South Sudan Youth for Peace and Reconciliation: “Our diversity is our identity”
4 min readSouth Sudanese Youths should determine their own future and that of the nation-South Sudan; keep off from ‘Lethal Political Ideologies!’
Press release from the South Sudan Youth for Peace and Reconciliation (SSYPR) and Youth Action for Peace and Reconciliation (YAPR)
March 6, 2016 (SSB) — Having observed, witnessed and experienced the costs of the brutal and meaningless war in South Sudan that sent our beloved people to graves, IDPs’ camps and refugees’ camps; youths have highly paid in dignified silence. Youths are losing their colleagues, friends and age-mates to heartless monster called death and agony of mental pollution from politicians each day and yet they still do not need to define how to approach the mantra!
While the leaders are busy on whom to lead the Country, the youths are supposed to be busy trying to know what should be the future of the Country! While the leaders killed, maintain their positions and others ascend to the new positions when indeed they killed enough of our members-youths, yet young people are still clinging to them.
Now is the time for the youths to determine the future of the Country by detaching from any lethal political ideology and indeed start to take the neutral ground to reconcile our people and possibly take the legacy that our elders and leaders miserably loss.
Youths must start to write and own their own manuscript of the future which is intentionally refused to be written by the ‘political elders.’ The Country is dying and the spirits and ghosts of the fallen colleagues, friends, relatives and age-mates are calling for you to save the Country with love and patriotism, not meaningless individual loyalty or the personality cult which is secretly in making.
Those spirits of South-North Sudan war’s true liberators, those spirits of the fallen heroes and heroines from SPLA, SPLA-IO, Mathiang Anyoor, White Army and Arrow Boys, are calling you to save the Country and accept to put your leaders on check than praising them while butchering you.
The spirits of those who lost their lives to unknown gunmen and women are calling you to detach from the current polarization and save the Country before it reach to the “hell” of no return….sleep today, sleep tomorrow and listen to their voices.
As organization’s motto states “our diversity is our identity,” South Sudanese youths should embrace the diversity and admit that we are dying together and therefore we should reconcile and be successful together. Whether you are affiliated to whichever group either in secrecy or in open, now is the time for you to know that we are collectively the solution to the current situation in the Country.
The nation is slipping off in our watch and we are standing to blame others while we are not detaching from the problem. The Country is “rotting” politically and yet we are waiting for the almighty change that will not come…it is time to join non-violence activism and sing with one voice that our leaders liberated the Country credibly from Arabs of Sudan and misrepresent us in the last minutes. Thus, needs for new modalities for peaceful transition to change.
Where are we socially as a nation? We are totally polarized by our leaders. Young men and women, where are we economically as a Country? We are gone as a result of the war. Where are we diplomatically as a state? We are the “under-dogs” of diplomacy. Where are we as the future leaders of the Country?
We are divided in the lines of our tribes, regions and sycophancy…it is time for the youths to determine the future of the Country by doing the following:
- Begin the process of recognizing the losses caused to all of us as a nation but not as a tribe, region or ethnic group
- Start to reconcile with yourself so that you can manage to reconcile with others and become the examples of modern reconciliation in the world
- Look not so much into who cause the war (per now) but what were the causes of the war and the final solutions to the
- Concentrate on the studies (for those studying and those capable of studying) and find the way to the future because the current leaders are not willing to mentor you to be tomorrow’s leaders but instead teaching you to ‘’inherit’’ their vices
- Detach from any engagement that is tribal, ethnic and regional
- Get back to your former friends whom you were separated as a result of the war and
- Reason before posting anything on your face-book page and any social sites-this is the beginning of real era National Patriotism in South Sudan!
South Sudan Youth for Peace and Reconciliation (SSYPR) is a South Sudanese Civil Society Organization (NGO), legally registered in Kenya, and its sister Organization, Youth Action for Peace and Reconciliation (YAPR) is legally registered in South Sudan and can be reached through: ss.youthforpeace@gmail.com
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