Ustaz. Anter B. Kuol
It’s our constitutional right to have the freedom of expression; to either support the government or criticize its policies and plans which contradict our interest as citizens.
Our youths should criticize the “policies and plans”, because it’s the ideology or vision of a leader which ruins a nation not his personality. This applies both to the government and the opposition leaders.
Tolstoy, one of the Russian Thinkers once quoted that “we should always blame the citizens rather than the government when it comes to political turmoil.” This is because the government comes from the citizens and the latter has the right to determine the former.
Apparently, youths should not only have the constitutional right but moral duty to condemn government actions. That said, youths should not be politically inflexible and emotionally attached to their leaders, whether those in the government or opposition side
Joining the two camps should be used as a ladder by the youths. On the other hand, it should be used as the platform for the youths to seek the truth and know the roots causes of our conflict. When solving any dispute, it is crucial to tackle the cause of the problem as opposed to the effects. By engaging in Facebook wrangles, I believe youths are targeting the effects of our problem not the cause.
Our problem today in South Sudan, is what is termed as “post independent problem”, this is anonymous in any country which has just emerged to gain its manhood even Europe once experienced these anarchies. What makes our story different is tribalism which has been cemented in our people by the leaders.
The post independent problems like those we are facing today- greed, cynicism, ethnicity, corruption, unknown gunman (insecurity), hatred and many others are all caused by poor leadership.
In this period, many clamped to the position of leadership because of the prevailing circumstances. “leaders are born out of the situations”. So, during the liberation struggle, leaders emerged because of the need to fight the Arabs. That needed qualities like bravery, intolerant and good military skills.
After winning the independence, the situation becomes different and demands different leaders to mitigate the mischiefs. At this juncture, a country will need development and to achieve that, it needs energetic educated leaders with intellectual capacity, not just as bravery as before.
The rule of law needs to be restored in order to reduce corruption and stop revenge killing which are tearing our communities apart today. The spirit of comradeship must be ceased and people should be promoted on meits.
But to win these and have stability, the country must ushered herself into a revolution- change of regime. Molana Joul posted previously that for South Sudan to have stability, citizens must sacrificed for it. It takes bloodshed to bring peace just as it took lives to win independence. And the youths has enormous role here.
Otherwise we shall continue sending condolences to our brothers and sisters dying out of ignorance.
But what are the root causes of communal violence’s in different parts of the country?
I said before that we must elucidate between the cause and the effect. But often youths concentrate on the local government instead of that in J1. Of course the local government may be blamed for failure to do their part, but great burden lies on President Kiir’s shoulders. When I say Kiir, I mean the whole administration.
It is only in South Sudan, where the killing by unknown gunman is justified as a revenge by the IGP instead of bringing the culprits to book.
So, when the youths on the rebel side demand the toppling of president Kiir alone, it appears ambiguous and vague. They must topple the whole regime and then restructure the government. By restructuring, the good elements both on the opposition and government camp will then be absolved into the new system. I believe there are also opportunists on the rebel side just like in the government who are dragging our country behind. The youths must know this obvious fact!
In our societies, our moral values are on the brick of erosion if not eroded today. The crack in our values and tradition is the negligence of our natural duty and obligation as moral beings. This has been fueled by the guns indirectly or directly provided by both government and the rebels to achieve their objectives- the political seat.
Our communities have lost sight of mutual aid- situations where we are required to do things not in our own interests, but likely to gain on balance at least over the longer run under normal circumstances.
Mutual respect- duty to show a person the respect which is due to him as a moral being, being with a sense of justice and conception of good.
All these have been the practices of our ancestors but have been lost today due to greed and selfishness from the top of leadership up to grassroots-villages where people are killing themselves. Youths must be engulfed with this fact so that history does not repeat itself.
In nutshell, youths has a major role to play in ending South Sudan conflict. They should use the current political instability to familiarized themselves with problems and solutions to the conflict, instead of being emotionally attached to their leaders.
The author is South Sudanese citizen. Ustaz. Anter B. Kuol, He can be reached via anter.simonbayak@gmail.com