Cry for Dr. John Garang De Mabior: 71 Years’ Worth of Tears
5 min read~~”Next time, an epitome of leadership dies, you must cry 71 years’ worth of tears.”~~
By Kur Wël Kur, Adelaide, Australia
Dear my leaders,
May 2, 2016 (SSB) — Most of times, writing is tiresome and dangerous, especially political writing; however, life worth living doing what’s right as it ceases when the truth about it [life] dies. I am writing this article as a challenge to you, my leaders, but not to disparage or vilify you. So, in form of a letter, I address my points.
“John ran a country in your eyes before we even had a country, but did you learn a thing? All those displaced camps and captured towns were operational just like other cities in the world.”
With this quote, I challenge you because our country is in a bad shape in the eyes and lives of its citizens and in the eyes of world citizens. Why? The citizens of your country are flocking in thousands in North Sudan’s borders, wearing wrist bands like patients. We have become laughing stocks in other nations, even in nations that are shoulder to shoulder with us.
Why? Because you have made our country a positional country; “Any positional country lives not, positions don’t make leaders, but real leaders create sustainable positions.” My dear leaders, you did a great job for directing the liberation of our country; throughout the liberation, you had been proactive in the decision-making.
The fact that I am in this isolated world, Australia, is prove of your excellent engineer for our country, South Sudan, and I thank you for it. As my fingers are striking the keys on my laptop, I am dousing my laps with tears because the country you denied yourselves of other luxurious things such as good education [most of you left universities for liberation] and fancy jobs [some of you were engineers working in Khartoum, some were majors in Khartoum army, and some were lecturing at the various universities in other people’s countries], is slipping away in your very eyes.
“After 10 years of Independence, there’s nothing to show, only dry humans’ bones, wrecks of tanks, ashes of civilians’ settlements, and a virgin agricultural lands.”
War by itself causes suffering and death, but its brutality does not come to light in its course until after it: what do the leaders say and do to citizens after the war? If leaders, after the war, speak peace, they breathe hope and unity into citizens. And that’s what matters after the war. 155 years ago, the Americans, the hosts of democracy plunged themselves into a civil war after they fought the revolution war, a “Give me Liberty or Death” war, a war with the British.
Though one part [the North] emerged a winner, and the South lose the war, Abraham Lincoln with his oratory, implanted hope and unity in Americans to allow peace to heal their psychological, political, economic and social wounds. It worked and they formed an indissoluble Union.
Next time, an epitome of the leadership dies, cry for the souls of your country.
Constructing the above subheading, in mind is a leadership mogul, Dr. John Garang De Mabior. He was greater for the world to leave him to live, so he died brutally like the other greatest leaders. They killed him. Sitting in my readings list, is “Marking the 10th Anniversary of Dr. John Garang’s Death: Who Killed Dr. John Garang?” I am yet to connect the dots after reading the book, but it’s obvious, even to a villager walking in the ruins of the Jonglei state about who killed the hope of all marginalised people in Sudan.
John died in the dawn of interim government. This makes us, as South Sudanese, weary of any interim government concerning us: “Next time, an epitome of the leadership dies, cry for the souls of your country.” When John Died, some of us cried crocodile’s tears, but six years after, Darfur, Southern Kurdufan and Eastern Blue Nile cried for the souls of their women and children left out in the hands of the most brutal regime, eleven years after, we cry our hearts out as we witness another interim government.
What’s my point in this letter?
You could ask. My point in this letter is, any interim government is a devil powerhouse for the short cuts. According to Dr. John’s last speeches after Comprehensive Peace Agreement, John was going for unity. He aimed so, because his war was not over. In one of his liberation speeches, he said, “shaving the devil’s head won’t stop the hair from growing, but cutting the devil’s head off will surely do.” He meant the Khartoum regime so for him going for unity was his going for the devil’s head.
John was a nightmare for the Khartoum regime engineers: Dr. Hassan ‘Abd Allah al-Turabi, Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir, and Ali Osman Mohammed Taha; they loathe him to ashes, his reduced form. So, my leaders try to learn something from him though he is no more, his footprints are everywhere.
Yrs.’ KUR WEL KUR.
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