Land issue in South Sudan's Equatoria, a worrying trend
Calgary, Alberta, CA - Land! Land! Land! Big deal! Or is it pure vanity? Walter Lippmann, an American writer, philosopher and journalist once said that 'private property was the original source of freedom. It still is its main bulwark.'
While the land issue in Southern Sudan cannot be taken as private but communal, the tribal tension it has engendered speaks something closer to that.
It wasn't with vanity that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said that 'property is intended to serve life, and no matter how much we surround it with rights and respect, it has no personal being. It is part of the earth man walks on. It is not man.'
Don't gear up yet to ride. We are entering a transformed society were compromises shouldn't be scary.
What appals me in Sudanese politics is how divisive and affecting the tribal differences are. We talk with so much conviction and clarity of purpose that one is left wondering: 'will tribalism ever cease to exist?'
It will probably cease but so much can be said about how realistic these things can be carried.
We have had a storm of many words, statements and criticisms concerning the issue of land and its ownership in the South Sudan's Equatoria. The whole scenario makes me sad.
Since the war in the south has forced people to seek refuge in parts of the country where they felt and still feel safe, a lot of things happened and still happen. Those who moved have been seen as potential occupiers. But they see themselves as needy brothers.
But these supposed occupiers took the land to be where they can settle without much ado. Their brothers and sisters' land you could say. It's just part of our country we can settle in, they argued. The owners of the land have seen the refuge seekers to be those occupying their ancestral lands. The words' fight [war of words] started.
The owners of the land have argued that the refuge seekers have not conducted themselves with the required mannerism of the needy person. Our refuge seekers have argued that their hosts have treated them with overt disdain and supercilious airs. You just wonder! What is the truth?
Land owners: This is our ancestral land, you have yours. We hosted you in a sisterly manner for a considerably enough time, it's time to go back home.
Supposed occupiers: We just see you as our brothers and sisters and that is why we don't see a big deal in settling in your land.
But far from seeking the land issue as the land-owners verses refuge-seekers, it has been 'tribalised.' It has become fashionable to hear words like "Dinka in Madi land" or "Dinka in Bari land" or "Dinka in Azande land." There might be truth to such claims but they leave the likes of me worried though. Does it make anyone a full-fledged human being to utter other tribes' names?
It would be more helpful and civil to keep the issue at the "problem level." Uttering Dinka or Bari name only takes us back a few hundred years. I am not asking anyone to disregard the truth of the matter, but to argue or complain knowing that at the end of the day, we'll still have to co-exist.
Anaxagoras, a Greek mythologist wasn't wrong to say that "men would live exceedingly quiet if these two words, mine and thine were taken away."
While we shouldn't be carried away by such extreme calls for realistic approach to things, we shouldn't take things at face value. Just because it is so, doesn't mean it has to be that way forever to the detriment of all.
We can talk about what belongs to us without instigating tribal tension. We can have sound political debate without siding with vacuous thoughts and lame minds even if we now darn well that they are detrimental to societal weaves.
*Kuir Garang is The New Sudan Vision's editorial and opinion editor. He can be reached at kuirthiy@yahoo.com.
