Parental Negligence: Have South Sudanese exported their mess and wars to Australia?
4 min readScapegoating and Parental Negligence: Have South Sudanese exported their mess to Australia
By Kur John Aleu, Beijing Jiaotong University, China
January 6, 2018 (SSB) — Shocking news have been coming from Australian media about a gang of youngsters on rampage vandalization, majority of which are said to be South Sudanese, this has triggered a war of words between the Australian authorities and community leaders who are on the defense of what they perceived as tainting of their image for the crime they are not responsible for.
The puzzle here is that, those gangs got parents/guardians there in Australia, if decency still got a place in our values, who else can be blamed for child misconducts apart from a very parent of the child? Instead of swallowing the shame of being irresponsible parents, get together and devise means of curbing that crime, the very parents have chosen to take a path of denial and scapegoating as if the world is insane to believe in their lies; when did the application of rule of law become a xenophobic act?
That wasn’t a first scenario of gangs’ activities in our community, two or three weeks ago, a street battle ensued between the law enforcing agencies and criminal gangs in Bor town, several of them got arrested and others are being haunted. Another episode which shocked the Kenyan South Sudanese community and the Facebook fraternity was the open ground battle among “The Slay queens” which was accorded live coverage, something the Jieng conservatives called an abomination.
In 2015 clashes lasted for THREE days in Nimule town between the gangs squad and certain community sect which was on demobilization mission for one of their sons from the gang but they met a step resistance during the operation, that battle is popularly known as “Tong ee Juer kene Nigai”.. The Kampala gang squad is exceptional, “The Hunters”, their actions are so filthy and disgusting, and surely the list of events is inexhaustible.
All the above cited incidences point to the direction of parental negligence, parents/guardians have miserably failed to live to their responsibilities, the trend is worrying and any concern community member must have a reason for sleepless nights.
Where did our community lose the game?
From my own view point, most parents and community leaders are majoring on minors, wasting most of their times on things which are unproductive ( wrestling, dances, Facebook lives and meetings) leaving behind the most fundamental responsibility of a parent, “Parental care”…. Honestly, most parents don’t spare just ONE hour a day to talk to their children…. Kids are left to discover things on their own. The results of such negligence are the aforementioned.
What future are we envisioning without responsible, cultured and disciplined kids? What else is more important in this world than nurturing your own child into a ‘responsible being’ that will take over after your dismiss?
Ways forward.
In order to learn, you must accept mistakes and corrections, it is therefore incumbent for our community to adapt to life of realism than holding on unsustain egos and prides. Heads of associations should embark on community sensitization on these fundamental obligations.
Being on defensive and scapegoating when weaknesses are brought to light is equal to sanctioning of the crime which only serves one purpose, exposing our sheer ignorance of the law and decency. There is no future for a community without responsible children.
The author, Kur John Aleu, is a Student of MSc. Transportation Engineering from Beijing Jiaotong University in China. He can be reached via his email: kurjohnaleu@gmail.com
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