Viva John Garang (3-6)

By Setepano Wöndu

July 27, 2008 — It is July and the voice of John Garang bellows loud and clear in my ears. On August 29th 2004, he was speaking in Phoenix, Arizona. Although the conference was organized by the Lost Boys in the United States and Canada, the message was for all our youth; boys and girls, all over the world. Today, let that voice come alive and let all our Diaspora listen to Dr John:

“I appreciate and applaud your tenacity and courage throughout the difficult years of our struggle as a group and I applaud your personal struggle as individuals. I salute your great spirit of survival and steadfastness. And I commend you for the firm commitment to the cause of our people despite all the hardships and suffering you have gone through. While in America, many Americans have assisted you in many ways and touched your lives, whether as families, in workplaces or in schools. There are people in your lives here in America who assisted you in your hour of need. I do not know these Americans; they are fellow human beings, who have assisted. I take this opportunity to thank them very, very, profoundly.

I congratulate you for having been very clear of who you are and what you stand for. I congratulate your leadership and for having been good ambassadors for Southern Sudan, for the New Sudan and for the SPLM/A. Your Movement had always wanted to prepare you to be the future leaders of our nation. This is still the purpose; you are the generation that shall develop the New Sudan. Even though the difficulties and events of our struggle have separated many of you from the Movement and some have scattered all over the world yet the aim is not lost. This is why I chose to come to your conference, to meet you and for you to meet me again and share these sentiments of a wonderful reunion together.

The second point I want to bring to you is that you know who you are, you know from where you come, you know where you are and most importantly of all you know what you want and where you want to return to one day, home. You are not the lost boys as some people refer to you. But this is okay, Lost Boys is your nickname. When I was a small boy in Tonj Primary School, I too had a nickname; I was called Namasa because my Twic tongue pronounced “L” as “N” in the Arabic word Lamasa. I accepted the nickname Namasa and even responded to it whenever I was so called. But I knew my real name was John Garang. I knew who I was and I knew what I wanted. And so Lost Boys is your nickname, and you should have no problem with it. What is important is not to lose your bearings, to have your bearings correct, to know where you came from, where you are now and where you are going next. The famous Zande King Budwe had more than 90 nicknames, and in Islam God has ninety nine nicknames, but these refer to the same person. You have at least two nicknames – Jesh Hamar and Lost Boys. As you can see in the case of King Budwe and in the case of Almighty God; it is famous people that have nicknames; you are famous! What is important is what you do with this fame.

Although you have been given the name of Lost Boys you are certainly not lost; you know where you are and you are no longer boys, you are now men. You know who you are and what you want; you know your real name; you are freedom fighters for a New and better Sudan; you are SPLM youth who have come to America to look for an education and opportunity; you are the future of our country; you are our leaders of tomorrow, and tomorrow is already here. I have come to wake you up and remind you that your day has come, tomorrow is already here and so take over leadership of your Movement, take over leadership of the SPLM/A; you have very little time left to prepare yourselves to take over that leadership in whatever fields: in agriculture, carpentry, architecture, medicine, politics, economics, in raising a family…all these require leadership and all contribute to building the New Sudan for which we have fought and sacrificed for over the last twenty one years.

The SPLM/A fought the war and negotiated the agreement. It is the SPLM/A that will guarantee the implementation of the agreement. Having said this, I don’t want to be misunderstood. I want to assure you all that there will be enough room for everyone including those who have not been associated with the SPLM/A, even those who for one reason or other were opposed or against the SPLM/A. I want in this regard to assure all our people everywhere that there shall be room in all the structures that we shall set up at all levels for everybody who wishes to participate. Surely, it is true that there is enough room for everybody in the GOSS, in the state governments of the two areas, in the Central Government and other national institutions, in the thirteen States of the North, in the Abyei Executive Council, in the SPLA and in the integrated units. By way of this assurance I quote the Gospel of John 14:1-2. Jesus said:

Do not be worried and upset

Believe in God and believe also in me.

There are many rooms in my Father’s house, and

I am going to prepare a place for you.

I would not tell you this if it were not true”.

When John Garang spoke these words, I had no doubt that he was talking about going to Juba to prepare for the return of our refugees and displaced population. I did not even entertain the possibility that Dr John somehow had the premonition that he might not live long enough to lead us to the ‘Promised Land’. Jesus Christ knew that his time had come because he had divine powers. Dr Martin Luther King was human but he hinted at his own demise by suggesting that he might ‘not be there with you’ in the American society he was dreaming of; where the individual worth would be judged, not by the color of his/her skin, but by the content of his/her character.

Today, when I recall the face of John Garang as he said those words in John 14, I remember seeing something strange in his eyes. He looked different from the one I had worked with for the last twelve years. During the war, even when we had very difficult financial, political or military situations, he was always jovial, confident, and brave. Ironically, John Garang looked tired and weary after his triumph in Naivasha. Did he know or suspect that his hour was near? Was this the real reason for making the long trip to Arizona? What was in the back of his mind when he said he had traveled ‘to meet you and for you to meet me again and share these sentiments of a wonderful reunion’? What was the agency to wake up the youth to assume the leadership of the SPLM/A. He answered it, because “… your day had come, tomorrow is already here”? In other words, his time had expired and he was joining the generation of history.

[To be continued]

The author is the Sudan’s Ambassador to Japan