South Sudan Will Rise from the Ashes of Destruction

 

SSD Flag

The line of division among our tribes shall soon dissolve, and the season of silly politics that has poisoned us for so long shall also be a thing of the past.

 

ADAMA, Ethiopia — As we all know, our country is at war with herself. We are all engulfed by the spirit and culture of war. Wherever we look in our country, we are met by destruction: it is how much we have destroyed than built that is conspicuous all over the country, and that has become synonymous with our identity all over the world. Our country has been bent towards self-destruction and self-extinction for so long that it has undermined our growth as a nation. Contrary to the beautiful days, now wherever one goes in South Sudan, what meets the ears is the mourning of bereaved families burying their loved ones; what meets the eyes are bodies littering our land all over. What one hears are sounds of predatory birds and wild carnivores preying on the bodies of South Sudanese! What one hears these days in our villages are the wailings of women, young children, old men, and women under renewed attacks! What covers our skies are smokes of villages on fire! And on everyone’s face are signs of despair, destruction, and uncertainties about the future!

 

Wherever one goes in South Sudan, what one finds are graves in which the great men and women, the finest of our generations, have been laid to rest! In those graves are brains of many potential greats: brains of literary giants whose literature books would have enriched our literary world; brains of great scientists and great doctors who would have rolled back the burden of diseases that we face daily; of great musicians and artists who would have composed songs we would be singing for generations; brains of great economists who would have revived our economy from the jaws and menace of those politicians who looted the country’s resources and threw our economy, mercilessly, to the dogs; and, finally, in those graves are the brains of great leaders, or politicians who would have called for freedom, liberty and equal distribution of resources in our country; those who would have called for the rule of law, those who would have proclaimed to us, that in the eyes of those laws we should be viewed equally; those who would have called for our government to discharge its full responsibilities, that where there is plenty, poverty is but evil, and where there is government, our citizens shouldn’t be facing what they face today in the land of great abundance! That poverty and government are incompatible; great enemies to each other, especially in this century!

 

Where there’s a properly functioning system, human being, the child of Almighty God, shouldn’t live in poverty, but in plenty, with dignified life! Those are the great leaders we lost to human brutality fueled by the superstition that we can’t co-exist, side by side, as sisterly tribes or communities or sub communities! And as a consequence, our land is tragically full of graves with bones of great athletes who would have won us medals and trophies from different competitions! In those graves are bones of beauty queens: young South Sudanese women who died at very young age, with potentials unleashed; robbed from us by human cruelty; brains of activists – those who would have called for justice, freedom for all; and for self-expression, a chance to be listened to and to listen to others, to distinguish ourselves from other creatures, the beasts of the forests and the wild! In those graves are the brains of great professors: educationists who would have taught our generations to achieve their God-given potentials; that every child should be given a decent chance in life to achieve whatever he/she sets his/her eyebrows on, and our government should function to avail those chances.

 

But history has shown – time and again – that when men overcome their differences and decide to work for the betterment of all, they can bend the arc of history once more in a better direction. It is up to us then to bring back hopes to our people. It is up to the youth to rise from all corners of our country, and beyond our borders, to call for peace and national reconciliation! It is up to us to put the best angels of our humanity to work. It is up to us to remind our politicians that it is not destruction as they constantly peddle that we need as a nation – what we need from our government is a restoration of human dignity, wiping of tears from our faces, and an end to the bloodshed that has soaked our soils for so long! It is up to us to call for rebuilding of our country: one in which justice flows like the mighty waters of the Nile; one in which freedom for all matches our common humanity; one in which plenty is cherished by all; one in which equality in the eye of laws is like a daily bread and easily accessed by all; one in which all our citizens should live as they wish and worship as they please!

 

We must call for those things to happen, not because they lay the foundation for our growth, although they do; not because the civilized world demands them, although it does; not because we missed them for so long, though we do; and not because our politicians constantly forget them, though they do! We called for them because that is the best way to live as human beings, to meet the challenges of the constantly changing world. From the ashes of destruction, we can rise once more and bend the arc of history in a better direction, where our common humanity can be unleashed! Let us be each other’s keeper, let’s work for one another, let us watch each other’s back, and protect our hard-won liberty and freedom from the menace of mankind! Let us rewrite our history once more!

 

You can contact Deng Ezekiel Ghew via E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

 


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