Elders Between Politics and Traditions
Expressing opinion is not disrespecting elderly my Australian friend: elders between politics and traditions
By Biar John
May 1, 2015 (SSB) —- In South Sudan, one of the many things all traditional cultures have in common is deep regard for elders. Traditionally, elders can treat younger people without respect – and it may be part of the many processes involved in passing knowledge to younger members of the community. It is an unquestionable privilege. This is because they are the diaries of tribal societies; whatever they do may be wrong sometimes. But right or wrong, it is always assumed to be within the context of the traditional training processes, in which their expertise on the society lies, and it is generally never questioned.
Their knowledge of historical events, traditional values, religions, and experience about everything within the domain of their understanding about present and past gives them an unquestionable edge over everyone below them, age-wise. They are the picture carriers keeping tradition and history alive and important to the younger members of society.
However, changes have impacted on the societies, and two different types of elders are seen today, in south Sudan. In addition to traditional elders, there are political elders. And this author’s anecdotal definition of a political elder is that it is an elderly person whose job is to, expectedly, represents his electorate, draws attention to their preoccupations and defends their interests, in exchange for a handsome peoples’ salary paid to them by the peoples’ government to provide quality peoples’ services. And the same definition applies for younger people, too, if they are politicians. The definition is a reflection of the fact that politicians bear great responsibility for leadership and representation of their constituents and their country, regardless of how old they can be. This puts them all (young and elderly alike) in the crosshairs of ordinary citizens, provided they have a responsibility to do a political representation.
In the context of political representation as explained in the third paragraph above, respect can be taken as a privilege; not a right for politicians. The politicians get their financial desires met in full and are more able to remedy themselves at will from public coffers than most ordinary people, and that is their other privilege. With that being the case, shouldn’t respect, then, be a two – way traffic? Shouldn’t they respect the people they represent, in return? If their needs are met in full but still can’t give enough of the service they are expected to deliver – shouldn’t the represented express their dissatisfaction with their performance?
When people disapprove of the administration’s policies, actions, performance, political decisions, and failures, it is politics in its purity. When the criticism is directed at politicians’ character and personalities, that is when it can be regarded as disrespect. But because we are a confused society, we mix traditions and politics – and there are always confusions when politicians are criticized. Politics and traditions are so intertwined that the entire population is persuaded to adopt a completely false belief – based on exploiting people’s individual pride and ignorant. There is, generally, an embarrassment in speaking up even when things are wrong, because you may be disrespecting an elderly. When people see things not right and they talk, there, sure, is a traditional someone that gives himself the responsibility to castigate them. Tradition is making everyone so reluctant that no one wants to be a lone voice of disagreement.
As far as this author understands, the politicians are not ‘beings’ from other planets. They are members of the same communities from which all other south Sudanese come, and someone has got to speak their minds if things don’t go right. The only worrying problem is that they don’t listen. The scathing criticisms they (politicians) face are light-hearted, and even the president of South Sudan once acknowledged that those who criticize him do so out of self-entertainment; not with the full aim of trying to overthrow the government. But while some, of course, do it so to self-entertain, there are others who do it with absolute believe that they (politicians) will get the message and make some necessary adjustments to improve the welfare of the ordinary citizens; not overthrow the government.
Is it impossible for one to overthrown a government without setting a foot on the ground? Of course, there are people who think it can happen; notwithstanding, Dr. Riek has tried both on the ground and on the net but can’t change anything in the slightest. So, why should, we non-politicians believe it is possible to overthrow the government when the government itself does not believe so? If the real opposing politicians out there can’t have much impact, would anyone else on the internet really do anything? When Riek’s attempt to diplomatically defame the government around the world can do much, would anything else work?
With all these facts in hands, would anyone still believe that internet can overthrow the government? Admittedly, yes. There was an article recently here (6 days ago, from someone in Australia, on this web) whose content was wholly its author’s misunderstanding of articles posted on this web previously by some guys. The author of that article appeared to be someone who cares more of the nation’s politicians than everyone.
In the beginning of his article, the dude appeared to be critical of those guys’ political perspective, but later in the article, infused a barrage of personal attacks on the personalities of the guys. In his pretentious outrage, he made some accusations on many things and more, including labeling the guys as being “miseducated and disrespectful of elders”. But Despite the attacks being of personal nature, those to whom they were thrown do not intent to return the favor or indulge in a similar business. They only pity and leave him at their mercy.
It is understandable, we are all traumatized and unhappy – we lost so much in our lives and personalities. We are full of tones of inadequacies. One may wonder if our unhappiness can be measured. But believe it or not, it is possible. It is easy to measure how unhappy we are. Just, socially, observe how much of hearsays and gossips we gather, how much gossip we spread, how much alcohol we consume, how much we pretend to know more than others and you can see how terrible we, really, are. Let’s feel sorry for ourselves.
It is common to see us build our egos falsely, that is what our brains want us to do. Many must have observed right here on the net that when we debate we cover deep lack of self-confidence by throwing a couple of bombastic paragraphs with a little expertise on grammar to look like we are so educated and then walk around with heads high, believing we are now smart. We then start looking down upon others. When those we look down ignore, we think we are feared. At the same time, we are so fragile that we criticize others but when criticized back, we buckle and crumble terribly into negligible pieces that are too difficult to put back together. It is all human, however.
But one very important thing to know is that both the group siding and protecting the politicians, and those who attack the politicians as well as the politicians themselves are suffering from the same mental injuries sustained during the many years of war and suffering. It is idiotically delusional to label any particular individuals as being the only ones suffering them and not include yourself.
Because of all the terrible sufferings we went throw, we have so many unmet goals and achievements. And we are chronically unhappy. And so unhappy that everywhere we go, we carry our unhappiness with us like a big obnoxious buttock (or bum to be euphemistic) in a small crowded space. You know how annoying a huge bum in a small crowded space can be -– pushing everyone around with it and not caring too much what they think about us. This situation is, of course, easy to observe in social media. There is so much anger being vented, anyhow.
South Sudanese have taken Facebook as a place where wicked or mischievous motives or intentions are expressed at will. Almost everyone that uses it has, at least, experienced some annoying posts twice or more. And politicians have more brutally borne the brunt of this contemptuous ridicule from those Facebook’s smart-arse than any others. But they (politicians) have experienced this criticism not just in social media, but also outside from many other people including the president himself. Can’t we remember that, few years ago, the president accused the constituencies of supplying politicians who maintain silence in the parliament, even, at a time when their contribution is highly needed on national issues?
This author has seen the internet wickedness many times. There have been fishy posts from hacks and hearsay gatherers who masquerade as advisers, challengers, educators and so on, on Facebook and many other sites including this Panluel wel. The author has seen some attacking Facebook’s inbox messages, which the original sender would have meant for a single trusted friend, who at the end of the day turned out to not be so trusted, by letting the messages end up in the message box of the very person whose character the messages were attacking. Now the attacker is on compassion; he really feels sorry for him.
Internet has, amazingly, been used merciless to bash the hell out of each other. It is a kind of place where by even if you are nobody – there is somebody out there with enough time in their hands to make sure he/she makes you feel like are you are somebody. Through character bashing, you can be grunted a sudden rise in popularity, which makes you an attractive source to scapegoat. Perhaps our politicians are the most popular people, there.
In short, there should be no respect for anybody who does not deserve it, whether they are elders or not, in politics. The only way to deserves respect is for politicians to demonstrate that they are worthy of respect. This is another way of saying that politicians “earn” respect based on political performance, not on how old they are. Let the age thing remain with the tribal communities.
It is in traditional societies that elders often feel entitled to treating younger people without respect. Now, the political elders have emulated the same and are mistreating and torturing the wider society in a similar way. It is absolutely wrong My South Sudanese Australian bro.
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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
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