The Haves and the Have-nots: The Class Struggle in the Republic of South Sudan
5 min readBy Majok Arol Dhieu, Juba, South Sudan
January 27, 2016 (SSB) — We will never settle very fast and would always be suffering from backwardness because of the above-mentioned subject. In the International point of view, class conflict can take many different forms: direct violence, such as wars fought for resources and cheap labour; indirect violence, such as deaths from poverty, starvation, illness or unsafe working conditions; coercion, such as the threat of losing a job or pulling an important investment; or ideologically, such as with books and articles promoting capitalism.
We all know this by experience when we fought Khartoum government. In the past the term Class conflict was a term used mostly by socialists, who define a class by its relationship to the means of production — such as factories, land and machinery. From this point of view, the social control of production and labour is a contest between classes, and the division of these resources necessarily involves conflict and inflicts harm.
In South Sudan where societies are socially divided based on status, wealth, or control of social production and distribution, it will be very difficult to define our road forward because class structures arise and are thus coeval with civilization itself. These structures are also the main cause of special oppressions as it happened with
Arabs during those dark days. Oppression doesn’t fall from sky but it must be the same ruling class that oppress the average people through working class that support them to get their interest regardless of who is suffering from consequences that may involve.
The ruling class and the working class have totally opposite interests. The rich get richer at the expense of the poor; every gain the working class is at the expense of the ruling class.
Take an example of foreign currency specifically dollar. There are some government officials who are benefiting on racketeering business between the Central Bank of South Sudan and the forex exchange centres. They created the list of students whom they claimed to be studying outside and request huge dollars.
Later on if this is approve for action, they can effectively immediately put that amount in the black market in order to get profit. This has been a competing phenomenon since 2011 when the transfer (Tawhil) of money to foreign countries was in practice.
The worst scenario is that, it is the ruling class that caused the conflict instead of the populace particularly the average people to wage war against them. Frederick Douglass once said, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
There is general saying for any citizen of any country that the general sentiment of mankind is that a man, who will not fight for himself, when he has the means of doing so, is not worth being fought for by others, and this sentiment is just.
For a man who does not value freedom for himself will never value it for others, or put himself to any inconvenience to gain it for others. Such a man, the world says, may lie down until he has sense enough to stand up. It is useless and cruel to put a man on his legs, if the next moment his head is to be brought against a curbstone.
A man of that type will never lay the world under any obligation to him, but will be a moral pauper, a drag on the wheels of society, and if he too be identified with a peculiar variety of the race he will entail disgrace upon his race as well as upon himself.
The world in which we live is very accommodating to all sorts of people. It will cooperate with them in any measure which they propose; it will help those who earnestly help themselves, and will hinder those who hinder themselves. It is very polite, and never offers its services unasked.
Its favours to individuals are measured by an unerring principle in this—viz., respect those who respect themselves, and despise those who despise themselves. It is not within the power of unaided human nature to persevere in pitying a people who are insensible to their own wrongs and indifferent to the attainment of their own rights.
Well, having read those words, the politicians have gained more powers for they have made others to fight for their cause rather than fighting for their own right. Those who would have to make business in order to stand on their own have lost their direction because they are diverted to fight for individual interest.
If at all dear fellows think about it. We have to transform into a country that has a BIG dreams for its future than almost always allowing ourselves to be used as tools for getting rich.
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