It has reached a dismaying point where people are living by autophagy or self-eating. In layman’s jargon, autophagy is an act of eating oneself. This is a pathologic term and because it fits the status quo, I beg to lend it for usage.
Autophagy (self-eating) refers to the lysosomal digestion of the cell’s own components. It is a survival mechanism in times of nutrient deprivation so that the starved cell can live by eating its own contents and recycling these contents to provide nutrients and energy. In this process, intracellular organelles and portions of cytosol are first sequestered within an autophagic vacuole, whose formation is initiated by cytosolic proteins that sense nutrient deprivation.
As far as South Sudan is concerned, autophagy refers to people’s consumption of their own dignity and future for living. It is a survival mechanism in times of economic crisis so that the starved people can live by eating their own belongings and recycling these belongings to provide food. In this process, properties such as mattresses, utensils, beds, bedsheets, cars, clothes, TVs, plots of land, jewellery, belts, shoes, furniture, to mention a few, are first sold away to make sure survival is met as people await enhancement of the economy.
As fluctuant as our economy, self-eating deepens by forcing people to sell their dignity for survival. Enforcement agencies say they force people, but hunger overrides them in forcing people to do all it takes to remain breathing. Because of hunger, gentlemen are selling their handsomeness to those termed as sugar mummies who enslave them to do maid’s jobs so as to survive and help their parents back home. What is ‘sugary’ about these mummies? Let us call them by their right name; enslaving mummies, period!
The same survival mechanism forces youth to be fooled, I mean tooled as human weapons to take up arms against their beloved nation or get employed as gossipers. The same hunger has not spared ladies. From the cover of the ladies’ book written an autophagic phrase “We are too beautiful to suffer”. ‘Too beautiful to suffer’ means that ladies are selling their beauties to sugar daddies for survival.
What is “sugary” about these daddies who lust their own daughters? Ladies and gentlemen combined; they are eating themselves for nothing other than for survival. Nearly all South Sudanese are surviving by self-eating as can be evidenced by notices of properties being advertised for sale. The widespread hunger has returned other families to ancient times when people slept on mats, walked barefooted, wore beltless trousers, ate wild foods, and slept in huts or caves, among others.
Once well-off dignitaries are selling their properties, including cars and residences so as to survive in this period of economic meltdown. Is this not self-eating? Job seekers, whether males or females are also eating their selves to get jobs so as to put their people into the survival buckets. Almost every female job seeker is a prime victim of sexual exploitation, and almost every male job seeker is a member of illuminati in which people either sell parts of their own bodies or members of their families. Is this not self-eating?
If parents eat dowries of their unmarried daughters, is this not self-eating? What boosts self-eating to the core is the fact that it has been taken as an advantage by the authorities to tie people’s mouths not to talk to them, but to remain committed to searching for what to eat. Of all people living today, many have consumed their properties and so, they move singing only one song in their hearts; “stability” (peace) so that the remainder of their belongings are rescued from being eaten.
To me, I have a different view of this very unending economic crisis. I see it like there is someone who provokes it to become brave and kill people. I see it like a cooked thing. I see it like it is a tactic by the people in power to match the citizens in wrestling with this giant hunger so that there will be no way for them to comment on the status quo. Each week, the economy continues deteriorating. Commodities continue attaining different prices. And the worst of all, the government goes quiet about it. I doubt the naturality of this hunger.