By Bol Diu Gok-Melbourne Australia
Posted 3/8/06

March 7, 2006 - The time has come for the people of Southern Sudan to hold their hands together as an opening of new chapter in history, will it happen? This is one of the questions many could ask.

Yes it will by the fact that the spirit of brotherhood finally appears in their hearts, hard lessons have been learnt in the last 20 years of civil war which brought about the destruction of our entire country, and there is an absolute chance for us to correct all the mistakes that have been made. There is no need to point the finger at the individual to have been the one causing all that had happened in the country, but to keep healing the wounded parts of our hearts for the peaceful New Sudan.

Take the biblical quotation “there is a time for everything” the statement takes us back to where we began our journey for struggling, we knew where we started but we didn’t know where to end. Our mission was just about a journey not about destination, however the destination finds itself after a long journey. It was a time for struggling and now it’s a time to rest and do the possibility for our land, putting the past behind isn’t an easy task to do and for us to remain united and stand firm, we need to do more and forget all kinds of individualistic spirit that poisons our relationship such as discrimination, race, nepotism, tribalistic conflicts etc.

This time we need good government for the Southern Sudan, we need good environment for our children to go to school and that’s the only compensation we can pay them for, they have been out of school for a long time because of war and if we look down our children our land won’t exist tomorrow, our children’re the seeds that we stored for tomorrow’s purpose as they’ll own our land in future. Also the new government will need to look seriously into the families of those who lost their lives for the sake of southern Sudan as heroes during the struggle no matter under which criteria.

We need not to think beyond our understanding, but we need to see beyond our nose limit for the welfare of our country as it’s a responsibility of everyone to play vital role in peace making policy.

Patriotism always comes as result of transparency and commitment to social work taskforce; it’s easy to defeat failure by analyzing it causes and correcting them not by studying the conditions of success, we need to build the contrast of love into our minds, hearts and societies.

We need to shape up our efforts and abilities to make sure everything is all right. The period we spent in bush during the struggle for our freedom in more than 20 years of war shouldn’t be unfortunate in our life as well as the future of our country. Our struggle bears fruits and the sweetness of those fruits must be tasted by everyone, for everyone suffered the consequences of war in the last decades. It’s also good not to forget our brothers and sisters outside Sudan to be involved in the government of National Unity of Southern Sudan as matter of work shared by all citizens. Our major work as citizens of this country is to put our support on the current leadership and the leadership should strengthen it rolls and responsibilities to involve all armed groups and different factions in the country into consideration, anything related to the past event that may interfere with or jeopardize our peace process is not acceptable at this time.

We endured all kinds of pain during the last 20 years and we won’t have time to think or recall them back anymore. This time is the time for us to check hands as we turn a happy faces to each other and see how well we can cope with the current situation. Our dream seems to be coming to reality as the Comprehensive Peace Agreement has been signed in January 2005. It has been quite hard for us to reach up to this vanishing point which we had never expected during those days and it was almost impossible but the goal that we’ve been looking for is being achieved in the last minute.

But lots of things need to be done after this; peace itself needs to be protected from external intruders. If we really need our country to be well structured, any body carrying an arm by hand should be either disarmed or integrated into arm forces after an effective consolidation is made with the leaders of armed factions/groups, otherwise it will be a trauma to those who put their hope on peace, we need it and we can implement it ourselves unconditionally that’s when outsider will not harm it.

When a concrete house is built, it can last for more than 50 years but when a person sets fire on it soon after the construction, it can get finished in less than an hour. If we really mean to have a long lasting peace, let’s make it by bringing the future closer and do what is necessary and it’ll prevail in both our hearts and our land as well. Our attitude towards it will represent the real picture of peace and its fruits. Our prayers and trust will form a raining clouds into our land and the beauty of our country will come back to it originality of the previous appearance that’s quite pleasant.

After all we shall have an opportunity to worship God in our homeland, how beautiful do you think this could be for us to worship God in our home like other NATIONS IN THE WORLD? Very fantastic, when our children could not experience an AIR BOMBARDMENTS any more and we will be free to move any where in Southern Sudan without a passport like free birds in the air, without threat from disease outbreak, when things can be easily tackled without stumbling on anything. We’re also very concerned about the landmines that have been plated earlier since 1980s or before that and still under the ground and impose a serious threat on us. This is one of the measure concerns which need our attention for possible demolition.

This time should be different from the last one. It’s a time with new start, new face and new heart new in everything. We call the last one a gone case and it should never come back to our minds, it’s gone forever not even a single story about it to be remembered because it was not a good time both for us and our children. It was a time of evil and hate and it was not a time of love, it was time we turned against ourselves leaving the real enemy behind, it was a time with no mercy in our hearts, it was a time when devil used its weapons against our brotherhood and our dignity, it was a time when we lost our memories hence forgetting the future of our NATION, it was a time we never knew anything about our selves.

We’ll never remember it even in our spiritual memories; may that time go for ever and never come back, because it was a time we’ve lost our national pride and gave wrong reputation to our country . It was a time when we’ve forgotten good things we can do for our country rather than war, this is a time we will say “we wish we knew” we could have done more during those days of horrific events that destroyed both our selves and our land as well. If we need to welcome peace in our hearts and take tripe into an airport of peace we need to take our planes to fly left and right and finally we’ll be zoomed down into perfect landing.

We put the past behind by forgiving ourselves and join hand to work together for our national interests and the development of our country. Putting the past behind reminds us of how well we can work together in opening the new chapter and turn down the previous ones which are no longer of good use for us and……………..all in all

TOGETHER WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENT.

Mr. Gok can be reached at bdiugok@yahoo.com.au