By Akol Arop Akol
Peace is not all about paper agreement or words of mouth, it is seen in behaviors and coexistence with others. Fighting and faking reconciliation at the end without talking to your brother, sister or visiting your neighbor is not peace.
Silencing guns is not the only way of bringing peace. There are a lot of things to be stopped and improved to give it a real meaning. When there is ethnic division among communities, the members could not be able to do exchange of services between them. When there is poor economy, hunger and lack of access to daily basic needs such as learning, it therefore shows that there is no peace. A Sustainable peace is experienced when citizens are talking about how to expand their businesses and become rich, they also think of which country to visit for adventure. But when civilians think of where to get bread, transport money or school fees every month without improvement, that’s a sign of absence of peace.
In order to get a real peace in towns, and everywhere including grassroots, the standards of living should improve. This can’t happen overnight, it should not be a dream but a task for the leaders and the citizens to embark on agriculture and Entrepreneurship. All the youth can’t be accommodated in jobs by government but another way of helping them is setting up vocational training centers where they would acquire skills.
Instead of leaving them to carry only gym when jobless and end up robbing people or engaging in relationships with old rich women for survival they need a serious empowerment to use that energy to load and empty commercial trucks and get paid.
Peace is connected to Entrepreneurship in a way that without entrepreneurs to identify social and economic problems in our families, communities and Societies, and therefore, people fail to get their basic needs. Limited resources and lack of authority to give them equal rights, opportunities and assign them for citizenship duties may arise to misunderstanding which can cause eruption of crisis among them. They simply choose conflict as the alternative to get their expectations.
So, it requires entrepreneurs to create jobs opportunities for everyone to live a better life in peace with others around.
When we talk about promoting peace, let it not be by preaching words. Someone whose cattle are stolen, crops destroyed or a fresh jobless graduate cannot be in peace with himself or herself leave alone with others. Most of the crimes being committed by young people and communal fighting are triggered by poverty. People with poor living standards cannot have their minds changed to accept peace because they are hunger.
It is only through promotion of Entrepreneurship to address social and economic problems that will build sustainable peace among communities of South Sudanese. If everyone is busy learning or working, there will be no reason to go to the neighborhood or social media to promote hate speech. Most of those promoting hatred and tribalism are jobless youth, if they are empowered, they will be better people who focus on education, peace and development.
This Motivational Writer is advocating for Peace, Youth Empowerment and education. Reach him on +211924652692 or email: akolarop211@gmail.com