The Hype of Hatred vs. Identity (Part 2)
The Hype of Hatred and “Dinka People are the Foolish Majority”
By Thiik Mou Giir, Melbourne, Australia
March 19, 2016 (SSB) —- Probably, a non-Dinka person said “Dinka people are the foolish majority long time ago and this negative description was taken up by people, Dinka and non-Dinka alike, and disseminated in the society. It went from being something casually said by an individual who was participating in a conversation, to become a saying in the society. When people do that, some people start to believe what it means as truth. It then sinks into their subconscious. It does not sink into subconscious of Dinka alone, but also into subconscious of the non-Dinka people. It affects both sides negatively. Dinka people take a defensive position, the position of proving that they are not what the statement claim that they are – and who can blame them for doing so? This abusive statement makes it hard for Dinka as well as members of other tribes to forge a working relationship. This expression came into being as a result of tension created by people with different mindset.
The context in which this expression was initially produced could have been this: the speaker acknowledged that the majority, the Dinka people, was definitely in charge of the government. However, the speaker did not think the government was being ran in an intelligent way, but foolishly.
Tribal loyalty sometimes prevents us from thinking about ourselves as individuals and forces us to think alongside the driving forces of our tribes. We do not want to be seen as deviates for fear that we will be isolated by our own tribe, our own clan and even our own members. No one wants to experience that. The problem is that, sometimes, when we take side of our tribe, our clan or our family, we find ourselves in a situation that show us that we are in conflict with what we actually believe in, in conflict with our personal interests and; in short, in conflict with our individuality.
Certain things are in play when this happens. Let me give you an example. In Bussere Senior Secondary Boarding School, in 1981, I, a Dinka student, found myself in a predicament. Students were divided. On one side were Dinka students (the majority). They demanded that one of food items, beans, or Fasulia, which school provided for lunch and dinner, be removed from the menu. Students from Eqatoria (the minority), on the other hand, did not want any changes to be made. They wanted Fasulia to be kept on the menu list. I had to decide. I liked fasulia. It tasted better than any other type of food that was provided. I did not care what it did after it was eaten! Like my colleagues from Equatoria, I did not like any changes to be made. That was my personal position. Now, what am I to do in that situation?
Either I take the side of my Dinka colleagues and support the demand for Fasulia to be replaced with something else or I take the side of my colleagues from Equatoria and continue to enjoy fasulia meals but, nevertheless, face the consequences. Please, do not laugh. It was a serious matter. There was a stand off between the two groups. There was swearing and yelling and everything until someone called for voting.
It was a decision time. I voted along with my Dinka colleagues. Had I voted along with my colleagues from Equatoria (the minority), my Dinka colleagues (the majority) would still had won and then I would had been a marked man. I am sure I was not the only one who liked fasulia among Dinka students just as there were some students among students from Equatoria who did not like fasulia and yet they all raised their hands to vote for something they did not honestly and should not had voted for the same reasons that stopped me from raising my hand in support of keeping fasulia in the menu – bullying and fear of loosing friends.
Because they get what they want, the majority does not have to call the minority “foolish”. On the other hand, because they cannot understand why the majority is not on the same page as they are and because they cannot get what they want, the minority expresses their frustration by calling the majority “foolish”. The truth is there are intelligent individuals as there are foolish individuals in every family, clan and tribe, regardless of whether it is small or large. Also, there are people in between.
Inside Thiik’s Automobile Mechanic Repair Shop for Identity
A strong country is built when people act on the best ideas. Ideas come from somewhere and from someone, some individual, who might be a Dinka, a Shilluk, a Mundari or a member of any other tribe. That individual conceives that best idea, not as a result of he or she being hatched like a chicken egg by a tribe, but as a result of that individual’s mental effort. Sometimes, for tribal reasons, people reject the best idea. However, that best idea that looks as if it is dying away could come back to life when the right people take it up at the right time.
In a country that has a Parliament and parties, ideas are passed on from individuals to parties and from parties to all parliamentarians who then discuss them or debate on them while citizens listen and read. They listen and they read because the media gives them access to know what is going on inside the Parliament. In this way, people should just be focusing on ideas rather than tribes. Tribes should not be allowed to replace parties in regards to the way a country is ran. In this way also, there is no way for anyone to keep saying these people of this tribe or those people of that tribe are the “foolish majority”.
Let us build our country and our communities in Diaspora using our best ideas and let us avoid labeling any tribe in a negative way. Negative labels harm all of us. They harm the side that is being labeled and also the side that is doing the labeling. Instead, let us focus on all the things that will make us evolve from being tribesmen/tribeswomen towards becoming citizens of a country. The vision of constructing our new identity is sufficient to inspire and guide us to achieve that goal.
The Hype of Hatred and this person or that person is ‘Cow-headed’ will be the next topic in this series of articles. This will be posted next Saturday. The writer can be reached at thiik_giir@hotmail.com
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