Birth ~ and Death ~ of a Nation

When South Sudan became its own country in 2011, there was hope that, despite all the challenges it would face ~ and they were greater than those faced by almost every other new country ever ~ it would make it (http://somanyinterestingthings.blogspot.com/2011/04/birth-of-nation.html, http://somanyinterestingthings.blogspot.com/2011/07/happy-birth-day-south-sudan.html, http://somanyinterestingthings.blogspot.com/2013/02/we-have-nation-now-what.html, http://somanyinterestingthings.blogspot.com/2013/12/south-sudan-101.html). By last year, the outlook was pretty bleak (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/23/south-sudan-state-that-fell-apart-in-a-week), and now, the stories shared by Humans of New York (http://somanyinterestingthings.blogspot.com/2014/08/more-humans.html), like the one above, show the immense and immensely painful price paid by the people when governments fail.
   Filmmakers Florence Martin-Kessler and Anne Poiret documented the first years in the film State Builders and have a unique perspective on the difficulties faced by the new country: http://www.frontlineclub.com/state-builders-the-making-of-south-sudan/