ANALYSIS: Jok Madut Jok May Just Have No Reason To Die !

April 27, 2019 Abu Dhabi, Analyses, Newsbeat, Opinions, UAE

“I’ll fight this so-called agreement. I’ll not accept this, I’ll have to get myself killed in the process”

By Deng Elijah,

President Salva Kiir meeting Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nahyan, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi in during his recent visit to the UAE(Photo credit: supplied)

April 27th, 2019(SSNN) — For more than half a million South Sudanese, who perished in the last six years and those who miraculously survived a predetermined death under the Atropos Salva Kiir Mayardit, death was not a wishful thinking for social media fame but an inevitable fate. In ancient Greek Religion and Mythology (and I believe this would be a given for Anthropologists of Jok’s caliber), the Moirai, known as fates in English or fata in Latin, were the white-robed incarnations of destiny. Atropos was one of the three Moerae (Clotho, Lachesis and the Atropos), the goddesses of fates and destiny. It was the Atropos, the inevitable fate or the goddess of death, who chose the mechanism of death and decides to end the life of the mortals by cutting the thread. Although this Mythology sounds very ancient and might have been practiced about three centuries before the classical age around 800 B.C and 500 B.C, this is exactly what we are witnessing in South Sudan today in the persons of Salva Kiir Mayar, the goddess of death and destiny, acting as the Atropos, which you have clearly depicted in your recent writing when you surrendered your threaded life and declared “I’ll have to get myself killed in the process of telling my sisters and brothers not to go to become part of this sham”. Without any ambiguity, if you get killed as you stated and the Goddess of life forbids, anyone who have read your status would agree that it is because one or all the three Moirai (Salva Kiir, Akol Kor and Kuol Manyang-Jok Riak) have unanimously agreed to cut your thread and end your life; however, it is not your death per se that may concern many people but the purpose you have chosen to die for. Succinctly speaking, if you were to die fighting the “so-called agreement” as declared, you would have died for a lesser good, if not for nothing. Here is why!

Authenticity of the Propaganda;

Dr. Jok, as an educator who has built public trust and runs a “research” institution that is funded by the USIP, you ought to be very cautious of what you spill. A credible educator, or professor as your fans would say, cannot rush unverified “headlines” to social media and break them as news before he scrutinizes them and gives his knowledge base or fact patterns some legitimacy. To make the matter even worst, the so-called “headlines” was just one headline that was published by the Sakam bloggers and if your readers were keen on what you feed them, they would have demanded authenticity of the report and the institution that published it. This reminds us of your recent attack on Dr. Carlos, a PhD graduate from Oxford University, who published a research-based document that you dismissed as a “garbage” and tried to challenge the reputation of the institution that published it. Compared to your status below:

“I just saw the headlines about President Kiir of South Sudan agreeing with the Sheikhs in Emirates for South Sudan to send maids, housekeepers, cleaners, street sweepers to UAE. My people, let me tell you, that if this news is true, you’ve been sold off to become black slaves to the same Arabs you gave blood to become free from. Take my words, this is not new. I’ve lived in Uganda, spent times in Kenya and Tanzania, and what I’ve seen is that the governments of East Africa have secured à labour contract with UAE, Oman, Kuwait, Bahreïn and to a lesser extend, Saudi Arabia. The gist of this agreement is that innocent souls will be recruited from this region, duped to think they will go to these Persian Gulf Countries, find legitimate employment and would send home their earnings to their families. The reality, however, cannot be further from this. What you get is slavery. Your passport will be seized. You will be required to perform all sorts of roles, including sexual roles, and you will be set up against your employers’ wife who is going to fight you from the minute you land there, thinking your male employer is going to take you a sex slave, just to cite an example. Just don’t fall for it, please. I’ve seen this play out in Entebbe, where unsuspecting ‘labourers’ will be duped to fly to Dubai. I’ve seen it unfold in Dar Es Salam, Nairobi, Goma, Hargeissa etc. Don’t fall for it. As South Sudanese, you have suffered enough humiliation. And if Salva Kiir and his recent delegation to UAE don’t have the spine and guts to warn you, take it from me, and you will not regret taking my advice when you see the news of how this woman or that young man died or disappeared in UAE. I’ll fight this so-called agreement. I’ll not accept this, I’ll have to get myself killed in the process of telling my sisters and brothers not to go to become part of this sham. I’ve studied with the Arabs, I know how they see black skin, what they think of blacks, and our government is supposed to protect us against this, not sell us for cheap things like this!!!!”

Dr. Jok, if you would call a 74-paged research paper, based on one-on-one interviews with some of the well-known SPLM elites and empirical evidences formed from observation and documentation of patterns and behaviors that ran continuously for over ten years, as “garbage” and doubts the credibility of Oxford University, an institution that was established as early as 1096 and believed to be the oldest university in the English-speaking world or the world’s second-oldest university;

What would you call your one paragraph that was based on one blogger’s opinion?
What made you believe that the “headlines” were more credible than Dr. Carol’s paper and why would you threaten Dr. Carol and the institution that published her research paper when she literally exposed the same image that you are now exposing and wanting to sacrifice your life for?

In sum, this report has not be verified and until we find the actual agreement and scrutinize the actual terms and conditions, the headlines remain nothing but a mere propaganda.

The Context of the Propaganda;

On the other hand, now assume that this report happens to be legitimate that your president, His Excellency, Dr. Field Marshal General Atropos Salva Kiir Mayardit, as the “paidriots” want us to believe, has signed a closed-door bilateral agreement with H.H .Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nahya of the United Arab Emirates for South Sudan to produce and train women that would be exported to the Arabs world to work as maids, housekeepers, cleaners and street sweepers. A good analysis, in this case, would weight both the liberal and conservative beliefs, and if necessary blend the arguments with feminists’ theories, before rushing to conclusion. As a policy maker, who comes from the field of academia, you would have built you rationals from two faculties: the faculty of academia and the faculty of law; how would the South Sudanese liberals and conservatives approach this agreement and does South Sudan legal system allows the president to sign an agreement that would have such enormous impacts on citizens’ lives without passing through the National Legislative Assembly and other establishments. Of course, we understand that South Sudan does not have a functioning legislative assembly and independent establishments but hypothetically speaking and for the benefits of those who recognize the regime as a people’s government, we would still have to be thoroughly eloquent.

1. The Liberal Argument.

Liberals believe it is the role of the government to create opportunities for citizens and to protect civil liberties, individual and human rights. In this regard, anyone who sees Salva Kiir’s regime as a possible government, like Dr. Jok Madut has argued in some of his writings, would claims that the regime has legitimate mandates to create opportunities for South Sudanese citizens and women in this case. Such liberals would argue that the government has a right to seek resources to train women to be employable within and outside the country whether as maids, cooks or entrepreneurs as long as they are allowed to make well informed choices. In hypothetically ideal situations, where a government is capable to protect its citizens, those who consider Kiir’s regime as a government can be confident that their government will protect them and ensure that they are not exploited and mistreated overseas. Therefore, the real issue here is not the agreement but whether or not South Sudan has a government that is capable to make right decisions on behalf of the citizens and whether or not the government is capable to create opportunities and protect civil liberties, rights and freedoms.

In sum, it amounts to cowardice for Dr. Jok to declare a war on “this agreement” instead of declaring a war to dispose an incompetence and illegitimate government that is exploiting citizens, their rights and freedoms to keep individuals in power. Jok needs to be informed that it is the government that signs agreements and not agreements that sign governments. Statements like this below are not only controversial but completely naive.

“And if Salva Kiir and his recent delegation to UAE don’t have the spine and guts to warn you, take it from me” Jok Madut

This shows that Dr. Jok does not want to fight the signatories(the government) but to fight the document(“this agreement”). How do you expect a so-called president to sign an agreement and then comes out to warn people against it or incite them to reject an agreement he has signed purportedly for them?

2. The Conservatives’ Theory.

Dr. Jok has presented his argument as a well informed conservative who cares about his people and therefore we cannot conclude this analysis without giving him some credit on conservative values. The conservatives believe in limited government role, individual responsibility, free market, individual liberty and traditional values. They believe that the government should create environment that gives people freedom to pursuit their dreams, which literally means the government should create empowerment opportunities for citizens to reach their potentials. As Dr. Jok explained, the East African countries signed similar contracts with the UAE on the grounds that these new opportunities will create free markets which would encourage more economic growth, more jobs and higher standards of living among the benefiting countries. This is a very fair conservative argument; however, Dr. Jok exaggerated the results.

Yes, there are many outliers and numerous cases of exploitation and physical assaults or even cases of death but if the outcomes were as bad as he describes how come such contracts are still valid up to today and many East African citizens are still sending their citizens to UAE instead of sending all of them to South Sudan? The truth is that more citizens and foreigners are killed in South Sudan than in UAE and Xenophobia is at its peak right here in South Africa compared to the UAE. Dr. Jok, as an American citizen should also be aware that there were more South Sudanese in prisons in Omaha, Nebraska, United States in 2012 when South Sudan was at peace compared to those who were in prison in Juba and yet he never declared a war to stop resettlement to western world, especially USA.

Feminists would see avenues for women empowerment and self-reliance, and may want to take such opportunities as long as they are allowed to make free and well-informed decisions. Although a lot of South Sudanese women are not educated, we cannot underestimate the few who would try to work out a mechanism to taste this out and find out by themselves whether the opportunity is worth pursuing or not.

“I’ll fight this so-called agreement. I’ll not accept this”

Based on what seems to be an emotional conclusion, if this was the only purpose you would die for: First of all, there are chances that some of our well informed women may disagree with you and may launch campaigns, if not starting a war, to silent you before the Atropos kill you for nothing. South Sudan is now an independent state and any grown up adult, man or woman, who chooses to be marginalized and to live as a second citizen whether within the country or overseas should be given a benefit of doubts. There are thousands of citizens, who have voluntarily chosen to be marginalized and fully accepted to live as slaves in their own country of South Sudan as we speak for financial or material gains, when are you going to fight for them? Also, there are thousands of women, South Sudanese or foreigners, who are being explicitly exploited on the streets of Juba in a broad day light by our very own gun-class and NGOs employers at your watch and yet you have not offered to die on their behalf. Thousands of our vulnerable women, wives and sisters, are being preconditioned to accept sexual exploitation to secure jobs in Juba and this is not a news to any South Sudan. A significant number of women in Juba have consented to these institutionalized exploitation because they have no option left. Similarly, thousands of men in Juba have signed up to terminate lives of innocent citizen or to terrorize intellectuals, journalists, political opponents, religious groups and other fair minded citizens who hold varied opinions. All these are forms of exploitation, corruption and marginalization, and if our past suffering means anything as you cited, then being marginalized in your own country, a country you and your parents fought for, should be worth sacrificing a life more than a relatively advanced form of marginalization where citizens are first trained and officially exported to be marginalized in richer countries.

Secondly, Dr. Jok, South Sudan is in a brutal civil war in which citizens do not even get a chance to consent to a paid exploitation before they are exterminated or forcefully evicted from their ancestral homes into wilderness and eventually into refugee camps. Our women are gang raped at gun point by fellow South Sudanese men and if there is anything painful in these deals Kiir has been signing is the fact that all the resources that are obtained through such deals are used to fund state institutionalization of slavery and exploitation of the citizens. Four hundred thousands are confirmed dead and nearly five million citizen are displaced to refugee and IDPs camps in the process of hijacking civil liberties, human rights and freedoms the South Sudanese have fought for nearly half a century. Unfortunately you have continued to run your business on the mass graves of our citizens in the country and continued to acknowledge the Atropos as legitimate leaders as usual until you accidentally read this unverified report.

To anyone, whose heart has been bleeding for the past 6 years and those who are already fighting the regime, there are 99 more important reasons to dispose the Atropos or to be killed for, and this agreement is not one of them. Comparatively speaking, assuming this agreement was to be legitimate, sending a couple hundreds of South Sudanese women with their full consents to work or be exploited in the United Arab Emirates, just like any other African in Asia, cannot shaken the foundation of South Sudan and neither does it threaten the prospects of peace and stability in any country. In facts there are already South Sudanese working as maids, cleaners and street sweepers in Asian countries. Therefore, exaggerating the said agreement to be your top priority or the vision to die for leaves some of us wondering if you ever had a priority to die for!

Conclusion;

Overall, many citizens of South Sudan (or any other country) would agree that this will never be an opportunity for our women or any other gender in South Sudan or any where else. Our women are better than that and such neolithic mentality needs to be abolished, once and for all. Our sisters, wives and mothers can no longer be encouraged to be maids, cooks or cleaners of any sorts and these types of exploitation are some of the reasons many South Sudanese have been weighting war against for the past six years. A real women empowerment must come in form of education and even in education our daughters and sisters must be encouraged to learn hard sciences to be equally competitive in the job markets, just like men. Gone are the days where women were expected to spend the whole day in the kitchen doing only domestic routines, and I agree with Jok that the Arabs world still practices this exploitative gender biased culture more than any other race and South Sudan should never stoop this low; however, there are many viable mechanisms that can be used to prevent such agreements from recurring and disposing Salva Kiir through any mean possible should be among the top priority. The level of insincerity – pledging to fight “this agreement” but not the government or pledging to fight women exploitation in other countries contrary to women exploitation, mass killing and displacement at home – is astronomical!

The author, Deng Elijah, is the Executive Director of Nyamilepedia. He can be reached for more information through his email at dengsimon2000 at yahoo dot com.

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