South Sudan future will be brighter

By Luk Kuth Dak

March 15, 2010 — As human beings, it feels good- sometimes- to know that we’re being missed and appreciated, particularly when we take a little time away from our day-to-day activities. Surly, as a journalist, it feels even better when the readers miss you and long for your contribution, especially in times of needs and deeds as it’s the case in the Sudan, the country we all hold dear and cherish.

Exactly, that was the case here these past few days, during which my weekly column was nowhere to be seen on the pages of a wide variety of newspapers, particularly in South Sudan. As a result, I was mocked by one of my dreariest friends, Ustaz Majok Arou, the distinguished Sudanese journalist and a former Professor at Wau University. He thought that I must have been goofing off somewhere in the United States of America (USA) that my enthusiasm in writing about our just causes had somehow diminished, or took the back seat among my priorities. “ Is it too cold for any activities?, he asked.”

Well, in many ways, Majok, was absolutely right. In fact, since I first set foot to USA a couple of decades long ago and counting, there had been some harsh winters and some mile ones, per se, but by far, this winter ( about to wrap up, thank goodness) was certainly one of the most brutal, the messiest, the coldest and the snowiest in decades, that blanketed the whole of the northern America, that in fact, for several days, even the most powerful man in the world, President Barrack Obama, was confined only to the White House. It also brought to his knees, Ezekiel Lol Gatkouth, one of the most active members of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement and it’s diplomatic chief in Washington, D.C. “ I can’t go anywhere,” he complained.”

Back to the title. Yes, It’s baffling enough to know about the ludicrous, mean-spirited, ill-intended fictitious speculations made by the pit bulls skunks of the Islamic National Front (NIF) along with their boot-licker in the “ Southern golden boys” club, that the future of an independent South Sudan is all but uncertain.

Said Vet. Doctor, Nafia Ali Nafia, the Presidential Advisor and the regime’s strongman, “ We’re afraid about the future of South Sudan, if separates, he claimed.” “ It has no ports to export its oil; it will have to come through the north, he asserted, rhetorically.”

Obviously, it’s all about oil . But in reality, however, it’s quite the opposite. Against all odds, South Sudan will be one of the most- if the most- successful countries in the region. In fact, it already is, if you consider the amounts natural resources and of course, all of businesses and investments that have been pouring in from the surrounding countries: e.g. Eritrea, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Central African Republic, Egypt and some other countries, to name just a few.

Therefore, if you are a true South Sudanese, you should be outraged when you hear those naked insulting lies and misguided misconceptions, right off the bat. Because, in truth, what those NIF bigots are suggesting is nothing more than questioning our intelligence and the ability- as a people-to care of ourselves, let alone governing an independent state of any kind.

Now, do you find that acceptable? I don’t.

Unfortunately, even as we continue to mourn our loved ones, who were brutally and savagely butchered like animals, by the NIF regime, I find it unbelievable that there is no anger and an outrage in South Sudan over such racially motivated presumptuous belittling attempts, about the future of the South if, indeed, it happens to be in the hands of its own sons and daughters!!

Indeed, it’s quite chilling and disheartening to see the architect of the modern Holocaust, Omer Hassan Ahmed Al-Bashir being painted as a hero; not the devil he is, in the very areas that not so long ago, he had turned them into morgues.

For the obvious reasons, Al-Bashir, ( flanked by his campaign managers, Lt. Gen. Joseph Lagu and Ustaz Bona Malwal), carefully picked the West and East Equatoria states to launch his campaign in the South. Of course, al Basher was here to continue what he does best: divide –and rule the Southerners on tribal line.

The funniest thing, however, was when he admitted that he had no clue whether or not there were universities in the two states. Now, the real question is: how could he possibly not know that the reasons why there were no such institutions, in the first place, was because his racist radical regime was building more Mosques and Islamic centers than schools in South Sudan, as a foreground of the massive Arabization and Islamization policies?!

If I had my say in this, Al-Bashir, instead, should have been emasculated upon arrival.

But by warmly welcoming him (Al-Bashir) in the South, we have –in fact- sent an ambiguous message to the all of our friends around the globe, who have supported our just cause. We have told the world that: we are all but a people with no sense of history and with short memory about all of the atrocities of his regime. Either that, or we simply just do not give a damn about the over two million lives his Jihad war had claimed in South Sudan.

Here, I, respectfully, find myself in disagreement with my dear friend, Ustaz Isaiah Abraham, in that, a vote for Omer Al-Bashir, in the up-coming election, is a vote for more genocide, Arabizatin, Islamization and enslavement in South Sudan, and certainly, in all the of the marginalized areas.

We don’t need that painful chapter to repeat itself! We have come a long way away since 1956, and I think that it’s now that the bigots should know that we’re not about to turn around to the Long nights of oppression and tortures. It’s too late for anyone to tell us what our future will look like. It’s nobody else’s’ business but ours!

No matter what others think, our future will be bright. No doubt about that.

The author is free-lance journalist and a former anchorman with Juba Radio. He can be reach at: [email protected].