Proposal for Peace Symposium in Juba: Priority List of South Sudanese Netizens
6 min readBy Makwei Achol Thiong, Hunan, China
January 30, 2018 (SSB) — We’re not represented but we can make a presentation if we accept to dialogue. Not all of us are good but all of us are affected. We cannot agree on all but the need to access Facebook, WeChat, twitter, etc, in a village in South Sudan. This is internet Century! When you quarrel with your darling, type how to save a dying relationship and Google will be there for you. If you’re a girl-shy type, the internet is your most trusted brother to find you one. You struggle with your assignment/research, Google intervenes. In fact, Google is too sympathetic that it infringes on academic redlines sometime. This is why we are Netizens. So, what do we’ve for our Delegation to present?
Unity in the search for Peace! Our leaders should intensify and extend the hunt for peace to social media. Pres. Trump, Pres. Museveni, Pres. Kagame, Pres. Uhuru, (& Raila), all are our colleagues here. Coincidently their countries seem to be doing so well. Congrats to Suzzane Jambo and Dr. Majak D’Agoot, they’re here too. Not sure about Pres. Bashir statuses! In fact, social media is leaders’ forum. We miss it the very instant we view it wholly as a propaganda tool. Maybe we need to open up a little. Search for answers to our problems on Google ourselves through our research institutions. We’ll find something relevant to our case, build, value and own it.
We did that in the case of CPA and it succeeded. Recently, IGAD got something for us but we thrashed it because it wasn’t homegrown. This time around let’s find it ourselves. Being on this platform would help you, leaders, communicate, interact and reach out to your people quite easily and objectively. Fake News would be minimized. SSBC isn’t enough. Your absence (hibernation) here has given others the chance to spread propaganda and hatred, running ghost accounts using even your names. We need peace medals, not propaganda.
Poverty or Insecurity? Both. Hunger is an emergency issue just as human security is. An hungry man is an angry man. He can kill or get killed in a cattle raid while fighting for survival. He can force through a marriage for an innocent young girl and any resistance would be met with full force of anger accompanied by hunger. Bring him food and you’ll tame him. The hunger-part of his violence would be neutralized.
Such a person would take advice and a situation which would’ve escalated is abated. Create sustainable means of supplying food. The best way is rallying people to produce their own. This sets the stage for economic growth and prosperity.
Human Security! Unmask unknown gunmen in the cities. Tightens security on all mini and major (high) ways so that we can have the freedom to supply urban markets with homemade produces – so natural that we don’t need to stimulate their production with organic fertilizers. Let Netizens move and twit freely so that returnees come back home and find it easy to integrate.
Legislate disarmament as a local government function so that chiefs deal with youth at the lowest administrative level possible continuously, peacefully and effectively. The chiefs know every hunter’s weapon in the village. They know whose son has just acquired a new gun. They did a noble job this way during the liberation days.
Diplomacy! Netizens are trying their best. When President Trump referred us to as ‘Shithole’, we swiftly condemned him. That was the best we could do. The problem comes when we cannot use our passports to send or receive money in a foreign land. When you’re on government scholarship in Zimbabwe but uncertainties are surrounding your graduation. When they still accommodate you as a Sudanese in their systems. And before you complain to the Embassy, the Ambassador has already resigned. This throws the question of how good is our foreign policy?
Nikki Haley just had a dig at us recently because of our struggles domestically and internationally! Railaphobia and Oromophobia in Kenya and Ethiopia respectively are working to our advantage, at least for the meantime. We must use this opportunity to bring lasting PEACE. It’s not good that your quarrels are always the agenda for discussion by village elders. When they become fed-up, you descend down the ranking of social status in the community and your relatives become victims of underserved abuses and frustrations.
National Dialogue (ND)! The mindset is that ND is a symbol of maintaining the status quo and lengthening the reign of Pres. Kiir. Politics aside, the reality is that even the ARCSS is a National Dialogue hosted and sponsored by foreign powers and any truce would still confirm Kiir as the president. It’s just the scramble for Deputy and few other ministerial positions that we devalue homegrown dialogues.
By the end of the day, we’ll come together and Dialogue Nationally. Why then these complications? When do we start the race to catch-up with the world? We spent more than twenty-one years on a good cause for freedom. What cause are we pursuing now? A statesman does not think of becoming a president. He thinks about what legacy he leaves behind. ‘Akakism’ MUST die.
Is anyone proud of the current state of affairs in Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, and DRC? They spiraled into chaos because of ‘Akakism’-their leaders could not compromise. Our leaders should have the political will to dialogue and compromise. If we cannot grow maize at home, let’s try Peace. We can’t import both.
“The peace that Christ gives is to guide you in the decisions you make; for it is to this peace that God has called you together in the one body. And be thankful.” Colossians 3:15
Let’s see what we have achieved comes next Symposium…
Makwei Achol Thiong is a Co-founder and a former Chair of Board of Directors of Alliance High School-Bor. He is currently pursuing a Master of Industrial Engineering at Hunan University, China. Reach him via makweiachol@yahoo.com
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