By Malek Arol Dhieu
Who knew there would be wars after independence in South Sudan except the one who knew there would be wars? Who knew there exactly would be wars except those who planned to cause them? That day, that particular day when the flag was raised to fly high in the sky, every South Sudanese became euphoric for nothing other than for being a first-class citizen. This happened because all hopes were tethered around independence, and that, plans of prosperity were all wished to start as early as 2012 or 2013.
From the faces, you could judge that all what South Sudanese needed to succeed in life was on the table. When you climbed a tower and had a look at the aerial view of Juba, you could conclude that Juba was growing exponentially. And when you mistook to delay in towns and started to come home at the hours of 6,7 and 8 PM, you could think you were in Nairobi as jams were thick and long, and more interestingly, when you peeped at the window to see how far you have reached, you could see how luminous Juba was.
So many dreams came in to people’s minds as almost every South Sudanese resisted challenges of survival. If you want your ground of dreams to be vast and attractive, hook up the mouths of the challenges of survival, I mean tackle the challenges of survival very formidably to allow you tackle what makes you tackle the challenges of survival. You are a hero or heroine in understanding if you have understood me here. All these brilliant dreams were dreamt because the environment for dreaming was conducive, in that, dreams were flowing day and night. South Sudan was warless and was expected to remain peaceful as nothing could be fought for again when South Sudan people had fought for is at hand ready to be watered and raised by all.
As people were dreaming to canoe South Sudan to the other side of the river where justice, prosperity, development and liberty were offered to growing countries such as South Sudan, a group of people planned very blindly to stop and drive South Sudan back to where it was. Having succeeded in canoeing South Sudan far much back beyond where it embarked on its journey to befriend liberty, prosperity, justice and development, such group of people scattered overseas to preach the gospel of bellicism. Because of them, South Sudanese were/are referred to as warmongers, disunited, disharmonious, inhumane people and so many other provocative names that tarnish images of South Sudanese.
During that period, all the dreams were miscarried as what people struggled for was to survive. When peace was signed, dreams began to reappear half by half, one by one and two by two, but reports still show that day dreams are nowhere to be dreamt about and you know they are the dreams that come true. It is high time to re-dream because dreams rid the world of poverty, hunger, war, corruption, dynasty and tribalism which are believed to have been the diseases of South Sudan.
The author is a medical student, University of Juba.