By Macharmtion Makoleyian Makolethillik,
Nairobi, Kenya.
Feb 27, 2016(Nyamilepedia) —– ‘Leadership,’ as understood in the modern Western popular culture, is not reflected with any real definition, but thought to be a naturally born gift to a few and made for many. There are clearly leaders who functions as Prophets, Apostles, Teachers, Elders and so on, but none who fit the present – day secular model marked by a combination of individualism, self-dependence, tasks-oriented, supposed objectivity and personal ambition. We have therefore, a significant problem on how can we develop true leaders who are going to be rooted in a natural revelation of legacy unfazed by the requirements of popular Western Philosophy?
In South Sudan, there is happenstance of two men: Mr. Salva Kiir Mayardit verses Dr. Riek Machar Teny Dhuorgon. It is almost as if Mr. Kiir was to become the final image of God when he dressed in what is popularly known as Juba 1 in the morning of December 16th 2015, ordering the extrajudicial and extermination of the ethnic Nuer mixed, soldiers, working class and innocent civilians by the well-known project of 15,000-5months-long-ethically recruited Dinka-Bhar El Ghazal-Mathiang-Anyoor. This was his first significant sermon that Mr. Kiir engages in before he goes hunting for machine-guns, Antonovs, Tanks and armoured vehicles or generally military Ammos in East Africa (Uganda), North Africa (Egypt), Russia and China respectively; and this explains why redemption is essential if there were to be South Sudan.
According to the great American mind, John C. Maxwell’s law of lid which he described as the ‘type of leadership ability that determines a person’s level of effectiveness, the lower an individual’s ability to lead, the lower a lid on his potential’, entirely defined Mr. Salva Kiir’s success without leadership. In business, if you want to change the direction of an organization, change the leader, that’s why in times of troubles organizations naturally look for new leadership, and Countries experiencing hard times elects new presidents. When a company is losing money, it hires a new CEO, when a Church is floundering, it searches for new Pastor and when Manchester United Sport team keep losing, and it looks for a new head coach, etcetera.
The encounter of Mr. Kiir and Dr. Riek is dominated by the subtext of the leaders and their vastly different worlds. The discussion here reveals the very different agendas of Mr. Salva Kiir and Dr. Riek Machar Teny. Mr. Kiir tries to make some sort of psychological contact with the populace through gimmicks but miserably failed because he has been sitting on the judge’s seat, yet he is the one being judged. Mr. Kiir wants Dr. Riek to understand the difficulty he is in, unaware of the nature the relationship between him and the State after 2013 genocide and the problems that face him. Madam Rebecca Garang who gives a fuller account of what triggered the Juba massacre explained that Dr. Riek Machar Teny was the victim but Mr. Kiir Mayardit seemed to be totally aware that December 15th 2013, was the clash of Kingdoms and the leaders of the Kingdoms, however; they both represent their worlds where they were the obvious consequences of the worlds in which they have been rooted, demonstrating what sort of men they are in the context of Mr. Kiir’s theatrical political gamesmanship. What has emerges seems to be two models of men representing their different worlds and ways of thinking. But what are their characteristics in this brain-teaser?
1). Mr. Salva Kiir Mayardit – the man without internal shape and a victim of various pressures.
Mr. Kiir appeared to be in this position of power but has no personal authority. He is amorphous after unsuccessful extermination of the ethnic Nuer, or a man who could be moved into any shape. His life is a series of pieces that are put together by others (Jieng Council of Elders), a combination of Priests, the Elders, the crowd, his wife and probably the constituency in South Sudan, Mr. Salva Kiir himself. It seems that Mr. Kiir shapes his personality out of the opinion of others. He is manipulated by the very people he intends to lead and this trend is well developed today with the emphasis on image and the power of the consumer; unembellished by last week presidential explosive mutilation of $14 million dollars plus 30 million South Sudanese pounds embezzled by the sixteen (16) of his personal administrators in his office, currently in court. The great betrayal is that, just giving people what they want often reflects to them their own emptiness, thus, ensuring that the leader’s life is also vacuous and just fragments gathered together for certain public displays.
The vulnerability of such leadership in this area is very clear that he serves a series of constituencies: the family, foreign gods, personal financial supporters, the board, the denomination, the boss (Yoweri Museveni), and his own team, but how many are ready to cope with this intensity? How many failed in their internal worlds and we remained ignorant of the process of deterioration? I leave that to the reader …… if we measure them by what they do rather than what they are, then we will just intensify the shattering.
Mr. Salva Kiir Mayardit – the rootless disconnected dictator, an absolutist and the epitome of evil running his own people’s lives, and a man who is thought to be clinically insane.
Mr. Salva Kiir is isolated, a foreigner in a hostile land, without community and apparently friendless apart from the support of his wife Ayen Bol Mayardit. He has been severed from his roots, he is at sea and does not know which direction the wind is going to take him. He is confused about ‘truth’ as he is focusing on quick solutions which appear to be tactically aware but which are without wisdom, and unrealistic about his ability to control this situation. His deepest fantasy and greatest symptom of disconnection is a belief in self-forgiveness, his feeling of power that he believed he could do what only God and others could do; that by ‘washing his hands from the blood bath’ he could avoid the responsibility which was clearly his own somehow. Mr. Kiir in a far distance become his own lord, an able man who want to live at ease with injustice which follows from his assumption, but many wonder whether he will come out alive as he wished from the onset when his master Yoweri Kaguta Museveni made his boat sink incalculably.
Mr. Kiir doesn’t seem to find himself bogged down in one of the superficial war of attrition he manufactured in the twenty first century. From the beginning of his self-made war in 2013, he never shied from using cluster bombs, mustard gas, nerves agents, and chemical weapons of mass destruction against the Nuer’s Mighty White Army in the towns of Mangateen, Gadiang, Malakal, Bentiu and Renk. In Mr. Kiir’s human vacillation, his intention was to depopulate Nuer, the largest traditional bastion of resistance; while his attention was still on fighting a just war at the front and in fact he had managed to destroyed close to 50,000 unarmed civilians who dare the devil with their bare hands and this prove conclusive evidence of atrocities committed against the State he run as his personal property. His move was first to militarily and politically destroy the man who elevated him into the most admired power he used against, in the move that many world leaders condemned as ‘caricature of an African dictator and a disgrace’ to the world’s youngest nation.
2) Dr. Riek Machar Teny Dhuor-gon – the man with fully-formed internal life, passion-filled intention and the Father of South Sudan Self-determination.
Dr. Riek Machar Teny in the opposing side, is full of purpose and steadfastness. This steadfastness shows itself not in his manifested control of the encounter but in silence. He is committed to the cross and has no need to control this encounter overtly because this was not his intention to do so. This was the journey he has chosen rather than the destination itself. What do we do with the silence Dr. Riek Machar? This is a disturbing behaviour of the God who cannot speak, yet his silence is not without message, his presence fills the silence and he waits for people to listen and to observe. The silence of Dr. Riek Machar is a focused love that indicates the nature of authentic natural (inbred) leadership. This man took up arms against the Late Dr. John Garang, the Field Marshall Hassan Omer El Bashir, and again has taken the most daunting mechanical position against the man he elevated into power, and the leadership within the rebel elites, not because he have a number of natural abilities but because of his focused love, and the intention of a compassion-filled heart of winning the right interest of the people for freedom and democratic South Sudan.
The design, intent and long-term execution of his leadership antagonise everybody in and around the circles of his leadership which leave anyone doubtful of his success and accomplishment but this is at his very heart, an interpersonal demonstration of his landmark for maximum change and total freedom. The thought-to-be charismatic leaders under him living without this reality will become mere managers of projects and organizational functionaries, a failure owed to maintaining the same substance of Dr. Riek Machar Teny.
I do not think it is exaggeration to say that the future of the South Sudan depends on his leadership of being relationally-rooted in rural people and their wellbeing. Without recognition of the tough reality, this will mean an ongoing conversation with our heavenly Father and a similar conversation with those who have been called to lead but goes against the will of the bottom millions.
Dr. Riek Machar Teny – the substance rather than the projected image (colourless or water-like) and the diplomatic rebel leader.
Dr. Riek Machar Teny is digging into the inevitable solutions of the suffering million South Sudanese. He does not appear that he is in control, but he is the only God-given leader over to the doubtful to whip to the bone those against the will of the people. He is being spat on and has a crown of thorns set on his head like Jesus, but everything about him says he is out of control because he is the one who is suffering, yet we know that the opposite is true. Why all this endurance of suffering? This is just the preamble to what was said to come because his focus is long–term and nobody could see, not even the pretentious Western nerds.
The greatest battle for him is yet to come, as he is yet to be nailed to the cross and become a curse to those who need shortcut to riches and settle for less. In the model Western cultures, the focus is on the image the leader projects, but the reality behind an image is rarely examined. Suffering is not part of this image, but success certainly is. Dr. Riek Machar Teny is under more pressure than ever before, but could shave his head bald as a sign of remembering the victims of genocide and always afford a widest smile that inspired enemies of his potentially aspired fight for freedom.
In recent months, we have sharpened our criticism of the rebel diplomat but the diplomatic rebel leader’s appearance misled many as the image he projected is an accurate reflection of the reality behind his face, though praising him has never been the first word, it is now time to focus more sharply on the substance and the shape of our internal lives and relationships.
The Mr. Kiir and Dr. Riek encounter is the triumph of substance over image, and we should be known for a similar triumph. In short, the diplomatic rebel leader is driven by compassion not addiction, rooted in relational life, not task, and continually building a substantive life, not a projected image. If we fail in this mission to recognize his role and communication, we will eventually be blown away. Therefore, the leadership creativity he conceived amid chaos mean being culture ready for constant change to handle continual chaos in what seemed to be ‘creative destruction’ in our country today and let us all leave everything to the risk taker, the Dr. Riek Machar Teny Dhuorgon who will fixes it, for if not him, we are all going to breathe our last breath!
Written by Macharmtion Makoleyian Makolethillik – a Student of University of Cambridge Association of Managers. He can be reached at: macharmtion.makolethillik@yahoo.com
5 comments
He will like a Hippopotamus in six months time.
Beek, you don’t need to embarrass that brilliant author to whom I think from Dinka too.You better shut up your filthy mouth buddy, you have earn so much money and become sarcastic and flow with mass . You glutton money lover who probably sale out your soul for it.
Five Stars Hotels are 24 hours service,7 days per week and 12 months per year. So VIP’s have the right to order Foods,beverage and any kind of alcoholic drink when they want. I was former a barman and a waiter and i used work three shifts.
Foods with less ingredients like home foods and eat less restaurants are healthy. Wealthy or better off people these days are dying of Diabetes,dementia and one disease like Cancer, AIDS itself is not a
disease.There are people who died with cancer and left 100 millions.
One of the two men has a vision, the other holds on to his black hat and the vestiges of power.
One man is representing the victins of impunity and slaughter, the other one is the aggressor.
One man lives in the bush, the other on in palaces.
One man gets loyal supporter because of the cause, the other buys loyalty with the peopkes money.
One man has strong independent speakers, the other one empty mouth peaces.
One man has been sitting in the drivers seat for 10 years without the car moving even one meter, the other one denied the right to show us his driving skills.
One man wants freedom for the people, the other one draconian security and opression.
One man seeks open debate, the other one wants to kill reportrs.
One man is a leader, the other one would probably be a good “second in command henchman”
The powerful one speaks his voice, the other one blurred by selfserving syccophants.
10 years is a long time, the evidence of the failure of the regime and the man in the drivers seat clear for everyone to see.
“The liberator became the new oppressor”, no where in the world is that sadly more clear to see – than in South Sudan 2016.
Time to hand the keys to a new driver.