Bor Community is losing Respect and Unity that we are Known.
By Deng Kur Deng, Pennsylvania, USA
November 25, 2016 (SSB) — Apparently it was brought to our attention that leadership behaviors didn’t reflect the image of the community as Deng Lueth struggles to withstand the frustration he helped create for the citizens under his leadership. Deng have always experienced very complex situations, some of which he handled calmly and successfully, but Labor Day weekend of September, 2016 wasn’t one of them.I appreciate his insights on things, but not this time on this subject matter. Many of us felt insulted and deceived by the office under his leadership. When many left the venue without casting their votes it was quite upsetting, especially when some of us realized that the community was experiencing more than just casting a vote.
To acknowledge my brother Deng’s failure— he failed to revive unity of the community by negotiating peacefully with those communities that have left the union temporarily. Now, he has just validated his failure by saying if you need unity of Greater Bor Community, you can joint the union voluntarily, which leaves out important and contribution of leaders from the following communities such as Bor, Twi, and Dukeen. This is so bad because I as a person believe in unity, but I cannot abandon office of Bor County to support something that have no base in our individual communities because it is going to be loosely regulated. I am a very optimistic person in regard to our unity as it is meant to maintain long term benefit that embodied values beyond our shallow thinking, which is something those who are in invisible circle group see it as a nonsensical, but it is not if you were very thoughtful in your thinking. Some of us don’t know quite yet what is wrong with the people, but we are aware of their perilous and intentions—to destroy our unity.
With all due respect to my brothers and sisters from Bor, Twic, and Dukeen who are for our unity, I honor and respect your place in our community, but for those who have put up a resistance to our collective identity despite our calls to unite under the banner of Greater Bor in the USA and at home, we wish you to understand long term meaning of our unity. However, I wouldn’t say you can choose to stay or move on to rename yourself—your side of the community because I believe in a long term benefit of our unity. I have read countless articles and statements on social media from those who are shallow minded that aren’t for our unity. Now, we know Deng opened our community to all sorts of nonsensical people and I felt it is our duty to prevent those who have time and time again minimal the community that has been knownfor creating great leaders, but it is a little late here in diaspora. This mysterious complex that was created by Deng’s office had its momentous for the fact that he was plotting against the will of the community.
Now, I am not speaking in the capacity or on behalf of leadership of Bor County, but in the capacity of a citizen who felt Denghas abandoned values, which have always maintained Bor Community. I am aware that Mr. Lueth is using Akol Aguek to strengthen his weaknesses by trying to implicate him into this mess, but that isn’t shining the light enough on the matter at hand. Mr. Lueth has acted shocked after Akol suspended Bor County as there was no direction left to be pursued by the people given the position taken by the Greater Bor office. At first, it was flattering on Lueth’s part as he knew nothing about Akol suspending Bor County. In fact, Akol acted in defense of the people as there were no instructions to follow amidst Deng’s controversial elections. Mr. Lueth is playing invisible tactics forgetting that he is dealing with individuals, who are not only well informed, but educated.
It’s important to be honest with ourselves. With any generation, when people think of South Sudan, Lou Nuer, Bor, Agar, Bhar Ghazel, Malual Abouth Anyar, Acholi, Latuko, Twic east, Dukeen, County, Aboudit, Kongor, Makuach Payam, Ayual, my section of Deer, family, and so forth, you are thinking about unity. However, with our generation, when an individual is considered educated, he tends to generate shallow ideas that circulate around divisions, so they tend to look at counties such as Bor, Twic east, Dukeen and others with their lenses of disunity. I am not saying Deng is for disunity, but some of the things he has uttered have enhanced disunity. For example, name change is the big one. For instance, if you look at things within Bor County, Palek is known to be well united and appreciate their unity and this should be our attitude. There are many people who have always wanted to lead, but would always stir up things that would create fragmentations within payams or even Boma, which is why many communities aren’t functioning very well here in diaspora.With that, if your education revolves around such ideas of divisions, your education has no use at all. Your thinking isn’t very constructive and so is your education at this point.
I have noticed that some of us have realized Mr. Lueth’s strategies has placed the community into endangerment and its appropriate to say the union of Greater Bor Community is nearing collapse or collapsed in the USA under Deng’s leadership. Now, he wants to rebrand things as he saysour union is going to be stronger than ever. I know this is doable, but at the moment Deng is only playing with words. Let us be honest, our unity started to deteriorated in 2013 for things he was involved in on social media and he was widely criticized, but he never ceased to act in the capacity of a leader—or restrain at least. In regard to incident in Grand Rapids, he has now realized that it was not a solution gone wrong but it was a hidden strategy that has gone awry.
I have realized many are trying very hard to be leaders or trying to make names for them, but they tend to go against the will of the community they are leading or intended to lead, which is unacceptable. Think about this for a minute, Deng was incapable of disentangling community problems from the tiniest county issues, which have clouded well anticipated events that many planned in advance. Deng devalued citizens call for change of leadership. It was obvious the absence of Dukeen was emulated as the major concern, but Deng had concealed other agendas such as the name change of the community, which is a very problematic subject. He ignited this subject on social media, but many didn’t fully understand the context of the material and why it was suggested on social media in the first place. Just recently, he wanted people to join Greater Bor without obligations from three communities such as Bor, Twi, and Dukeen, but the most hidden secret under these changes is a loosely room to make name change whenever its please certain group of people, which is unacceptable.
Based on facts I have personally gathered, his intentions of a name change wouldn’t have materialize, so to our disappointment, he wanted to wait for two communities namely Twic East and Dukeen of which he believes have collective crisis in regards to the name. Therefore, their presence has a chance of winning the name change initiative over Bor County in terms of a consensus. Certain individuals portrayed it as if the name Bor is demeaning to the rest of the communities under the Greater Bor Community. We have lived under Bor for a while now and it is now our collective identity. We cannot erase our history and no one is entitled to do so. Mr. Lueth suggests or proposed Jieng de Jonglei or something close to that. This created enough attention that calls for his resignation from serious minded members of the community were made.
Even though there have been conversations about the name Bor, people haven’t provided something substantial and concrete that made them believe there is a problem with the name. Those whom seek publicity in regards to the name didn’t fully achieved their objectives of name change and they will never achieve it. Personally, I have always treated it as a topic of little or no value at all. The name Bor is in its rightful place and it deserves to stay, so for those who are having an identity crisis and wishing for name change, you have a choice to make whether to get rid of Greater Bor Community, which has become hub of nonsense or keep it. No way around these two mentioned above—not even name change. Some of us are sick and tired of trying to express how important our unity is as part of long term benefits, but people with short term thinking shattered it with their words. Again, many of us have reconstituted Bor to imitate what had been done by our parents before all the nonsense was promulgated through education.
Our people have confused social change for name change, so it would be of great help to have people explain the different since the changes that we are seeking remain misunderstood. These ideals have no place in the community, so I am not here to comfort people, but to confront such behaviors or thinking. People have talked excessively about this subject matter, however, those of us who aren’t interested in the nature of the conversations are dismayed by the dishonesty displayed by Deng Lueth and his administration. He has suggested controversy after controversy, which are things that interfere with his roles as a leader of the Greater Bor Community. Any leader who has accepted to serve people must remember to restrain from stirring up things on social media and this is very crucial to the individual community and the larger entity, the Greater Bor Community.
I have never bothered to add my thoughts because I have always thought that they are not meant for the benefit of our community. I solely restrain knowing perfectly well that such words aren’t beneficial to the community at large. To validate my position, I was overwhelmingly frustrated and so do everyone else when Deng Lueth couldn’t judge the environment in Grand Rapids. Deng bears the responsibility for the mess that wasn’t a shock to many because something was anticipated from him as a hint from his social media. He couldn’t bring chaos to normalcy as people were overwhelmingly upset by the strategy he employed at the event. I was furiously against everything Deng stood for in Grand Rapids as he makes it seem like he was doing something when in fact he wasn’t doing anything to intervene as a leader. The office is no longer operational in their tactics as trust wasn’t mutually satisfactory to citizens. I realized his own mindset changed people’s perceptions of what Greater Bor meant for all of us.
This article was written by Deng Kur Deng AKA Raanmangar. You can reach him at pananyangajak@gmail.com
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 and the country you are writing.
About Post Author
