Either Save Your Self or Sink with It
Juba boy

As I have cited in my previous article, I don’t like to take sides. I
prefer not to be with someone or against anyone in this life. I am
always neutral and objective. That’s my stand and that is what I have
being trained for, to be objective when reporting and report the facts
as they are.

Other thing I would do is to educate the masses and inform them about
their surroundings, or may be try to influence their thinking and
decisions in life by putting my personal views. I am mainly focused on
my community in South Sudan, the newest nation on the globe.
I don’t care why each of us left home and made his way to SS. My
concerns are rather on our wellbeing here at SS; specifically the
capital, Juba; yesterday, today and tomorrow. We saw a successful
yesterday and somehow keep seeing some success today, but it is up to
God almighty to know what will be tomorrow.  What is up to us is to
predict the probable future of events that could occur in life.

SS is not a lawless state as some of the commentators on my previous
article had said. There is constitution and thus there are a clearly
defined laws and policies. The problem is with the executive bodies,
those so called police, CIDs and so on.  They are not in a position to
perform their duties in the proper manner as they are always
confronted by aliens, who are the backbone of SS economy, of which the
majority is Eritreans. Had the natives were involved in business, all
such executive bodies would be serious with their work. But
unfortunately only few are practicing business while many others
either spends their day working as public servants or enjoying
alcoholic drinks under the shade of trees. I say this has spoiled SS
executive bodies. The situation made them to rush here and there
during day hours with the aim of filling their pockets rather than
trying to implement their government policies. I can’t blame them 100%
for their unpleasant acts as it is the outnumbered influx of aliens to
SS which has intensified the situation.

Capitalism is what is being practiced in SS today. By this I mean free
trade of what sort and the consequence are foreign trade dominance and
domestic idealness. According to me view, capitalism is proofing to be
a failure in poor SS and what the country is urgently in need is a
dictator. That would have for sure saved SS from facing an inevitable
economic collapse and a state failure, if the situation keeps
continuing as it is now.  Capitalism and democracy might work in the
already grown west but not in such poor and new nation, South Sudan.
Believe it or not, no one can save the ship on which I am boarded from
sinking other than a dictator.

We always think that capitalism and democracy will solve all our
problems in Africa. Those two interrelated ideologies have proved to
be impractical in most African countries, and I am witnessing it in
impoverished South Sudan today. To be honest,   if I were the leader
of South Sudan today, I would have no option other than becoming an
authoritarian to insure the most efficient use of meager resources,
silence millions of complaints,  plan long development projects that
might run for decades, or even to insure that my government’s policies
are properly implemented. I would for sure be called a tyrant and
oppressor by my western liberal follows, but who cares. I think
leaders do not simply fold two names in a piece of paper to select one
and find themselves either democrats or authoritarian overnight. Again
it is the ongoing situation that guides. But what SS leaders are
trying to do is a kirar play.

Being a capitalism practitioner but with some sympathy towards
Socialism, I have tried to give an overview of SS prevailing political
economy. I hope that might be helpful for at least predicting the near
future at where we live. As we don’t have the right to save the ship,
we have to save our lives.

Juba boy

Juba boy is businessman who has been living in South Sudan since 2008.