Am angry and I know it.
By Nyanyoun Bany, Melbourne, Australia
The militarilization of South Sudan: More money has been spent on this war project than on any other project in this nation history: not health, not education, not even roads – nothing, nothing in our post-independence history has drawn the collective attention and the collective energy of our politicians to one cause than this war- unless of course you are talking about the relentless, disgraceful, unadulterated and shameless self-service that have seen some politician having larger banks account than the central bank of South Sudan. On both sides, we have seen a large and consistent campaign to prepare young men for war, a war against themselves. Despite the façade of peace, more efforts have gone to the war than to the need to find a solution for lasting peace. The worst part is that you cannot demilitarised militarized minds after this war. It’s even harder to demilitarise minds that were purposefully militarized against the other: any enemy they continue to live with next door. So chances are, with the current mass recruitment and mass training of young man for war, we have laid the ground for the militarization of the state for the long future, a state in which the man with the gun eats first and eats last.
But you may say war call for a different set of priorities, yes it does, it prioritize death, killing, maiming and raping. Education, health and infrastructure on the other hand, well those things merely improve the lives of the ordinary citizen, and since when has that ever been an important matter unless there is an elections; where you can momentarily pretend to care. they will gather for you and rally for you as you arrive with your V8, and they will sing and sit in the sun as you sit comfortably in a well organised shed, waiting for your 30 minute speech, whilst they have been preparing for you for months, and certainly since the break of dawn. when you leave only your dust will be left.
Happy Independence Day then, if you house isn’t burned down, you brother isn’t dead, you sister isn’t raped, you mother isn’t displaced, and you uncle isn’t in some refugee camp or some UN compound…happy Independence Day to those who still own the country.
Let be honestly dishonest or dishonestly honest for a moment: with effectively one tribe or a majority of it in open rebellion and others simmering in silence, the rationalization are running thin by day. And by simmering silence I means in the context of the recent interview where governor Clement mentioned that Equatorian being disarmed and the government recently dispatching top army officials to maridi to reportedly “assure the Equatorian residents of the area that the government is not trying to stifle debate on federalism, after reports that of the shooting dead two people and injuring another two on Thursday nigh” (reports from a Radio Tamazuj – not propaganda!). And if that is not enough, there is an order to shot dead those who break the curfew, this effectively mean the poor, the unprotected civilians, for who is going to shot dead “Nas Kubareen” in their V8s
You may think I like to exaggerated or this is “catastrophizing” of the situation – but isn’t this how exactly this war erupted! but dare I say, we accused of rebel heart and accidental birth into being the unfortunate beast – a Nuer.
So I wish you well on your independence, today mine is in the bin. I may pick up hope tomorrow, and with it give it a good rub, and maybe by next Independence Day it will be shining as it once did whilst I voted at the John Garang mausoleum during the referendum. Maybe one day, it will even shine brighter than my pride just like the day when a million other across the world and I watch this country flag raise with tears and jubilations and as those who lost their limps match with unmatched pride… may be, just may be but not today.
But am not asking for your mercy, nor your consideration, nor your solidarity – it a bit too late to give a sh*t now. beside you pretence to care as been worse than a drag queens make-up. Beside if you must keep the country like this, it is one that you are very entitled to, because it is certainty not the country of the John Garangs, the Keribino Kuanying, the Arok Thon Arok, the Samuel Gai Tut, the Nyachigak Nyachuluk and the many, many young men like you are I, who died, and die freely for this country. They may have differ, but they fought for one things, to live in dignity and equal worth, if you can’t offer than in my own country, I am no different living as a refugee. So keep it.
Enjoy your independence, if we are not equal in life, we will be equal in death, for we both shall be laid in a similar ground, underneath this earth for worms to feed on, you, me and that great uncle of yours who just build a new hotel overlooking the very scene were thousand were killed.
Good day then. don’t waste another precious time, go and celebrate, have a drink, a glass of wine, why not-it only a few dead – just a bit of over a 10,000, it also just a halve of a population that is at risk of starvation, it is only a 80% of those children in three affected states that are risk of malnutrition and death and it is only 50,000 children that could die…. cheer to that ah!
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