IF ONLY WERE SOUTH SUDANESE NOT IRON HEARTED…
It is only that we are south Sudanese; if we were not, a long story than this would arise believe me
By Kon Joseph Leek, Juba, South Sudan
April 11, 2016 (SSB) —- The strength of our hearts has been there for millets of years as caused by infinitive and monotonous suffering we have been subjected to by internal and external issues. We have seen suffering prior to 1978 and picked it up in 1983 until 2005 and it is scrolling in again now! Suffering is no longer a bad news to us because we were brought up in it with the hope of being better later and we are hoping those hopes still!
This makes me to enquire that, ‘if we were not South Sudanese, which people would we be?’, if only were we animals, which animal’s tribe would we perfectly fit in their place? Lion or nyanajuan! (Kind of ogre in the image of man) not so sure, let me first consult my wildlife friends; they may know the ideal comparison
We are a perfect fit, just like shoes to its owner to represent our country in this gadderm world’s surviving group, what don’t we have? Hunger, dollar crises, boiling insecurity, sky rocketing prices, blinding robbery, mention them. Oh, how qualify are we in the dreadful way!
Just imagine South Africa or Kenya being in our situation, what would happen? Don’t tell me demonstrations or coupe d’état. For our case, just like Congo, Eritrea, and Burundi, we are no alien to being refugees; even the whole world knows it. “Being refugees and we” are too intimate that it is hard to separate us. We are very much used to it
The years spent in wars and refugee camps submerges the years of stability and statehood. Believe me,
If referendum was to be done again today, many would think twice. All our current chaos is clear signals that we have not given ourselves a chance of knowing ourselves better
We have already forgotten where we came from and what took us there in the first place
We are becoming a typical living embodiment of what we dreaded most from the North. We fight over nothing, X seems to overlook me, Y is grabbing my land……..
If only that we were not south Sudanese, we would have been in desperate journeys trying to cross to Europe or Middle East
The way hunger is striking is a way it has never done before. It is behaving like it is acting for the last time
It is only that we are strong hearted enough otherwise; we more deserve and qualify to crawl. It is only the strength of our hearts that we are still seen walking on these dusty streets of Juba city. We are in a perfect fit to crawl like a nine months’ old kid
All what are left in what used to be fleshy muscular healthy bodies are just skins fitly covered on the bones. They are only bones clattering like assemblage of dry sticks; skins dry taut over the bones! And there seems to no eyes seeing it, for the eyes only see its child and no other person’s child!
All these lively nightmares are blamed on different views depending on individual perspectives, should it be 2013’s war, UN, IGAD, failure of foreign relations, Riek’s delay to come to Juba, Devaluation… or what is it?
It has led to thievery and violent robbery in many parts of the country. In one of the nights of late February in Shirkhat, a man (thief) entered the neighbor’s house where he succeeded to remove all he needed and assembled them outside the gate, he got the advantage of doing so because,…. You know
Juba’s weather, people were sleeping outside After that, he realized to have not taken the phones, as he returned, a gentleman (sleeping in that compound) had already woken up for short call, as he was about to rise, he heard the creak of a gate,
’someone was entering’, the gentleman thought and he was right He tricked the thief by lying for him to not notice. Unluckily, the thief took the direction of the gentleman, before he could pick the gentleman’s phone, his hand was caught, ‘a thief! A thief!’ the gentleman called out.
Like their sleep was connected to one man, all had woken up including us at the neighborhood because we were only separated by a bamboo fence. ‘It is now only this one thief who is terrorizing this area?’ I reasoned for I was a victim too
‘Chase him! Thief, catch him!’ a great hubbub had risen from the throats of a thief’s pursuers of hysterical humanity, a mass of shared frustrations, frustrations sharp and bitter as the pulp of immature gourd
The crowd came running in a body, anxious to mete out instant justice, blind justice, to this intrepid scoundrel, this piece of thieving scum, symbol of all the hurt and humiliation, this little piece of burden!
We ran slipping, stumbling, falling, getting up, staggering, shouting, we ran with eyes arrowed on the fleeing back of the young thief in the bright moonlight that had just risen from the East (where it sunk)
One drunken and frustrated soldier with blurring eyes, shaking hands and unbalanced legs corked the gun to give the thief a last blow that might probably brought him down. We successfully intervened and advised the national defender that this is a non-territorial issue it is just a police case, he might as well harm unintended person or his shooting could even call for the attention of our sleep-loving police who might possibly come and help this thieving fool
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A young energetic man, so light of foot, he seemed to float the little puffs of dust he raised with each footfall, scudding, desperately running, seeking sanctuary from the collective wrath of his rapidly closing pursuers
Then the thief stumbled and fell, instantly the crowd was up on him, kicking, slapping and scratching for what seemed a decade to the thief until he cried aloud like an ambulance.
‘I am one of your sons’ the thief cried out, ‘what?’ a voice asked. He began explaining himself, his parents were prominent people. Others whom I believed might be some of thief’s relatives began to disappear in the cover up of shame this fool has brought to them.
‘So you are a thief?’ the same voice asked, ‘I was just hungry, he explained his innocence, I came here in search of food and I got no food and so I was driven by my heart to steal all these please forgive me’, he pleaded
A judge…., that was what he called himself for being a graduate of laws from the University of Juba presented himself. I thought, he thought himself so because of his intimidating appearance than for anything else. He sat on a small anthill, a huge man with taut sinews, and not single ounce of fat on him, big and jet black with an axe head and little pig-like eyes
‘We are going to kill you that is why you and your likes will stop disturbing our peace’, he told the thief. The thief was now blubbing meaninglessly, wetting his trousers in the process. No word could come out
Most of us became sympathetic, I told the judge to forgive him since he stole nothing and this would perhaps be the final warning to him.
One of us supported me by adding that sometimes within this year, some of us would be killed or caught stealing. It is only that we are being strong hearted otherwise by the time we break the tether of dignity, we would be like him
We all believed that something was wrong in the system, there is an era unless something is done or else we all turned into thieves later in order to survive
He was told to explain himself once again by the judge. He happened to be a judge’s nephew! We all left him unharmed. Only his nose was little flowing (bleeding) with something equivalent to the color of ripped tomato. It was caused by his maternal uncle’s last blow, the judge
Reach me on j.konleek@gmail.com
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