When a Farmer is Arrested for Gardening

By Philip Thon Aleu, Juba

February 13, 2015 (SSB) — Once upon a time, there was a drought in the land. People died in their hundreds. Because the population was very small, three-quarters of the villagers were lost. The good chiefs did not even survived.

The chiefs’ sons, daughters and youngest wives died. But taxes continued to be collected from the emaciated people. When they go to gather wild fruits, they pay half to the chiefs. In that land, the end of the world was a stone throw away. But they did not believe it because their gods never predicted a bad ending. So they suffered and endured. They suffered and their resilience served few. People continued dying and the chiefs could not make more collections to maintain extended family. Some respected chiefs died. The greedy chiefs never stopped taxing people and so they survived the famine.

When rain started and life returned to the land, bad leaders took over. The good ones had all died. The good ones died because they did not want to rob people. They died in the hope that their sons, daughters or cousins will be respected in the next generations. In short, the good leaders were no more. So the bad leaders took over the realms of the land.

As the villagers were reviving, farming started. Animals were brought from the distance lands and they keep multiplying. Garden yields improved. Dances were organized and marriages arranged. The sons of the dead good leaders were given beautiful girls of the land. The sons of the dead good leaders were hoping to lead the land and the people in future. They were wrong.

The bad leaders who survived the drought by robbing people became angry. Power was going to be lost, they thought, and so had to act. The bad leaders stopped people from arranging marriages, drinking locally brewed alcohol was halted. So you must go to the distance land to quell your thirst for a liquor. The imported beer was expensive and result in severe headache in the morning. It was called ‘heavy head.’ But In 2015, we could call it “hang-over.”

The bad leaders dictated everything. In that land, prior to that deadly drought, chiefs were challenged under big trees during community meetings. After the famine, the new chiefs talk last and they were final. Gradually, they decided to declare such community meetings as null and void. Afterwards, they increased taxes. But if your farm is large enough, you will be stopped from farming in the next season.

So farmers were arrested for gardening.

People were demoralized. The short tempered men fled the land and became criminals. The criminals started kill people on the way. They attack the land and people were frightened. There was fear in the land.

But for a society that survived a long drought, they were determined once again to pass the test to time. Did they successfully, peacefully win this terror?

Stay tuned!

–

 The opinion expressed here is solely the view of the writer. The veracity of any claim made are the responsibility of the author, not PaanLuel Wël: South Sudanese Bloggers (SSB) website. If you want to submit an opinion article or news analysis, please email it to paanluel2011@gmail.com. SSB do reserve the right to edit material before publication. Please include your full name, email address and the country you are writing from.