The ‘Beny Sydrome’: How Obession With Big Titles Have Polluted Our Country

Coming of political age in this titles obsessed South Sudan, you acquire some loud and flattering title within a jiffy.  Once acquired, whether by merits or not, it is worn like a badge of honor. Before you know it, songs are composed to sing your praise in public rallies. South Sudanese are highly skilled in massaging their leaders’ egos.  The leader in question is showered with praises to get the best out of him/her. For worse, South Sudan is a place where leaders take credits for things they have never accomplished with straight face.  For some, it can be initially uncomfortable, but with practice, the poor down to earth person of yesterday is consciously or unconsciously made to believe that he/she is excellent or honorable. For those who cannot fathom the linguistic and social sense of the title, you have to choose between second guessing the title itself and accepting it as a working title. I have done the later to observe the public protocol but in social setting, I always make it a point to my friends and colleagues that there is nothing honorable or excellent about me and we just laugh it off!

In South Sudan, titles make people and you are almost no body without one. For those of us from cattle adoring communities, honorific colors of male cows are common modifiers to polish one’s image. Dead or alive, the legacy of the animal furnishes an eternal identity for the man in the gentleman. Baptismal names also carry one even higher than our African names these days.   In fact, our names are completely turning foreign. Christian and western names like  John Peter Samuel or Mary James have replaced our ancestral names like Deng , Wani or Gatluak.  Beside the academic titles, all government positions are second creations that often come with titles of higher profile.  Of late, we have been informed that the supreme title (“Excellency”) is now reserved only for the chief executives (the President to Governors and the County Commissioners).  Of course, ambassadors are conventionally titled and addressed as Excellencies.  “Honorable” is now reserved for members of parliament and cabinet ministers in South Sudan. Observably, the new protocol has created fresh confusion in term of formal usage just like transitioning from Southern Sudan to South Sudan. Some people are still addressing ministers as Excellencies and I do not blame them. I always go with comrades for all members of my party. I hope that goes down well with the people I have always known as comrades.

Having said all that, it goes without making the point that public political status ought to be honorable and dignified.  The catch in this cultural environment of ours though is that it comes with lot of social and political contradictions.  In real life, these titles also come with untold socio-economic agony only known to those who have once or twice crossed this path.  Even in the era of austerity measures, the unthinkable are expected of the Honorable and the Excellencies. The honorable is not actually honorable until he/she fully delivered the undeliverable. He/she must bring the badly needed infrastructure to the constituency, send children to school, bring funds to feed the unfed, treat the sick, provide shelter for the homeless, you name it, it is his /her responsibility.  Day in, day out, the honorable must settle all these accounts with his/her formal or informal employers (the honorable voters). The honorable receives an average of over 500 calls per hour and must attend to each of them to safe his/her political face. Failure to entertain some of those useful nonsensical on the phone can cost you your good name if not a limb and a leg. In pratice,the job description is quite messy and massive. The Honorable or Excellency is everything from a social worker to political leader and magical breadwinner for the clan and the extended family.   One intimate friend of mine who is also honorable cracked a joke recently that” the only thing you are not blamed for in these positions is what you do with your wife or husband in your own bed room”.  Otherwise, the fault lines are well drawn. The community frames the expectations and you bear the brunt of explaining yourself for all.

In money matters, the Honorable or Excellency does not go broke.  He /she must make the funds available either by legitimate or illegitimate means.   Failure, to meet these unrealistic demands could definitely result in political curses no career politician wants to live with.  That is why not many politicians in South Sudan dare to risk calling the spate of dependency syndrome by its true name. It has thus become a norm among the politicians in our country that political popularity is bought with will and wealth. The rule of thumb is: “perform or perish”. So, no wonder, the almighty graft is still ruling our leaders making these very flashy titles synonymous with the graft itself. In this culture, material corruption is spontaneously revered and glorified in the person of the able leader who generously shares the loots with the extended family. In the absence of racketeering laws, you are not only expected to visibly enrich your good self but also bring the loin share home to the constituency that sent you near the public coffers in the first place. The government work is no body’s business as its core function is to produce material things to be devoured by the strong representatives of the communities. In traditional sense, you brought shame upon the community and the extended family if your sure name appeared with the big 75 late this year, but it is also a failure of the life time not to walk away with a bunch of V8s and state of the art villas in foreign lands.  So, it is damn if you do and damn of you don’t.  Call it catch twenty two if you will!  It is game you can stomach only if you are not guided by your dear conscience. That is why, in my book, these titles will never mean what we think they truly mean until this politics of poverty is defeated like we did to the erstwhile Jellaba.

 My modest and humble experience in our public service has taught me that South Sudan needs a cultural revolution if it is to prove its ill-wishers and prophets of doom wrong. Politically, our beloved homeland needs servant-hood style of leadership, not master-hood.  There is a need for popular culture that defines leadership as an opportunity to serve, not an opportunity to assume autocratic vacuum. Ultimately, we need culture of work to fill the gap between the haves and the haves not. There is a need for a public service system that serves economic and professional interest of the civil servants to build capable technocracy for our public institutions. In my current field of education, the conventional wisdom demands that we heavily invest our petrodollar in technical and skills based education with international currency exchange value to make us globally competitive in the increasingly shrinking world.   In another word, this and the next generation must be trained for self-employment, not pencil- pushing careers where they produce nothing. Only then can we once and for all defeat the prevailing public service mentality which tends to drive all to politics.  Along this direction, the most ideal destiny is: large private sector and small productive public sector managed by few but well paid qualified technocrats whose task is to plan and regulate public bureaucracy. Until then, nothing would be excellent or honorable in this country.