The Hype of Hatred vs. Identity (Part 6)
The Hype of Hatred and the ‘We Liberated You!’ Syndrome
By Thiik Mou Giir, Melbourne, Australia
April 16, 2016 (SSB) – If you are an outsider and you hear a Jieng person saying, ‘We liberated you’ to a non-Jieng person, you would conclude that Jieng people who did the liberating were also outsiders. You would have thought that Jieng fought singularly the enemy until the enemy let South Sudanese people go free. The statement is exclusive. We all know that this was not the case. Jieng people fought side by side along with all members of other tribes. They, together with others, fought the common enemy until the common enemy let the South go, let South Sudan become an independent country. From the day S. Sudan became an independent country, development was expected to happen quickly. Instead, so many people became affected by the hype of hatred of which ‘we liberated you’ is one of the ingredients.
This put-down-opponent expression, ‘We liberated you’, has caused so much resentment among non-Jieng. Non-Jieng feel that the contribution that the members of their tribes had made over the years of the liberation struggle have not been recognized by one of the largest tribes in South Sudan, Jieng. The statement has solidified the relationships of so many non-Jieng people who bend their anger and hatred against the entire Jieng tribe. It has worked in polarizing the people of South Sudan. This is dangerous. This is destructive.
What do these Jieng individuals mean when they say, ‘we liberated you’ to non-Jieng individuals? Do they mean that because a Jieng person led SPLA/M, Jieng tribe has contributed the largest number of the SPLA/M troops, some of whom paid the ultimate price for the independence of the country, because of all these things, then Jieng people have ‘liberated’ others?
Who are being ‘liberated’? Did non-Jieng tribes not contribute some members of their own to the liberation struggle? Did they not die side by side with Jieng soldiers, fighting the common enemy? Did their people not host SPLA/M troops in their homes when SPLA/M troops were fighting the enemy? Did they not suffer just as Jieng people suffered, the suffering caused by the liberation struggle? Was SPLA/M struggle not a continuation from from Any Nya I struggle, led by General Joseph Lagu? Is General Joseph Lagu not a Maadi? If the answer to these questions is in affirmative, how then did Jieng single handedly liberate South Sudanese?
What stand out of the argument are the numbers. Jieng is the largest of all tribes in South Sudan and therefore, Jieng members have sacrificed the most in the liberation struggle. That is fact. However, their sacrifices are proportional. If non-Jieng were to match Jieng in numbers of those who joined the liberation struggle and paid the ultimate price, some small tribes could have almost gone extinct and still their numbers would have been considered far less in comparison.
It is not the numbers that matter. If we are to take our cue from the Gospel of Mark, Mark wrote, “Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offering were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything – all she had to live on”. The wisdom contained in this text teaches that what you contribute out of your heart, out of your love is all that matters. Non-Jieng contributed out of their love for freedom just as much as Jieng contributed out of their love for freedom.
The expression, ‘we liberated you’ has no base in Jieng tradition? A Jieng who has carried out an act of kindness do not talk about it, but leaves it for others to talk about it. A person who is a receiving end of the act of kindness does not thank the person directly and immediately because by doing so the person could become arrogant and he himself may not consider it as a show of a genuine gratitude. Instead, the tradition teaches that he should be talked about and praised indirectly, when he is not around. All the more when he is dead. If his deed is outstanding, songs are composed and sang so that his name and what he has done are spread more widely. In the light of these terms we can conclude with certainty that for any Jieng to say, ‘We have liberated you!’ is un-Jieng.
These individuals, for reasons they know, are trying to aggrandize themselves by putting down people they are arguing with or people they do not like. They are not supposed to be taken seriously. In the West, for example, if a person says, ‘I’m going to kill you!’ or ‘I’m going to cut you into pieces!’ you do not take that person seriously. Likewise, non-Jieng should not take a person who says ‘we have liberated you’, meaning, ‘you have done nothing; we have done everything – for you’, seriously. They do not mean what they say. No Jieng of a sound mind can discredit the contribution of non-Jieng in the liberation struggle. Non-Jieng should respond to this in appropriate behavour by saying, ‘nonsense!’ Nonsense. That is it. Mind you, do not say it is Jieng tribe’s ‘nonsense’. Leave Jieng tribe out of this. It is, rather, Deng’s, Garang’s, Ater’s…Let me put it this way: it is the-person-you-are-arguing-with’s nonsense. That should end it. No one is supposed to lose sleep because a moron has said, ‘we have liberated you.’
Inside Thiik’s Automobile Mechanic Repair Shop for Identity
Although it is a good thing to say, ‘nonsense’, to those irritating, bullying and arrogant Jieng, it is not good to sever relationships, if there are any, with them. This is where we often go wrong. If we find ourselves (Jieng and non-Jieng) as rough as stones, it is only by friction and by turning that we become smooth and as we come to a good shape, bones and flesh will form; in other words, we become one people who can move as one, not as sixty four tribes, each trying to find its own destiny.
To say that the people of S. Sudan are ‘liberated’, sounds like it is a done deed. It is not. The enemy has not gone far. The enemy is still meddling in the affairs of our people. However, this enemy is no longer our worst enemy; our current worst enemy is ourselves. We have become our worst enemy. Tribal mentality, diverse experiences and knowledge we have acquired from Arabs and from Westerners have impacted the way we see ourselves. These combined, have caused more discord than harmony. In this way we are not going to catch up unless we decide to work together in order to construct our new identity. I am not a government official, but if there is a room for an ordinary person to contribute something to benefit our people, then this is a vision I would love to propose to our people. It is a challenge I believe we must undertake before we could consider ourselves ‘liberated’.
This is time for Renaissance. Renaissance is a Western concept, a concept that had worked for Europeans. It should work for us, too. Renaissance is defined as a bridge between the old and the new. We need to construct this bridge. It opens up for an outburst of ideas by which we could utilize what we already have, our traditions and our cultures, improving on those things that will make us strong and at the same time getting rid of those things that will continue to hamper our efforts to develop. By the end of Renaissance period, our people will emerge as one people, as citizens rather than tribesmen and tribeswomen. Time of tribes will be over.
The Hype of Hatred and “Jieng Council of Evil” will be the next topic in the series. I will post it next Saturday. The writer can be reached at thiik_giir@hotmail.com
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