South Sudanese Australian: Many negative influences have damaged our community and torn apart our families
By William Abur, Melbourne, Australia
July 31, 2016 (SSB) — I’m writing this piece of advice to my own South Sudanese people in Diaspora and particularly in Australia. People can take it or leave it, it is an intellectual advice. I’m pointing out the few problems that are sitting with us in Australia as community and lack of considerable of some good values in our culture as South Sudanese people.
It is about maintaining your own culture, values, and moral as people from the South Sudan. We had witnessed incredible and difficulties in our lives, but we also had witnessed incredible opportunities in our lives as individuals and as the community at large.
Our people migrated to a different part of the world, including Australia, a country where I’m living in as I’m writing this piece of message. There is what called freedom in Australia, a freedom which we literately mistake understood because we were misinformed by the people who were providing services for us.
We tend to rely on other people’s cultures and choose to abandon our own culture, the way we care about family, children, mothers, and husbands. The acculturation into other people’s cultures and abandoning our own culture as migrants have caused a high level of dysfunctioning, families, and community by adopting things that are despicable, disbelieve and embracing to us.
The stress and frustration of dysfunctioning families and community as made many individuals participate in the negative political exercises in social media. We have seen a necessary fighting in social media; people attacking each other badly in social media and other are lying by creating fears with messages that had no evidence in whatsoever.
People also choose involve heavily on gambling and high level of prostitution in both young generation and old people because families are dysfunctioning.
Our young people are engaging in relentless activities, which made to be forced in jail as a way for the authority to control them from the community, not to harm other people and themselves. Yet, we know that there is no fair treatment or rehabilitation for such as young people in prisons.
There is future is very narrow. Even when they come out, they never compete with some mainstream young people who are spending in schools and in families with their parents.
With these, once would ask some critical questions why we have abandoning our culture which is full of respect, ethics, and moral values? I would like readers to think and answer this question by themselves, and start helping your friends, family members and at large to the community. The more read for Ph.D. studies, the more understand that my mum and dad were living in beautiful cultures with fewer services, but they were very happy people.
I also understand that I and my family, children and wife are living in the unpredictable world, full of many influences such as drug and alcohol, abuse in social media, high level of prostitution, family breakdown, intergeneration conflict and etc. To my understanding, too many influences have damaged our community, but where are going really without our culture, values, and principles to follow?
If my advice and intellect knowledge can assist individuals one or two South Sudanese people to stop and think about their future direction for themselves and their families, I would be very happy for them and wish them well in their future. Here is what I would like people to do, maintain good things in culture and invite positive things from other cultures as we are living in modern world.
However, we need to be mindful of the influence of other people’s cultures in our society by screening those cultures careful before we consider them in our practice. Take opportunity to learn about your parents, grandparents’ way of lives, take positive aspects of their culture to assist you in maintaining or creating your own values and ethics
Our big is misunderstanding of welfare benefits and freedom in new country. Although welfare services are good for vulnerable individuals and families, the services are not meant to damage families and culture of people. Social security payement has caused some problems, take away responsible of parents to guide their teenage children in messy world. It also rip-off both wives and husbands with their love, caring and their families responsibilities.
It create a high level of conflict or disgreement when it comes to maangement of family issues. This is not a criticism of welfare services or suggesting for people not take social secuirity benefits, it is about pointing out the issues as well as advising people to take welfare benefits and use it wisely for the benefits of their families and themesevese.
The writer is a Ph.D. candidate at Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia, majoring in sociology with particular interesting in settlement of refugees in new countries. He holds a bachelor degree in social work, which he practice social work for a number of years. He also holds master’s degree in international community Development, which wrote minor on refugees’ settlement challenges. He can be reached via email: William.abur@gmail.com
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