By Makneth Aciek, Kampala,
Opinion.
Nov 30, 2016(Nyamilepedia) —— The disease called negative ethnicity has been the permanent address of Jieng council of elders since the genesis of conflict in December 2013. We are all aware of this disease since we are all its victims to varying degrees.
When I read the article authored by Aldo Ajou Deng Akuey today, I realized that the negative ethnicity has a nasty symptoms. It causes educated and matured man to say the unthinkable; It reduces its victim’s brain to the stage that no rational thinking is possible. So sad the educated and an elder is reduced by the effect of this phenomenon to a muttering abusive epithet.
[ad name=”Google Ads 03″]
The author wish to remind Ajou and JCE of elders that this thing call tribe in which they dwell in largely is no longer the driving force of modern society. In old days when life depend on soil, rivers and pastures, the tribe help secure those resources. It give you security and keep you fed; so you were right to put your community above any other communities.
Now, dear Jieng Council of Elders you have urbanized! You are not longer living from the force of nature. You are in the environment which is obedient to the rules of monetary economy and you should stream away from all these tribal fanaticism of Bahr Al Ghazal this, Jieng that.
In this modern economy, the hold of tribe has weaken. Skills and knowledge matter more than prowess with spears and shears. You are catapulted into modern ways of life; the hold of ethnicity on means of survival is fading and new form of identities are emerging.
Culture is a great thing; it is good for people to share Language, cuisines and history. But what bothers most of people is that JCE continued to confuse heritage with competitive advantage.
It’s a sheer insanity for JCE to blame anyone for not stoping the war in 2013. In a society whose values are rotten; in your society of ‘me-first’, How on earth do you expect Hoth Mai to deliver when it was the interest of commander in chief for war to continue? Hoth was working under the system of collapsed discipline and he should be applaud for the little he did.
The architects of South Sudan conflict are with in Jieng council of elders! You can not ask people to forget the unforgettable knowledge that JCE are the one destroying this country. The Young men from Bor that you vilified are the one who have not abandoned the concepts of truth and they will never believe in your fabrications. Since the JCE became the custodians of Kiir presidency, South Sudan has been characterized by poor economic opportunities, social deprivation, neglect of public facilities and political repression. You pumped money out of National Reserve and brought the country to it knees economically.
JCE have pretentiously claimed to be for peace in many occasions; the Author wish to advice you that peace can’t be found in a sealed libraries of ignorance. It must be generated and elevated from a messy and unpredictable situation through open dialogue by all communities. This is a process which shouldn’t be controlled by the elders of one certain tribe. JCE have repeatedly denied the other communities the opportunity to participate in crucial decision that affect public life, to contribute in debates that could possibly shape the country destiny; this is why the country stagnated in the conflicts.
JCE should apologize to the rest of South Sudan and leave the nation political ambient. They must shed their tribal paranoia, their ethnic stereotyping and accept the wind of change. It’s this wind of change that will clean their mess not any form of cycle of absurdities. Truth doesn’t require any translation! You have failed South Sudan and Barh Al Ghazal as a region. You saw the seed of future calamity with a very bad deed you committed against other communities. Every massacre and assassination carry out by Mathiang Anyor under your instructions blow oxygen onto the fire of future revenge.
There is no where on earth one ethnic group is obliged to protect the constitution of sovereign nation. It’s this attitude of the likes of Aldo Ajou and JCE that confirm many people suspicions that Barh Al Ghazal lacks the nerves to lead. It must be admitted there are good leaders from Barh Al Ghazal who could have made the difference, but they are not given the stage.
You don’t need to be of a high IQ to know that Kiir and his inner circle of JCE have exposed Barh Al Ghazals poor leadership skills. They have problem with decent people who want to see change in the country. They surrounded themselves with self-centred goons who want nothing but their own gain. The inner core team of presidency consists of truculent tribalist and famed fraudsters. Let be honest and evaluate this regime with lenses of nationalism; it is made up of fable minded flunkeys and sweet-talking sycophants who have no ideology to take South Sudan forward.
South Sudan under your presidency is only a pretend-nation. We have only passport and flag, we are yet to become a nation and the blame for this should be place squarely on Salva Kiir leadership.
Look around you and Salva Kiir’s presidency: in what sense are we a nation? A bunch of communities all scowling at each other in suspicious doesn’t make a nation.
Blaming Dinka Bor youth for condemning these failures is nothing than a refusal to take responsibility for the country social degradations. The cry of youth of South Sudan champion by Dinka Bor youth, is the quest for true nationalist leader- a person whose sole mission is to unite the communities of South Sudan and drive them forward. The people JCE hates so much are the one who refused to settle for a procession of ethnic chieftain whose primary identity had been around tribes and families.
Finally, South Sudan will be move forward by maelstrom of ideas, initiatives and energy that emerge from the communities of South Sudan- not by filthy hand of JCE alone, nor by the shallow debates of its dwindling and aged intellectuals.
Makneth Aciek is South Sudanese and can be reach via wenmakneth@ yahoo.com
[ad name=”match-content”]
