A lot of blood has been shed to reach this point, but when it came on Saturday, independence for South Sudan seemed remarkably peaceful and non-controversial — although, as The Age noted this morning, Australia still officially warns its citizens against travelling there.

With a population of some 8-9 million and about three-quarters of the size of New South Wales, South Sudan certainly has more than its fair share of problems: extreme poverty, appallingly high illiteracy and infant mortality rates, continued security issues and border disputes with Sudan. But the focus at the weekend was on the positives, and on the long struggle for freedom finally crowned with success.

Media reports have described South Sudan as the worlds 193rd independent nation, a number presumably arrived at by adding one to the current 192 members of the United Nations (which South Sudan is scheduled to join on Thursday).

But that leaves out several places that are widely recognised as independent, such as Kosovo, Taiwan and the Vatican. Wikipedia has a comprehensive list, in which South Sudan comes in at No.204.

Looked at objectively, independence for Southern Sudan was always a no-brainer. Its people were separated from the rest of Sudan by two of the continent’s biggest religious and linguistic dividing lines; only the administrative convenience of British colonialists had put them together. But the more powerful north fought hard to keep control, and established governments all over Africa resisted the idea of revising colonial boundaries.

Nor is it hard to see why. Although South Sudan was probably the most extreme case, there are examples all across Africa of arbitrary boundaries that make no ethnic or geographic sense. The same Muslim versus Christian/animist line that divided Sudan, for example, also bisects Nigeria, Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire; Ghana seems to deal with it peacefully, but the others have been wracked by conflict as a result.

Equally anomalous is the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, ethnically and geographically part of the great rift valley region with Rwanda and Burundi, but instead governed from Kinshasa near the Atlantic Ocean, more than a thousand kilometres to the west.

And the problem extends well beyond Africa. The Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation now counts 66 members, and while not all are actively seeking independence — or would have much of a claim for it if they did — many of them look very much like the seeds of future nations. In our own region, such places as West Papua, New Caledonia, Bougainville and the South Moluccas are in the queue not far behind South Sudan.

Despite attempts by many governments (including Australia’s) to obscure the fact, national self-determination is a growing force. A hundred and fifty years ago, the eastern half of Europe was a smaller version of what Africa is today — almost all of its territory occupied by four large multinational empires whose borders took little account of popular feeling.

Now, after wars, trauma and ethnic cleansing, the same space is occupied by some 25 independent nations, most of which are sufficiently confident in their identities to be willing to again relinquish some of their autonomy to a multinational project, the European Union.

No one thinks Africa will turn out quite the same way. But South Sudanese independence may well be a signal for more general attempts to redraw the colonial map, and if so they deserve some Western sympathy and understanding.