Professor K composed a song in Dinka dialect which lyrically goes “na luel yic, ke yïn aguac, ku na luel lueth ya, ke yïn angot yï guac. Wetke oo, koc aguac”. It literally translates that if you tell the truth, they fuck you and if you tell lies, they still fuck you.
If people who tell the truth and those who tell lies are both killed, then the only option is to keep quiet. But I’m sure they can still kill a person who keeps quiet. In my case, I have chosen to tell the truth even if at gunpoint. Even if those who tell lies were freed or paid for telling lies, I would still choose to tell the truth. It is in my DNA. It is not something I’m forging.
In the past, liars used to be rejected by girls to marry. Though a liar had a hundred cows, the girl’s parents would not accept him conduct his marriage. It was traditionally believed that “a lie is a hyena of marriage”. To me, a lie is not only a hyena of marriage but a hyena of all the things a lair does in life. Lying was a very small thing in the beginning.
I do not know what promoted it to a level that can never be brought back like this. There must be a promoting factor for it. Could it be politics? Or could it be comedy? Could it be both? Yes, it could be both politics and comedy. Politicians talk as if they are suffering from psychosis, and everyone thinks saying what is not true is a good thing. Comedians crack jokes which are entirely untrue, and they earn a lot of followers for it, and everybody thinks comedy is a good thing.
Unless liars have a translator for the Bible, there is no verse in the Bible that tells people to tell lies. Every Bible goes against lies. A popular verse says, “Tell the truth so that the truth sets you free”. Liars read it as if it says, “Tell lies so that lies set you free”. However big a liar may be, I see him like a small boy. He is a nobody. There is no person I disrespect like a liar. When a liar tells me that I should not follow this road because there is a hyena over there, I tell you, I will choose to take that road because I know he is lying to me.
If you want to quieten a liar in his false-coating conversation, do not call police officers or pick a gun and shoot him, just call a truth-teller to join your conversation. He will shut up and run away as fast as his legs can take him. If he takes courage to remain seated, you will see him fiddling because fear has gripped him upon seeing the truth-teller. When a truth-teller opens his mouth to untie the knot of lies, you would see the liar’s temperature rising exponentially and when you touch him, he feels extremely warm. He has caught fever.
Do not give a damn to a liar. Tell him you are lying so that he may not lie again tomorrow. If he continues lying, continue telling him you are lying. If you give a damn to a liar, he will get used to lying and you will be accounted for it. However much you are benefitting from liars, be they politicians, tycoons, Army Generals, or any of your Godfathers, please try reforming them to become truth-tellers. If they resist you, do not let what you get from them push you to become a liar too. Be a truth-teller so that liars catch a fever when you sneeze.
The author is a medical student, University of Juba.