What if your father were a bank robber, would you accept to continue from where he stopped at in robbery? What if your father were a killer? Assuming your father had killed 30 people, would you accept to pick your gun, go out and start gunning people down just as an impression of furthering your father’s legacy?
What if your father were a criminal, would you accept to continue committing crimes? What if your father were a gossiper, would you continue selling other people’s secrets just like your father did? What if your father were a rapist, would you continue raping girls and women just because you are bringing your father’s legacy to climax?
Not everyone should take the statement “we continue from where our fathers stopped” positively and work on it. The only person to continue from where his father stopped at is the son of a peacemaker. If your father were a peacemaker, you could not wait to be told to follow your father’s footsteps. You are the right person to further your father’s legacy beyond furtherance itself.
In those days, the most respected people were warriors. So, every man was trained as a warrior to protect his people. A super warrior was always chosen as a king and the whole lot became a culture. Every man was a killer. Every man was a trigger of a certain communal conflict. Every man was a cattle raider. Every man was a rapist. Every man was a lawbreaker, including the king himself because sometimes, he led people to war.
So, children were told to continue from where their fathers stopped, and where did their fathers stop? Their fathers stopped at the junction between waging a fresh communal fight and going for a revenge killing. Is this a right to continue? To the worst point, other children whose fathers were killed could frankly be told that your fathers were killed by So and So, and that, when you grow up, you have to retaliate for your fathers. What would these children do? They would grow up practicing how to kill.
This is said to be the reason why communal conflicts are not coming to an end. Children are told to continue from where their fathers stopped. This definitely means they should get trained to shoot without missing. I mean they should practice cattle raiding, revenge killings and all other sorts of practices their fathers grew old and died while doing.
The whole country suffers backwardness because a child of a criminal does not create a different path but becomes a criminal in the future to further his father’s legacy. A child of a corrupt individual does not say my father was wrong to be corrupt and that, I should work hard to erase it. But he becomes more corrupt than his father was. The same thing applies to other children.
Children should be told to follow in the footsteps of those who do good. If your father had been involved in anything which brings peace, harmony, coexistence, and unity, then you are the right person to continue from where your father stopped. But if your father were a warlord, criminal, bank robber, gossiper, or killer, then you need to create a new path where you would be so committed to washing away the black legacy of your father. It is a myth saying that we continue from where our fathers stopped.
Thanks for reading “Sowing the Seed of truth”.
The author is a medical student, University of Juba.