Have a Little Compassion on our Beloved Nation Mr. Kiir!
By Apioth Mayom Apioth, USA
Our so-called head of state, Kiir Mayardit, is only a leader in the name only. He loves being in the limelight that he would go to the extent of even selling his own soul for it. I think there is a plaguing disease of leadership addiction that is so entrenched in our culture that would give many of us a break when it is rooted out, however, I doubt it would go away very soon.
A lot of people believe that when you become a leader; your status and that of your clan is elevated. In other words, you automatically become the son/daughter of a great man overnight. That ideology is not analogous to the culturization of leadership in some other cultures around the world. In Kenya, for example, anyone would kill to become a leader just to make ends meet. Compassionate governance is the missing ingredient in the carefully polished recipe of our developmental agendas. A truly remarkable leader must possesses the love and compassion of his/her people. Put it another way, such a leader must try to feel the distress and calamities that his or her people are going through. She must also realizes that she is the sole pillar given the responsibility to shoulder and alleviate that burden.
Our Kiir Mayar has been sleepwalking through the corridors of Juba government’s pedestal for the last nine years to no avail. We have seen a disturbing invasion of foreign enterprises in many towns across the country. The cries of South Sudanese people have been heard from afar and beyond. The South Sudanese people have been calling to put an end to his hands-in-the pocket administration and bring in someone who would channel in tangible results. Again, being a leader is a big deal in our culture that he would never give in no matter the consequences that people experience.
Over the course of his reign, we have witnessed unprecedented cropping up of foreign hotels and restaurants everywhere, and the people that get employed in these businesses are none other than the foreign cohorts themselves. Not that there is something grossly wrong with the private sector taking center stage; it is the way we are approaching it, is what is terribly out of place. For crying out loud, how are we going to get a penny out of it when our very own are not even considered by these foreign bullies? We can’t just say he is coming to sell us something, and she is here to do business with us; we must allow all these junks to go through a filtration sieve, and pick the best among them to help us last time until we get on a proper foundation.
The sadistic truth to take home is that we are not entirely sure whether these foreign contingents are going to blend in with us, or stay culturally apart from our mainstream South Sudanese culture for many generations to come. The Indians of East Africa and Southern Africa have stayed culturally apart from the rest of Africa; some are fifth generation Afro-indians. Last year at an Indian wedding ceremony in South Africa, the Indians refused to be served by black Africans; citing the inferiority status of our race. The Indians do however own a large share of the private sector in sub-saharan Africa; however, they pay low wages and keep the rest for their kind. I have to acknowledge that progress does not come through the channels of private sector alone; it is a multifaceted phenomena that also involves the public sector.
We have had the lack of stringent laws to keep things in perspective once Kiir Mayar took over after the awful passing of John Garang. These laws could have allowed a certain percentage of posts to be set aside for South Sudanese in the foreign-owned enterprises. We could have turned a blind eye to the foreign business owners, had we any slight hint of who they are going to turn out to be in the distant future; but the truth of the matter is that, we yearn to take the business space they are flocking to take all for themselves. That business space is the enterprising field where we are going to develop our entrepreneurial capacity, and thus, that is where we will develop our very own human capital.
Once that business space is taken from us, it is probably going to take another frightening fight to get it back. We love our other sub-Saharan Africans, and things aren’t so comfy as it is with other foreign cohorts; however, these friendly rivals are going to use the proceeds from their businesses to develop their home economies before they start handing out donations to our communities.
When the United States got its first start to become one of the wealthiest countries in the world; she didn’t look elsewhere for talents to kickstart its nascent economy; she had its own home-based entrepreneurs waiting on the wings to get the job done. Morgan Chase had his banks; John Rockefeller had his oil; Cornelius Vanderbilt had his railroad, and Andrew Carnegie had his steel. And the story of America came to life with the quintessential painstaking efforts of these men. America was connected by railroads from east to west; banks were installed in every city to ensure fast processing of transactions; and homes were lighted by oil.
In coming to realization of the prominence important of the private sector as the backbone of the economy, and as the reservoir to look upon with kindness to build our roads, schools, and health centers; we also don’t want the foreigners to own everything that is ours, even garments on our very backs. To combat this alienation of these foreign cohorts, we want stringent laws to keep unwanted solicitors at bay!
Once this depressing war is over, we will only ask for basic enforcement of the rule of the law; for we can’t do without securing ourselves from the lawlessness that is commonplace right now in the country. We won’t even start in asking for establishment of courts that are slated to offer impartial justice, or call for free press to openly express ourselves without intimidation; everything will come much later after the provision of human security from some of us who would continue to go astray. The casualties of the war have been documented in every arena possible.
Thousands have lost their lives; 100,000 more are living in squalid UN-protected camps; and 1.5 million have been uprooted from their homes, and possibly afraid of returning back knowing their homes are far less secured from marauding of the rebels. Kiir continues to witness the daily scourge of the rebellion, and he remains inept to take a stand against the pitiful dire conditions that South Sudanese go through day in and day out. You can’t surround yourself with sycophantic advisers and expect them to steer you ashore. Kiir Kuethpiny, those bootlickers are only in for the loot! They don’t care about your legacy or whether from the depths of your heart, you deeply wish to improve the lives of the common South Sudanese.
No one between Kiir or Machar is cheerfully readily wanting to give in to the demands of each other; either one is always saying, “it has to be my way, or else, nothing is going to change.” South Sudanese gave up on the prospecting leadership of either Kiir or Machar long time ago. The records of both Kiir and Machar have been scrutinized squeaky clean, and they have found what was not intended for them to see in the first place: There was widespread corruption, and there was a puppetry government in Juba that just stood by while everyone was fending for himself/herself; causing havoc to the common person.
We don’t ask for Kiir to give everything up for Machar to take over; contrary to that, if Machar is harboring such thoughts, then let the whole international community be the judge, and we will find out sooner rather than later that Machar plans to take the big belly’s share of the seats in the government. We only ask for Kiir to stop keeping things at loggerheads with Machar; to look at our misfortune with compassion; to alleviate our hunger, to abate the predicted famine from ever coming to annihilate us.
After all, isn’t that what all leaders aspire to attain? Being compassionate: to have a deep feeling to what has stricken your fellow human beings, and trying to change their situation. The souls of South Sudanese have been deformed for over half a century; first they were kept under the dustbin by a number of successive persecuting regimes in Khartoum, and now they are experiencing another despondent situation of the same magnitude again. Kiir and Machar have turned the people of South Sudan into gladiators, and are cheerfully watching on the sidelines as spectators urging them on to finish themselves.
We doubt if Kiir and Machar will ever get their prospecting chances of leading South Sudan, if they continue to be bystanders in the moments of our needs. The development they bragged about can only be realized when the basic necessities of life are made affordable according to the common person’s disposable income; nine years have passed, and the provision of basic necessities such as access to safe drinking water, health, and food, remains to be seen.
The international community needs to intensify its pressure in order for these warring parties to struck a compromising agreement. The international community is an influential party, but first our warring parties must be willing to negotiate on good faith with each other. In any international playing field, one must be too meticulous not to lose touch with reality, and in the case of the international community, we can’t be entirely sure whether clandestine operatives like the CIA, are providing lush funds to either of these men, or intend to bring in a leader of their choosing.
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