TRUTH DOES NOT ALWAYS SET YOU FREE
5 min readBy Job Kiir Garang (Kiir-Agou), Edmonton, Canada
December 23, 2015 (SSB) When I look at South Sudan, I must admit that I am growing pessimistic day after day. The leadership is dwarfed to its very knees. There seems to be no hope insight. The way the country is being ran by the greedy few has led to the sort of sentiment that can only arise in a depressed society. People are fed up. Their outcry is there for everyone to see.
I do not, however, want to believe that there are no genuine leaders who can steer South Sudan to a better direction. Of course they are there. They are just obscured by the sort of power struggle that, more often than not, has delivered the sort of threat that has scared or threatened many in the political discourse in our country.
Is there a glimpse of hope out there for us to delve into? The answer is yes.
Rebecca Nyandeng De Garang is one good example alongside many others. Time and again, she has been concerned about Junub and its leadership. She has always advocated for a dialogue within the government as shown during the moment when Kiir, unthinkably, decided to dissolve the cabinet in 2013; a move which led to civil war after a false claim, by Kiir’s government, of a coup plot.
Reliable sources had it that the president was called nine or so number of times by his secretary to inform him of the proposed dialogue with the disaffected cabinet members only for the president to turn a deaf ear. He simply dismissed everyone in opposition and took a very hard-lined position in defense.
Leadership where those in charge make miscalculated conclusions whenever truth is said has left to collapse of Junub. Rebecca Nyandeng de Mabior seems to be one of those rare breeds who seems to tell the truth when called upon.
They say that, “tell the truth and it shall always set you free”. That does not seem to be the case in South Sudan. Truth telling has, often, thrown people in hot waters. It has become self-detrimental to even try to open one’s mouth with the intention of telling the truth. This has led to an evolution of nothing but a defensive and very often dismissive society. Fear of condemnation has led to rise in a society where people have become sheep.
Rarely can you come across a sheep that does not walk with the flock. We have developed what a British Author, David Icke, describe as a “sheep mentality. Many leaders in the South Sudanese hierarchy have told lies time and again and leaders of Nyandeng’s calibre have always found themselves at the wrong end of the political ladder for standing up and try to be different by telling the truth.
A church should be a place of worship; a place where people of faith ask God for forgiveness, peace and tranquility. Recently, Mama Nyandeng was attacked in Emmanuel Jieng Church gathering in Juba after pointing out the obvious truth that when war broke out in Juba in 2013, many of the people who died in many numbers were of Nuer background.
This somehow became a very unpopular notion among Bor-county-based residents after a revenge by white army on Bor town. The president himself admitted that people were kill although not in his name. If the president admitted the killing of the Nuer, albeit not in his name or by his ordering, who are you to find the ground to yap about when Nyandeng was just mentioning the same fact.
Peter Gatdet puts it even better. The white army had no choice but to retaliate. He shot Ajack Yen in the head in absolute declaration of war against the Kiir government. I am sure any person from whatever tribe would do the same when their community is attacked and people killed.
One American pastor once said “American chicken were coming home to roost” when referring to the attacked on America by the so-called Al Qaida. So I guess “Nuer chickens were coming home to roost too”. That is what you get when you mess around with others’ affairs and especially when you inflict loss of lives on them.
In conclusive remarks, SPLA/M-IO arrived yesterday, December the 21st 2015, with the aim to strike a peace deal with the government. Despite that move by both sides, I must admit that I am still a pessimist. Many agreements have been signed and broken before and the outcomes of disagreements have always turned out bloody. I hope I am wrong though.
This time around though, it is highly recommended that the barking political dogs in Juba who always scare the hell out of those in opposition ought to shut up once and for all if a positive conclusion is to be achieved. A message to the fake agents in the G10 needs to be spelled out. I am made to believe that you are in the same rotten basket as the president: always one-sided and I am sure deeply ignorant.
The tactics aren’t different from those of the president. Kudos to Kuai Akech Kuai and Chol Padiet for their courageous displays of what it means to always look at both side of the same coin if we are to come up with a proper judgment on issues concerning out society.
Finally, Merry Christmas to all Southern Sudanese and lets preach peace and reconciliation and may calm prevail when Dr. Riek comes back to Juba.
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