Mabior Garang Mabior: Practice respect, humility and service to the people

Photo: Courtesy of Mabior Garang's Facebook account

I wish Mabior Garang Mabior luck in his new ministerial role. It's a trying role in a trying environment; but he seems prepared and skilled. That is the nature of the system in South Sudan.

But I have a message for Mabior. For those of you with long-writings-phobia, skip this. Do something better with your time!

I urge him to be a little humble. Being John Garang's son doesn't give him a special epistemic position or a socio-political weight above and beyond what the people are prepared to stomach. Twi supports him, Jonglei supports him, and South Sudan supports him. He's one voice, one mind. Let him remember that!

Meaning his ministerial stature after Kiir's decrees come knocking will depend not on being Garang's son. It will depend very much on what he achieves and how he treats people. Not people who pander to him but also those who disagree with him. We know his achievements aren't going to be many (if any) given the anomic system within which he's going to work in South Sudan.

However, being John Garang's son matters. While Mabior is revered for his wit and individual decisions he has made, making him apparently a man of his own, we cannot downplay the role of his larger-than-life father regarding how Mabior is perceived by the powers that be and by the lay public. Garang's Mabior's name opens doors, inspires respect and, sometimes, terror. This is not only the nature of human relations in South Sudan. Name recognition applies all over the world.

This also means being Garang's son should come with a considered and considerate responsibility. The sons and daughters of "no bodies" he is wont to make fun of on his Facebook comments and statuses are watching. They may not seem much to Mabior, but leadership necessitates that he perceives them, and respond to them, as amounting to more than he is willing to entertain. The average civilian in South Sudan expects this.

A question of principles. Mabior left President Kiir for Riek Machar's rebellion because of how President Kiir ran the system aground. Mabior was right. Yet he came back to the same Kiir when the country under president Kiir is in a much terrible state. He now, somehow obsequiously, supports President Kiir. What has changed? South Sudan is worse than when Mabior was Kiir's staunch critic.

Granted, political alliances change. Commonsense. But alliances should change with one's principles not majorly compromised. Otherwise, one risks becoming a political entrepreneur, making South Sudan what Achille Mbembe has called an economic system of reciprocity.

As a political leader of some import in South Sudan, Mabior should start providing answers, respectful and respectable answers, than his usual dismissive, abrasive slights. He carries the weight of a legacy, if not the legacy (with a capital "L") whether he likes it or not.

Humility. When Mabior told Mading Ngor of Terab Media that he didn't join Dr. Riek, that Dr. Riek joined him, I knew Mabior was an intellectual, his father's son. But the political implication of the statement left me scratching my head. I started to doubt his political humility in an ethnically diverse country.

While Mabior sounded political and witty, he was very arrogant in that statement. Mabior didn't form any formal political or rebel movement before the crisis of 2013 in South Sudan to say Dr. Riek Joined him.

Yes, his joining Dr. Riek was considered scandalous by the likes of Mading Ngor. Therefore, Mabior had to distance himself from Dr. Riek's legacy without distancing himself. It was a hard sell. It was a double-edged sword. It shows how less Mabior thinks of others, even political leaders with whom he agrees.

I admire Mabior’s intellect and eloquence. No doubt. He's also informed. He reads, unlike some "intellectuals" I know. I admire his drive. This is something the younger generation in South Sudan needs now. He can inspire.

But Mabior Garang has one problem. Hubris. I'm not sure if it is a personality issue or it is because he is Garang's son. Otherwise, Mabior needs to treat the sons and daughters of nobodies of South Sudan with respect and humility.

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

Dr. Jok Madut and Dr. Aldo Ajou say Bol Mel is not President Kiir’s heir apparent

 

Dr. Jok Madut (left), Dr. Bol Mel (middle) and Dr. Aldo Ajou Deng (right)

The social media statements by Dr. Jok Madut and Dr. Uncle Aldo Ajou are confusing. I think they will have to explain the following to South Sudanese.

Dr. Jok said that what is being discussed about Bol Mel is based on assumptions and hatred of the man. He also said that Bol Mel has not expressed any desire to replace Kiir. And that Kiir has not said he's preparing Bol Mel to replace him. I will give Dr. Jok the benefit of the doubt because he shared these views on social media where most of us are not always serious and measured when sharing our views.  

I have come to know Dr. Jok as far more sophisticated and self-aware than the status being referenced reveals.

Here is my dilemma. I’m not sure if Jok is saying that for us to accept the argument that Bol Mel regards himself as the heir apparent to President Kiir then he must say explicitly, "I want to replace President Kiir!"?

I will wait for Dr. Jok to explain himself. Bol Mel will have to be a complete dodo to say publicly he will replace President Kiir!

No!

Bol Mel has shown a meticulous ruthlessness, a systematicity of a miskiin sekin! The English calls such a person a silent killer.

Also, there is never a case where politicians are clear about their intentions. Facts and politicians are like Trump and Truth, water and oil!

Since Bol Mel was decreed in, he's been like Kiir's right-hand man. He stood beside President Kiir when the man from Kampala came to South Sudan. He was the one sent to Ethiopia to smooth things over with the New Flower [Addis Ababa] after J1 prioritized the man from Kampala over Dr. Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia.

When he was appointed VP, Bol verbally, explicitly targeted Riek Machar, a member of the presidency. He also asked Madam Nyandeeng not to abandon Kiir! I'm not sure what he meant by that! He also mentioned that he would get involved in security issues. We must ask ourselves why?

Now, Riek is in detention and Upper Nile and Jonglei are conflagrations. That Bol Mel may be Kiir's successor is more of a presumption than an assumption. Enter Bol Mel as VP and boom! there is money for salary! This is what late Steve Jobs called connecting "the dots moving backwards."

How about Uncle Dr. Aldo?

He said Kiir cannot just make Bol Mel his successor, arguing that SPLM has succession structures. He's kidding, right?

Is it not the same Kiir who embarrassed Kuol Manyang, imposed Peter Lam Both and then tossed him, demoted Wani Igga to Secretary General and then made Bol Mel one of the deputy chairs of the SPLM? Did anyone in the SPLM make a whimpering sound?

Note this. If the president goes abroad for state visits, article 1.6 section 1.6.4 of the Revitalized Peace Agreement says that the first vice president becomes the acting president on a temporary basis. When both the president and the first vice president are absent, the president appoint one of the four vice presidents as acting president.  

Since Riek is now in detention, let’s see who President Kiir would appoint as acting president. Vice President Nyandeeng? Vice President Josephine Lagu? Vice president Taban Deng Gai?

We will see…

Note that section 1.6.5 says that if the president is mentally or physically incapacitated then the next president will be selected by the party of the president. Dr. Riek cannot become president through the revitalized agreement of 2018. Perhaps Uncle Doctor has a point here. If SPLM leaders are no longer afraid of Kiir then they may ignore his wishes and pretend SPLM has structures to respect.

But Kiir is, we are told, not physically and mentally incapacitated now. When it comes to succession, please don’t try Kiir! Try Kiir...just try...!

So Uncle Aldo is saying Kiir will, somehow, respect rules, laws and regulations when it comes to who is to succeed him? Come on Uncle Doctor! Has anyone ever defied Kiir? Pagan, Nyandeeng and Riek did! Where are they now? Madam Nyandeeng is protected by the ghost and the liberation aura of John Garang. She became VP through G [X] not through Kiir’s SPLM.

Uncle Doctor also said that we cannot blame Bol Mel for the corruption inherent in awarding contracts. Bol Mel is just a businessman, he said. Is this an implicit endorsement of corruption?

So Bol Mel is our VP but we should not hold him legally and morally accountable? Is that what we are now supposed to expect from our public officials? "Blame the government! I knew there was corruption but what did you expect me to do?"

Folks, Bol Mel is a public figure, for better or for worse. Allow us to unpack his public life! He comes with violence and money…and the slick, efficient smoothness of a high-end gigolo!


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

A tribe called SPLA masquerading as South Sudanese

First Vice President Riek Machar and President Salva Kiir Mayardit

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I know President Kiir, most of the time, says the RIGHT thing but does the WRONG thing. While he can incite tribalism sometimes, he tends to sound like a leader once in a while. Check his Independence Day speech. At times he says the right thing to the people of South Sudan.

His actions, however, are most of the time contrary to what could be called leadership.

But credit where due. His call for calm is the right thing at the moment. I have been saying this over the last two decades: that President Kiir should always come out and address the country anytime there is a national tragedy and speak to the people of South Sudan.

There is something calming about words from the head of state. Leadership is a psycho-social reality.

Honorable Michael Makuei, the Minister of Information and the government spokesperson, calms no one down. Well, maybe a few South Sudanese find his condescending press statements calming. South Sudan is a country bereft of leadership. 

He talks with a princely I-will-say-what-I-want-so-what-the-hell-will-you-do-about-it attitude.

On the other hand, folks from Sudan People Liberation Movement In Opposition (SPLM-IO), that is, their spokespeople, talk like there is a gun to their heads. But they have this impotent, annoying, self-righteous attitude like they own THE truth. Like Truth=IO! They make me want to...forget it!

What South Sudanese do not have are leaders who speak on their behalf, leaders who care about South Sudan and her peoples.

But note that Uncle Makuei is neither Jieeng (Dinka) nor is he South Sudanese. He is from a tribe called the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA). This tribe has different clans. The largest two clans are "In-Government" and "In-Opposition."  Bɛny (1) Kiir are Kuär (2) Riek are their tribal chiefs, respectively. 

SPLA is a tribe that lives in the past. The future scares it. It is a tribe that does not apologize. It considers humility a defeat. It does not entertain criticism. Criticism is disrespectful to this tribe. It considers itself infallible. These people do not take responsibility for their actions.

They only like to point their crooked fingers.

But it is a tribe that is internally divided. SPLA as tribal people have used division to recruit two clueless colonies: Jieeng and Nuer. SPLA has so mentally colonized these two nations that they believe that members of SPLA are their fellow tribesfolk.

But President Kiir, once in a while, acts like a true South Sudanese, not a colonialist. He abandons the egregious, insidious values of his SPLA tribefolk every now and then.

Today, he acted like members of his colony: South Sudanese. But you can see in the same speech that his SPLA tribal attitude jumps out of him once in a while: He points fingers at "enemy of peace", who are, strangely, his SPLA folks and the folks SPLA has mentally colonized.

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Kuir ë Garang (PhD) is the editor of The Philosophical Refugee. 

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Notes

1. Bɛny is a Jieeng word for a leader

2. Kuär is a Nuer word for a leaders.

Is the South Sudanese state turning South Sudan into a slave labor camp?

 

Photo Courtesy: Office of the President of South Sudan

January 3, 2025

It is good to be optimistic. It helps you focused to confront adversities in life. There is nothing wrong with that attitude when you are self-motivating. 

But when a president tells citizens to be optimistic without giving them reasonable political or economic plans to be hopeful, he risks trivializing their pain and desperation. 

This is what President Kiir of South Sudan has done in his recent New Year's message. 

South Sudanese have gone for months without salaries. Instead of apologizing to the people of South Sudan, or tell them how the nonpayment of salaries will be addressed in the new year, the president thanked South Sudanese for their patience, resilience, patriotism, and submission. 

Asking South Sudanese to be optimistic when the president presented no tangible agenda for the resolution of what has become a chronic problem in the country is to insult the people of South Sudan. 

Asking South Sudanese to work for free for more than a year, and expecting them to continue on waiting patiently, is risky. It borders on creating a slave labor nation, as someone has noticed.

Admitting economic problems as the president did in his new year's message on December 31, 2024 is reasonable. 

But it is not followed by a plan. President Kiir only asks South Sudanese to embrace uncertainty in perpetuity. A diseased, hungry, flooded, unsafe, and despondent populace cannot build a country. And it can by no means turn into a state-building human resource. 

South Sudanese are exhausted. They have been taken advantage of by South Sudanese leaders under President Kiir and the SPLM. 

The people of South Sudan need more than pastoral inspirations. The youth of South Sudan need programs that would allow them to see and embrace a brighter future the president invokes without a plan. 

The president only invokes a brighter future like a traditional seer or a  false Christian prophet. 

Reminding South Sudanese of the challenges they already live through is to be oblivious of the living conditions of the people. It is self-absolution. 

President Kiir is a political leader. He is not a priest taking confessionals from his congregation. 

He should deal in facts, figures and strategic plans. 

Statements such as "the government will prioritize" or "I am...directing that the Ministry of Agriculture double its effort" are vacuous personal directives. 

The president should speak forcefully in terms of government's plans not personal directives. He should own failures not deflect them or speak in terms of collective mistakes. He is the president. 

When one reads the tone and the messaging in the president's speeches and addresses, he speaks like a middle-management executive who takes orders from the CEO. 

 

That "We in government of today must do our best" or "We must ensure..." are not reassuring. They are abdications of responsibility to the people of South Sudan.

If there are economic challenges, and indeed there are, then what is the government's strategy to resolve the problem? Not mere personal directives. Tangible, documented strategies. This is missing. 

Asking South Sudanese to continue to work for free is a risky affair. It borders on slave labor. 

This must stop!

_________________

Kuir ë Garang (PhD), is the editor of the Philosophical Refugee (TPR)

How long will African youth endure a silent indignity?

Photo: Festo Lang/CNN

The youth in Africa, which is by far the continent with the youngest population, 70% being under 30 years, are like exploitable things used by political leaders to decorate themselves. This is not always a palatable adornment. They are either their political muscles, conduits for their ethnicized polemics, or cheerleaders of their stayist agenda. 

I see this on many South Sudanese fora and social media platforms. 

But African youth are listening, watching...peacefully. Demoralized and devalued as they are, they are still the future. And they know it.

As such, African leaders should not be too complacent. Pre-empting any hints of protests with massive military deployments is also not the way to go. Shutting down youth meetings for fear of these meetings morphing into anti-government movements is not also the way to go. 

The youth may not liberate themselves by picking up guns and flee to the bush. But they know the power of the social media and its importance in galvanized THE STREETS. 

In South Sudan, the youth is unemployed and their parents go for months, even years, without being paid. Protesting, the most democratic means for the expression of grievance, is dangerous, even fatal. The youth of South Sudan and their parents suffering in a silent indignity. 

But the youth in Africa, even in South Sudan, are a sleeping giant. Kenya has shown African leaders that they are no longer willing to be tools for the exploitation of the people and the mouths for the spread of divisive ideas. 

They want improvements in their political culture, their economies and political leadership. It is that simple.

African leaders take the youth for granted. Kenya and Nigeria have now seen the consequence of ageist arrogance. They must appreciate what the youth are doing to change their countries for better. Not all Gen Zs have been zombified and stupefied by Instagram and Tik Tok as some politicians like to believe.

Listen to them. The appropriate responses is change in policies not guns and tanks. 

Here is the importance of the protests. Instead of fleeing their countries out of frustration to die in the Mediterranean see like thousands of African youth who continue to defy the deathly Sahara and what some commenters have called the new middle passage, protesting African youth have decided to challenge the historical amnesia of their political class. 

Africans leaders cannot have it both ways. They cannot ignore the ones dying on their way to Europe and expect the ones who have remained at home to be quiet about what made those youth brave death. 

The youth do no like to protest. They like a better living standard. 

It would be foolhardy for African leaders to mock them. Museveni, stuck in the past, as as entitled and blinded by power as former US president, Donald Trump, seems to assume he is going to live forever. 

He uses the police and the army to intimidate the youth and opposition figures. But how long will that last? The army and the police will one day realize that they work for the people. And the emperor will be seen for what he is: Naked!

In South Sudan, the political class is reading from Museveni's authoritarian book. Any time there is a mustering about protests, the army floods the streets with tanks and armored cars. Yes, armored tanks. The South Sudanese army is not used to protect civilians. It is used to intimidate. 

But how long will the youth of South Sudan suffer in dehumanizing silence? How long will South Sudanese leaders rely on divisive politics to prevent youth from reminding the political class that the future is the youth not men and women in their 60s, 70s and 80s acting like they still have the next fifty years to rule?

Since 2005, the political class in South Sudan transitioned from liberation-mindedness to power politics. In power politics, priorities are about parties and individuals. The future of the country becomes secondary if it is at all part of political conversation. 

Between 2005 and 2011, the ruling party, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), failed to transition into a conventional political party. Leaders could not agree on succession. 

They kept on postponing conventions,  normalizing postponement. The consequence was the war in 2013. The culture of postponement has now becomes part of the peace agreement. The elections also seem to be heading that way. 

Meanwhile, the country is falling apart. Salaries have not been paid for months. A recent report by the Associated Press shows that civil servants are leaving their jobs for menial work. Some have resorted to waitressing while others have become charcoal salesmen. 

But the president either does not care or he has no idea what he is doing. Between 2020 and 2024, South Sudan has had six finance ministers. 

Until recently, the president kept the public guessing about the reason for which he fires finance ministers, some of whom lasting for less than a year. Apparently, he is looking for the right person. The South Sudanese finance ministry has become a matter of trial and error. 

The president may have not realized that the reason why institutions vet candidates is to avoid aimless and error. Vetting and interviews are meant to find the most qualified or the most appropriate Candidate for the job. 

A recent selection of a running mate by the presumptive Democratic President Candidate, Kamala Harris, is an example. Harris vetted qualified candidates and settled for Minnesota Governor, Tim Walz. Harris believed Walz is the best Candidate for the kind of the presidency she hope to run should she win in November.

President Kiir needs to learn this. Vetting candidates based on experience, past achievements, education, and fit removes the needs to hire candidates blindly. The president can even outsource the vetting process to ensure a company with experience hiring qualified candidate does the vetting. 

But we know that doing so may lead to the hiring of someone who is good for the job but bad for those who have captured the state governing apparatuses. So for the president to say he is looking for the person to fix the economic when he is not exercising the judgement required to find one is dishonest. 

Today, the president and the ruling class are comfortable. But they should note that the youth are watching what is happening in Kenya and Nigeria. The African Spring is afoot. 

South Sudanese leaders should not be complacent. The youth are peaceful. But they are not mentally dead.

INSPIRING SOUTH SUDANESE

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Kuir ë Garang (PhD) is the editor of The Philosophical Refugee. Follow on X: @kuirthiy. 

See my recent scholarly publication:

An Afrocentric analysis of colorism: Looking at beauty and attractiveness through African eyes. In R. E. Hall & N. Mishra (Eds.), Routledge International Handbook of Colorism: Bigotry Beyond Borders (pp. 175-194). Routledge.

SPLM's predatory elitism and the red army’s betrayed generational mission in South Sudan

 Published on Friday, May 17, 2024. 

Photos: WHAS11; City Reviews

'Garang also reiterated the importance of education to the red army as future leaders in his speech to Sudanese refugees in Itang Refugee Camp (also in Western Ethiopia) in 1988. Garang told civilians that Southern and Western Sudanese were excluded from power in Khartoum because they are said to be uneducated. “Why are they not educated?” he asked. He added that “this is why we have built schools for the red army because they are the future generation. No one will say in the future that they are not educated.”'

 

As we yet again commemorate another May 16th, I think about the future of South Sudan through these three generational groups: The SPLA generation, the red army generation, and the youth (as conventionally defined by the United Nations and the African Union). 

When I read in Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth that “Each generation must out of relative obscurity discover its mission, fulfil it, or betray it”, I wonder about the youth in South Sudan and my generation (the red army generation). With the current political and economic situation in South Sudan, the red army generation seems to have betrayed its generational mission.

But is this generation to blame? First, what is this generation and why it is important?

The red army generation, called the lost boys of Sudan in the United States where some of them resettled as refugees in early 2000s, were born in the late 1970s and the early 1980s. To the Southern rebels (1983-2005)—the Sudan’s People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA)—the red army generation was to furnish Sudan with disciplined, educated post-liberation leaders.

Of course, SPLA recruited some of these boys as combat infantry in the 1990s. These older boys, called Jesh el-assuot (black army) informally because they were of fighting age according to the SPLA, were hardly adults as conventionally defined. It is however important to note that the SPLA leadership believed in the education of this generation. With all their short-comings, which are very well documented, SPLA  leaders did not blindly use them all as child soldiers. The future was a haunting presence.

While the use of child soldiers must be condemned, and rightly so, it is important to understand the cultural and the survivalist context in which SPLA recruited and inducted them as child soldiers. This cultural dimension, while not necessarily acceptable per se, must be factored into any analysis of South Sudanese liberation history and all its complex dimensions. It cannot be ignored, or oversimplified, if the present status of the youth and the red army generation in South Sudan is to be properly contextualized.

The SPLA senior leadership also understood that a revolutionary agenda without any strategic plan for the young generation is foolhardy. Speaking in 1988 to Jesh el-amer (the red army) in Pinyudo Refugee Camp in Western Ethiopia, John Garang de Mabior, the co-founder of SPLM/SPLA and its ideological architect, said that the duty of the red army generation is “to re-build the country.”  Garang added that “my responsibility and the responsibility of my generation will be to dismantle Old Sudan…we will raze it to the ground.”

Garang also reiterated the importance of education to the red army as future leaders in his speech to Sudanese refugees in Itang Refugee Camp (also in Western Ethiopia) in 1988. Garang told the civilians that Southern and Western Sudanese were excluded from power in Khartoum because they are said to be uneducated. “Why are they not educated?” he asked. He added that “this is why we have built schools for the red army because they are the future generation. No one will say in the future that they are not educated.”

The importance of education for the red army is also underscored by the decision by the SPLA to send about 600 young men and women to Cuba in the mid-1980s for education. Another important educational program encouraged by the SPLA leadership to educate the red army generation produced scholars of Face Foundation of Polotaka, Eastern Equatoria.

Additionally, in refugee camps (Itang, Pinyudo, Dima, Kakuma, etc) where the red army settled, SPLA appointed leaders to supervise them. They emphasized the importance of education to aid agencies providing relief services in these camps. On a personal note, I completed elementary and high school in Kakuma Refugee Camp due to SPLM’s emphasis on education. It is with this emphasis on education that a prominent SPLA commander, after talking to my mother in 1995 in Mangalatore Displace Camp, accepted to take me to Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. Schools in Mangalatore were poor. Because of the itinerant nature of internally displaced persons, I found it difficult to benefit from constantly interrupted schooling.

DR.  JOHN GARANG DE MABIOR ON LEADERSHIP, SERVICE PROVISION, AND ACCOUNTABILITY

With this emphasis on education and the red army as future leaders, why then are the youth and the red army generation marginalized in South Sudan?

The obvious answer is what SPLM leaders have become. Instead of building an inclusive economy and democracy, or allowing the red army generation to play that role, SPLM has built a self-enrichment kleptocracy where a coterie of powerful political and military elites siphon state resources to foreign banks. Within this system, the youth is seduced into it or marginalized. This predatory “gun class”, as South Sudanese scholar an former minister Majak D’Agoot calls them, has become callously parasitic on state resources.  So the conditions in which the youth and the red army generation could fulfil their generational mission, in state-building for instance, are non-existent.

As D’Agoot has noted, “SPLA has morphed into a degenerative gun-toting aristocracy that straddles the sociocultural, political, and economic spheres like a colossus.” This has enabled a predatory elitism, an elite-centred economic system of reciprocity. They have made it the political and economic culture in the country. The youth and the red army generation joins them because it pays. Others join this predatory elite on ethno-centric basis. The generational mission has become an inconvenience or a threat to personal safety.

To stop the gun class from money-laundering, the United States sent Sigal Mandelker, the Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, to Kenya and Uganda, which have become money-laundering hubs for South Sudanese gun class. After Mandelker’s visit, money laundering continues. State-building and service provision have been abandoned.  

Instead of being allowed to fulfil their generational mission, the youth and the red army generation face arbitrary arrests, tortures at national security secret locations, and the unexplained disappearances. Frustrations has also caused self-destructive decisions for this generation. The rebellion and subsequent assassination by the South Sudanese army of businessman and philanthropist, Kerubino Wol, and the arrest by the FBI of Dr. Peter Biar Ajak, resulted from these generational frustrations. It is the attempt by the youth and the red army generation to fulfil their generational missions that puts them in trouble with the South Sudanese national security.

Those in positions of power are appointed through nepotistic arrangements or through political cronyisms. They are mere tokens without real power. For instance, the deputy governor of Jonglei State, Atong Kuol Manyang, is the daughter of a powerful former SPLA commander, Kuol Manyang Juuk. Kuol is also a senior advisor to President Kiir. The deputy Mayor of the city of Juba, Thiik Thiik Mayardit, is the nephew of President Salva Kiir.

The governor of Jonglei State, Mr. Denay Jock Chagor, the national minister of health, Ms. Yolanda Awel Deng Juach, and the national minister of petroleum, Mr. Kang Chol, are among the red army generation who were appointed through the revitalized agreement for the resolution of the conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCISS) signed by SPLM-In-Government and SPLM-In-Opposition in 2018. SPLM leaders find it nearly impossible to appoint the youth and the red army generation into positions of power on merit.

Co-opted South Sudanese youth and the red army generation must therefore reject SPLM’s predatory elitism however solvent. Otherwise, corrupt, and self-centred leaders in their 60s, 70s, and 80s will continue to be the past, the present, and the future of the country.  

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Dr. Kuir ë Garang is the editor of TPR. 

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.

Sovereignty as Responsibility

 

Sovereignty as responsibility

"My house is still under water. There are a lot of snakes and reptiles. The place is still a river; it's no longer a home. So how can I go back." Nyawal Makuei speaking to Aljazeera.

This, as you may have noticed from Nyawal's recollection about her state of despair, is about state responsibility to its citizens. 

In 1996, Dr. Francis Mading Deng, who was the United Nations Special Adviser for the Prevention of Genocide between May 29^th, 2007 and July 17, 2012, published a book, Sovereignty as Responsibility: Conflict Management in Africa, with Sadikiel Kimaro, Terrence Lyons, Donald Rothchild, and I. William Zartman through The Brookings Institution. 

So, what is sovereignty as responsibility? Here is Dr. Francis Mading Deng explaining what sovereignty as responsibility is.

Dr. Francis Mading Deng. 
Photo: Sudan Tribune

Dr. Francis Mading Deng: 

"The idea was to tell governments,  I realize this is an internal matter; it falls under your sovereignty. I'm respectful of your sovereignty, but I don't see sovereignty as a negative concept. I see it as a positive concept of a state responsibility for its people. If needs be with the help of the international community." 

So, what does this mean in the context of the South Sudanese state and its responsibility to its citizens? Did the South Sudanese government and its leaders consider sovereignty as responsibility, or have they rationalized it as power to intimidate civilians, enrich themselves with state resources, and terrorize critics however factually accurate these critics are regarding the situation.

To answer this question, let’s go back July 2011. What did South Sudanese leaders think and what did citizens feel? Here’s a glimpse. 

Aljazeera Report: 

"A nation is born, a symbol of sovereignty and identity flies for the first time. It's seen in South Sudan as nothing less than electric. Hundred of thousands of people converge in Juba, the world's newest capital city. They celebrated their long-waited independence marked by two civil wars over five decades, and countless lives lost."

The people were, understandably, ecstatic!  For the leaders, at the time, understood the challenge they face. But they promised to lead, provide for the citizens and prove South Sudanese, distractors, according to President Kiir, wrong. 

South Sudan's President, Salva Kiir Mayardit.

Here is President Kiir on July 9^th, 2011.

“My Dear compatriots South Sudanese, the eyes of the world are on us.

Our well-wishers including those who are now sharing with us the joy of this tremendous event will be watching closely to see if our very first steps in nationhood are steady and confident. They will surely want to see us as a worthwhile member of the international community by shunning policies that may draw us into confrontation with others.

They will be happy to see us succeed economically and want us to enjoy political stability. What this means is that the responsibilities of South Sudan will now be accentuated more than ever before, requiring that we rise to the challenge accordingly. It is my ardent belief that you are aware that our detractors have already written us off, even before the proclamation of our independence. They say we will slip into civil war as soon as our flag is hoisted. They justify that by arguing we are incapable of resolving our problems through dialogue. They charge that we are quick to revert to violence. They claim that our concept of democracy and freedom is faulty. It is incumbent upon us to prove them all wrong!”

What happened two years later is something for which I’m not going to remind you by way of explanation. Sovereignty became a quest for power rather than a responsibility to citizens.

Aljazeera's Report: 

"This used to be a road until it disappeared under water mid-last year. Now, the only way to get around in this part of South Sudan is by boats and canoes. It's the worst flood this region has seen in sixty years. In this areas, every home is abandoned. Families had no choice but to leave."  

Flood is obviously a naturally phenomenon. South Sudanese leaders did not cause it. But they have a responsibility to support civilians that have been displaced by the flood. They have failed. But that is not all. 

Here is John Kuok suffering from what President Kiir said would not happen. It seems like the distractors, sadly, have been proven right.

John Kuok, an internally displaced person, speaking to Aljazeera:

"It was no only 2013 where out colleagues and my brother were killed. Even during the struggle [against Khartoum] my brothers were also killed. So, when it repeated itself, it was horrible."

Ccontrary to President Kiir’s assurance on Independence Day: South Sudanese were “quick to revert to violence.”

However, Crises are everywhere. The main problem is their inability to solve problems, and their penchant for the abdication of state responsibility.

Here is South Sudan’s minister of information and the government spokesperson, Michael Makuei, about the challenges facing South Sudan’s peace partners regarding the integration of government and the opposition armies as stipulated in the revitalized agreement for the resolution of conflict in South Sudan.

Michael Makuei to VOA: 

"I said this agreement was never to be implemented, because, I said, the international community that supported us and gave us he assurances that. 'you sign this agreement; we will stand with you, and we will implement it with you. Just immediately after the signature, they sad back, and began to tell us, 'you implement it. You must be seen to be moving.' We asked them as said by my colleague, Stephen...we asked them to come for our support. Only very few friendly countries managed to do something for us." 

But here is Francis Mading, reminding governments about their responsibility to citizens.

"[Sovereignty as responsibility] also meant the responsibility had to be apportioned or reapportioned. Instead of depending on the supper powers, the states had to assume their responsibility for managing their situation. If they need help to call on the international community to help; and only in extreme cases where there is large suffering, massive amount of suffering and death.

There is no doubt that South Sudan still faces enormous challenges 12 years after independence. My advice to South Sudanese leaders is to prioritize the interest of citizens and regard sovereignty as responsibility bestowed on them by (1) the referendum votes; (2) the suffering of our people by fifty years of the liberation struggle, and (3) by the blood of those who died in the liberation struggle.

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Kuir ë Garang

 

South Sudanese Facebook and Tik Tok: The good, the bad, and the ugly

Kuir ë Garang*

Photo: 2ser.com 

The social media is, as the English would say, a double-edge sword. For South Sudanese living abroad, Facebook Live and Tik Tok—the two most important avenues of our social media discourse—have become an-everyday reality. Intrusive but necessary, they have become an uncomfortable feature of our cultural and social landscape.

I’m intentionally ignoring Twitter. It’s the abode of pretenders, who think they are better, elites, intellectuals…! They think they are better than Facebookers. They say proudly, ‘I’m not on Facebook!’ That’s a topic for another day.

Facebook and Tik Tok make us laugh, sad, angry, confused, or indifferent. We use them to promote cultural events or fundraisers. We also use them to vent with uncharacteristic bitterness, expose people’s secrets (the post-relationship and post-friendship exposés), or declare enmity.

They are confusing. We complain about them, but we can’t stop watching them, or using them.

But we must admit some things. They are a moral problem and a good. Meaning, we can’t wish them away. Since the good doesn’t need to be fixed, it is the bad that we must address. That is true. In Logical Investigations, Edmund Husserl tells us that Truth is ‘eternal’. It’s not bound by time or a place. (You’re free to dispute this!)

If you use this social media duo [Tik Tok and Facebook] to spread positive social, cultural, and political messages, then kudos. Continue! We need you. That’s true. That’s eternal.

But here is the problem we must address. Insults.

We must address them not for what they mean to the community. That is easy. Any idiot in our community knows that Facebook Live and Tik Tok insults are moral harms and social wrongs. No reasonable person, even the foul-mouthed Facebooker, would say public insults on Facebook are a moral good.

What we must address as a community is the underlying problem, the unspoken. We tend to focus on the fact that so and so insults so and so. The question we must ask ourselves is: Why would a reasonable personal go live, his/her children in the house, and open a verbal artillery of the unspeakable? It’s not the visible that is the problem; it’s the invisible.

What happened to rɔ̈ɔ̈c ë guɔu (shame) and riëëu de rɔ (self-respect)? Why are people saying anything and everything that comes to mind publicly? There must be something deeper, something Freudian about the public insults. Why do the young men and women who vent publicly in the most grotesque of ways on social media believe this is the panacea? Of course, insults make us feel good.

Remember when we were kids and a certain son and daughter of a certain man beat you up. You’re weak and cannot compete so you use your mouth. After thirty seconds of hurling the most filth you can imagine on that son of a gun, you feel amazing! Sigh. But then you run! Run!

Of course, folks who unleash their smutty tirade know public insults are not the panacea for their problems. No matter the amount of vitriol they unleash on their targets, the problems will remain.

But then they feel good! Well, before their friends and relatives call to ask them to refrain.

But their insults play two roles. It gives them a chance to say: ‘I’m not the problem.’ For women, it also gives them the chance to speak. To use Spivak’s expression, women in our traditional communities are the subalterns who don’t speak.

A good wife (tik| tiŋ pieth/tiŋ nɔŋ piɔ̈u) or a good girl (nyaan pieth/nyaan nɔŋ piɔ̈u) doesn’t speak about her marital problems. A young South Sudanese female doctor recently said that women have been freed from the constraints of our tradition. They can no longer afford to be the non-speaking good girls or good wives, she argued. They’ve found a voice.

That sounds good. Worrying but understandable.

I must add something though. Since I’m not a medical professional, I’ll ask our health professionals some questions.

Is there a mental health, trauma element to this?

There is normal venting or speaking out your truth. But then there is scotch-earth, full-blown, leaving-nothing-to-the-imagination paroxysm. Is there something we can do as a community to help people vent respectfully? How can we validate venters, especially women, without normalizing harmful Facebook videos?

What our people don’t realize is this. Venting on the social media, however deceptively privately or reasonable it appears, is like going to the shopping mall full of people and screaming one’s frustration standing on top of a table on the food court. Imagine that. Imagine it for a moment. You may say it is not the same; but it is.

Like it or not, the social media is here to stay. All we must do is to minimize its harm and maximize its usefulness. But if we don’t go to the roots of the problem that make people vent publicly without any ounce of retrain, then we shouldn’t complain about any filth on Tik Tok and Facebook.

The great danger to public venting is this: They are social harms that make some people heard, and self-validating. ‘I will not be ignored!’ is the message.

South Sudanese community ‘leaders’ and health professionals, this is your challenge. The likes of Kuirthiy can only write!

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Kuir ë Garang is the editor of the TPR.