering what difficulties lie ahead. Do all settlements mean that one side gains and the other loses out? War Studies professor and former journalist, Anatol Lieven, witnessed the trauma of political secessions at first hand in the bloody Chechen wars in the Caucasus, and is now steeped in the study of a much greater partition and its continuing legacy – that of India and Pakistan. Novelist Aleksandar Hemon offers us his thoughts on the break-up of his native Yugoslavia, now splintered into the Balkan states, and his experience of going through a difficult divorce. In both situations, he says, you don’t want to see the separation coming, and it makes divorce all the worse for it. And Ugandan women’s rights activist Linda Nakakande tells us why some women in Africa no longer look on divorce as a disgrace, but a means to empowerment. Finally, they are able to work as they please, and study as they please, determining their own futures as never before. Illustration by Emily Kasriel: the challenges and advantages of 'divorce and separation' of individuals and nation states.
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