– We sang songs of joy, we laughed our hearts out, we praised unsung heroes, and we partied until dawn. Our regular thieving police and military for some reason could not stop vehicles, nor check the cheerful mob. No checkpoints were functional; and there were no serious security breaches.
BY CHRISTOPHER OPOKA
I saw malnutrition in the reddened hair of the children and registered thousands-fold infections in the eyes that turned to sheepishly stare at me as I passed. I examined goiters that spoke of lack of minerals and of typhoid problems. I listened to hundreds of coughs. I examined infected bullet wounds, badly healed machete scars, and the lessons of HIV-Aids. And, there I stood, with a modest flag of a Republic born, studying the pride of a Republic in suffering.
It could not be the issue of tribes because there are so many. It could not have been regions because there are so many too. It could not be religion because there are so many, and it is a fact that many of our forefathers nor believed in the biblical God, or the Koranic Allah. It could not be resources because we have oil, gold, uranium, the Nile waters, Timber, and vast arable land. It could only be an idea that would encompass all those things. A conundrum, but one that other nations like India, Brazil and Malaysia faced and — fundamentally solved.
An idea that would encompass us all as one people has for a long time eluded our history. But until the previous two weeks, we had never witnessed a unity far beyond what the 1972 Addis-Ababa Agreement brought, far stronger than the remains of the 1998 Khartoum Peace Agreement. Unity even eluded the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement.
No Thieving Police
The Unity of the masses was far more joyful than the anger of the Egyptian, Libyan, Tunisian uprisings combined. We sang songs of joy, we laughed our hearts out, we praised unsung heroes and we partied until dawn. Our regular thieving police and military for some reason could not stop vehicles, nor check the cheerful mob. No checkpoints were functional; and there were no serious security breaches.
We are a multitude of ethnic groups, tribes, religions and languages, the largest country then in Africa (and even now we shall be almost the size of Uganda and Kenya combined) and with the potential to be one of the richest countries in the region. We are the country where all this worked.
We must rise and rise high. We must stand and be counted, either for failing in our attempt to bring sanity to our land and people, or for invigorating the fight and desire for a better Greater Equatoria foremost, but for a united South Sudan whence the others align with us for this noble cause.
We have what unites us and this bondage must be nurtured and fed daily, hourly, every month and every year with the best, purest of milk brands, with the best semi-solid foods, with the best, and noblest of ideologies that respect the freedom and rights of others and their economic prosperity as our very own.
Opoka Christopher is a Journalism Trainer and can be reached at HYPERLINK “mailto:krismakes@live.com” krismakes@live.com
