South Sudan: Freedom is coming tomorrow, my countrymen and women
By Tito Tong John, Nairobi, Kenya
Friday, April 7, 2023 (PW) — “Get ready young people, prepare for your freedom. Freedom is coming tomorrow!” I would love to quote one of the amazing South African lady songs, so went the lines of one of the songs in the hugely successful Sarafina musical. It’s a catchy tune too. In terms of the imagery of this Mbongeni Ngema song, freedom comes hurtling towards us at the speed of light, unstoppable and inevitable.
Yet the idea of freedom rushing in, arriving by bus or plane, is preposterous. Even more ridiculous is the idea that all young people must do for their freedom is to prepare for it now. And so have we lived with the idea that freedom is some finished product delivered fully to our doorstep one sunny day.
Because of the idea of freedom arriving as a fully clothed adult one day, we have neglected to do what needs to be done to attain, nurture and sustain freedom. Is that why we sometimes sit back and wait for freedom to arrive, for freedom to be granted and for the special benefits of freedom to accrue automatically?
But how have we come to a place where freedom has been understood as a destination rather than a journey? We have been hoodwinked by some political leaders who go about pretending that they gave us our freedom. Such claims seem plausible, especially from leaders with “struggle credentials”. Over the past 17 and half years, we have seen attempts by the government and many political parties in search of patronage to sell freedom as something they either can deliver or have delivered already.
In these contexts, freedom tends to be reduced to “service delivery”, an equally problematic notion in which politicians and public servants deliver, and the rest of society consumes the services. Have you noticed how passively conceived society is in most understandings of service delivery being broadcast? Service delivery is important. It is the right of all citizens to have access to basic services.
But the idea that the citizenry must sit and wait for someone to bring a truckload of services one morning is debilitating. I think young people also revolt against this understanding of service delivery when they engage in service delivery protests. These kinds of protests can also be a cry for acknowledgement and inclusion. Through these protests, citizens voice their dissatisfaction with being turned into mere objects and receptacles of preconceived programmes and schemes thought out without them.
Yet freedom cannot and should not be reduced to “service delivery”, commonly understood. Freedom is about our aspiration to the attainment of the highest values and promises of our Constitution. It relates to the possibility and ability to “live” freely within the framework of a South Sudan, which “belongs to all who live in it”. Freedom pertains to the embodiment of “democratic values”, social justice and the freedom to pursue, proffer and claim fundamental human rights for everyone.
Freedom is not merely what can or has been done for me. Freedom is not only what I can do for myself either. It entails what I can and will do to advance myself and my fellow human beings. Freedom entails my obligation to continue to imagine a country better than the one I see and experience here and now. My freedom should give me space and the wherewithal not merely to imagine but to work for my country.
Twelve years ago, millions of South Sudanese asked themselves why they deserved this situation from their leadership after they voted for the first time for an independent nation from North Sudan (Arabs). All South Sudanese voted together in one referendum for a different country for the first time. Twelve years ago, the South Sudanese of dreams of hundreds of years took concrete shape. For these dreams, many of our predecessors died. The dream of a different country, South Sudan, was not the only dream on the agenda.
There were many contending dreams. But 2011 saw the eventual triumph of the best of all the competing dreams the dream of one united South Sudan. The long queues of 9th July 2011 told the story of a great people who, in the presence of well-known and well-beaten paths, nevertheless chose a road never travelled. It was fraught with difficulties, but 12 years later, we can confidently say it was the correct road to divide ourselves and our ungoverned country.
With more repression and brutality, the South Sudanese could have held on to power for a few more years, helping bring the country to its knees. Similarly, the liberation movement has continued to wage their multifaceted “war” of making the country ungovernable, calling for unreasonable conflict or war among the citizens or guerrilla warfare. We could have spilled a few more kilolitres of South Sudanese blood and wrecked the economy a little more thoroughly than we had already done by 2011. But in 2011, we chose a different path. Our leaders assisted us greatly in this regard. There were detractors. There still are.
I hear many from both extremes who say our leaders sold us out, and it sounds like the reality of the country’s current situation. Many decry the South Sudanese “obsession with compromise” compromise for the sake of compromise. Some argue that this tends to be compromised in favour of rich leaders. Indeed, the most spectacular failure of the first 12 years of independence has been in the redistribution of wealth and resources. We now know that over the 12 years, the gap between rich and poor has not narrowed despite the admission of a few elites into the fold.
The gap has grown. Our macro and micro-economic policy interventions and strategies have failed to narrow the gap and improve the lot of the poor South Sudanese. Despite the much-celebrated eight years of unprecedented economic failure, we have failed to use that growth to benefit the poor South Sudanese. That is the consensus, and that is the verdict. We also know that our land reform policies have yet quite to manage to deal with the problems of landlessness and poverty. Nor have we been able to avail education, especially higher education, to the previously excluded and the marginalised communities like Yulu of Raja, Maban of Upper Nile, Luo of Bhar El Ghazal and many other small communities in South Sudan.
To say that our education system is in crisis is not only to state the obvious but also to underestimate the true extent of the mess we find ourselves in. Though access to education may have improved somewhat over the past 17 and half years, success in education, especially for South Sudanese, has been dismal. The best and the worst educational institutions in the land have one thing in common South Sudanese fail to succeed in them.
Nor are learning conditions and cultures in townships and the so-called historically South Sudanese institutions anything to write home about. Huge national problems will soon become ticking bombs if they are not exploding already.
And yet we do have things to celebrate. It could be worse. We are in a place far worse than we were 17 years ago. We should not sneer at that. Nor should we allow the tremendous implementation problems to take away from the fact that we have a good Constitution, but it’s not true if there is a constitution in South Sudan. Our constructive role in South Sudan should also be lauded. But clearly, a lot remains to be done if we are to retain the moral foundations of the new South Sudan.
Speaking to senior public servants the other day, I suggested that we cannot blame our friend Westerners for our problems in four years. I want to amend that. Those with power, authority and wherewithal to effect change for the better have long lost their right to blame our friend Westerners. It is neither enough nor helpful for cabinet ministers, parliamentarians, senior public servants, and leading politicians to blame our friend Westerners.
The question is, knowing what they know, given the power that they now have, what have they done to reverse the legacies of Westerners for the poorest of the poor?
In conclusion, if those we have given authority and power continue to fudge their responsibilities and weave webs of lies and excuses, Mbongeni Ngema’s song is not so mistaken. Freedom is coming tomorrow, my fellow South Sudanese. Suppose those with the power, resources and authority to make freedom a reality for all do not take up their responsibilities. In that case, we must sing today and tomorrow like the song “Freedom is coming tomorrow”.
Comprehensive freedom will forever and always be coming tomorrow if we are united in one tune and proclaim it to the world leaders.
The author, Tito Tong, holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the Catholic University of Eastern Africa, Nairobi, Kenya. He is pursuing a Master of Business Administration in Human Resources specialisation in the same academic institution. Previously he worked with different radios institution under Catholic Radio Network in South Sudan and is currently an opinion writer at Dawn News Paper frequently. He can be reached via his email: tong khamisa <tongkhamisa446@gmail.com>
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