Is the concocted word Nuer-wew, which loosely translated ‘Nuer-who-love-money’ a misconception or relevant?
4 min readBy Malek Cook-Dwach, Juba, South Sudan
October 31, 2016 (SSB) —- Nuer is believed to be second larger tribe after Dinka according to the disputed April 2008 fifth population and housing Sudan census and one amongst sixty four tribes that comprised the Republic of South Sudan. They inhabited and found in Greater Upper Nile.
According to some scholarly articles, Nuer were found to have a traditional religious worldview usually called ‘’ animistic’’ but they worship a supreme being called Kuoth who has various manifestations with which some claim to have personal relationships. There are other beliefs in Nuer traditional religious such as Prophet Ngundeng Bong and other small gods.
The synonym ‘’wew’’ is Dinka term for money which come after Nuer and constitute ‘’Nuer-wew’’ was concocted in the early 2013 by group of Facebook fighters allegedly to be from Opposition to discredit the Nuer working class who happened not joined the rebellion one way or another. These groups include private sector like NGOS, Oil companies’ staff and public sector like government employee as domineering slogan replacing the forceful recruitment in the fight against government forces.
The human made disaster which occurred in December 2013 as result of SPLM power struggle which divert to tribal killings angered those who their immediate families targeted and indeed the house to house search or door to door killings happened as appeared in the African Union reports of inquiries.
These targeted killings by itself attracted the attentions of youth from Nuer to fight back in revenge but the 2016 fight which took place July at J-1 was purely political, whoever got killed just happened in the cross fire. I couldn’t see the reason why some Facebook fighters still misconstrue and dissenting from the very fact why they took up arms in first place in what they called dignified war and engaged in calling names to the groups who didn’t responded violently and fight the war using other means (Non-violent) to be branded ‘’Nuer-wew’’.
The usage of the word ‘’Nuer-wew” attracts all the sympathizers of SPLM-IO to validate their solidarity and faithfulness and in parts or in full you will be automatically recognize and confirm as an hero or heroine no less no more. Coming to the relevancy or misconception of the word ‘’ Nuer-wew’’ which constitute my basic argument here:
The confusing and disturbing practice of the word “Nuer-wew” looks like others are immune from the money meanwhile they are directly or indirectly beneficiary from fictitious term “wew”. This has shown by influx of SPLM-IO advance team to Juba in the early months of 2016.
With the recent fight in July the SPLM-IO divided into two factions, those pursue peaceful means under the leadership of Lt. Gen Taban Deng Gai and those who resorted to war under leadership of Dr Riek Machar.
I am sure, some will make unnecessary arguments that, the coming of advance team was meant for the implementations of Agreement on the resolution of conflict in the Republic of South Sudan. If that was the case; it could base on merit in the first place. I am wondering and confused with minimization use of the term ‘’Nuer-wew’’ because those who claim to fight for reform are included in the Nuer-wew scenario by then.
With that elaborative argument, the word ‘’Nuer-wew’’ is a misconception not relevant because those who concocted it are involved in ‘’ Nuer-wew’’ drama. Hence, it is not reasonable out of anger and emotions you just refused what belong to you and leave it to someone you perceived as your opponent.
The Author is a concerned South Sudanese, reachable at malekcook75@gmail.com
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