What footsteps will South Sudanese youths follow?

What footsteps will South Sudanese youths follow?

By: Abraham Daljang Maker

Kampala: it is hard to speak out at this critical moment but it is worth saying something. I would begin with a famous dictum that “one dead frog spoils the whole water.” By this I am alluding to the current crisis in South Sudan which is the continuation of the past incidences. The 1991 Bor incidence seemed to have again given birth to 2013 Juba, Bor, and Malakal incidences, and if the whole affair does not stop, I am afraid it will lead to another incidence in some decades to come. Bad prediction! Yes indeed it is bad, but there is likely that the history sometimes repeats itself unless people get committed to change the history. What would be called a political arm twisting within the SPLM party has taken a different dimension by involving the army which I believed should be an independent body; and worst of it all, it turned to be a tribal strife.

This leaves me with a question; what footsteps will south Sudanese youths follow? You might be having some varied answers but my answer is that, the youths are inheriting the doomed future, everything look bleak at the moment. Everyone will remain with hatred towards each other, the orphans and survivors of 1991 shall remain with tribal hatred and now the orphans and survivors of 2013 shall also remain with tribal sentiment.  All these turmoil will finish but what will remain in the minds of these people is the tribal instinct fueled by the feelings that this tribe killed my parents; this tribe almost killed me, this tribe hates us, these tribes are not good etc……. This will be a vicious cycle that shall be carried down from generation to generation, hence leaving the youth vulnerable to tribal influences and they shall have no unity and patriotism in their hearts. Despite the ethnicity, there is one thing that remains clear, our future as the youths of this new nation is totally ruined and we shall remain poor and continue to suffer because of what has been initiated by our own fathers. We are inheriting a bad politics basing on tribal line, a bad believe that a country is divided along a tribal tendencies. Our brains are being washed by tribal ideologies and our blood is being poisoned by tribal venom that shall be reigning in our blood for years; a bad practice that shall make us remain backward for thousand decades unless we wake up and change the history. 

One thing that should be known by my fellow south Sudanese youths is that, our war veterans will one day put down their arms and take up the walking stick to support their weaker knees because the old age will command them to do. But they will continue to inject us with their past ideology that will make us remain divided along the so called tribal lines.  We should remember that all these men have established themselves and they have seen the worst and the best in their lives, but for us who grew in the war and still experience it; we have little hope in this divided country. Whether you like it or not, the bitter truth is that, the youths who would oppose this idea of solving the problem through the iron fists are the ones who are using an internet as platform to preach the tribal loyalty.  If we all need national healing and reconciliation, fair justice must be done to those whose innocent blood which has poured down.

 In every conflict, there are losers and winners, without taking it literally, let me explain this. The losers are we the youths whose bodies of our fellows are being fed on by raven and vultures on the street of Juba, malakal,  Bor and Bentiu. The losers are still we the youths and vulnerable women and village elders who are now struggling with life in UN compounds in Juba, Malakal, Bentiu and Bor, plus those internal displace persons who are exposed in dangerous life in Aweirial County in Lakes state. The losers are we the youths who will continue to see themselves as enemies and who will inherit the poverty as a result of fighting from generation to generation. Meanwhile the winners are the ones who use us to meet their own desire because one day they will take up their offices and relax. While you(youths) eat once after two days, and dink half cup of water in displacement camps and UN compounds, the ones who we think are doing us good are the sleeping in lodges and eat nice food daily while they continue to tell us to fight on.  This shouldn’t have been really a fighting within the army that later led to the killings of innocent people, this would be political fight that would be fought by votes. But because the army is composed of the “ordinary members of society” who mostly pay an allegiance to tribe than a nation, the whole affairs have taken a wrong turn.

 All we need as the youths of South Sudan is to find a way of solving this, we have a lot of unions, associations, and community groupings, if we sat down, and make unity and remain united as nation lovers than tribal lovers, and then we can see a better future. Let’s not cheer the people to fight on; instead we need to condemn this in a strongest term. These continue revenge will not bring lasting peace, the only thing is to say enough is enough and embrace peace and forget the past.