PaanLuel Wël Media Ltd – South Sudan

"We the willing, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, with so little, for so long, we are now qualified to do anything, with nothing" By Konstantin Josef Jireček, a Czech historian, diplomat and slavist.

Dear Uncle

Dear Uncle,

You just offered me your old V-8 and credited my bank account with a huge amount of dollars but I don’t think that will stop me from speaking my mind. There’s something that I have been keeping to myself, something that I have always wanted to tell you, something that disturbs me, something my peers abhor you for. I defend you though. It is high time now I tell you in this short note. It’s going to be disheartening, however, close your eyes and take a deep breath before you proceed to the next paragraph.

Here we go…… it’s both ironical and incomprehensible how our grandfathers, fathers, aunts, friends, mothers, sisters and even yourself bled, sweated and shed tears, sacrificially, for more than a century in a quest to detach south Sudanese from the claws of Islamic rule yet you still dumbly ignorantly selfishly plug us in the socket of Arab world by indecisively rushing to their states in order to attract investments, given the hidden agenda that comes with their development proposals.

An Arab is an Arab; be he a sheikh, politician, hawker or shopkeeper. His mission is one and simple; to Arabize and Islamize anyone, anywhere. I don’t think you need a PhD in History to trace back how they came and the price of their presence in Sudan, of which we have paid dearly. Even your seven-year son can recite it before an international audience. An Arab always strives to change you, in and out; from names, color of skin, lifestyle, name it. You ask the people of Nuba Mountains.

Let me take you back a little bit by elaborating how ungrateful ingrates this folks are. Back in the day, the Arabs came to Sudan as single male merchants. I repeat; single male merchants. They arrived and settled in Khartoum, an area allegedly inhabited by Dinka people. That was before the cleverer race invented the calendar. As they carried on with their businesses, and after they showered the unsuspecting Dinka chiefs and elders with gifts of mirrors, sweets, salt and soaps, they requested the old dudes for a number of things. First of all, they asked for pieces of land for erecting shops. And then they asked for girls for marriage, a request I suspect the sly Dinka people gladly assented to since they felt it was the best way to rid of their ugly, promiscuous and lazy daughters. Remember, today’s Dinka folks practice that business. They marry off our unmarriageable sisters to foreigners. Doesn’t that remind you of what happened the other day?

Anyway, the girl-sweet-salt-business continued as long as the first guys found it lucrative. They invited over their brothers, uncles and friends back home to join them. They eventually multiplied and started showing their true colors – master-like behaviors. They began to control everything, both that moved and that didn’t. They did a lot with the natives. They sold some into slavery and made some laborers. But with the inability of cattle-rearing communities to succumb to change easily, the Dinka waged countless wars against their nieces but lost, forcing them to migrate to different parts of Sudan. See? Northerners are our biological nieces because their existence is as a result of the aforementioned unions. I understand the Dinka were so arrogant, some still are, such that a slave would turn away leftovers, claiming that he should have partaken in the meals at the table with his master’s family.  Since then, the feud rages on.

Now, wasn’t it yesterday that the Nile River overflowed with blood and bodies of innocent women and children that were ceremoniously slaughtered by Arabs just because they refused to be Arabic? Or has it been too long to remember the root cause of the 21-year civil war that claimed 2.5 million lives and displaced 4 million more, including your children?

Then, what on earth makes you travel to their cities to lobby investments from their companies? Who has bewitched you, uncle? Does south Sudan have to attract investments from the Middle East? What world records have they set or broken in terms of development apart from high unemployment rates, Low wages and widespread poverty?

Or do you have shares in the Arab companies you bring in the baby country? In fact, rumors say so. I will stop here because I feel the few remarks will brainstorm you.

One more thing, I want you to talk to your daughter; the one who calls herself Lady Gaga. She drinks a lot lately. She has made a lot of broke friends who she drinks with day in day out. I doubt she attends her classes regularly. Haven’t you been wondering why she keeps asking you for more money? Apparently, she is an ATM machine. There’s this broke boyfriend of hers who has assumed the nature of a tick. The guy clings to her so badly. She pays his rent, buys him pants. I tried to talk her out of her brand new lifestyle but she instead hailed insults at me, calling me names. Furthermore, she doesn’t wear enough clothes nowadays. The first thing you see when she appears is her breasts. They hang naked; with only the nipples covered. When asked why, she says our grandmas used to wear nothing at all. “So, why disturb someone who has at least dressed?” She asks. The next thing to worry about her dress code is her skirts. They are too short. You can see her underwear even when she is standing! And she calls anyone who dares rebuke her, uncivilized.

You must be wondering why I haven’t deposited all the money into your foreign bank account. It’s because the bank manager, on seeing stacks of dollars, and especially after I failed to account for the source, threatened to call cops on me. I lied to him that it was for a registered company based in Juba. He instructed me to get proper papers in order to bank the notes, and that was after I bribed him heavily.  I have resorted to banking the money in bits pieces just to avoid possible interrogations by Interpol. I will have banked it all by June this year.  If I may ask, where did you get this large sum from, uncle?

I almost forgot. I’m obliged to educate you about your concubine. Forgive my English. I would have used a better or at least mannerly reference had the English people created a polite word for concubine. She is playing you. I mean, she fakes her love for you believe it or not. Worst of all, the baby is not yours. The father of the baby is an old boyfriend who she broke up with after she conceived. I learned that the dude disowned her because he didn’t have what it takes to feed extra mouths; but he resurfaced when he realized she is alive and kicking. Thanks to your unsuspectingness. Or is it negligence? You may find it hard to believe this: I, for no specific reason, tampered with her phone while she was in the kitchen. I entered into the “sent items” folder where I found an SMS that she sent. It reads “dear sweetheart, there’s no reason you should doubt my forgiveness. I told you last time that I do understand why you refused to take responsibility for my pregnancy. You were a student and had no money. Besides, the baby is yours….. I love you and want you so bad. The old fool left for Juba this morning, come home tonight and correct what the old man doesn’t do right…………….”

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