South Sudan: The nation of the traumatized (Part 1)
8 min read
By Thiik Mou Giir, Melbourne, Australia
July 20, 2016 (SSB) — It is not normal. It is too much time wasted when I wrote words and crossed them out, when I wrote sentences and crossed them out, when I wrote paragraphs and crossed them out. I started writing all over again. It is too much time wasted when I wrote, stopped writing, and realized that my mind had gone blank and out of focus. I am depressed, depressed by all that had been going on in South Sudan in the last few days.
So many of our people have died, killed by their own brothers, not by an enemy, but by their own brothers. So many of our brothers and sisters are calling for foreigners to go to South Sudan in order to take control of their home country, who, from the perspective of international community, have become like animals going wild and unruly. What our people had longed for, suffered for and died for has now become a baby nation whose children are begging other people to go and become foster adults – United Nation Trusteeship or AU Peacekeepers – to our beloved South Sudan.
President Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya once said: “When the Missionaries arrived, the Africans had the land and the Missionaries had the Bible. They taught how to pray with our eyes closed. When we opened them, they had the land and we had the Bible.”
At this age, some of our brothers and sisters are calling the outsiders to go and take charge of their country. First, this demonstrates that many of us have given up hope that our country can grow and become a great country. Secondly, some of us think that other people are Godlike and will never mishandle our country and rob our people of their resources for quite a long time. When children are crying out to strangers for help, it is a sign that the people who belong to that house are terribly traumatized.
This is why I think my condition may not be a depression. Maybe I am traumatized. Maybe all South Sudanese are traumatized as well and that explains why our people are killing themselves. Political analysts say that what is going in South Sudan is power struggle. Any power gained, will benefit only the few; armed struggle or violence, destroys and traumatized millions, traumatized those who are yet to be borne.
I have made a Google search and this is what I have found out about emotional and psychological symptoms of trauma:
- Shock, denial, or disbelief
- Anger, irritability, mood swings
- Guilt, shame, self-blame
- Feeling sad or hopeless
- Confusion, difficulty concentrating
- Anxiety and fear
- Withdrawing from others
- Feeling disconnected or numb
Trauma cannot be underestimated. Some veterans of the USA Army, after fighting Islamists in Iraq and Afghanistan for approximately two years, go back to the USA; they immediately find caring facilities at their disposal. Counselors take care for any symptom of Postwar Traumatic Stress Disorder. Some of them are advised to own pets for therapeutic purposes. In spite of all assistance provided to them, some of them find occasions to kill members of their own families. Here in South Sudan and elsewhere, the vast number of our people lived and fought the enemy for more than thirty years.
Some of us were in war zones where they were directly exposed to a number of traumatic events; those who were not in war zones were indirectly exposed to a number of traumatic events. We scarcely seek psychological treatment or medication for the trauma we have because almost all of us do not think we need to do so. Why? Because we were born into that environment where violence occur from time to time. We think of it as normal. We do not know any better environment than that. And that is the problem.
We were born and exposed to numerous traumatic events in the early years of our lives. Our fathers and mothers got us when the first civil war, Any Nya, was about to end. They had already lost their loved ones to that war. They were traumatized. They could not have brought up their own children without transferring their trauma to their children. The wave of South Sudanese hatred was bent towards the Northerners who marginalized them in their own country. They were traumatized as a result of a good cause. For that reason, they bore their trauma with pride.
The second civil war between SPLA/M and the Sudanese government troops was greater in scope and magnitude. More than two millions souls were lost. No South Sudanese had escaped being directly or indirectly traumatized. It affected members of Jieng and Nuer tribes, at the helm of the movement, down to the smallest tribes. However, they continued to fight their enemy as one people. The wave of hatred of all South Sudanese was bent towards the regime in Khartoum who marginalized them for so long. This was the time South Sudanese people bore their trauma with pride and hopefulness.
Freedom seemed to be near, but then, there was a split in the liberation movement in 1991. It was a great setback and that setback increased the intensity of trauma in the character of South Sudanese. The seed of self-hate was planted. There was no going back. The split will continue to be counted as one of the worst traumatic events in the history of South Sudan. With the split of the liberation movement the notion of Nuer hating Jieng and vice versa was introduced, and not only that, fighters’ tribal identities came to the fore: Jieng thought of himself as Jieng, Nuer as Nuer, Mundari as Mundari, Jur as Jur and so on. That split open the way for other splits to occur.
Although the main faction, led by Dr John Garang, remained a diverse faction, all other factions were tribal-based. Whenever there was a split, many people lost their lives and those who managed to live on, lived on traumatized. They bore their trauma with shame and frustration.
Every Jieng in the movement continued to experience direct trauma and every Jieng who was not in the liberation movement continued to experienced indirect trauma. They saw that their morale was not diminished by the splits; their efforts to liberate the marginalized people of Sudan were paying off. Although they were slowed, they kept the momentum of liberating the marginalized people of Sudan going. Now that the majority of the members of the second tribe, Nuer, had followed Dr Riek Machar, a great void between them and members of all other tribes was left. That made it impossible for some member of Jieng tribe not to think of themselves as liberators. This has become a tragic thought because others have used it to rally the support of members of other tribes to hate Jieng. Jieng and non-Jieng thus have created a situation where people take up arms and fight the government and even targeting members of Jieng tribe. Both the government and those who rebelled against it have killed Jieng and non-Jieng civilians.
When the movement was reunified, the majority of Nuer soldiers in the movement took their place as members of the second tribe. However, the movement was not going to be the same. Instead of one liberating army, there were militias. Instead of all soldiers being loyal to one Commander-in-Chief, soldiers now were loyal only to commanders that hail from their own tribes.
If the declaration of independence of South Sudan made all South Sudanese forget the existence of the ingredients that would create traumatic events in the future, corruption and claims of land grabbing quickly brought them to the fore. South Sudan was descending into abyss and even more so when violence broke out in 2013 between the government and those who would later become known as SPLM/A in Opposition. What does liberation mean in a country where these ingredients exist?
We, in Diaspora as well as those in S. Sudan, have nailed ourselves onto the wall. It is even worse for those of us who live in Diaspora. As blinded by our tribal hatred as we are, we are collectively facing racism. When you are facing racism, you suffer verbal abuse, you face discrimination, and you can hardly find a job and accommodation. Racism is made acute because we are thought of as people who came from a good-for-nothing country.
Our home country now is up for foster care (UN Trusteeship or AU Peacekeepers). What does the international community think of us? They look at us and see what we have become: the fractured community, the suffering, the looming starvation, the killing of civilians, and many more. They throw their hands in the air and say, “these people are good-for-nothing. They will ever depend on us, leave alone their ability to govern and to run their own affairs.” Our home country is a child nation. We know what happens to some children who are beautiful, but dumb, in foster homes. Some of those who are beautiful and dumb are likely to be raped and mishandled.
Our home country is extraordinarily beautiful. We, as her people, have become stupid because of many wars that our people have fought. As a result, we are all traumatized and this trauma has affected the way we think and the way we behave. Our young country is likely to be raped. We have collectively created the situation where she can be raped. This is what happens to a president whose people are stupid, weak and helpless: “I’m just like a child being ordered by everybody”, President Salva Kiir once said to a foreign interviewer.
Nothing in this world comes free. Europeans came to Africa as guests in the past; you know what they did to their hosts and hostesses – they enslaved them and took them into bondage. We have to learn to do things by ourselves if we expect to be really free. Before this happens, we need Social revolution now, more than any other kind of revolutions. There is no vision that befits this revolution more than this: we should all take part in Constructing Our New Identity.
Traumatized, Part Two: Traumatized Intellectuals, will be the next topic. This will probably be published next week.
The opinion expressed here is solely the view of the writer. The veracity of any claim made are the responsibility of the author, not PaanLuel Wël: South Sudanese Bloggers (SSB) website. If you want to submit an opinion article or news analysis, please email it to paanluel2011@gmail.com. SSB do reserve the right to edit material before publication. Please include your full name, email address, city and the country you are writing.
About Post Author
