The lack of accountability among South Sudanese: The games of pointing fingers
4 min readBy Kur Wël Kur, Australia
December 24, 2015 (SSB) — Do you know the vilest weakness of any human (leader)? The sort of inability that buries all other good qualities of the humans (leaders). Lack of accountability comes close to the answer of this opening question. As a reminder:
“In ethics and governance, accountability is answerability, blameworthiness, liability, and the expectation of account-giving.”
Accountability shares borders with responsibility. The condition of being a keeper of both yourself and your brother. I know you’re shaking your head as you read this sentence, but bear with me, and you’ll understand this article in its entirety.
In third week of December 2015, young South Sudanese in Australia left their respective States and Territories and converged in Melbourne for Young South Sudanese Basketball Tournament. On 21st December 2015, a disagreement, which is a common blueprint of most youth in the world, erupted among them. And they spilled onto the carpark, then into the streets of Seaford, a southeastern suburb in Melbourne. In the cruel eyes of surveillance cameras, their machetes and baseball bats showed off for recognition.
And the news writers took off with the story the next day, calling the youth with names. Names such as “Gangs run Wild” and “Thugs”; names which didn’t infiltrate the story of a White 17-year-old who stabbed three other young Whites in the warm up Christmas party.
For those reading this, you must understand that I am not denying how that behaviour is horrible and dangerous nor am I defensive, but the truth remains that the media amplify anything that’s foreign. And with their amplification, the politicians pick up. So stories like this one, find their ways into the parliament and breed brutal policies.
The tribal voices and the games of pointing fingers
- [Sic]”Junubin has not have bad behavior only one tribe mess up the junubin name around the globe in north America stealing robbering in Australia africa etc fighting what the hell wrong with you people?”
- [Sic]”Total disgrace, I hate being s.sudanes coz of some community!!”
- [Sic] “Cattle brain can never vanish in the brain of Dinka no matter how educated the are!!!”
- [Sic] “I think, those are from Nuer or Bor community”
- “[Sic] so we also have unknown men here in Australia. I thought they only exist in south Sudan. Every wrong doing in south Sudan is always by unknown men. These guys are know, they are south Sudanese Dinka. Get it right”.
The most inhumane statement from a mother
So if one of my sisters wrote on Facebook the following statements:
“They are shame to the world, they should make sure they are sterilised and they can’t reproduce. We can’t have people like this here. Disgusting.”
I asked myself, “Does she understand what she wrote?” I know she understands it not, that when the sterilisation starts, it could start with her husband or her children [God forbids]. She understand it not, when a young person with a dark complexion, commit crimes, the wider Australians don’t differentiate a Nuer from a Dinka, nor do they differentiate the Nuer and the Dinka from the Equatorians.
Or in the worst generality, they call him (culprit), an African. As South Sudanese or as Africans, this is the kind of generality we must observe and consider the big picture. The big picture that explains the ideology of being “accountable” or “responsible” for our brothers’ and sisters’ deeds. The ideology of being our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers.
In the Holy book, Bible, God asked Cain in Genesis:
“Where is your brother, Abel?” “I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” he asked God.
Cain knew so well that he was his brother’s keeper, but as well as murdering his brother (Abel), Cain lied to Omniscient God by saying he wasn’t his brother’s keeper.
As a conclusion, my South Sudanese, this is the kind of accountability I was gearing towards. In this post (article), I intended to cover our lack of accountability only in abroad especially in Australia.
So the examples/quotations, which appeared here, are largely from South Sudanese-Australians. However, some examples in this article are from elsewhere, mostly from South Sudan.
Thanks for your time and Merry Christmas
You can reach the author via his email: <kurwelkur@yahoo.com>
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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