War is never a solution

The situation in South Sudan today scares the hell out of me. For so many years of war, the nation (by then Sudan) was torn apart, it lost so many innocent beings, children at very young age were taught how to shoot and kill while their age mates around the world were learning how to read and write and destruction was the only word left to describe it. The stories of Jals’, Achaks’ and Dengs’ of those times made some of us know the value of peace and hope and at the same time question our moral integrity as human beings. -For how long can we as humans inflict pain and suffering to our own kind? To what gain and to what extend? Is war really the option and the only option? And what can we learn from history of the countless un-necessary wars and conflicts? These were some of the countless questions that run through my mind.

As a young child growing up, those stories of the Lost Boys of Sudan was also a motivation to have faith, to believe in something that one day everything will be alright, that peace was not an abstract idea/concept but something that can be attained. When the Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed many of the Kenyan like me, we were happy that at least our neighbor Sudan can start to rebuild his home. It was during the same year that someone gave me a beautiful present a book called “What is the what” by Dave Eggers about a young Sudanese boy called Achak Deng. His story and those of Emmanuel Jal continued to pose the same questions to me about war and the integrity of us humans.

But this was not only specific to the Sudanese, Africa to be specific and the world in general has gone through decades and decades of war and conflict one after the other and many at times these wars have been given religious, political and economic justifications. “The difference between us and them” has always been the hidden words between the dotted lines but as William J. Clinton once said “The real differences around the world today are not between Jews and Arabs; Protestants and Catholics; Muslims, Croats, and Serbs. The real differences are between those who embrace peace and those who would destroy it; between those who look to the future and those who cling to the past; between those who open their arms and those who are determined to clench their fists”.

To my dear South Sudan brethren’s, please let us not destroy what so many has sacrificed for PEACE. As Bertrand Russell once said, “War does not determine who is right it only determine who is left”.

May peace prevail in South Sudan.