Tearz Ayuen: Who is THE Bor Dinka?
4 min readDUK – BOR –TWI, YOU PEOPLE MAKE ME SICK
By Tearz Ayuen
I really don’t care about the Bor name issue. I don’t care about the nominal war boys and girls are slitting each other’s throat for on the web. I don’t care whether Twi and Duk people identify themselves with B-O-R or not. I don’t want to know whether Buor, Tuei and Duok were originally called Buor or not. Whoever claims he owns/disowns the name is least of my worries.
But what I care about is the situation on the ground. Since time immemorial, people of Twic East, Duk and Bor live peacefully in Bor and everywhere else the communities are on God’s good earth – Australia, Canada, US, Juba, East Africa, etc. They’re just brothers and sisters, good ones. They intermarry. They compete in wrestling tournaments, against each other; they dance to beats of one drum during traditional dances. They quarrel. They fight.
I know people of Bor, Duk and Twic East stand out, both linguistically and topographically. But I really don’t want to know how the two communities arrived at or parted from the name Bor in the first place. Who united them under Bor?
Why?
When?
However, what I care about is the situation they are in today. As you read this sentence, non-Dinka Jonglei refers to us as Bor Dinka. Yes, others may lay that claim on illiteracy, ignorance. That notion was conceived or intensified during the civil war, I think. Any Dinka from Jonglei was and is still called nyan-buor, Ting-buor, muony-bor or dhong-buor. Every time anything communal or tribal erupts, all Tuei, Duok and buor are dealt with irrespective of where or who they claimed/claim to be.
Look at the 1991 massacre; Dr. Riek and forces loyal to him never gave a fuck about who we claimed/claim to be. They slit throats of Buor Duok and Tuei alike. They never said: “Gare, don’t smash the head of that baby boy against tree trunk because he is not menh-buor”.
And never did they say: “Gare, let’s not attack this village because it is not within the territory of Twic East or Duk”.
Whenever Murle tribesmen go on a killing spree, they shoot at people indiscriminately.
Even today, whenever drunken brawls erupt, our brothers from Bhar el Ghazal will hit at any face so long as the causer comes from Dinka of Jonglei. Yeah, Barkazeel aye koch pe’eny amok, whether you say you’re from Bor east, west, center, north or south. They just don’t give a fuck.
By default, I presume, we have been united by problems we have faced as a people for so long. That’s a reality you and me are living.
Anyway, I often hear some people, Tuei specifically, complain about the name – that they are being forced into accepting the name Bor, that they are being robbed of their identity, that the name Bor is swallowing T-W-I.
If I may ask, and this goes to those who call themselves ‘Bor Asili’, who is holding Tuei at gunpoint, ordering them to be Buor?
Why is he or she doing so?
Again, another group of Tuei says Buor have robbed them of the Bor identity. Like Usain Bolt, they have snatched BOR and vanished into the unknown with it. “We are also Buor; why you say you’re the real Bor?”
Now, what is going on? Why are you confusing young people?
In conclusion, those who have been to school should not be the ones to drive wedges between people, giving birth to countless bunches of weaklings. Education should at least make us preach oneness. Education should help us educate our illiterate relatives about who the enemies and friends of the people of South Sudan are.
Our problem is the Government of the Republic of South Sudan, and that includes sons and daughters of Twic East, Duk and Bor.
Didn’t our elders, leaders, including Malok Ale’ng say that Bor is the land and it is inhabited by Hol, Nyarweng, Buor and Tuei?
So, why do we drink beer together, live together, fight against a common enemy together, crack jokes together, laugh at jokes together, eat from a dish together and etc. together BUT publish divisive articles on the internet?
Tearz ©2013
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