The Conundrum of Achieving Peaceful Coexistence in South Sudan (Part 1)
5 min readPAINFUL FACTS BEHIND ACHIEVING SUSTAINABLE PEACE AND COEXISTENCE IN SOUTH SUDAN
Dut-machine De Mabior, Nairobi, Kenya
February 19, 2015 (SSB) — This is another topic that is very important for South Sudanese. We have been talking about how to clear the current political turmoil in our country without a clear picture of what we indeed need to do. We have not been clear to ourselves how we need to handle the crises to have the wanted peace in the country. We too have longed to coexist in our homeland yet we don’t know how to undertake the imperative topic that has dominated our social discussions.
My readership, we must accept some facts about how we found one another on this part of Earth. It wasn’t by anybody’s choice to be born a citizen of South Sudan. Neither was it my volition to have been born a member of the ethnic community that I belong to among the sixty-four tribes of the Great nation of South Sudan. After all, it’s true; we are only bound to choosing our opposite sex live partners but not our siblings. It’s up to the highest God to bring you a brother or a sister whom you are bound by the natural laws of socialism to love. This should be the case in our country. We did not choose to be brothers, we found one another there.
It’s important to let everyone know that our diversity is not our enmity but should be the source of our pride and indeed use it to withdraw our nationalism. How enjoyable would a national park be if every animal there is a baboon? Would this make any difference if the animals were all giraffes? To me, No! The different kind of animals that makes up the park makes tourism an entertaining practice. It therefore means that our greater numbers make us a proud nation all together. A leopard will be no more if you were to skin out all the black spots on it. Our diversity makes South Sudan an attractive nation just like a leopard with all its colours would look. Removing a people in our midst will course us dearly because we shall not have a nation thereafter.
We do not have an option in living with one another in this country. The people we were bound to choose whether to live with them were the Khartoumers. Oh! Yes; we made the decision to separate but do we have a choice whether to coexist with each other in South Sudan? I doubt! There is no a single day you will wake up and find that there is no Kachipo, Taposa, Jie, Shilluk, Moro, Kakua just to mention a few. It makes no sense when you have to pretend that one day you may inhabit South Sudan alone. It will never be no matter how much you may pretend to hate the rest. So I will rather recommend we as the nationals of this great nation begin to embrace one another because we are not parting ways. The earlier we unite the better so that we can achieve nation building.
It’s also wrong for those who have been blessed with numbers to infringe on the rights of others. The nation is incomplete without the ‘minority’. And therefore, we are equal stakeholders in South Sudan, the minority of us is as important as the majority of us. Besides, it’s not a slap or a stepping of the elephant that only kills. Even a mosquito bite kills. Yeah; this causes Malaria that results into death. So for as long as few members of our greater South Sudan are not satisfied, we shall never enjoy national pace and coexistence. Let’s realise that it is not by choice that we have to therefore respect the concerns of the minority because their cry will put our vision of national unity in jeopardy. This is not to say there will be no democracy; we must put our minds in the right way that guides us to enjoy democracy which is principled with respect for humanity, justice, leadership integrity and the rule of law. We shall have had then the rule of the majority through popular democracy and the wills of the minority catered for.
It’s unfortunate that we engage ourselves in the hatred that has plunged our country into what it is experiencing out of knowledge that we shall never part ways one find day. “Our diversity must be our strength and a uniting factor” we must also realise this far possibly that outdoing one another in the battle fields is just decreasing our population but the lasting solution lies on the negotiation tables. No matter how many years this war will continue, the solution will be found on the negotiation table.
Be on the standby for part 2
The author is a student of Electrical and Electronics Engineering in Kenyatta university; Nairobi Kenya.
–
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
About Post Author
