If you do not know what belongs to you, expect someone to live at your expense. If you know what belongs to you, but do not ask for it, then do not complain why you share a room with a horrible thing called “poverty” year in, year out.
What is that thing which belongs to you? That thing which belongs to you is your right; something which cannot be taken away from you. You can be deprived of all other things, but you can’t be deprived of your right. By the time you are deprived of your right, the deprivation has reached a level where you will not be the one to fight for your right alone.
What do you think is your right? So many people think their right is another big thing that looks like an elephant, little did they know that even when you are prevented from meeting your representative, that one is your right and you must fight for it, even if it means fighting for it to the level of the court of law.
When you are denied access to health services, do not think it is something small to keep quiet with. Talk to your authority to grant you access to health services, if not, then go to the neutral body “Court of Law” to help you out. If you are denied right to education, then do not say education is not even for our forefathers, sit down and keep quiet with it. As we speak, the light of the world is education and as it is, how long would you stay in darkness? Come out, face the authority and tell it frankly that it is your right to acquire education.
When you talk and someone tells you to keep quiet or else, he puts you in prison, that is called freedom of expression and what that person is doing to you is called denial of your right to express yourself. Everyone, including those who prevent freedom of expression, is allowed by the law to express him/herself.
Though there are limitations to this right, the authority is wrong to deny it, but is right to limit it. Do not say if the authority needs me to keep quiet, let me keep quiet. Though you keep quiet, trust me the authority will never come to you one day and tell you that you are now allowed to express yourself. If that wouldn’t be a full miracle, then it would be half a miracle. While the authority denies you freedom of expression, keep speaking up, it is your right to express yourself.
If you hail from a certain area and this area is not connected to the city, then it is your infrastructural right to ask your authority for connectivity. If you go to bed with a rattling stomach today, tomorrow and next tomorrow, then do not wait anymore or say the authority feeds the citizens only when there is famine, you may starve to death. It is your right to be fed, the authority is obliged to feed the citizens whether there is famine or not.
If you go inside your room at night and someone comes and robs you or robs you at the daytime, you need not to go to a magician to give you protection. Report it to your authority and ask for protection, it is your right to be protected. If prices have shot up to a level you can’t afford two meals a day, it is your right to tell the authority to reduce them to an affordable level.
If water systems and electricity are fixed only in houses inhabited by army Generals and government officials, then it is your right to ask a question that, am I not a South Sudanese? Do not stop there, go ahead, ask more touching questions and fight for the extension of water system and electricity to your house. Plus a number of other rights, you must fight for.
It does not make one a bad citizen to ask for your right. The authority in Africa generally and South Sudan in particular, does not come and say, here is your right, take it. That would be a miracle! If the authority does not give you your right, fight for it.
The author is a medical student, University of Juba.