Youth Marginality and Marginalization: A conversation on the Crisis facing South Sudanese youth in Australia

Kuir  ë Garang (Editor)

 

Photo: Refugeeresearchonline.org

September 20, 2025

The following quotes are from my conversation with Dr. William Abur and Dr. Santino A. Deng. 

"You know, there's no any child that can be born as a bad child, for example. No, a child can be a difficult child...based on where the child is raised, based on the environment, based on the family situation, based on the school, based on the community, what the children do. So now with this current climate of the technology, some of the parents don't even know what the kids are doing as Dr. Santino mentioned it before. They can be in a room and the parents are happy. saying, well, my children are inside, they are not out. But they don't know what they are doing, who are the people that they are engaged with. And that is a bigger issue within a number of families. The conversations also don't break through. You know, the relationship between the young person and the parent, when that relationship is broken, it is hard for the parent to be able to play their role.

 The other burden that the parent are facing, most of the parent are struggling with work and the life generally. So they don't have enough time where they can be able to engage with their kid and especially with a teenager to be able to find out how they are going, you know, what is happening. Because it is important, we human being, need check-in. We need check-in to be...

 For example, children, those teenagers or younger children, they need check-in, you know, someone to come and have a conversation with them and say, hey, how did you go at school? How was the day? How did you go at work? How was your day? Those kind of check-in are very important. Psychologically, they are very useful. And this is where you find out that, okay, the person may be open up to talk about, you know, there was incident that happened at school.

 Or there was this that happened that made me upset. That is lacking that conversation. The basic check in. I would say the parent need to step up to be able to do just a simple check in a simple evaluation to check in your kit. Even though they are inside, you need to be able to knock knock at the door and come in and say hey, how is your day? How are you going?"  ~ Dr. William Abur.

 

~ Dr. William Abur.

"I think when we talk of parents, there are a lot that they can do and I am mindful and I understand that some parents might be struggling with other things, language barriers among others and the web, juggling web and so on. And sometimes being maybe some single mothers is really struggling with, you know, with the primary parenting support and trying to put the put on the table as well. But there are a lot that they can do. I have done some work a few years ago, maybe about seven years ago here in one of the school. And I was asked to do some work with a kind of the children that go to school, young people themselves and teachers in school so that I can get their perspective.

 It was one of the schools that was getting overwhelmed and have never been exposed into diversity before. And what came out of that report that I did was a lot of young people were saying, some of the things that I was mentioning earlier, saying that most of the time when they have issues at a school, they report to the teachers, most of the time they're getting ignored, even sometimes.

they get blamed for being the victim. so what happens sometimes they may end up fighting, taking law into their own hand because nobody is actually responding to their complaint and they become more victim and get expelled. Sometimes they get discouraged and told, you can't do this subject. Actually, William know very well that they work in some school here, maybe told that, this is too hard for you, you can't do it.

 Some parents proved some of their teachers wrong and said, I have to do it or go into another school and actually succeed. Some young people, may give in, but support become very crucial. I came across some example where young people were supported by their parents and some relatives and they actually succeed in so many ways. So what they told me was young people in particular."  ~ Dr. Santino A. Deng

                                                          ~ Dr. Santino A. Deng

 

Most immigrant communities face a host of challenges when they settle in a new countries. This is a historical problem. Meaning South Sudanese in Australia are not the only immigrant and refugee group to be in such a situation. South Sudanese in Canada have faced, and continue to experience,  similar problems among the youth. 

These problems, which Dr. William and Dr. Santino have addressed, include the following: 

1. Being neglected by teachers and school administrators
2. Being faulted when they are not at fault
3. Stereotypes and prejudgments
4. Racist treatment by the police
5. Overrepresentation in the criminal justice system
6. Cultural disconnect between home culture and host culture
7. Lack of appropriate, community role models
8. Lack of parental attention due to pressure from work and life
9. Misconstrual of what it means to be an Australia, Canadian or American
10. Incentivization from gangs and criminal to run criminal errands

Youth workers and scholars who study youth issues are familiar with these issues. They are characterized by overt and subtle issues of social marginalization and institutional neglect. 

On Sunday, I had a conversation with two South Sudanese Australian researchers as the beginning of what I think will be a protracted conversation. 

I wanted to unpack these problems from the perspective of researchers and from the Australian context. These researchers are Dr. William Abur, a lecturer at the University of Melbourne and Dr. Santino A. Deng, a researcher working for the government of Victoria, Australia. 

I asked them to lay out the issues within the Australian context, and to propose possible expert solutions. 

The following is our conversation.

________________

Kuir  ë Garang (PhD) is the editor of TPR. Follow me on X: @kuirthiy Instagram: @Kuirthiy

Are we just savages driving escalades and BMWs in our so-called real world?

Destruction in Gaza, Palestine. Photo: Euromedmonitor.org

 

"For Sowell, therefore, you must take cues from history. If you cannot find a historical precedent, then stop looking for that kind of a world."

The west's fervent and uncritical support of Israel even when Israel commits a genocide makes me think about human equality.

Is equality a mirage?

Given the persecution of the Jewish people in Europe in the last 2000 years, I feel saddened by the fact that those who know what means to be hated and persecuted by simply being who they are, now premise peace and co-existence on bombs.

I teach young people. I do research on young people. In these activities, my aim is to work toward a better world, a world in which everyone would feel respected, a world in which what fails you is your inability.

That is the world I want to leave behind for my children and the youth I teach. This world is yet to be realized.

But there are conservative thinkers like Thomas Sowell (see: Social Justice Fallacies, Intellectuals and Society, Intellectuals and Race), John McWhorter (Woke Racism) and Coleman Hughes (End of Race Politics) who think differently.

They either say such a world is already here, or they believe it is an impossible world. A utopia of Saint Thomas More variety. Meaning a search for a just and equal world is fantastical, a childish wish. They want us to live according to what the world throws at us. In other words, we must live in the real world and accept things as they are.

Violence. Military brutality. Military invasion. Genocides. Murders of civilians. Wars. Economic equality.

Photo: Palestinian Return Centre

Within this framework, Israel is said to be adapting to a world it cannot change. Israeli genocidal destruction of Gaza is, by this account, a response to a real world Israel did not create.

This is a world in which equality is a pipe dream.

For instance, equality is a natural impossibility for Thomas Sowell. We shouldn't dream of a world that is not and has never been. Pssst: Sowell uses history to make his point. He makes this point in Black Rednecks and White Liberals and Conquest and Culture.

For Sowell, therefore, you must take cues from history. If you cannot find a historical precedent, then stop looking for that kind of a world.

As such, for the Sowells, the Hughes, and the McWhorters of the world, racism is, largely, a passé.

To be realistic, they are right or wrong based on one's ideological camp. You will find their supporters and haters in boat loads. Sowell puts this well in Intellectuals and Society:

“The coincidence of real world challenge and intellectual challenge, which [H. G] Wells and others have tended to treat as almost axiomatic, depends on the initial assumptions of one’s social vision.”

To Sowell, the left forces their vision (as the anointed – McWhorter would call them “The Elect” and Hughes would call them “Neo-racist”) on the rest of us. Conservative intellectuals, according to Sowells, remain faithful to the facts of the real world.

But here is where they seem naive. They think their assessments are simply objective. That they write about facts, common sense, and the real world.

Here is Sowell again:

South Sudanese Community in Australia and their Social Problems

*WILLIAM ABUR (Ph.D.)
 Melbourne, Australia

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"Raising a family in a new culture ... is a challenge for South Sudanese and many African migrant families with very little knowledge of western ways of parenting ... Children and teenagers tend to adopt new cultures quickly, but their parents still hold on to their own cultures and parenting styles based on where they grow up. As children and teenagers find ways to adapt or integrate into a new culture, they are more likely to struggle with identity issues, lack of mentoring, which robs them of the guide  into the right paths. This is the case with many young people and their families from the South Sudanese community in Australia. "

___________________________________________

1    Introduction

William Abur.
Picture: Courtesy of the author

MANY PEOPLE, from the South Sudanese community in Australia, arrived as refugees for resettlement in Australia after living for some years in refugee camps. Resettlement in a new country is a dream for many refugees worldwide, including people from South Sudan, who left their country because of war. 

Leaving a country during a war can be traumatic since people leave under very challenging circumstances and travel to neighboring countries with cultural experiences different from their own experiences and knowledge. In addition, refugees are often not able to return to their home countries because the causes of their departure [wars, insecurity, hunger] continue to apply in their country of origin. 

It is therefore important to highlight the global situation and the crisis of refugees seeking asylum due to constant forcible displacements. This article discusses some social issues and challenges facing South Sudanese-Australians in the process of integrating. The challenges and struggles of refugees are multi-faceted and include dealing with difficult decisions such as abandoning their homes and jettisoning their belongings as they flee. These issues significantly affect their lives, because their social networks and economic livelihoods have been disrupted by displacements and forced migrations so they are often exposed to dangers and uncertain journeys. 

Large numbers of South Sudanese families, who are currently living in Australia, came from refugee camps such as the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, from other camps in Uganda, Ethiopia and urban cities in Egypt. These camps are characterized by shortages of food, inadequate medical services, and lack of sanitation.

2       Settlement Issues

The settlement issues of the people from refugee backgrounds can be complex so refugees require ongoing assistance and support from the host community, government, and non-government agencies to address different settlement challenges. Sometimes families and individuals can make their ways to achieve a better or successful settlement. However, the question of a successful settlement is still debatable as to what this means for refugees. There are various rationalizations in relation to what it means to be “well settled” in a new country. These include feeling safe from racism and discrimination, obtaining secure and well-paying employment, buying a home, children feeling well supported at school and in the community, and playing sports with the host community, all without experiencing any aggressive or abusive language. Sometimes, settlement can be a two-way process of mutual understanding of cultural expectations, with the host community working in partnership with refugees.