Mr. President, University Education is the Key to our Nation’s Prosperity
6 min readBy PaanLuel Wël, Juba, South Sudan
May 1, 2015 (SSB) —- Addressing the 18th graduation ceremony of Juba University on Tuesday, the first since the independence of South Sudan in July 2011, President Salva Kiir told the three-thousand graduands that the main objective of his government “is to develop the human resources that have the capacity to seeing beyond the presence, capable of analyzing its environment and has the way to go beyond, high riser.”
Human capital—our university graduates—is the key to the economic and social development of our country. It is the backbone for our political stability, for the better informed, economically empowered and socially prosperous South Sudanese people are less likely to engage in social ills and military upheavals that have derailed our societal progress since 2005.
And in view of the fact that only university education can inculcate and produce such kinds of human capital, we must consider university education as the key to our nation’s sustainable economic development, viable political stability, durable cultural rejuvenation and long lasting social prosperity.
Indeed, education has been defined as “the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life.”
Because nation building—and socioeconomic development—is a war of its own kind, we must approach it with the same zeal and mentality with which we successfully waged our revolutionary armed struggle, without which there would have been no Republic of South Sudan.
From the pioneering fathers of our liberationary struggle to the founding fathers of the SPLM/A and of South Sudan, we have always known the enemy, we have never failed to prepare for the battles ahead, always have envisioned the future and always have done more than paying lip service to the sacrificial exigency of the revolutionary war. This is the only reason we succeeded so triumphantly. It was not through mere words or meek prayers: it was through concerted actions.
Thus, Anyanya One, Anyanya Two, and the SPLM/A had trained military divisions and battalions to execute the war of liberation. For the SPLM/A, there were the Koryom, Mormor, Kazuk, Zalzal, Infijar, Intifadha and Intisar divisions that launched and waged the revolutionary armed struggle. There were battalions such as Jamus, Tiger, Timsah, Agreb, Zindia, Cobra, Hadiid, Raad, Rhino, Katiba Banat and Red Army, among numerous others.
The leadership of the SPLM/A did not sleepwalk into the war of independence to liberate us from the bondage of Islamism and Arabism. They had a clear plan of action, a vision and a mission of the war and, above all, of the post-conflict New Sudan. Our founding fathers cherished the essence of Benjamin Franklin’s adage that “by failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”
Mr. President, in this second phase of our revolutionary war, our bullet are the degrees; our military instructors the university professors; our battalions the university graduates; our military commanders the ministers; our battlefields the classrooms and campuses; our war the embarrassing illiteracy, chronic diseases, and crippling poverty; and our supreme objective is to win this second phase of the war much as we triumphed in the first phase in July 2011.
Just as military education (training) enabled us to achieve our liberation during the war, the current university education must be cultivated, harnessed, and deployed like those famous SPLA military divisions and battalions to liberate us, once more, from rampant illiteracy, chronic diseases and debilitating poverty.
The arresting problem, however, is that we sorely lack the required, well-trained, adequately armed and supplied, and ideologically disciplined army to deploy in this second phase of the war. Those of our military commanders in charge of health, education, agriculture, military, foreign affairs, security etc., have all been rendered infertile by the lack of know-how, ambushed by chronic diseases, and hindered by illiteracy, with a devastating flank attack by a formidable enemy battalion called lack of funds.
Mr. President, to a neutral observer, we are a revolutionary army with no soldiers to wage the revolutionary war. And this is not surprising given the fact that for the last twelve years, we have never graduated a division, or battalion to reinvigorate our revolutionary fight. Now that we have at long last commenced graduating our armies, divisions, and battalions, it is befitting that you, Mr. President, see to it that our military instructors and trainers at the universities are well furnished and equipped. They are at the forefront in this second phase of our noble and just struggle for our beloved people.
Our university lecturers and professors are the Kerubinos, the Nyuons, the Kiirs, the Aroks, the Wanis, the Oyais, the Piengs, the Hoths, the King Pauls, the Mamurs, and the Atem Aguangs—name them—of the SPLM/A war. Never in the history of our movement did Dr. John Garang send these finest officers to the frontline without adequate soldiers by their side. And you are my star witness Mr. President.
I do understand that we have fiscal issues; but I also know that there is plenty of money for the returning militia leaders to sleep in five stars hotels and to drive flashy V-8s. This is war Bany Kiir; limited as our resources are, they must be invested in critical areas in order to achieve the best possible results. Education is one such indispensable area.
The first phase of the war was initiated, executed and successfully waged by us, not by well-intentioned, know-it-all, hired mercenaries on our behalf. And for that we are and shall forever be proud of our great achievement, paid for with our blood and flesh. Similarly, the second phase of our revolutionary struggle must also be waged by us, not by know-it-all, no-results-whatsoever army of foreign expatriates.
In the spirit of learning from our own African geniuses, let me leave you with a relevant quote from Dr. John Garang. He has a very lofty idea about us Junubeen; we should rather listen to him, at least as a befitting tribute to our fallen heroes and heroines:
“We are not anybody’s burden; we are masters in our own house, we are confident in ourselves and of the future. There are those who might entertain the false belief that we can’t govern ourselves, we should not and cannot let their thought pattern influence us.”
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PaanLuel Wël, the Managing Editor of PaanLuel Wël: South Sudanese Bloggers, is a South Sudanese national currently residing in Juba, South Sudan, where he works for one of the International NGOs. He graduated with a double major in Economics and Philosophy from The George Washington University, Washington D.C, USA. He is the author of “Return in Peace (R.I.P) Dr. John Garang” and the editor of the speeches of Dr. John Garang, published as “The Genius of Dr. John Garang, Vol. 1 &2“. He is currently working on two books to mark the 10th anniversary of the death of Dr. John Garang: Vol. 3 of “The Genius of Dr. John Garang” and “Who Killed Dr. John Garang“, an account of events and circumstances leading to the death of the late SPLM/A leader in July 20005. You can reach him through his email: paanluel2011@gmail.com
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