I have come to learn that saying your view of others or your view of the status quo is the hardest thing on earth. People know who they are, but when I tell them who exactly they are, it is as if I have caught a lion by the tail. But if I mistake to tell what they are, they almost call for an emergency meeting to discuss how to eliminate me.
I’m cornered! A corrupt individual pointed at my eyes in front of me, threatening to harm me if I dare write another article on corruption. A sycophant praising a thief wishes to see me in a coffin almost every day so that no one would oppose his sycophancy again. A marara scholar consults one JuJu man after another, trying hard to charm me to go mute or die.
A jealous person, either from the writers themselves or someone who feels jealous of someone’s success, prays to God, begging for thunder to strike me. A member of my clan or family, who thinks what I’m doing will elevate me to a level that he and his children will hardly reach, slaughters a black chick today and a brown goat tomorrow, asking gods to pull me down each time I climb a new ladder step.
A Human Resource Manager who has read one of my articles, discouraging VIP and government officials’ recommendations for jobs, wishes to find me among the applicants so that he can teach me a lesson. One, two, three or so government employees loyal to the immediate former Minister of Finance and Planning, who, upon his relieve, lost their jobs, take their swords for sharpening every day to harm me because they think the minister was relieved because of my trending article entitled “a soldier has named his 5th child Weu Aliu”.
A politician who recruits youth to fight for him in the bush and when integrated, abandons these youth, after reading my article entitled “I’m too big to enter my uncle’s pocket”, prays to get power so as to deal with me accordingly. MPs representing constituencies emptied by hunger and communal clashes, whom I advocate never to revote them in the forthcoming 2024 elections, almost raised a motion about me in the parliament to make a law that can shut me down. And a lot of more other people.
Anyone touched by the truth in my opinion is not happy with me and that, he/she wishes something bad should happen to me. I never move like I used to move before. When I go this road, I make sure I return to that road, I never use the same road. I never eat in any restaurant like I used to do before. I never interact like I used to do before. This is because I feel like one of those who are not happy with me can simply find an opportunity to harm me.
I can’t stand narrating a story that I almost ran away when I met a person and he closely looked at me as if matching my picture with a picture of someone who killed his relative. And when I heard him saying excuse me, I increased my strides, but he understood it and quickly said, I’m your reader, Mr. Malek.
Having heard that, I stopped and waited for him. We introduced ourselves to one another and he broke into appreciating what I am doing. I appreciated him back and then we parted ways. That would be my last day if he were someone with an intent to harm me but thank God he was a harmless reader.
I can withdraw from writing, but the truth remains that the articles I have written are so hurting and that, I would still be wanted. If I continue writing, I will put my liberty under attack. I have lost my freedom completely. I move with my tail curled inside me like a dog roaming in a strange territory. I would not regain my previous status where I used to move with my arms swinging proudly, head up and my legs stepping on the ground slowly as if I’m related to the soil.
The author is a medical student, University of Juba.