Marginalized Citizens: Stay home on the so-called Independence Day!

By: Luk Kuth Dak , USA

Most  people around the world enthusiastically look forward to celebrate their Independence Day, because- for one thing- it symbolizes their aspirations, freedom, hopes, dignity and self-worth. When you see the flag of your country, you feel free, dignified and secure. That’s how important it’s to be an independent country of your own.

Imagine just if someone, (an older brother or a boss) kept telling you what to do all of the time and kept taking more and more of the free time you should be spending thinking for yourself, and doesn’t even respect you as a human being! That’s exactly how the colonists felt towards their colonizers, that they began making plans to make their own rules and deciding becoming independent states, so that they can do the things that they themselves see fit, and not what the colonized thought.

Therefore, to be an independent entity means- among a whole host of other things, to be able take care of yourself, making your own rules and providing for your own needs without any interference from any outsider whatsoever.

Now, in the light of the above-mentioned definition, one is beginning to wonder just how Sudan can be really classified as an independent nation, where as some of its citizens are not yet free, and are still being treated as non-citizens in their own ancestral land, by a small minority from the northern province of Sudan ( al-Shamilia)?

The so-called “ Sudan ’s Independence Day” on January, 01,  has been nothing more than just a death chamber, as far as the South Sudanese and the rest of the marginalized citizens are concerned. It’s a day that brings no happiness and joy, hopes and dreams, but it’s a day that carries a great deal of sorrow, sadness, despair, and above all, everlasting memories of torture, rape of our young girls and mothers, and most certainly, the savage murders of over two million lives in South Sudan, and hundreds of thousands in Darfur, the Nuba Mountains, the Ingessana Hills and the Red Sea. (In another words, all of the areas occupied by peoples of African decent).

I do not know about you, but I, for one, it scares me to death whenever I see the Sudan ’s flag, because it represents injustice, bigotry, inequality and more. Therefore, I'm choosing not to participate in celebrating the Independence Day. In fact, I regret everyday that I celebrated it in the past when I didn’t know any better. However, I don’t seek to offend those who celebrate it, but they shouldn’t be expecting me to join them in their celebration, because I have reasons not to do so.

The first being that I don’t believe in an independence that does not recognize me as a full citizen so much so that I had to spend the rest of my life in an another country. So, instead, I will spend the 1^st of January mourning and thinking about those who have lost their lives at the hands of the new colonialism of the so-called Arabs invaders. Even more so, I will be celebrating Christmas and the New Year’s Eve with my Britons and Americans friends. I am willing to forgive Great Britain for handing over our country to a  bunch of “ blood suckers”. But I will thank them for not raping our young girls and mothers, and certainly for not murdering a single soul during their tenure.

We need to defeat any attempts to make the 1^st of January a day of celebration. But we ought to make it a day to mourn our loses. A day we should be carrying the flags of the new Sudan , which is the only hope for a Sudan that loves and embraces all of it children. And when that happens, it would be quite an independence day to cherish, forever and ever.

Happy Holidays, everybody.