The Miseducation of the South Sudanese Youth and their Political Rants
6 min readTHE DISRESPECTFUL EDUCATED YOUNG SOUTH SUDANESE AND THEIR MYTHS
By Kur Wel Kur, Australia
“You in the Diaspora always seem to ‘know it all’ and have so much to say: giving your “thoughts, analyses, theories, solution, views and resolutions.” Pay more attention to being productive citizens in your adoptive countries. I have nothing against any of you in the diaspora personally, but it’s the sense of patronism and Mr. Know- it- all-I-have-come-to-save-you-from-yourselves attitude many people in the Diaspora always seem to have.” –by Deng Arok Thon, the son of the Late Arok Thon Arok, 12 May 2012.
April 22, 2015 (SSB) —- Have you ever wondered why elders are vital to young people and young people are just as important as their elders? However, what happens when young people turn against their elders?
Well, before we globalised, young people had no guts to cross the lines between their elders and them because they needed their elders for everything, from learning basic skills, for example, hunting to learning super skills such as herbs for healing, arts of making rain or knowing territories.
In early days, young people settled in groups (age sets) with different tasks. Promotions to other age sets defended on ageing but promotions to leadership roles or oratory classes defended on merits, in which discipline ranked high.
However, globalisation and technologies shattered most of those norms. We, young people upload almost 1000 years old knowledge via the internet; then we find free platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and websites like PaanLuel Wel: South Sudanese Bloggers to disrespect elders and leaders for we (young people) know.
So some of the educated young South Sudanese have considered themselves the faces of South Sudan. Without reservations, some of us think we’re the alternatives. You keep reading to find out why I don’t think so….
The misused freedom of expression, the abused of president
So many educated and semi-illiterate youth defiled our president on Facebook, radios and news sites. However, we forget one crucial point, which says “the change starts with oneself”. So if we need democracy, we must support what supports democracy.
Exalting rebels and their leader is a rejection of democracy and its values. Sympathizing with rebels is a crime against the will of the people (the majority). “Changing oneself” will propel us to the moon in terms of education, development, civilization and democracy.
However, if we false start by refusing to examine our mistakes, and blame the president for everything even for our personal duties, fairness will edge farther. Our liberal wives and sisters, the ‘likes hunters’ on Facebook are more dangerous than Salva Kiir. The controversial statuses they write on social sites, and we (their husbands) ignore them are more lethal to us more than one or two misspelled words in the president’s speech.
“Changing oneself”, our way forward. My brothers, those paternity tests of children, which came back negatives, must worry us a lot than the president’s one mispronounced word. My brother, if one of your genes carry blindness so genetically you’re blind but all your seven children have eagle’s visions, this must worry you more than one wrongful removed minister.
Leading and caring for a country is not easy. Some of us in the Western countries chose to run their families in Africa because they can’t handle responsibilities, which come with families or children. So why blaming the president who tries to govern millions people.
Brothers, some of our families have disintegrated because our communications failed. So why getting mad at the president who is trying to convince 10 million people?
The myths of some young educated South Sudanese
They think of themselves as alternatives. Some have gone home already, among which, handfuls are corrupt to the nerves of their toes. No one should blame them because chimpanzees’ offspring learn by examples from their parents.
They see their mums dumping saliva on stripped bare twigs then stick them in ants mold to extract termites; they (kids) copy these lessons and paste them in their subconscious.
In next minutes, they practice them. With this learning ability, some of the educated young South Sudanese will offer little to change our current situations, unless, they erase every bit of bad habits they learned during struggle.
Brought up on lies, threats and scare tactics, the 1987 and 1990 boys are the products of a regime that ran the war of liberation. The initiators of liberation borrowed the communists’ ideologies. Scare tactics, lies and threats are basis of communism. Without burying these ideologies therapeutically, they (some lost boys) will offer nothing.
Flushed out by Riek’s 1991 Rebellion, some of the 1991 boys, misled by their mothers who mistreated others boys under their care in displaced camps, think, the roads of struggle were smooth but some of their age mates fetched water, fire woods, washed utensils, pounded sorghum and corn for meals and did other girlish jobs for stay-home-boys’ mums.
Then, in the wake of the story of suffering, we all scrambled for places in it. Who were these boys? They’re kins of some SPLA officers.
So any relative to Riek Machar who claimed to have almost eaten a rotting corpse because he had nothing to eat, is lying to the marrow of his bones because in all the sufferings the lost boys endured, some SPLA officers’ sons and sons to their (officers) relatives enjoyed the shades under officers’ wings.
Those officers embedded corruption in their sons and nephews’ behaviours. I doubt, they will be alternatives. If some of the lost boys can’t work hard on themselves, then the aspirations are just but myths.
Facebook noise makers (political analysts or whiners?)
Our empty criticisms, their habits of nagging the president or system with the same opinions convey nothing than misusing freedom of expression. My brothers, if we can’t face our problems, how easy facing others’ problems? Any 12 year old lost boy in 1987 or 15 year old in 1990 is both 40 years old now.
However, if some 40 years olds floundered in Western countries without wives, children or qualifications, then they must spend countless sleepless nights worrying about when to marry or get qualifications than worrying about mismanagements in South Sudan.
Nagging our wives and our nocturnal brothers who jump on wheels, leaving their families home alone, roam the nights for petty reasons and come home when they wish, at either 2.00 am. or 4.00 a.m. must attract our attentions.
The mind-numbing thoughts of dying of AIDS or hepatitis B, must worry us a lot than logging on our Facebook’s accounts to rant on the president or ministers.
Until we confront ourselves and correct our mistakes, which we avoid all the times, then all the hard talks or writings in which we condemn the elders and South Sudan’s government officials are just meaningless indulgence.
Our rants about president are escapism. Our notions of being the alternatives are myths. Our Facebook’s statuses are avoidance of our families’ issues.
Changing ourselves is the easiest and most beneficial contribution we’d ever done to our lives and to our beloved country.
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