A letter from a curious citizen of Twic Mayardit
Paan Chief Lang Juuk’s meeting will be the litmus test for Twic Mayardit Community’s unity
By Adhar A. Chol, Victoria-Australia
March 22, 2016 (SSB) —- As what I call the most difficult Monday, March, 21, 2016 Twic Mayardit consensus-seeking Conference meeting is fast approaching and hosted at the home turf of great chief Lang Juuk of Akuar Athokbeekdit, to discuss and resolve the issue of forceful and illegal unilateral relocation of the Twic Mayardit Administrative Capital from Turalei to the village of Mayen Abun, home land to the catholic church in Twic state. We, the citizens of Twic are put on trial and as well being reminded of how much vested stakes we have in each other. Our community, Twic Mayardit has always been a strong community not because of the absence of issues/problems that divide us but rather because of the strength of our age long conflict mitigation processes no matter how complex the dividing issues are.
Just to give you the context, when president Kiir issued his unilateral establishment decree establishing the 28 tribal states in South Sudan, Twic State was among those newly created tribal states with its traditional and historical administrative capital decreed to be relocated from Turalei to Mayen Abun with neither the consultation nor the agreement of the entire membership of Twic Mayardit, except with the knowledge of few old and out-dated egocentric sectional politicians who cunningly duped President Kiir, resulting in a tremendous division within Twic Mayardit Community. Faced with this dire situation of untold division, the traditional leaders and other prominent members of Twic decided to call to confront and resolve for once this brewing and uncalled-for division.
It is understood that the current predicament facing Twic Mayardit is a well-orchestrated project by non-other than the notorious members of Jieng Council of Elders(JCE) who clearly did not have any convincing reasons that warrant their berserk actions of creating division within Twic Mayardit community other than perhaps to punish and destroy the visibly strong unity and solidarity of Twic for their creativity and innovative thinking which may result in a rapid development of their newly created stated, therefore they came up with this plan to cripple Twic Mayardit development.
Our failure to intuitively analyse this destructive and disunity-intended project of Jieng Council of Elders and specifically master minded by non-other than the black knights of Twic in the person of Hon. Majak Aleer and self-appointed chief Cyier Maroor (Cyier Abun) will not only be a betrayal to our brave and proud ancestors but also it will be an ultimate betrayal to our next educated, intelligent and goal oriented generation of Twic Mayardit.
In this meeting many of us in diaspora, especially America, Canada, UK and Australia take comfort in the opinion that Twic Mayaridt will emerge stronger than ever recorded in our history because we are in complete awareness if we fails to confirm our unity in this difficult meeting, it will be an absolute confirmation to this destructive and disunity-intended project of Jieng Council of Elders which will be a celebration to Mr Majak Aleer and his cousin Cyier Abun.
History has recorded that human civilization revolves around town and cities and each major civilization was compounded around a city. As Communities coalesced into one community or nations, dominates cities were always and easy chosen to host capitals through fair, just and constructive debate. For instance pataliutra was the centre of various civilzation of great Magadha Empire like Nanda, Maurya and Gupta, thus the modern Indian state of Bihar took it as it capital city. London has been a capital of Brittanina since Roman time and English Culture primarily evolved around the city, therein, it naturally became UK’s capital. Other ancient cities that become capitals include Vienna, Dehli, Paris, Rome Athens, Baghhdad, Mexico city, Moscow, Madrid, Khartoum etc.
These Capitals Cities were formed around the following properties:
- Cultural centre: Let’s contemplate a capital city as a pseudo-religion. Like a religion, a city has holy books (Constitution, laws), Bodies of governance, moral institutions, symbols, etc. The capital city become the centre of this holy site. For instance, American sees Capitol Hill, White House and whole Washington DC mall as a central part of their Cultural identity. Indians see Rashtrapati Bhavan, Jan Path and RJ Path as a part of their national identity.
- Grographic Centre: Often times, capitals are located close to the geographic centre of the culture to provide better governance.
- Economic center: Traditional capitals were center of respective economies. London, Paris, Moscow, Tokyo are all major economic centers of the respective economies.
- Provides adequate security: A capital has to be well protected so that the seat of power comes under very little internal or external threat. Delhi was a fair bit away from the entry point of most invasions and was built with a fairly elaborate fortification (Gate of Delhi). In many other cases, countries build fortified capitals atop hills etc.
Turalei has been Twic Mayaridt’s geographic, traditional and cultural centre providing a well respectful governance and unquestionable hospitality to all Twic Mayardit citizens without iota doubt of favouritism. The above mentioned examples does confirm the suitability of Turalei to remains as Twic Mayardit administrative capital, it is home land of Bol Chol to whom Twic Mayardit community is identify with, Manut Bol, Dr. Justin Yac Arop and many other cultures identities of our community, their graves yards remind us of our oneness and any initiative of isolating Twic Mayardit capital from them is an ultimate denial of their well-respected contributions and it shall soon come to many of us regret.
I humbly remind Those ticklers, who are refusing to attend Twic Mayardit conference in the land of paan’s Lang Juuk on pretext of no ‘agenda’ should return their attention toward sustainability of Twic Mayardit unity in sense of isolating themselves from thin politics of sectionalism. There are real agenda for Aweng’s conference and attending it, has a telling benefit to our unity.
It is known to us that president Kiir himself is attending this historical conference in the person of his spokesman Mr Ateny Wak and aided by top officials. So the argument of presidential decree cannot be debated and reversed is severely weak, limitless and wildly bizarre. Twic Mayardit shall emerge out of this conference stronger than ever.
Adhar A. Chol is an SPLM/IO Victoria-Australia Chapter General Secretary and can be reached via the following email: adharthondit@yahoo.com.au
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