By Ngor Khot Garang
To me and with the inequality I have seen in this country, I have come into the conclusion that prison rations, no matter how meager they may be, are more generous than table crumbs on a table with so much food.
The man in the condemned cell is not so scantily fed as that by the executioner; to reduce oneself, then, of one’s own free choice to a diet that no man has any real call to be apprehensive about even if he is sentenced to death, that is an act of greatness. To be great is when those below you are great too, that is equality.
As a country that has seen so much and went through the darkest moments at a very young age, there is a lot to address if one was given a chance and if not then one has a lot to talk about. We are in the mouth of the shark and we all know what it means to be there. There is no coming back if nothing is done now because we can only end up in the shark’s stomach, then the digestion will not take a great deal of time but it is never too late to convince the shark.
From the government to the people and the critics of these people, we are partly to blame if there is something we feel is not right with us. We can travel back to our great country ten years back and we shall have something to blame ourselves if we imagine the present and the future that awaits each one of us.
Of course we can put all the blame upon the government for slow progress and the reverse of the vision we had before but I can tell you, our government is the mirror, it is just we don’t like our reflection. The early we accept this, the better for us and the children yet unborn.
The system is but a result of the people who have failed to connect the fact that we are one people and this the only county we have. You cannot find a good government with bad people, if the people are good, the government will be doing great. So if you blame the government, we should also blame the people for all that comes with our suffering.
If you have been following the news, a day will not go without the news of people who have been killed on the high ways and everywhere. Most of these killings are as a result of the political divide and hatred but the good part of it is that we are all paying for everything that we create. It is the same South Sudan and we are the one to break it or fix it but it has been broken already.
What pride do you find in a country where almost 90 percent of the younger population is unemployed? The young people who had studied hard and done everything that they were supposed to do continue to face a stark choice: remaining unemployed or accepting a job far below that for which they were qualified. This is the country we fought for. Don’t forget robbery.
In many cases there was not even a choice for these young people: there simply were no jobs, and hadn’t been for years. One interpretation of the long delay in the arrival of mass protests is that, in the aftermath of the crisis, there is hope in democracy, faith that the political system would work, that it would hold accountable those who had brought on the crisis and quickly repair the economic system.
But after the years of patience, it became clear that our political system doesn’t care about us, just as it had failed to prevent a number of crises including an ailing economy, it has failed to check the growing inequality, to protect those at the bottom, to prevent the corporate abuses.
There is no doubt, we are a country that relies on foreign food to get by. If we are not doomed, how do we expect our neighbors to feed us for years? I am sorry, very disappointed but wait, there is a good country that wastes away daily. We can produce our food here and better our lives here, there is no better South Sudan than what we have but we are slaves at heart.
It has become a culture that we treat foreigners better than fellow South Sudanese and we think that we will be fine, I am sorry. I know that we have wronged ourselves so many times but it is us at the end of the day. We have to sit down and solve our own problems because one thing is certain, we shall all die.
We don’t know when but surely it will happen, the problem is the future that has been stabbed in the back. The future of our children and the South Sudan that we shall leave for them.
In the age of crises, the best solution is not from the government or God. If you have been praying and fasting for God to change our dire situation, you are sick and you need to see a doctor. Our unity is our strength and the only solution to all our problems. If you I found you on the way sick, I don’t have to know where you come from or who you are, all I have to do is to save your life by taking you to the nearest health center.
Take the same scenario where you need help and you run to a government official you have been supporting for years only to be rejected at the foresight that he doesn’t know you. We as the common citizens have a lot in common and the only way to break through is to remain united both in happiness and in sadness, in pain and joy.
Thanks for reading; the writer is a law student, University of Juba