The Legend of the Dinka Tribe: Don’t Befriend a Policeman!!
6 min readTHE LEGEND OF THE DINKA TRIBE: DON’T CONFIDE YOUR SECRETS TO A WOMAN, DON’T BORROW THINGS FROM A LEPER, AND DON’T BEFRIEND A POLICEMAN!!
By Kur Wël Kur, Adelaide, Australia
February 12, 2018 (SSB) — For readers from my tribe, I am sure many, especially my age mates or older are aware of this legend (folklore).
As told to me many years ago, I first heard it probably when I was six years; it goes:
Once upon time, a dying old man sealed his teachings to his only son by saying;
“Son, I am leaving you to join our ancestors, but I need you to remember the followings: DON’T CONFIDE YOUR SECRETS TO A WOMAN, DON’T BORROW THINGS FROM A LEPER, AND DON’T BEFRIEND A POLICEMAN!!”
His son pursed his lips to ask his father for more explanations, but the old man’s lungs collapsed, and so the old man’s glassy eyes remained eyeing his son.
Some minutes later, the old man was buried; some years later, his son married a beautiful woman. The young man set out to test the wisdom of his father so he befriended a policeman, and borrowed from a leper.
One day, his wife decided to visit her mum who was residing in a faraway village. After his wife raced to her paternal village, the young man slaughtered a goat, fried it and dug a hole in the family hut. He stowed the fried meat in that hole and levelled the ground.
When his wife arrived back, he welcomed her with a pretence of a troubled soul. His wife anxiously asked him of what the matter was. “ when you were away I accidentally killed someone so I buried him in our family’s hut,” he said nervously.
“I hope no one knows, inquisitively she said, partly a statement and partly a question.
“ No one knows, but you and I,” the husband said.
“Then be cheerful because ain’t telling anyone,” she confidently assured him.
After some time, the common marital problems swarmed the young couple. They began to quarrel on petty issues, and the young man edged into the habits of trying to beat his wife. But every time he charged towards his wife with an intention of beating her, his wife threatened him with the secret of the “man buried in the family’s hut”. And every time, the husband changed his mind on the beating.
So, the wife held him hostage; she demanded things or annoyed him in exchange for her silence about “the buried man”.
One day, they quarrelled and the young man physically assaulted her regardless of her threatening him with the secret of “the buried man”.
After the beating, she ran to the administrative centre and spilled the secret of “the buried man”. His friend, the policeman picked up the job of arresting the young man. He rushed to their usual hanging-out-place and arrested his friend (the young man).
On hearing the news, the leper followed the young man to the police station. “ I heard that you killed a man in cold blood and buried him in your family’s hut, now you’re caught, I need you to pay me before you’re hanged,” the leper surprised the young man.
After a thorough investigation, the young man was let go without charges. But his father’s pearls of wisdom stood the test…
*****
I know some of you have already been turned off or appalled by the title, however, if you have read up to here, I guess you’ll agree with me on these explanations. It’s not my intention— in this century — to belittle women, to make a sweeping assumption about police personnel, and to make fun of people with disabilities, but this legend that inspired the title of this post, [especially the policeman part] befits what I discovered in the essay, DUTTON’S DARK VICTORY: THE MINISTER, PEZZULLO AND THE DEMISE OF IMMIGRATION BY JAMES BUTTON.
On the 7th February 2018, a welcoming Australian couple sent me an email and the 11,200-word essay from Canberra, a city where I obtained my bachelor degree.
“ We have been worried for some time now about the unethical way our elected Australian federal politicians have been treating asylum seekers, refugees, and our migration program more broadly…” They wrote.
At the end of their e-mail, they wrote:
“I thought you may like to read it when you have time in your busy lives to get an idea of what is happening at the policy level and to give us any ideas about how we (as ordinary voters) can do better and be more effective to change/influence this awful policy direction (presumably in response to a form of racism in our broader society).”
When I was reading this 50-paged essay, I discovered that Peter Dutton is a former policeman from Queensland(Australia) and his secretary, Michael Pezzullo, a “military-minded former Defence bureaucrat, [who] was appointed head of the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service in 2012”.
According to the essay, they have dismantled the magnificent Department of Immigration and reduced it to simpleton Department of Home Affairs. The intention was to erase the name Immigration completely, a name that had welcomed the parents of Michael Pezzullo into The Wonderful Australia in 1960. Now, 58 years later, Michael Pezzullo is determined to burn the bridge in order to control Australia for himself.
So, for those of us who are hurt by the racial venoms, we must watch out because nothing welcoming is expected from ill-mannered former policemen. Let’s face this with the full knowledge of those who are behind it. Their fears of unknown is fuelling them to dismantle the Department of Immigration and to engage in the mass deportations of African youth, the youth whose good future is a rehabilitation away.
AND REMEMBER OUR SINCERE AUSTRALIAN FRIENDS; THEY WILL HELP.
DO THE RIGHT THINGS AND STAY SAFE.
The author, Kur Wël Kur, has a Bachelor Degree in Genetics and Zoology from Australian National University (ANU). He was the former the General Secretary of Greater Bor Community in Adelaide, Australia. He can be reached via his email contact: kurwelkur@yahoo.com
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