South Sudan Crisis, and New Democratic tolerance. Attempting a Consolidation, a Political History. Just five years ago, as dawn unfolded on January 9, 2011, millions of South Sudanese took the final steps on our seventy-year journey to independence. By barge and bus, on animal and foot, we came from the four corners of our homeland and beyond to stand in long lines under a hard sun so that our voices would be heard. And when the polling centers closed, the world did hear us. It heard our shouts of joy; it heard our thankful songs and quiet prayers. Above all, it heard the promise of an end to the crack of rifle and of the cry of mourning. Our bloody, terrifying struggle with the Sudanese regime in Khartoum had come mercifully to an end. Now, however, came the difficult work of building our nation. We knew instinctively that a nation was more than a border and a government, because for 70 years we had been shackled to something that was nothing more than a border and a government. In our own country, we said, our government would act for us and not against. Never again could an official or favored group simply take from us on a whim. And never again would any of us be treated as lesser than any other.