bY: LUKE KUTH DAK
bY: LUKE KUTH DAK
Dr. Martin Luther King,Jr. once said: ” The only thing you can control is your attitude. It’s your most important asset if it’s positive. It’s your greatest problem if it’s negative. Your positive attitude will take you to wonderful places you have never been before, and negative one will destroy you and all that you come in contact with.”
Historically, Southern Sudanese in general respected the Nuer people, and they credited them for their bravery,dignity, integrity and honesty. They were seen as a people you can turn to, not from. To laugh with, not at. And their good name reputation has never been questioned, except in the past few years.
Today, it’s worrisome that the greater Nuer community is full of politicians and severely short on leaders. It’s even more troublesome that some of the self-proclaimed leaders, the like of one of the Islamic National Front darling golden boys, Riek Gai Kok and the so-called professor, David de Chand, are pouring venom into the good name and reputation of the Nuer people, who neither elected them, nor authorized them to sell the South on their behaves.
Clearly, there is a thick line between a politician and a leader. Tavis Smiley, a nationally syndicated TV and Radio personality in the African- American community said that: ” Leadership is not an ” I ” proposition. It’s a ” you ” proposition. When you do that, the public elevates you. They give you their trust. They hold you accountable.
Southern Sudanese are all too familiar with Reik Gai Kok and David de Chand, particularly the former. Who would have forgotten the statement he made, a few years ago – standing along side Dr. Ammer Mussa, the Secretary General of the Arab League, when he claimed that: ” Southern Sudan is part and parcel of the Arab and Islamic Nation.
Mr. Kok, who continues to allow himself to play the role of the cleaning boy of the dirty under gourmands of his lovers in the terrorist regime of tyrant Omar Al Basheer, made a similar claim- just three weeks ago, in Alray Alaam Arabic daily newspaper, that: ” The Dinka land of Abyie, belongs in the Northern Sudan.
Now, what do the Nuer people think about this crime being committed by someone with an adjective of a Nuer leader? Isn’t shameful that one of us would utter such a deadly calling that not even our worst adversaries will never dare repeat? how about the general rule that says: If a crime is being committed in front of you and, you do not do anything about it, that you are intact as guilty as the criminal as well? And why- in the World- would the Nuer community allows these people to roam around ripping apart the Nuer reputation and good name?
Riek Gai Kok has every right to go to bed and spend the knight with whomever he pleases. But he must do so under his own name, and the Nuer people out of it all.
Concerning the so-called professor David de Chand- just look at how he calls himself. This’ a guy who can not even read his own hand-writing. His logic- respectively, is that of a fifth-grader. I live here in Atlanta, Ga. where he claims to have had obtained his questionable PH.D. Please don’t take my words for it. But any Southerner, Nuer in particular, who were here during that time, know the whole truth about it. I plan to bring that to the open in the very near future.
Nuer community needs to pull together one more time. We, and only we, are the ones to look after our good name and reputation. And in this case, we didn’t.
Luke Kuth Dak, is a former radio juba anchorman.
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