South Sudanese Youth Complicity in their Systemic Marginality

Top: Dr. Peter Biar Ajak (left) and President Salva Kiir (right)

Below: Minister of Petroleum, Mr. Puot K. Chol (left) and late Mr. Kerubino Wol (right)

In South Sudan, the youth is marginalized and confused. These are obvious realities to South Sudanese at home and abroad. The reason for this confusion and marginality is, however, not so apparent. We may fault culturally inspired political ageism. But that is easy.

So, making sense of how political ageism marginalizes the youth needs more than the proposition that ageism is to blame. The youth themselves enable the system that keeps them at the margin of power and decision-making in the country.

Of course, the structural dynamics of youth economic and political marginality, which is outside youth control, is not something I downplay. The youth are, however, not helpless bystanders in the ageism power matrix. They are complicit as pawns of the elite and ethnic chauvinists.

The youth, who are ethnic chauvinists or wannabe-elite make political ageism effective and marginalizing. These youth do not mind septuagenarians or octogenarians monopolizing politics and economics if these youth join, or are favored by, the political and economic elite.  South Sudanese scholar, Majak D’Agoot, has referred to this youth-marginalizing South Sudanese elite as the “gun class.”

An Analysis of the land issue in the Equatorias

In this case the youth support the gun class, however incompetent and corrupt, because these leaders come from their tribe.  They complain that the older generation is not giving the youth a share of power. However, these marginalized youth support leaders who tell 40-year-olds that they are “leaders of tomorrow.”  For instance, some local youth associations in South Sudan are headed by “youth” in their mid-40s. This is why, on April 17, 2023, Daniel Mwaka, a South Sudanese youth leader, suggested that the youth age bracket in South Sudan be delimited at 35.

Supporting leaders from one’s tribe, competent or incompetent, enables an African political culture leadership theorists have referred to as “stayism.”  With the youngest population in the world, Africa’s median age is 19. The median age of African leaders is, however, 63. Yet, the youth have no political and economic voice and space. As Sudanese businessman and philanthropist, Mo Ibrahim, has noted, “Africa must ask itself why our continent appears so frightened of giving the younger generation a chance.”

But Africa is not frightened as such. It is not culturally accustomed to giving power to the youth. Traditionally, the youth are not community/tribal leaders; they are tribal warriors. Think of Okonkwo in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. He is hardworking, sturdy, manly, fierce, and impulsive. But he respects tradition and personal honor as his killing of Ikemefuna illustrates. Yet, nothing about him being a leader is highlighted in the novel, which is customary in African cultures. What Achebe illustrates through Okonkwo, who is in his late 30s, is something for which the youth in Africa are traditionally known.

Therefore, Africans should not discuss youth political and economic inclusion like an African cultural expectation. It must be actively forced into being against existing cultural ideals fused into modern politics. It is part of modernizing Africa.

In South Sudan, for instance, a 40-year-old is basically a “boy.” Globally, this is strange. At a welcoming event for Majak D’Agoot in 2014, Bona Malwal, a veteran South Sudanese politician and journalist, referred to D’Agoot in Arabic as “welede”, meaning, “this boy”. Majak was in his fifties. It is culturally acceptable because Bona Malwal is in his 90s. Calling a 50-year-old a “boy”, however, reveals a cultural consciousness with an invidious implication. It should not be acceptable.

The youth, however, must ask themselves why they allow themselves to be used by senior citizens who continue to monopolize power. The youth do their bidding. In his song, Kiir Must Stay, a local Jieeng (Dinka) musician, Bilpam Akech sings: “Të cïne maan ke yï lɔ ku nöök rɔt. Kiir must stay! (If you don’t like it then hang yourself. Kiir must stay!” Bilpam Akech does not seem to care that President Kiir has not, for the last 19 years, provided services to South Sudanese citizens. He does not even care that Mr. Kiir has reached the age where he should hand over power to the younger generation. But no! Kiir “must stay!” He is Bilpam’s fellow tribesman.

Bilpam, however, is not alone. A prominent South Sudanese political activist, Dr. Peter Biar Ajak, who is currently under US detention on conspiracy to export arms to South Sudan, faces a barrage of ethnically charged insults on the social media for his criticism of Mr. Kiir’s government.  Dr. Ajak was arrested by the South Sudanese national security in July 2018 after he called for a generational exit.

While Biar has in the past been complicit in youth marginalization, his arrest changed him. He became one of the Juba’s fierce critic and advocate on handing over the leadership mantle to the younger generation. The youth who insult him on the social media are sort of tribal warriors. These social media warriors, most of whom living abroad, however vulgar their insults are, are welcome in Juba by government officials like dignitaries.

In The Wretched of the Earth, Frantz Fanon aptly argued that “Each generation must out of relative obscurity discover its mission, fulfil it, or betray it.” This mission is being betrayed. And this betrayal, which is now buttressed by ethnic affiliation, is exacerbated by the hope of being among the economic and political elite. This is a tragic reality some of my colleagues living in Juba have embraced. They have been silenced, or they have self-silenced, into elitism. Instead of challenging the system they find ways to appease the “gun class.” Some of these “boys”, some of whom with PhDs, defend the “gun class.” This wins them favors in Juba, a sad reality Achille Mbembe has described as an economic system of reciprocity. We have an expression for this economic reciprocity in my native Jieeng language: abïny lɔ ku abïny bɔ̈ (Literally, the ladle that is going, and the one that is coming).

I must admit something here. The fear of the “gun class” is authentic. Several activists have been disappeared, silenced, or killed by the “unknown gun men.” Being tokenized into power, into elitism, is therefore protective and lucrative. But the youth must ask themselves what their silence does to their Fanonian generational mission.

I may not suggest Ajak’s generational exit. However, I think South Sudanese youth, conventionally or traditionally defined, must ask themselves what blind tribal affiliation and elitist tokenism is doing to the future of South Sudan. It is nearly 19 years since South Sudan became autonomous, and 12 years since it became independent. The “youth” is still at the economic and political margin.  They must remove tribal blinders! An honest, inter-generational conversation must begin to end youth systemic marginalization inspired by political ageism.

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Kuir ë Garang (PhD) is the editor of The Philosophical Refugee (TPR).  His current research focuses on youth systemic and institutional marginality and marginalization. 

South Sudan's 2024 Elections: "Salva Kiir Forever!"

Photo: Ontario Municipal and School Board Elections

It is obvious that the scheduled elections in South Sudan in 2024 will not be free and fair. This is something the SPLM-in-Opposition has reiterated. Conditions in the country are not conductive for the conduct of free and fair elections, they have noted. 

So why would anyone want to take part in such elections? This is a very good question. Why would anyone indeed?

I don't have any convincing answer. But I have my answer (s), nonetheless. 

Ironically, supporters of President Kiir, the chairman of the SPLM-in-Government, ask a contrary question: Why wouldn't anyone want to take part in elections?

This is the same question the governor of Lakes State, Riiny Tueny Mabor, asked recently in the SPLM rally in Wau: "There are people who say, the elections should not be conducted? Why shouldn't they be conducted?" 

He either doesn't think there are any reasons to the contrary, or he doesn't care if such reasons exist. 

SPLM-IG supporters, who do not need any reason to justify why President should be president, find it irrational that there are people who are jittery about 2024 elections. They are not only confident about the elections happening this year, but they also take the permanence of the presidency of Kiir with a very dangerous intuitiveness. 

As the governor of Warrap State, Manhiem Bol Malek, said during the rally in Wau, it is "Salva Kiir forever! Forever!"

Imagine...forever!

The following sad facts do not bother Kiir's supporters: Millions of South Sudanese are refugees in neighboring countries; no passable roads; there is rampant insecurity; increasing intra and inter-ethnic feuds, flooding; hunger and diseases, etc. 

These are of course mere political theatrics. We see this everywhere. A Trump rally in the United States or a Neo-Nazi rally in Germany or Italy would have similar uncritical, emotionally charged remarks. 

Because South Sudanese governors serve at the behest of the president, these kinds of mindless utterances are to be expected. The governors answer to the president not the people of South Sudan. 

It is therefore reasonable, as the SPLM-in-Option has noted, that the elections will not be free and free. 

But I doubt that elections in South Sudan, given the attitude of SPLM-in-Government noted above, will be free and fair in the next ten to twenty years. South Sudanese politics is still self-justifiably ethnocentric. It will therefore take time for some South Sudanese at the grassroots to realize that leaders are elected because they can deliver services to the people not because they belong to one's ethnic group. 

Free and fair is therefore a distant echo!

But here are two issues that may give South Sudanese a glimmer of hope. Rigged or not, conducting elections in 2024 may start an election culture and psychology. South Sudanese may get used to the conduct of elections every five years until the general political consciousness matures into the strict demands for free and fair elections. Some Africans have slowly gravitated toward free and fair elections. 

South Sudan may arrive there in the longue durée. But we must start somewhere, sometimes. 

Here is another possible positive outcome. 

It may afford those who want to challenge the president a change to air out the weakness of SPLM and President Kiir without severe repercussion. I am dreaming I know! Candidates, in the process of promoting their platforms, may help in the normalization of criticism of the political system in South Sudan. Criticizing President may start as part of the elections. This, hopefully, may help initiate a culture where the president is criticized for his failures without his critics being killed or forced into exile. 

I'm of course not taking things at face value. None of what I have noted above may happen. But we must start somewhere overwise elections will continue to be postponed in perpetuity. 

It is also important to note that President Kiir will win either way. So why not initiate, or start the process of something that may lead to South Sudan desired end: A democratic, inclusive future. 

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Kuir ë Garang (PhD) is the editor of TPR.