Something to laugh about

Muddling in the SPLM politics

Something to laugh about

By Opoka Christopher Arop

I have been in Southern Sudan in phases, lived here in portions, and seen things from different lenses. One such lens led me to write in 2008 about the SPLM Political Bureau. Indulge me. It said:

With the recent SPLM Political Bureau sitting NOT making any clear headway to the numerous issues for which their retreat of reasons was intended, the park of journalists and observers were speechless.

Speechless because the emergency meeting didn’t show any sign of urgency. If there was any emergency it might rightly be the realization that SPLM coughers are running dry with the recent economic crisis.

Lets rest the financial crisis for few paragraphs, in option for the more juicy, and laughable ridicule approach. Questions may be asked what politics means in Southern Sudan as it should mean in all other parts of the world, whether there be democracy or autocratic dictatorship.

Politicians in Southern Sudan and especially within the SPLM are egomaniacs who are drunken with the obsession of 'what the party ought to have done' but have replaced this success mark with 'what the party can help us (SPLM politicians) achieve.

When a political party moves in the same direction and there is no bickering as in the case with party policies, then this party is doomed. Had SPLM to go through a process of change, significant change where the majority Southern Sudanese are given a chance to rally behind the party, and to choose the direction and policies for which the movement should strive, then there would be hope for a better consensus among party loyalists, because the decisions they will push will be those of the people they represent.

We are tired of the idiocy talk that because of lack of financial and human resources, laws are made without adequate consultation with the people. We are tired of mistakes that are made, and the local people are later blamed. Ask me how much dollars are splashed at the recent SPLM party meeting, you will find it is nothing below a five digit dollar figure. Like they say, money is a lot by the zeros behind the figure and not the first digit.

Yet interestingly, many SPLM supporters who even sacrifice percentages of their hard earned cash for party activities and would readily take up arms to defend party interests, these people earn three figure salaries, worse these are in the useless Sudanese Pound.

SPLM and all politicians in the South must wake up and realize that there is a price they have to pay when they want to stand out for attempting to change the party from the devil it lives with to the angel they have never embraced, nor known despite Sunday school lessons.

Political life as is the case with members of the SPLM Political Bureau must begin to mean something to the average Southern Sudanese. Political life is more about ideas, than about the individual or group ego.

The SPLM must engage with new bloods that understand political life as a sacrifice for the suffering, the illiterate, the sick, the oppressed, the abused, the marginalized; more importantly, this new breed of politicians if they come out, must be people who have stood in the sidelines of politics long enough to know not to answer questions. Politics in the end is not about scoring marks within the party, but with and among the people whom you represent, or claim to represent.

Political parties are like football teams, the most important thing is the game (free and fair) they play, and like to political parties, the successful addressing of the issues affecting the people and finding lasting solutions to such problems is the art they must master. The issues affecting Southern Sudanese for time immemorial include independence, sovereignty, political rights, economic prosperity, equality, freedoms of association and of press, respect of human rights, right to education, health services in the long list that was presented among the demands of the three 1955 representatives of Southern Sudanese headed by Fr. Saturlino Oliha.