The backbone of the country needs medical check-up

By Malek Arol Dhieu
I often get confused which is which when both youths and agriculture are called the backbone of any country on earth. I don’t want to question which one is the real backbone of the country as both of them are sick so critically that their sickness needs medical attention.
Youths are indeed the backbone of the country, without them, then the country takes a stooping position as a result of the backbone being weak to withstand the weight of the country. But the question begs, what then has weakened the backbone to lose its weight-bearing capacity?

It’s the division of the backbone into fractions, making it less strong to resist the heavy weight of the country. This reason leads to another form of question that, what divided the backbone? It’s not yet known up to now, but it’s suggested that it was hit hard by the two wars that their settlements led to the frequent use of letter ‘R’. Revitalised something…… Revitalised something…..and so on.
Before the emergence of wars, the youths became divided among politicians and accelerated the misunderstandings by convoluting statements among politicians in order for conflict to reach its climax. Having reached the climax, most of the youths followed their bosses to the bush and youths who remained in the country became burdened and few to carry out the roles of youths.

When youths were reunited in 2018, the roles of the backbone were expected as usual to resume but all in vain as they remained divided among politicians. This sickness is deteriorated by the absence of youths in the discussion of their country’s agenda of progress either to avoid political confrontation or as a result of parallelism that has developed during the conflicting period.

When an agendum of youths is tabled and it happens that most of the youths are absent, they’re absent not because they’re engaged more in other activities of equal importance, but they’ve gone to gym places to build their muscles, climbed on Jebel Kujur for exercise, taken off early in the morning or evening to chase any road of their choice, and more commonly, they’ve gone hunting for slay queens.
After the agenda are discussed, agreed and implemented, many of the absent youths go contrary to them, claiming to have not been part and parcel of the discussed agenda. This takes youths back and continues eroding the strength of the backbone to maintain why it’s named so. The division of youths has also led to intentional negligence and opposition of true ideologies of progress from both sides purposely to dwarf the growth of each side.

Agriculture, on the other hand, as the backbone of the country has been on its deathbed since the inception of the country, I don’t know why it did that when it’s among the top 3 priorities of the country. The sickness of agriculture has a similar origin with that of youths as insecurity caused by the wars that divided youths to lose their praising name is the cause of agricultural diminishment.
It has affected both urban and rural agricultural policies that make agriculture more productive and effective. Rural insecurity caused by communal conflicts makes it hard for cultivation to take place as oxen for ploughing are raided and cultivators killed in agricultural farms. This discourages the use of oxen for plough and permission of youths and middle-aged men to appear cultivating on farms as they may be attacked and killed, keeping agriculture on small-scale capacity as only women and elderly people of good health are the ones free to cultivate.

This has deranged agriculture and diverted dependence on imported products from other countries. The same wars have divided the attention of the government that had promised earlier to prioritize agriculture to commit to the implementation of the Revitalized Agreement, thus leaving no room and resources to fix and effect agriculture to the fullest.

The unwellness of the backbone, be it youths or agriculture, shakes the whole country and predisposes it to a number of catch-22 situations that if not addressed early, can become irreversible and challenging to endure. It’s a collective responsibility of the bodies concerned with youths and agriculture to mobilize resources as soon as possible to diagnose and treat the sickness of the two so as to avoid the stooping posture of the country as a result of the backbone being diseased.
Taking part in psychotherapy, I urge all youths to reunite and redefine their obligatory role in uniting and exhibiting their nation to the rest of the nations through peace-making, agriculture and other initiatives with beneficial entailments.

By doing so, the manpower to strengthen youths would simply flow from a region of higher concentration to a region of lower concentration, without requiring energy, meaning it would come from international communities as a result of them becoming happy on seeing youths refrainment from political factions and join hands to rebuild their beloved country. Looking forward to seeing the backbone regaining good health.
“Thanks for reading Sowing the seed of Truth”

The author is a medical student, University of Juba.