Captain Mabior Garang de Mabior: A Rare Seer of Elemental Truth in South Sudan
8 min readBy Makneth Aciek, Khartoum, Sudan
Sunday, March 10, 2019 (PW) — Cpt. Mabior; one of the most lucid, powerful and nuanced thinkers of our time, a true revolutionary concerns with “consciousness tuned to the highest pitch of refinement”— explores the chronicle of events in his arrestingly titled and arrestingly argued “pubic service Announcements”.
Aiming to reveal the deepest strata of reality; he focused his precocious wisdom on informing South Sudanese of the contradictions surrounding the implementation of R-ARCISS and how the alleged reunification of the SPLM will never change the predicament of the nation. He articulated this with stunning succinctness that calls for imagining nobler alternatives to the dicta and mindsets of regime predatory nature. For long time now, Cpt. Mabior’s writings attuned us to consider the tectonics of change on the scale of revolutionary truth! The biggest question is, are south Sudanese really reading him?
Truth is the only way South Sudanese can wrest order from chaos; it is the only way we can construct a foothold so we may as a nation climb toward peace and harmony. This is one of Mabior’s most countercultural yet incisive points; it has little or nothing to do with politics! Rather than dealing with petty surface facts, as South Sudan politic is apt to, he dwells in largest truth; urging local masses to stop seeing themselves as naturally despondent people that would embrace any effort from the regime to legitimize their self-view as victims.
Cpt. Mabior Garang is one of the heroes of our time; but who want to hear the truth when nonsense is so much more comforting? In South Sudan today, it is apparent that those who are the bearers of truth, are punished with reputations as mad/insane and summarily dismissed. Those that manufacture the rosiest outlook, regardless of the absence of truth are regarded as Saints. Pathetic!
Truth is an absolute; it is backed by fact making it impervious to manipulation. It can be inconvenient, painful and unfair to those who want to mystify realities, but it is enlightening and liberating to those who genuinely believe in the possibility of a just society. Cpt. Mabior Garang has been a vehicle of truth, he formulates ideas which would otherwise remain vague and focuses attention upon facts which can no longer be ignored.
South Sudan is in crisis today because that’s where Salva Kiir’s motivations are pulling it. South Sudanese should not be moved when thing like SPLM reunification is mentioned. It is the SPLM that have turned South Sudan into a festering swamp of incapacity. Since independent, the SPLM had been an inefficient institution that breeds conflicts and corruption.
The SPLM as a ruling party failed to build a state, battle corruption and construct a country where democracy, competition with fully protected property and human rights would all flourished.
The SPLM reunification program is flawed and it has no greater purpose than just consolidating power for Salva Kiir. Under Salva Kiir’s SPLM the whole project of liberation has been systematically reduced to that of a broken plow horse. A very telling barometer is erosion of national character where the sense of nationalism is the collateral damage in the crusade.
South Sudan is a nation founded upon the idea of personal responsibility, self-determination and individual worth. Persons through their own actions determined their lot in life. It was the promise of self- determination that drew so many south Sudanese together to decide their collective fate, not the will of one man.
Since the independent of our country, Salva Kiir and his SPLM apparatchiks have been looking for a way to wrestle freedom from the people’s grasp in order to endow themselves with riches and power. Making this task easier is a host of obedient supporters that mindlessly recite prepared taking points and arbitrarily dismiss any evidence that counter the SPLM failures.
When reality is not a part of equation, failure is inevitable. This is the end we have reached in South Sudan! A nation without direction, people without clue and tyrannical government that feeds on its citizens; a frustration born of the complete loss of truth, logic and accountability.
There are not too many incidences where one could amass a reputation for dishonesty and remain relevance in public space, but in the world of South Sudan the reverse is true. The leadership of SPLM beside being venal and corrupt, operates in near total opacity with the intention of perpetually keeping South Sudanese in darkness.
The closest south Sudanese come to hearing the truth is during those rare movements before 2013 crisis, where top leadership of SPLM let their guard down long enough to expose themselves over an unnoticed open microphone. This came after they felt that their solidarity to cheat the nation was being fractured by Salva Kiir.
It was not out of the love for South Sudan. In their demand for reform within the party, many thought these leaders were staging a profoundest revolution, little did we know they would soon be blinded to their own spark.
The Reunification of SPLM will lead to the next iteration of the same old song; one that will lead to the same destination as all earlier attempts- ruin. The people’s defense should be a national distrust of Salva Kiir’s government and a deep reverence for the liberation possible only through truth and political awareness. South Sudanese must be wary of regime- endorsed criteria of peace.
South Sudanese, particularly the local masses must find solidarity in the appeal of Cpt. Mabior and declare war on the spirit of servility. There will be no future if the citizens of our nation continue to base their destiny on meekness, negative humility and long suffering. This constitutes shame! The encirclement that we as nation feel pressing hard upon on all our frontiers; be it economically, socially or politically are perpetuated by our shyness to question the attitude and behavior of the regime.
Salva Kiir will not get South Sudan out of conflict because leadership is not part of his repertoire, that spot in his quiver is occupied instead by the arrow of coercion. Unable to garner support for his tyrannical vision on its merits, the only path to realization is force.
The realities of SPLM reunification are meant to give Salva Kiir the campaign pulpit, a place where he can’t be challenged while aggressively getting in the face and jabbing his merciless fingers in the chests of his political opponents particularly Dr. Riek Machar Teny-Dhurgon. President Kiir is many things, but wisdom and mantra of tolerance are not his attributes. He is tolerant only of those who share his views.
The masses of South Sudan must be vigilant and rally behind the real force (SPLM-IO) that is demanding a sweeping change in our country, and make sure that all the details in R-ARCISS are adhered to.
The latest developments in Juba are proving that there had never been other regime challenger apart from the SPLM-IO; the rests are group of schemers that were merely using a distant to dodge the blames. Now they are backed in Juba with the magical fanfare of SPLM reunification above all the odds of R-ARCISS implementation.
Their only ambition is to hang around the dinning table of Salva Kiir in the hope that few crumbs may land on the floor where they sit. Without an astute citizenry checking their offensive, the zealots will simply go about their business of herding the South Sudan down the path to a condition that will render it unrecognizable.
Controlling the information had been the regime key to manipulating the public’s perception, a feat easily accomplished with three ponged offensive of dismissive journalism, solidarity in silence and offering up ignorance and incompetency as a valid explanations for any potentially damaging situations.
Now Cpt. Mabior has provided and is still providing the irrefutable proof of regime falsehood and hypocrisy when it come to the issues of peace and future of our country, it is upon the citizens of our nation and particularly the youths to decide whether they would take refuge in cynicism or instead desert the regime that had been a thorn in their flesh.
In one of his latest public service announcements, he explored the abiding puzzlement of National dialogue steering committee call for government to take the ownership of land from indigenous communities. He distilled the hypocrisy and contradictions of this organization in a single sentiment that calls for south Sudanese to defy any initiative that is meant to divide them further.
We must agree with Cpt. Mabior that the so called National dialogue steering committee is an indivisible part of JCE and south Sudanese must not allow these organs of oppression to perpetuate the system which is doomed.
Instead of being concerned with the homelessness and rootlessness of our people in neighboring countries, the regime national dialogue steering committee chose to show south Sudanese the truly radical nature of evil! This body should be seen as an article of criminality that is ready to usurp the dignity of our tradition.
The local communities of our nation have suffered an unprecedented scale of displacement both internally and externally, it will be a mockery for anybody to suggest they give their ancestral land in the custody of regime that can’t be trusted to at least follow the rules of common sense.
The indigenous communities should remain the custodians of their lands until circumstances are right for them to form an association and establish a government which will defend and protect with whole common force the interest of all communities of South Sudan. A culture of lawful behavior has to be cultivated over a long time, until it becomes an accepted, enforced norm.
Cpt. Mabior’s writings give south Sudanese an opportunity to get out from the toxic miasma of falsehoods that has been generated by the regime since the eruption of conflict in our nation. He has demonstrated in an extraordinary way(s) that truth is consistent. It persists. It remains as it is. No a mount of spin, fabrication can alter one grain of truth. The longer it is evaded, the more fearsome the final reckoning.
Makneth Aciek is a south Sudanese and can be reached via wenmakneth@yahoo.com
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