Seed of South Sudan

by Majok Marier

  “In our discussions with the government of Sudan, we laid out … a very detailed road map for how we could work to improve our bilateral relationship in a step-by-step fashion, in accordance with actions taken by the government, and actions that would be reciprocated by us. The first step in that process was to see the successful conclusion of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. A crucial element of that was, of course, the referendum.”

  Now, she said, things depend on the status of Abyei. “Rather than dealing with it at the negotiating table, the government moved forces into Abyei and continue to occupy it—since May [now withdrawn]. There is the issue of revenue-sharing and oil. There’s the issue of the disputed border areas. There’s the issue of ensuring that citizens of the North and the South have certain rights that are respected and ensured in their respective countries. All of these are formal parts of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, as is the status of Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan, where fighting is raging. So these are all issues that we can’t sweep under the rug and pretend are not part of the CPA.”13

  In addition to the interest of the United States, Canada, and Australia, there is interest in South Sudan from many other countries. China, which built the oil pipeline from Heglig (Panthou) to the North’s Port Sudan and developed the port itself, is keen to see the oil flow; India and Malaysia are partners in the enterprise. Japan’s Toyota has told South Sudan it wants to help develop a new pipeline that will bypass Sudan and access the Indian Ocean through Kenya, a very attractive prospect to South Sudan.14

  So South Sudan, the world’s newest country, carved out of the largest country in Africa, home of the White Nile River and the world’s largest swamp, and holder of oil and other unknown mineral resources as well as a climate ideal for many agricultural crops, has many challenges, and many opportunities ahead of it.

  Fifteen

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  Warriors in a Different Kind of War

  In the Second Civil War, the one that chased me from my home, it is estimated that 2 million people in southern Sudan died and 4 million were displaced.1 This was the second war since British rule ended in 1956. In that first war, the one my grandmother referred to when she warned me about war coming again, many also died.

  The Dinka are not afraid of war, but there needs to be a different kind of war, one that uses our other gifts—the ability to meet together and discuss and find solutions that are more peaceful. In our journey to Ethiopia we were always conscious that an unintended action could affect us—someone could get mad, someone could easily harm us. In fact, the people who were most helpful to us as we journeyed were the women and the old people. Those men of fighting age remained silent and did not help us when we needed directions or food or other things. There are tribes within South Sudan that still have difficulty getting along with each other. Competition over cattle-grazing lands and water are big areas of disagreement.

  So the threat of conflict is always there. But we need to do better than that. We need to see ourselves in South Sudan as warriors in a new war—a war to bring ourselves up to the modern age in terms of infrastructure. We need to arm ourselves with new tools and new weapons. Chief among these is education. We need to build wells for water, roads for access, and we need to build schools and clinics.

  This emphasis on education goes against the old tradition among the Dinka and possibly other tribes. In fact, education was associated with schools, and schools were associated with towns, as only towns had enough people to attract students from the surrounding areas. For instance, I was designated to receive schooling, and the school was in another town, where I would go to live. When we were part of the former Sudan, everything would have been in Arabic, and only one son would be educated.

  In the old days before the SPLA, the Dinka did not trust the towns. Towns were where people learned non–Dinka ways. A boy might become subject to the attractions of the town and get involved in crime or drink, spoiling him for life as a Dinka cattle keeper. So the Dinka mistrusted schools, and the boy who was selected to be educated was one who was not so good at cattle keeping and other traditional duties of a Dinka male.

  Towns, too, were places where raids had occurred in the past when Arabs from the north invaded and took away children and girls, enslaving them over time. While this happened mostly to the Malual Dinka, in the northern Bahr el Ghazal area, it was still a threat to other Dinka, including the Agar Dinka. So opposed were the Agar Dinka to engaging with towns and outside cultures that they discouraged roads being built to their areas. Isolation was seen as a good thing. Between lack of access to their grazing lands and the Agar Dinka’s reputation as fierce warriors, the people remained relatively undisturbed by the hand of civilization.

  Now, since the 1980s, the Dinka attitude toward education has changed. People saw during the civil war that the soldiers who had positions of authority in the SPLA were like their leader, John Garang—educated. John Garang himself had been educated in Iowa, at Grinnell College and at Iowa State University, where he received a Ph.D.

  He spoke like a professor, but very clearly, and always emphasized reading and learning for all he spoke to. Our people quickly grasped the connection between being literate and gaining their freedom from domination by other groups.

  The attitudes toward engagement with the outside world have also changed. We now favor roads that can make it easier to get to clinics. We want the water service and the telephone service and easier transportation so that we can get to other communities to be with relatives and to enhance our villages.

  So the Dinka now embrace education and engagement, although our traditions are still intact otherwise. These values include: respect for other tribes, care for our cattle, care for our families, consulting with each other in times of difficulty to reach agreement, high regard for elders, and the value of celebration—carrying on the intricate rites of dance and song and body decoration.

  Standing Up for Refugees

  I hope through this book to speak for the many refugees who remain in Kakuma and other refugee camps in Africa. While many Sudanese have left to return to their new country, there are many more taking their places from other conflicts and unstable areas; some remain from Sudan, others from Rwanda, and from Somalia as well as other areas experiencing crisis. In Syria, as I write this, more refugees are being created from the protracted war there. All of them share a common problem: They want to have a home, but they cannot go home. And conditions in the camps are never easy.

  We Lost Boys are the people who passed through different life experiences, cultures, weather, and languages. It is hard for any one of the Lost Boys not to communicate well because we acquired languages in order to survive. My dream is to make some people’s lives better through my book. I want readers to recognize the difficulties of children in refugee camps. I want refugee children around the world to know that Majok Marier from the Lost Boys of Sudan is standing up for you. I do know how hard it is in the refugee camps; I was there not so many years ago. I know it is not simple to be in the refugees’ situation. I hope my ideas will support many thousands of refugees right now around the world. I will encourage you to hope for the best in any difficult situation you are now in. I was a witness to people dying, young children dying, because they could not bear the thought of not having food they expected to have. You have to keep hope for the better, for a changed future sometime later in your life. I want you not to lose hope completely in your dreams.

  I am glad to have passed through this difficult situation of killing, starvation, thirst, and going without parents. I want my book to make change for everyone who has some issue in his or her life. For this person, I say this: I need you to make yourself like the Lost Boys of Sudan to be successful in your life. The Lost Boys are people who have long been patient regarding the difficulties they face in life. We are lacking many things in our lives still, but we are proud, and we are going on with our planning for our changed life every day. I love being a Lo
st Boy of Sudan, to have made this tough change in my lifetime, and to have survived. And I think my experiences can help some people to have the presence of mind to deal with any situation they are living in now.

  I hope every person reading this book now can have knowledge of at least this African country. There are many others, each with its own unique history and events to appreciate. I hope you can understand the difficulties that arose over our history. Sudan, a country that killed her own citizens every year, never fought any different nation in her history. The wars were waged on her own people, and the two civil wars that have resulted come from the native peoples’ refusal to be bound by the stupidity of the government’s leaders.

  A Call for African Unity

  While I spent nine years in Kenya in Kakuma Refugee Camp, I remember the beatings by the Kenyan police, the long lines for food desperately needed, and the attacks of the Turkana tribesmen that killed our residents. There were other mistreatments by our own southern Sudanese and Ethiopians as well. These were attacks on Africans by Africans. Kenya did not remember that we were African brothers, sisters, and neighboring country people. I do not blame its citizens so much, but leaders who did not set better rules for people to respect one another as the neighbors they were. Africans lack unity, forgiveness, support and the independence to solve their own problems. African leaders tend to love for outside people to solve their illegal affairs even though they are responsible for creating the problems. So how long are other people going to solve their problems? I am now ending up here in America where my life is based on paying confusing bills every day—far from my home country, not being as productive as I could for my country—as a result of these wars. This conflict needs to stop.

  Africa is a beautiful continent that is full of the best animals, oil, gold, diamonds, and open land. It is a center of many great foods and fruits of the world. She is created in the image of God, a beautiful continent with more than most areas of the world. We as Africans all abuse our beautiful land badly because of the war and conflict from our political parties. Africa is a center of war and diseases that are not cured, and our leaders are not ashamed of the number of Africans dying because of these. Most people look forward to visiting Africa to see beautiful animals they don’t have in their own countries. But our leaders do not take advantage of this opportunity to develop their countries. It is discouraging for African citizens to cry for help every year in their own home. This is a painful thing in my life as an African man in this world. I want African leaders to have dialogues and talks to save another generation, which is coming up now.

  I believe one day African people can come together to build a united Africa. We are crying for a whole Africa free of many things like AIDS, wars, starvation, corruption, and poor economics. We need clean water, schools conducive to learning, and clinics in our rural villages. I hope African leaders will think about people’s future, if my book can reach them. African leaders, you need to make some changes. Please—many people are leaving countries because of wars. Many countries are falling apart all over the continent. Leaders from all of these regions should sit down and discuss African affairs in general to save its citizens.

  Final Thoughts

  I remember my home in Adut Maguen before I fled to Ethiopia. I was just a young boy then, but watched the cattle and engaged in games with others doing the same. I played with my cousin, Kolnyin Nak Goljok, and several other boys and girls. We played at night in traditional dancing circles. Just as I missed my family, my brothers, sister, mother and grandmother during my long journey, I missed playing with these children. I remember the grasses that were so tall and green during the rainy season. I didn’t get to have the many fruits that grew in our village and that I loved to eat all the time.

  I missed out growing up with these children, and around my village people who were so full of love. The people in my village always supported each other, and I grew up without knowing these people, for I was away. I missed the rites of manhood, when I would become a parapuol, as my brothers did, with the scars to show my bravery.

  My hope for my daughter Adikdik and for future children I may have and all the children in Africa is that the war that visited me will never find them. I will do all in my power to make sure that hers—and theirs—is as peaceful a life as possible. We owe this to those we lost on our long journey. May their lives count for this—that more peace than war will come to this bountiful land of Africa, especially the region of the Sudd, South Sudan.

  Appendix: Aid Groups in Ethiopia and Kenya

  Aid Groups in Pinyudo Refugee Camp, Ethiopia

  United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)

  World Food Program

  International Red Cross

  Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF; Doctors Without Borders)

  United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)

  Radda Barnen (Save the Children Foundation)

  Aid Groups in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya

  United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)

  World Vision

  International Red Cross

  Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF; Doctors Without Borders)

  Lutheran World Federation

  International Organization for Migrants (IOM)

  Notes

  Chapter One

  1. John Ryle and the editors of Time-Life Books, Warriors of the White Nile: The Dinka (Amsterdam: Time-Life Books, 1982), 25.

  2. Marjorie M. Fisher et al., eds., Ancient Nubia: African Kingdoms on the Nile (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2012), 10.

  3. Grzmski Krzstzof, American Visions 8, no. 5 (Oct./Nov. 1993), 7–8.

  4. Ibrahim M. Omer, “Nubia: Religion: Anubis,” Ancient Sudan~Nubia, http://www.ancientsudan.org/religion_05_anubis.html (accessed May 15, 2013).

  5. Ibrahim M. Omer, “Nubia: Religion: Isis,” Ancient Sudan~Nubia website, http://www.ancientsudan.org/religion_03_isis.html, accessed May 15, 2013.

  6. Fisher, Ancient Nubia, 26.

  7. Joseph O. Vogel, ed., “Egypt and Sub-Saharan Africa: Their Interaction,” Encyclopedia of Precolonial Africa (Wal-nut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 1997), 465–472. http://www.wysinger.homestead.com/su-saharan.html (accessed April 21, 2013).

  8. “Mohammad Ali,” Gale Encyclopedia of Biography, http://www.answers.com/topic/muhammad-ali (accessed July 20, 2013).

  9. Fisher, Ancient Nubia, 40–42.

  10. “History of the Sudan: Nubia: from 3000 BC,” History World.net, from 2001, ongoing. http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=aa86 (accessed December 26, 2013).

  11. Ryle, White Nile, 24.

  12. Ibid., 24–28; “Mohammad Ali.”

  13. Ryle, White Nile, 28

  14. Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Sudan: The Growth of National Consciousness.” http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/571417/Sudan/24319/The-growth-of-national-consciousness (accessed May 18, 2013).

  15. Fisher, Ancient Nubia, 40–42.

  16. “Sudan: National Consciousness.”

  17. Ryle, White Nile, 25.

  18. “South Sudan Backs Independence-Results,” BBC News. Feb. 7, 2011. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12379431, (accessed May 18, 2013).

  Chapter Five

  1. “Lost Boys of Sudan: 12 Years Later,” CBS News, 60 Minutes, March 31, 2013, http://www.cbsnews.com/3102-18560_162-57576821.html.

  Chapter Eight

  1. Deborah Scroggins, Emma’s War (New York: Vintage, 2004), 256–80.

  Chapter Nine

  1. “Africa Millions Dead in Sudan Civil War,” BBC News, December 11, 1998, http://www.news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa /232803.stm.

  2. Julie Flint, “The Return of a Sudanese Survivor,” Daily Star, July 19, 2005, http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/Commentary/Jul/19/The-return-of-a-Sudanese-survivor.ashx#axzz2T2TwPOIK.

  3. Ibid.

  4. Deborah Scroggins, Emma’s War, 263, 274–279.

  5. John Garang in interview with Scott
Simon, National Public Radio, Weekend Edition, February 11, 2005, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4496451.

  6. Ibid.

  7. “New VP Enters Evolving Sudanese Government,” UPI.com, August 14, 2005, http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2005/08/14/New-VP-enters-evolving-Sudan-government/UPI-75091124030107/.

  8. Ibid.

  Chapter Twelve

  1. “Manute Bol: 1985–1995, Career Statistics,” NBAwww, http://www.nba.com/historical/playerfile/index.html?player=manute_bol (accessed June 29, 2013); Phil Jasner, “Remembering the Best of Times with Former NBA Player Manute Bol,” Philadelphia Inquirer, http://articles.philly.com/2010-06-21/sports/24965043_1_don-feeley-dinka-tribesman-manute-bol (accessed June 19, 2013).

  2. Jasner.

  3. Ibid.

  4. Ibid.

  5. Alan Sharavsky, “Manute Bol: NBA Player Who Cared,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 13, 2004. http://articles.philly.com/2004-07-13/news/25372629_1_sudan-famine-manute-bolsudanese; Keith Pompey, “Former Sixer Manute Bol Dead at 47,” Philadelphia Inquirer, June 19, 2010, http://articles.philly.com/2010-06-19/news/24962641_1_bol-first-sudan-sunrise-manute-bol.