We shall be a proud nation, once more, in the not-so-distant tomorrow
Happy Sunday, Folks.
By PaanLuel Wël, Juba, South Sudan
Today, Sunday, is a special day for the Christians of South Sudan and their brethren across the globe. As they converge on Churches across the nation and in Juba in particular, one theme would stand out: sacrifice. Self-sacrifice. Jesus, who Christians regard as the eternal Son of God sacrificed his life for humankind.
John 3: 16
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
Sacrifice too is a special theme in the evolution of the republic of South Sudan. Ponder the millions of people who perished for us to achieve our independence.
Think of Father Saturnino Lohure, Joseph Oduho, Aggrey Jaden, William Deng, Marko Rume, Joseph Lagu, Mourtat Mayen, etc. the pioneers of South Sudanese liberationary struggle.
However, I want to concentrate on John Garang, Salva Kiir and Riek Machar.
Salva Kiir Mayaardit has totally dedicated his entire life to the liberation of his people. He joined Anyanya One movement at a mere age of 16. He was an integral part of Southern Sudanese underground movement during the ten years of the Abel Alier/Joseph Lagu regional government.
When the second civil war erupted in 1983, he was among the first Southern patriots to answer the noble call. Of the seven founders of the SPLM/A, he is the only surviving one. As John Garang said in Rumbek, 27 July 2005, Salva Kiir has never betrayed the people of South Sudan.
His crowning achievement was to oversee a peaceful secession and successful independence of South Sudan on 9 July 2011. On his shoulders was the sacrifices of all the martyrs and the destiny of the living and future generations of South Sudanese. He didn’t fail them.
Riek Machar Teny, while still a PhD student in the UK, was already politically involved in charting the destiny of his people. He had, with other comrades, formed his Sudan Revolutionary Front on campus. Upon graduation in December 1983, he went direct to the bush to fight for his people. Left behind in a foreign land, with nothing to support herself and the infant son, was his young wife, Angelina Teny. Angelina and the baby had to rely on state social welfare for sustenance.
It was not until five years later than Riek had to see his family again. This was after he had heroically fought in many SPLA battles, one in which his forces wounded Omer el-Bashir, when Riek captured Mayom from the government. It was after this that Garang was moved to declare: “If only I had five commanders like Riek Machar, this war would have been over already by now.”
In 2002, Riek returned to the fold of the Movement and fully became part and parcel of the military campaign as well as the peace making process of the Movement. The CPA was signed, referendum conducted and independence declared rewardingly. None of these would have been thinkable had Riek been on the side of Khartoum government because much of Southern Sudan (the entire Upper Nile region) would have been politically unstable and militarily insecure for the referendum to take place and there would have been no independence without the CPA-mandated referendum.
John Garang had left his home district at the age of ten and went to the Bahr el Ghazal region for studies. He never went back (in the context of resettling among his relatives) up to the day he died; Garang is more of a name than a real face to most local people of his home district because they never met him in person.
John Garang is another epitome of sacrifice. He joined the Anyanya One at the age of 17, December 1962. From that time until he passed away in July 2005, he had dedicated his entire to the cause of the people of South Sudan, of the Sudan and of Africa as glean in the following excerpt from his February 1972 letter to Professor Akech:
“I am leaving tomorrow morning for the interior, about 500 miles footwork from where we last met and I will not be back for over 7 months, maybe more…The objective of liberation (of armed struggle) is firstly the riddance of oppression and exploitation and the simultaneous creation of conditions and structures for the permanent (continuous) release of our productive forces, which have been so historically damned, deformed, stunted and impeded by exploitation, oppression and humiliation. This last point is central as it focuses on the essence, the particularity of our movement. About my role as Information Officer for the Anyanya, it is true that there has been such talk, but after I finished my infantry training last October [1971], I made a concrete analysis of the situation and objective factors indicated that I could not make my total contribution in that capacity. You know what I mean. And if that be the case, it would be an intolerable situation.
I joined the Movement with total commitment and dedication. I have sacrificed (I don’t consider it so) all the benefits paper dehumanizing education is supposed to confer on the dehumanized, decultured native holder, I am resolved to give the ultimate sacrifice, my life, for I am bound by nothing else but duty and commitment to Africa and the African people starting with the Southern Sudanese people, as a matter of course. African liberation can only primarily be effected through combat and everything else must be built around the combat, must enhance and give political character to combat.
It would take me a book to go into analytical, historical and practical exposition of this line, but it is sufficient to say that this is why I turned down the “Information” work and chose active combat, and so tomorrow I go to the interior to (eventually soon) take over command of a full battalion. War is war, should anything terminate my usefulness (services) to the African people and revolution, it is incumbent upon you to continue with the struggle and/or to prepare the children and generations to come for the revolution. It is our duty.
Tell those citizens of Africa, snatched away from the great BLACK womb of our Mother, that time has come for their consciousness and ours on the mainland to merge (again) with one big black consciousness that will pull Mother Africa from the bloody teeth of the monster and usher in the total release of our productive forces long damned, deformed and impeded by centuries of oppression, exploitation and emasculating humiliation.”
If there is anything we can learn from the history of the liberation of our country, then it is that much sacrifice was expended for its freedom. We all sacrificed, including the current leadership of the SPLM/A in Juba with President Kiir, in the bush with Riek Machar and in the third party with Pagan Amum and even in the opposition with Lam Akol.
Let’s recall and appreciate and celebrate our sacrifices for this precious nation. Though cheapened today, it was not achieved cheaply.
Let’s not be bogged down by the dark cloud, the specter of doom, hanging over us. The US and China were once embroiled in a bitter, barbarous civil wars. They are proud nations today.
England and France and the Tsar Russia beheaded their monarchies. They are proud nations today. Europe was destroyed by two World Wars. They are a proud union today: ideologically reconciled with themselves, politically advanced, militarily matured, socioeconomically prosperous, and technologically sophisticated.
We shall be a proud nation, once more, in the not-so-distant tomorrow.
Happy Sunday!!!
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