Cattle: Our Past or our Future?
By Mawan Malueth, Juba, South Sudan
June 8, 2015 (SSB) — ‘’Deng, call Gadluak to help you carry that bag and little Lado to carry the briefcase and put it in the V-8 behind seats. I will have to sit in the passenger seat today because the bags are huge and heavy, besides, we shall take another one (big bag) from my friend’s house. Don’t forget to inform Kenyi to bring ten gentlemen in the pickup at around 1600H in this afternoon’’ A minister ordered his driver.
After collecting all the bags, they head to the local market auction and bought every cow that was brought that day at a tripling price and rushed to the next nearest market and bought them without negotiation. ‘’Bargaining is a game of young boys who value money over the cow,’’ he ridiculed, sending the group on-lookers into thunder of laughter.
In the evening, he makes a phone call, ‘Hello’, am I talking to General Malual?’ maharhaba? , ‘’this is Honorable Makuei, the National Minister of Finance and Economic planning, am in the village now, I have come to see my only bull, and it’s approaching dry season, the young men will have to drive him to the swampy areas for better ures pretty soon, unfortunately, they may need some riffles and groundnuts.’’
He paused, ‘’Yes Honorable, please send me your driver as soon as you arrive to the city, how many will be enough for you?’’ enquired the general. ‘’Just thirty-one AK47 and something like two RPG for now.’’ He replied. That is an easy task for me Honorable. I will do that. The ended the conversation.
That season, the cattle raiding went on well on the side of the Honorable Minister, good number of cattle was looted from the neighboring county and another good number of young men were killed on both sides. Now the presidential decrees are issued stopping cattle keeping in certain areas meant for agriculture and population are argue to stop cattle rustling and be good citizens.
Common sense, if the top persons in the country own uncountable number of cattle and continue to buy more, what can a cattle keeper tell you if you ask them to stop cattle business?
The honorable ministers and MP went on to prove that they worth their seats by paying Three-hundred herds of cattle to buy his sixth wife displacing a poor guy man who might have struggled for some years to marry her. The gentleman robbed of his wife has to make sure he gets more cows by raiding more and forcing his Thirteen-year old sister who was in Primary Five to an old man who offered to pay forty cows.
Can the government really have the voice and power to campaign against force marriages, under age marriage and earlier school drop out? Will any body listen to them when they are the ones creating a condition that encourages the citizens instead? Am in agreement with Albert Einstein who said,’’ The significant problem we face cannot be solved at the level we were when we created them’’ This means when we created a problem at level one we cannot solve it at the same level, and to be able to solve it, we need to move a step forward to be able to solve the problem that is below us.
You can’t change anything you are part of. Our leaders need to step out of keeping cattle to be able to solve the issues of the cattle. Whilst I greatly acknowledge the significance role played by our cattle in our struggle for independence South Sudan, thanks God for giving us this particular resources to help us liberate our country and that is why am asking if the cattle is our past or our future. Remember, God gives you something to facilitate you get something better to make living. We have all seen of what life we could have with cattle or without.
I wish I could make some suggestions, I would say the parliament passes a law that executes those who do not take their children to School, and as such, no children will be left to look after the cattle. Thus, no child will participate in cattle stealing and killing of young men over the cattle will drop automatically. I would say the marriage dowry should be a thanksgiving prize to the family of the bride and should not be a sell and buy business with realistic prize of anything, and be passed and signed into a law of South Sudan.
Therefore, keeping more cows will be useless when you will not pay a lot in order to get married. If our parliament could do this favor of passing the two into a law, I would be happy man and will have the right to brag of my beloved country.
Mawan©2015: The author, Mawan Malueth, is an Economics and Business Administration student at Catholic University of South Sudan, reachable at mawan887@gmail.com
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