A southern grimace is yearning to smile By: Abdulaziz Ali Omer

I have been moved to write this letter and Luk Kuth, a broadcasting journalist and reporter for Radio Juba is the reason. Over his articles, Luk poses smiling .It is this smile we are avid to see becoming expansive on the lips of released out-spoken activists and returnees after the end of fraternal brawl. Luk will keep smiling because he has nothing to lose but his prejudice, fear, hatred and mistrust. Luk’s smile is rain raining in sun and buds that are going to bloom. I hope he shall allow me to take a replica of it to give away to a child in a far-flung suburb called Ombada suffering from urine retention and enlarged kidneys as his mother alleged in “The field of an orange botanic garden” that is the name of social solidarity T.V programme. The T.V announcer wished to see the child having a healthy cup of milk and smiling before another sun-set enfolding new agony. So we did reflecting the status of children in Southern Sudan..
Juba Gala Nights is a shorter story written by John Oryem in it he described two Southern Sudanese spouses Nora and Lukule. They returned from their exile in U.S to initiate a peaceful and cheerful dialogue. Nora said in a tone of derision: you men failed the world with war, laziness, polygamy, AIDS and corruption. You can’t rule the world any longer” and Lukule replied in a booming and boastful voice: we liberated this country for you. Alas! The euphoria of liberation turned into grief, anger, lost freedom and security and ruined lives after decades of struggle. Silva, the first president of wounded Republic is publically demanded to quit. Will that help to ameliorate the people’s suffering?
I see whales dying not because of cold but human cruelty. They leave their colossal bodies on the beach as death certificate and fallen banner shouting to deaf ears justice for the population of sea. Life is worth living when we ask why does this happen. Why? I want to say to Luk, ask this question louder. Don’t fear the charge of treason from his Excellency or an imprisonment. It is you tweeting truth who will win at last.
It is the joyful smile of my colleague Luk that are aspiring to sight emerging not from U.N built sanctuaries but from the huts of ordinary people. Smile now in South Sudan seems as the missed Malaysian plane over the Indian Ocean. Has some been found from it’s debris? Voices ask in Juba and Luk answered : I see blood” . that is the trace of casualties in latest confrontation. Silva’s grimace is yearning to smile. Then, the blood will have a different colour.
On this February morning another thing that moved is the picture of the vitriolic poet Mohmamed Salem Homeida on Sudanese on line. His face winced in pain in features sagging with the load of Sudanese-made grief. “When I die, I leave my homeland a live” Mohmamed Salem Homeida wrote. In order to permit our country survival, prisons should become small , the sound of laughter more boisterous than the rumbling of weapons and food more plentiful than gun-shots.
Although you smile is coming out of Pandora box , it is innocuous. Pandora- is a woman in Greek mythologies that let out evil, illness and hope out of the box given to her by Zeus to punish humanity. Your smile is the smile of good hope. As Charles Water Street,Sydney barrister and author put it: Some days are stone. Other days bring diamonds and delights. See you in Juba
Regards,
Abdul-Aziz