An Open Letter to President Kiir Mayardit and Dr. Riek Machar ... and the Rest of Power seekers in South Sudan

It has now become very clear to me (and to other South Sudanese I'd assume) beyond any reasonable doubt that power is more important to you than South Sudan as a state and her civil population. While your "care" when it comes to South Sudan and civilians is something you profess verbally, your actions have contradicted about everything you say as "care of civilians." Undoubtedly, this is something we can empirically demonstrate. The United Nations, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International and the African Union can support me here in bearing witness to your anti-civilian, treasonous action toward South Sudan.

Fortunately, there is no room here for "this is western propaganda" ruse that is always peddled by Africans totalitarian leaders to dupe innocent civilians into supporting what affects them [civilians]

As Human Rights Watch (HRW) has put it,

 "All parties to the conflict committed serious abuses, including indiscriminate attacks against civilians including aid workers, unlawful killings, beatings, arbitrary detentions, torture, sexual violence, recruitment and use of child soldiers, looting and destruction of civilian property. Some of the abuses constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity. All parties to the conflict restricted access for the United Nations (UN) mission,those providing humanitarian assistance, and ceasefire monitors." 

The African Union, in their report on October 15, 2014, support this report of your callous lack of interest in the lives of civilians:

"The Commission notes that South Sudan has witnessed gross violations of human rights for over 50 years, particularly during the 22 years of civil war. Whilst the crimes committed during the on-going violence are thus not new, the rate at which people have been killed during this conflict could be higher, according to some estimates,270 than during the civil war. Reports received by the Commission from the exiled communities in Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia as well as opposition leaders allege that between 15,000 and 20,000 ethnic Nuers were killed in the first three days (Dec 15 to 18). While proof of actual numbers was not provided, there seems to be a remarkable consistency in stories told by the communities of the brutality and violence on both sides. Regardless of whether those persons who carried out the attacks considered them to be retaliatory, the violence on both sides was no less acrimonious or brutal." (emphasis added)

Well, well, I know your supporters, blind as they are to your power schemes, will be up in vitriolic polemics in an attempt to justify how each one of you is different and good. While it takes two to tango, it takes the audience to judge the nature of the tango - horrible or enjoyable! In South Sudan, it has gone beyond your horrible war tango to a messy free dance of uncultured dances. South Sudanese are the unfortunate witnesses to these horrible mess.

But the obvious nonsense from your supporters are statements like, "Dr. Riek Machar is the savior, a revolutionary. He is fighting for freedom and democracy in South Sudan." Essentially, these supporters are either appeased job beneficiaries or tribal kinsfolks whose political support is a cultural default. For, you, President Kiir Mayardit, your staunch supporters, most of whom being mindless tribalists, will say, "No, President Kiir is a humble, good man, who is fighting power-hungry people like Dr. Riek Machar, members of G-X (aka FD - former political detainees), Thomas Cirillo, Malong Awan, among other callous power-seekers."

Your professed "care of civilians" is a euphemism for "power at all cost."

While many readers will say that there is nothing new in what I am saying and that we all know that the two of you are beyond redemption, it has to be reiterated that you have held (and continue to hold) South Sudan hostage. As long as your presence in this crisis continues to cause suffering, the issue of your callousness needs to be reiterated over and over and over ....

There are times when a leader, who cares about his/her people, becomes self-critical (conscientious) and makes a decision that puts the lives of the people first. Gordon Muortat Mayen made such a decision in 1970 when Joseph Lagu decided to take over the overall leadership of both the Anya-Nya National Arm Forces (ANAF) and the political wing (The Nile Provisional Government). Muortat, in instead of fighting Lagu over the issue of power, advised his supporters to support Lagu. (Note: Lagu would later change the name of the political wing to Southern Sudan Liberation Movement - SSLM).

Dr. John Garang, to a very limited extent, exemplified a Mourtat-Moment when he graciously took in all the criticisms (including many from Kiir, Wani and Taban) unleashed on him in Rumbek in 2004 without subjecting anyone to punitive actions. He owned up to the problem within the movement as he realized that the CPA was more important than his personal ego!

Besides the horrendous suffering you have caused, there are a number of issues that make the argument that you don't care about the civilians unquestionably factual.

First, there has never been a time when you've convened a press conference to officially apologize to the South Sudanese people. It seems both of you are too big to own up to what you have caused. When South Sudanese die - whether through man-made or natural disasters - none of you talk to the media to address the affected families and communities. There is nothing moral ethical and reassuring than a leader who acknowledges the suffering of his or her own people. Calling out the names of the deceased and comforting affect families, humanizes the victims and prevents them from becoming mere numbers on paper. You only respond when "important" people die not when civilians are displaced by fire or flood.  What exactly makes you leaders of the people as you claim?

If there is any iota of humanity left in you, then

1) Put your egos aside and implement the agreement in a manner that shows that your hearts have not turned into stones
2) Make an attempt to differentiate between a political and a personal disagreement
3) Understand that your legacy is not what you think but what the nation decides; and no matter how  long it takes, the nation will judge and prosecute you, unless you do something formidably life-saving in South Sudan
4) The more you prolong the war, the more tribal hatred is going to entrench itself.

It is my hope that you learn a thing or two from the Muortat-Moment and make it a political culture in South Sudan.

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Kuir ё Garang is the editor of THE PHILOSOPHICAL REFUGEE. You can follow him on Twitter @kuirthiy  

On culture and identity of belonging: A message to the Sudanese and South Sudanese people in Victoria

By Wilma Madut Ring*

"As women become independent, they have also become outspoken. It has thus become a threat to some men and their feelings become a mixed bag. On the one hand, some do think that re-marrying is an option out of this, while on the other hand, others have felt downright emasculated."

Introduction

File Photo

Dear Melbournians, the  South Sudanese people to be precise. Do you think we have seen it all? Do you think we have seen that: I mean in the aftermath of yesteryears, in regard to our culture and the notions around identity and belonging? Do you think we have seen the true reaping of what we sowed years ago? Do you really think so? After all, did we really sow anything like seeds and that there’s something to be reaped? Did we really live it out well to be seen today? 

I am sorry to have bothered you, my potential readers, with questions regarding our social, economic, and political location in our host society: Australia. I think we have not seen it all and as a whole: The idea that people are bound by certain values and beliefs of significance to them. This requires cooperation and role-specific obligations on the roles of every man and woman across a given people and their society. 

I have the roles of two people in mind: One is the role of the woman and the other is the role of the man in our society. By “in our society” I refer mainly to the way these roles are shaped by our previous culture (back home) as Sudanese and South Sudanese people prior to migration or resettlement in Australia. No doubt a lot has changed. 

However, very little, if any, has changed in relation to our assumptions on the individual roles of women and men at the family level. Could this have something to do with place or modernity? This being the case, however, we need to also be aware that: We Belong to two different cultures and each one of these cultures requires given specifics to be met. We have to meet both the Australian and Sudanese cultural expectations on us. This explains as to why our experiences may be somehow daunting.

In what follows, I will talk about these roles in terms of our post-settlement experiences here in Australia, particularly Melbourne, Victoria. Melbourne is home to many of us. We meet in Footscray, Melbourne, and that is very frequent. Often we also meet in Blacktown, Sydney, and in Mirrabooka, Perth, Western Australia. Regardless of the place, the issues we discuss are either common or just one: Women have changed a lot. Their new-found sense of freedom is unfavorable to men.

First to the Women’s freedom and the Men’s social rebellion

As women become independent, they have also become outspoken. It has thus become a threat to some men and their feelings become a mixed bag. On the one hand, some do think that re-marrying is an option out of this, while on the other hand, others have felt downright emasculated. They feel as if they are no longer men. Their roles have been usurped. I actually think that men are to blame, too. Their response to women’s claims of their freedom is also a disservice to our young families and the people we would love to bring up outside Sudan and South Sudan. 

Men in return have stopped doing great on the women and children’s best. They have lost their sentimental value in cherishing and upholding their family’s roots. Men's minds shouldn't be that much fixated on a culture that has got a distance with us--as per now. We ought to focus here: on the things right beneath our noses. This is why I say we haven’t seen it yet. Because yesteryears were kind of a warm up to a new found life that is…It was warming up to new-found culture.

Note also that we are not talking feminism here. No. We are talking about a culture that is rigid to allow a total change on the roles of an individual person in a foreign, host society to the new voices and freedom for women. It was kind of a new way of not burdening the men with huge responsibilities. We are in a place where division of labour is paramount. No one should be regarded as the sole provider or breadwinner for the family as it has always been the case with our previous culture.

   

It has been a new-found voice for everyone; for our children, too. And, yes, they are children. Just because they do not turn up often in community meetings doesn't mean they are unaware of our challenges and the barriers we face in this country. In our new country, they also have got rights to freedom of speech and association. They know when to object to their parents’ grievances and when not to. 

Women can’t be subjects to their husbands and have rights to say no to the overbearing in-laws and their constant shenanigans. 

Whether they be men or relatives, it ought to be understood that a lot has changed. Men can choose to not take up certain responsibilities. This for sure can happen. It can happen because somehow they have been ripped off their “powers”. Women have become independent and have rights to live their lives freely without control and constraints. This new found-freedom, our sense of freedom, has for the case of Sudanese/South Sudanese women, been mistaken for disrespect and loss of values. We’re refugees and we came from somewhere. Others also came from somewhere just like us. We’re meeting them here, too, for the first time.

While some men have clearly lost the plot, some have taken the advantage of partnering and collaborating with their better halves to prosper and so have some women, too. What we’re doing is no freedom, but somewhat, a tit for tat. That is to say: Do it like it has been done onto you. Some women may have found the need to feel powerful than their individual men or husbands. And that individually could solidify on their new-found needs and undermine their partners. 

The result is a total demoralization on the part of their partners. A man breaks away and the woman is left to shoulder it all alone, becoming the so-called single mom while the man is off to marry or looming somewhere around in Footscray. 

While children have found this marital loophole as a way to venture out on their own world, their fathers and dads are on their own search for soul-partners. The mothers are stranded with them. A brand new way out is urgently needed, otherwise, this is one such reason I say that we are not getting it. 

Precisely, which culture should we embrace and which of the two societies should we belong to?

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*Wilma Madut Ring is a community mental health advocate living Melbourne, Australia. For more information, contact the author at wilmamadut@gmail.com

Editorial Note:  The views expressed in the article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of THE PHILOSOPHICAL REFUGEE. For the veracity of the claims in the article, please contact the author.