Excuses as habit have found its way into our bone marrow in South Sudan

South Sudan’s youth, we have a collective effort of transforming this great country

By Dut Deng Kok, Juba, South Sudan   

Thursday, July 18, 2019 (PW) — Unfortunately, the youth has taken cue from our leaders. Over the years, especially during these useless wars, government have given numerous excuses why the system is in a seemingly disarray state even when we have the resources to establish a great nation out of the entity.

The agricultural sector has been neglected for no objective reason, money for road reconstruction is earmark every budgetary year but the roads remain death traps. The rehabilitation of our medical facilities for better medical service delivery has been yearly excused.

A proper funding of the education sector has been encountering well-deliberated excuses by the executives. Thus, the sector experiences incessant strike action by the education union who clamors for funding and good policy formulation geared towards reforming the sector.

Owing to this and a host of other examples, excuses appear to have been objectively adopted by South Sudan government as a means of illustrating their inept, failure, avoidance, howler etc. Badly enough, the South Sudanese youth has equally adopted this ignominious act of excuse giving by the government and to my chagrin, considering the vibrancy and supposed role of youth in nation building, their adoption is characterized by a belligerent enthusiasm than we see in government.

We (youth) give excuses for our inabilities, ignorance, misunderstanding, misinformation, disorientation, lack. We hold people responsible for anything wrong in our lives. The truth is, much is expected from our government but they have failed us in no measurable way. The question however is, should we use government ineptitude as the reason for our ignorance of what is right?  

Though, not based on statistics, event over the years have showed South Sudanese Youth are rear set of people in the world based on our intellectual capacity. Several South Sudanese youth are in the Diasporas making waves and blazing the trail in their chosen field. Hardly will you mention a sector in some country without a pronounced intellectual impact of a South Sudanese who, probably out of neglect and discouragement took the knowledge to where it would be encouraged, nurtured and well appreciated.

As a youth in South Sudan, we consistently find solace in adducing our predicament and inability to make waves to the uninspiring role of our leaders in providing the enabling environment to thrive. This however is the basis for our misbehavior and misdemeanor. A rather inhuman and unconventional decision is the order of the day. Such as If the government won’t provide for our needs, then we shall provide for ourselves.

This they do irrespective of what moral ethics or constitutional obligation they will trample on. An unfortunate but general notion among the youth is that since the government has failed in her duties, then the government is not worthy of getting a civic reciprocation.

Recently in a chat with some friends, I realized a disgusting fact that people, especially the youth do not care what happen to South Sudan as a country. The only ambition they nurse per day is how to increase their own lot irrespective of what becomes of the entity called South Sudan. Thus the statement “as long as I am okay and rich, then South Sudan is okay”.

What this mean is that if the leaders like they should transform this country or not, as long as they have a job, home, car and fat account, then to them, South Sudan is already transformed. This is disheartening and confusing especially, when it’s what the supposed hope of the country (youth) are thinking.

What they call us is the youth, all over the world, it’s no news the strength of a nation lies in the youth. What are we doing with our strength and if we survived the day, how about generations to come? Suffice to say that our wishful kind of society of selfish existence can’t work; in the beginning it was so but its impracticable nature lead to contractual agreement between men to establish an institution called state to oversee the activities of men and maintain law and order.

According to Hobbes (the Leviathan 1651), he analyzed human nature, he said: man is essentially selfish; man is moved to action not by intellect or reason, but by his appetites, desires and passions. He continues; men, living without power to govern them (a state of nature) would be in perpetual struggle of all against all, competition and love of glory. Thus, the life of man is “Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”.

The question however is, are we ready to go back to the state of nature when man’s selfish disposition made him act against another man leading to brutality, backbiting and misrepresentation of interest?

Does it matter if our neighbor is in abject poverty; are we moved by the sight of the little child hawking? Is all we want is to selfishly make money while others get inured to the harsh conditions? The sooner we stopped the personal interest motive (culture of only me), the better for the country. God blesses the Republic of South Sudan.

Dut Deng kok is a south Sudanese opinion writer and he can be reachable visa email; dutmanyang@gmail.com

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