Emotional Power : No racial or social group has monopoly over it

Kuir ë Garang*

"However, Europeans or men as a group are as emotionally vulnerable as any social group regardless of the influence men and Europeans have in society. No amount of economic and political power can make someone impervious to disrespect, insults, vulnerability (real or imagined)."

Most of us live in group settings. Some of us therefore tend to assume that most human actions are motivated and circumscribed by qualities that are shared by groups, especially dominant social groups: Europeans in the world, Men, Cis-gendered folks, the capitalist class, etc.

Some of us assume, inadvertently perhaps, that Europeans ("white" people) have more emotional power than others. I think this is not only wrong. It's also dangerous.

For instance, no social group, whether gender, racial, political or economic, possesses a collective emotional power. A social group, European say, may possess more economic and political power. This can allow them to influence how other social groups navigate society.

However, Europeans or men as a group are as emotionally vulnerable as any social group regardless of the influence men and Europeans have in society. No amount of economic and political power can make someone impervious to disrespect, insults, vulnerability (real or imagined).

This sounds like a commonsense reality. But think about it in real life. It's complicated.

With all his economic and political might, Donald Trump cannot pass any emotional test, however small. With all his economic might, Elon Musk becomes foul-mouthed when he is emotionally touched. When he realized his wife, Hilary Clinton, could lose to Obama, Clinton described Obama's campaign as a "fairly tale."

Now, imagine the average Jane and Deng in your office!

This is one of the issues, I believe, activists and advocates have overlooked. They expect the very racist, sexist and homophobe against whom they campaign to safeguard, or respect, the emotions of their victims. Racists, homophobes and misogynists are as emotionally vulnerable as the people they discriminate. This is an obstacle to systemic change.

This is why anti-racism faces such a strong push-back. Advocates expect non-racialized groups to treat an emotionally charged social reality logically while catering for the emotional needs of the racialized and the marginalized.

When Robin Di'Angelo talked about "White Fragility, and I don't think she's wrong, she also expects "white people" to have some sort of a super-human capacity to control emotions not as individuals (which is always possible) but as a collective "white people."

There are two lessons here. Any anti-racism program should understand that no collective group possesses a robotic capacity to control emotions. Being 'stoic" only means hiding emotions. It does not mean not feeling emotionally vulnerable.

The second lesson is the risk of putting the emotional well-being of the marginalized in the hands of the very people who discriminate against them.

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*Kuir ë Garang is the editor of The Philosophical Refugee.

Will Divine Guidance Rescue South Sudan from Turmoil?

Photo: Radio Tamazuj

There is nothing wrong with having a "national prayer" day. The problem with the government of South Sudan is that it has started to misappropriate religion for political ends. This is exactly what Khartoum's Islamic elite did with Islam. They misappropriated Islam as a political instrument for the subjugation of non-Muslims in Sudan.

Since Khartoum elite from the 1950s have used religion as a power instrument, South Sudanese have countered the imposition of Islam with what nearly borders on Christian fundamentalism. It was, in most cases, for a good reason. But it's now getting misused without any useful social value to the people of South Sudan.

The colonial regimes, with their colonial anthropology, the most compromised of disciplines as late Congolese philosopher V. Y. Mudimbe once argued, did not believe Africans had any religion on the same level with Islam and Christianity. Embracing both Christianity and Islam by South Sudanese was therefore a way to get global recognition.

 Being proselytized into Islam and Christianity was instrumental to South Sudanese and the religious regimes that converted them. It won them the support of western Christendom in the 1960s and the 1990s. 

Today, however, these foreign religions have become integral to the South Sudanese social and cultural fabric. They are no longer foreign religions. 

So when President Salva Kiir of South Sudanese recently called a National Prayer Breakfast, many South Sudanese appreciated it. However, there are many South Sudanese who took offense. Religion in South Sudan seems to have become an instrument for political and social blackmail. It has become a convenient tool the president uses to keep the hungry and destitute populace passive, zombified. 

For many South Sudanese, prayers cannot fix national issues. It will not pay salaries that have not been paid consistently for nearly two years now. Security situation has deteriorated, the economy is in taters, the agreement has been virtually abrogated, and the main signatory to the peace agreement (First Vice President Riek Machar) is undergoing an unnecessary court proceedings. 

These cannot be fixed by prayers. They need leadership from President Kiir. 

A national day of prayer could have been a day of forgiveness with President Kiir leading by example. But he does not. He prioritizes what serves him. He calls on South Sudanese to reject "tribalism, hatred" and embrace "reconciliation." 

However, opposition have noted that this day would have had a meaningful religious significance. Dut Majokdit, a senior political figure in SPLM-IO of Dr. Riek Machar noted that "For this country to realize national reconciliation, it must start from the top leadership." 

This is important. It is important for President Kiir to call South Sudanese to reconcile. But he must also start by reconciling with Dr. Riek Machar, his arch political enemy. 

Edmund Yakani, a prominent South Sudanese civil society leader, echoed Majokdit's words: "We wish the speech of the President could have broken the ground for real forgiveness and reconciliation."

Meaning the human, rather than the divine aspect of the national prayer has a greater chance of bringing stability to South Sudan. Divine guidance is useful only if leaders take initiative on behalf of the people. But when prayers are called only to engage in needless self-absolution, then religion becomes a convenient political tool. 

Reconciliation and forgiveness should not be something others do. It should also be a component of the South Sudanese governance structure. As French deconstructionist and post-modernist philosopher, Jacque Derrida, has noted, what we should give is not just the forgivable but also the unforgivable. 

It is not the divine that will fix South Sudan. It is the human design. 

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

 

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.

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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:

Why I’m not enthused by the election of Mark Carney...yet

Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney,

waving at supporters after his election victory.

Photo: Financial Times

Mark Carney is a protest candidate. He was not elected for his policies, necessarily. He was elected for likeability as a contrast to Trudeau (who he advised informally). He was also elected for demeanor as a contrast to Pierre Poilievre, the 'Canadian Trump', who has, for the good of Canada, lost his seat. Good riddance!

Poilievre talked of change but he's been holding the same parliamentary seat since 2004. The people of Ottawa-Carleton and Bruce Fanjoy said, 'yes, change indeed!' And change they engendered!

Carney, for better or for worse, symbolizes calm, order and the status quo Trudeau had apparently compromised. Trudeau had made Canada 'unfamiliar.' On principle, status quo scares the hell out of me. But given Trump's menace, I'll give Carney the benefit of the doubt! After all, he talks like that smooth-talking uncle whose words make issues less painful!

But I'm not celebrating...yet. I'm not dismissing him either.

For those of us living at the margin and studying those who live at the margin, Carney's victory is something to approach cautiously. He is a man who has never done groceries. He has no clue how the average Canadian lives. He is now elected to learn what it means to be Canadian. The man had three passports. A true globalist.

He was recently called out about lying about his first call with Trump. He had said Trump 'respects Canada's sovereignty'. That was a lie. He failed to tell Canadians that Trump repeated the call for Canada to become the 51st state in their first phone call. Why lie to Canadians about such a fundamental issues?

Recently, he first stood by liberal candidate, Paul Chiang, who had called for a conservative candidate to be abducted and taken to the Chinese consulate for a bounty. Really? Chang would later resign as a candidate even after Carney stood by him!

I'm glad Carney won. No doubt. But I'm not enthused by his taking over in Ottawa...yet. He is too close to the centre that he risks becoming centre right. Poilievre even complained that Carney has copied his platform. Carney wants to be different from Trudeau so bad that he will risk pandering to the conservative, old guards within the liberal party. Yet, he was Trudeau's informal advisor. There are conservatives who find it 'respectable' to be called 'liberal.' Carney was once asked by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a conservative that molded Poilievre, to be finance minister.

Celebrate. But celebrate with caution. Carney is a neoliberal, a neocon of Obama variety! I'll wait to be impressed! I work with children and youth and my daughter plans to attend university in Canada. I'm yet to see a policy on Carney's platform that would give them something about which to smile.

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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). 

Thank you, Mr. President!

Except for those benefiting from South Sudan as a rent state, the country is, unequivocally, a failed state. But I'm not "a bad-wicher!" [as Mr. Ateny Wek would accuse folks like me]. I'm just tired. Really tired!

I've been doing this for more than two decades. My fellow citizens who used to call me names for criticizing you are now calling you vile names I dare not repeat here.

I was only then a concerned, albeit a young, citizen who knew your revolutionary record as a led-leader. You are good, even efficient, at following orders, at being guided, being told what to do.

I didn't see you as a leader of your people! I thought you were a stabilizing force from behind a leader.

In 2005, my fellow citizens thought I was a mindless, peace-disturbing kid who didn't know what he was saying. Why was I seeing in you what they didn't see? They see you now, Mr. President! Clearly! But too late I guess!

Thank you for socio-politically Khartoumizing South Sudan! Thank you for Ibrahim-Abbouding, Jaafer-Nimeiring, and Omer-Beshiring yourself! Thank you for turning SPLM into a totalitarian machine!

Today, in every part of the country, there is either ethnic feud or massacres, a full-blown civil war, or senseless deaths through cattle wrestling.

Yes, the humblest of men, the most successful president in the history of the world, is only focused obsessively on his mindless decrees and those with whom he shares the spoils from oil monies.

Bravo, Bilpam Akech, for an accurate commentary! "Kiir Must Stay!" you say! He must stay on to make South Sudan a-slave-labor state!

South Sudanese, Mr. President is so kind that you remain quiet when you go for more than a year without salaries. You love him so much that you sing praises to him as you die of hunger, diseases, floods, ethnic violence, state oppression, and mere stupidity of his ethnic and yäc-centered cheer-leading minions. Their ceaseless panegyric has become nauseating.

Thank you, Mr. President, for turning a beautiful country into a place where citizens tell their fellow citizens to "go back to their ancestral lands." Thank you for making South Sudan a place where South Sudanese are so secure that they move from their ancestral lands to go and inconvenience, through no fault of their own, the lives of their fellow citizens in other parts of the country. Kudos!

Thank you, Mr. President, for making me understand what you meant by "no reverse gear" in 2005. I thought it meant a full-speed sprint to social development and economic success.

A true Land of Milk and Honey!

I didn't know what you meant was an-SPLM-bullet-train to mediocrity, disorder, anarchy, death, violence and slavery.

Thank you for making South Sudan the only country in the world were citizens work for free. Scholars of slavery and historians tell us that slavery is about ownership of the people, especially their labor.

South Sudan has become your fiefdom, à la King Leopold II. That you don't pay them is testimonial of your control over their free labor.

We know what would happen if South Sudanese protest, even peacefully! Bullets...as your nephew (Thiik) and your government spokesperson (Makuei) have warned! And Bilpam Akech has spoken for you: South Sudanese should COMMIT SUICIDE (hang themselves) if they don't like the amazing country the humblest man in the world has built!

Thank you for making more than a century of a peoples' struggle mean your transformation into an absolute king, a colonialist ruling over subject people from Juba, a neocolonial metropole.

These are subject people about whom you don’t care! Or do you? 

_____

Kuir ë Garang (PhD) is the editor of 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.