Burdens of Living with Machines

April 22, 2022 - by Atok Dan

The planet earth was once a kind of a safer place without technology or fewer machines. The air we breathe had no impurities – meaning issues of environmental pollution were somewhat not in the lexicon of ancient people. Less or no giant technologies meant less exploitation of natural resources. Few lands had been disfigured for agricultural activities. The era of no machines had its own uniqueness. Fear of nuclear or atomic weapons never existed. In the world of fewer machines, human deaths in conflicts could count less as compared to the current alarming figures we do experience today. In the world of machines, millions of precious lives can be erased on the planet just in a blink of an eye. Living with machines seems to accelerate human demise. The heat we do produce with our machines does threaten even that of the master, the sun. 

Deforestation was never an issue. Trees and vegetation of all species had established strong colonies all over the entire planet. Plants had colonized both the seas and the lands, with the administrative structure of each species straddled beyond current human lines of settlements but never quarreled. The plants commanded some social discipline over every piece of the territory allotted to each family using natural rules of habitability.

Desert and semi-arid species had established some social harmonies with their surroundings, thus giving a lengthy lifespan for those kinds. Wetland areas were tamed to conform to the survivability of the leafiest plants. On the land, climate change wasn’t a common thing. Ancient people would equate it to a curse. If machines have improved our lives, they have also mutilated them. The spread of highly contagious diseases like COVID-19 has come with frequent human migration.   

Marine lives flourished under conducive environments. There were no large water vessels capable of upsetting the natural rules of habitats under the seas or oceans. Fishing or human water hunting never emptied rivers. Humans could terminate a few lives for survival. Today, vessels that empty rivers of their inhabitants never existed. Birds were the kings of space. Now, huge metallic birds spread their wastes in ozone layers, severing atmospheric peace. The human machines have gone to fester habitats of spirits, places preserved for holiness.  Our machines, the hypersonic unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) that roam the milky Way have angered aliens and other space creatures. Treat this text for creative imagination.

  Catching a mirage: A case of achieving a sustainable peace under a ruling SPLM party in South Sudan

By Atok Dan

May 18, 2022

The ruling SPLM party in South Sudan under President Salva Kiir: a laboratory clone of Islamic National Salvation impedes achieving sustainable peace in the country. Juba, the political capital of the government of the world's youngest country, South Sudan, is no longer a place embellished with the euphoria of happiness we witnessed over a decade ago. Desperation and miseries are lesser descriptions of the place. Dilapidated streets are littered with countless street kids’ equal plastic bags thrown at will, little or nothing to tell of an oil-producing state. Debts, incentivized rebellions, and expenditures aren’t what a country less than two decades in statehood is proud of. 

With Salva Kiir, a former rebel commander at the helm of power continuing to sandwich presidential decrees at will, no doubt, a strong African autocrat is in his advanced stage of craftsmanship. The international community, the guarantors of the 2018 revitalization agreement of the resolution of the conflict in the Republic of South Sudan – R-ARCSS, are equally hypnotized by strategic mistakes, no doubt, the regime in Juba is fully immune against any pressure, regionally and internationally. Regional actors such as Uganda and Sudan aren’t trustworthy partners but are parasitically draining every little blood running to revitalize this fledgling and left-alone body called South Sudan. This makes the country a worthy donkey for President Museveni to ride. Ethiopia, which is ostensible, a key player in the region is as well bogged down in a similar conflict. Kenya, which is the only host where oil wealth stolen from South Sudan is kept, is left alone to play a solo game. China as the only close-to-heart benefactor or patron to Juba in the blood oil business has polluted environs in oil-producing areas, a horrendous reality whose outcomes are deformed births, stillbirths, bareness, and rise of cancerous ailments among both humans and domestic livestock. This is an added load to an environment already threatened by desertification and carefree deforestation.

The worse pending on the list of stresses, the regime has struck a crooked deal with Egypt to dredge lungs of the Sudd in the name of flood control, a deal if executed would quickly wither the world's largest wetland on the continent of Africa. There is no deal, but the Egyptian government compromised the entire system. The maladroitness of these leaders has blindfolded them to scope their mandate. A decision to dredge is a mandate an elected government can do, not a prerogative of those in power through violence.   

The South Sudan People’s Defense Force SSPDF, a mere name upgrade of the SPLA, the former Southern guerilla military wing of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement -SPLM, is now fully relegated in power preference. It is a worthless ragtag or loose tribal alliance, with no semblance of a national army. The regime in Juba relies heavily on the services of the national security service NSS, a brute prototype to that of the National Congress Party in Sudan. This bunch of ill-disciplined militias is what constitutes a national army of South Sudan. The peace agreement is stalled, aggregates of white army, a Nuer collection of forces which resisted against the Dinka dominated SPLA. Agwelek battalion, a Shilluk tribal force under another self-anointed Gen, Johnson Olony is awaiting reintegration into the SSPDF. There was also a Cobra battalion whose composition comprised the ethnic Murle tribe under David Yau Yau. This force, together with the Mathiang Anyoor, a Rek Dinka tribal militia, and Padang Dinka Abushok forces are part of the SSPDF force. Just a week ago, armed Dinka civilians in Warrab, the home of President Kiir, mowed down dozens of SSPDF intelligence officers. In the same Warrab state, machetes are held high in the air for slaughter between Twic and Ngok Dinka, communities intertwined by blood relations. The Murle tribe in Jonglei, the largest state in South Sudan, has recently launched a deadly raid on the Toposa people in Eastern Equatoria, killing over a hundred people. Disarmament has failed time and again. Armed civilians are technically in an arms race with organized forces.  

Gen Gatwic Dual, a Lou Nuer self-declared SPLA -IO head and currently stationed in a Shilluk village called Kitgwang on the north-south border initiated another piecemeal agreement with Gen. Akol Koor, head of the NSS. For no clear reasons, Gen. Gatwic can’t come to Juba despite assurance from his funder, the NSS. Such defiance also poses a threat to peace in this oil-rich state of the Upper Nile.

In Equatoria, a region that had some relative calm in the past has now modeled Gen. Thomas Cirilo’s rebellion, a quasi-tribal and a regional outfit. This is another hot blaze that continues to wreak havoc on the realization of peace in this war-ravaged country. Pastoralists of the Bor Dinka, a subtribe of the Dinka, have their feet printed in the region for chaotic stories. Armed pastoralists have proven a threat to host sedentary tribes in the region. Michael Makuei Lueth, a native of Bor Dinka and an outspoken spokesperson of the Juba, has been on record urging pastoralists from his constituency to vacate Equatoria. Minister Lueth has persistently been a vocal voice for his people and the government alike.

Catching a desert mirage and a prospect of a peaceful election in South Sudan.

The current coalition government would soon outlive its mandate. Conducting a peaceful election, let alone its credibility, within a stipulated time frame is another chase for a desert mirage. Voter registration, awareness, repatriation of refugees, and internally displaced persons, and creating a conducive environment besides internal border demarcation, are some of the gigantic challenges likely to derail the process. Tribes continue to dispute current lines. The AK-47 assault rifle remains a walking stick for civilians in the country. A disciplined force to disarm the population is nowhere, with what is there as tribal militias protecting tribes.

The ruling SPLM party under President Salva Kiir is calling for an urgent election, just a mandate renewal concert in the name of the election. The SPLM-IO, a political wing of the Sudan People's Liberation Army -In Opposition under first President Dr. Riek Machar, a native Nuer warlord, has just called a shot to boycott the process including participation in the current government. In the event of this scenario, a ground is set ready for another flare-up. The government under President Kiir, a Dinka chief in the outfit, has not had enough money to fund the peace process but there is enough to sponsor counter-tribal militias to frustrate its implementation.

IGAD, East Africa, and horn regional bodies are ever ill-prepared to exert meaningful pressure. The IGAD heads of state are all divided. With President Museveni of Uganda, the longest serving leader in the region, and a technical head coach of African dictators, a peaceful South Sudan is never the best night story this tired grandfather can share with grandchildren. Ethiopia, another instrumental key player, has its knees deep down in tribal conflict. The role of IGAD in the region thwarts every effort aimed at pressuring South Sudanese corrupt men. The United Nations arms embargo and sanctions cannot impact because Uganda continues to play the role of arms procurement officer for Juba. Corrupt officials sanctioned by the American government continue to crisscross the world using the passports of their wives or next of kin. No sanctions monitoring schemes to deter culprits.

With this convoluted nature of issues, Juba, in a practical sense, is a mile away from becoming a regional Kremlin with President Kiir as Putin’s prototype, and the Soviet-like kind of media propaganda, the victims are the poor South Sudanese. Since the world seems to license another human-made catastrophe in South Sudan under another man who plays part two role of Putin, America through USAID will not send Javelins or Stringers to South Sudan but bags of flour grains for humanitarian intervention. The processes of manufacturing more refugees in South Sudan have hit the ground for a journey.

 The stress of counting days

By Atok Dan

September  27, 2021

When Dionysius Exiguus, a Russian 6th Century Monk, also known in (Latin as Dionysius the Humble) took a task to modify the Christian Calendar from the years 527 to 626, he had to start from (Before Christ -BC) and (Anno Domini - AD), a Latin phrase for the year (DeClercq, 2000, p. 152). Dionysius might have not been fully aware of the likely connotation such innovation may bring forth. The Roman Christians and the hoi polloi in the empire alike had to start to date events. The birth of Christ had to start from somewhere and zero couldn’t be a year enough, thus counting had to start from 1 which became the first day of the modern calendar.

When I landed at Kansas City Airport, Missouri, en route to Lawrence, Kansas, it was June 1st, 2021. At the University of Kansas, a team of jovial Americans, affectionately as they were, unconsciously infected me with the stress of counting down days. The first word, pleasant as it was in my ears, was in the usual American way, “welcome to the US”. This was the second time I heard the word on American soil. In Washington DC, a neatly dressed handsome immigration officer told me after he stamped my passport. Unlike in Lawrence, this busy officer only welcomed me to American soil. The Lawrence friends did immediately proceed to inquire about my next university which I said to be Arizona State University.

A mere mention of Arizona State University invokes the mercilessness of its cruel temperatures. In their hoarse voices, as Midwest Americans sound in my ears, every single loaded negative adjective was used to describe the heat in Arizona. While still mesmerized by a new place, the infectious cadence I had received about my next place started tormenting me in the future. I started counting down my worst days before arriving in a land colonized by wild heat.

Even when I tried to put on a face of resistance, my black and ebony melanin felt like something closer to a furnace described in the book of revelation. What made me almost succumb to heat wasn’t the blast itself, but the way traumatic preaching played out in my brain. Coming head-on with the reality of heat, I postulated that if Arizona doesn't have its extra sun, then the sun overhead must be out for a revenge mission. Having been denied control in other parts of the US, the sun above Arizona must be begging for a space of recognition.

On days one and two, it was inevitably possible to coin my name for Arizona, and invariably, it became the Arid zone - a desert zone. Its ever-dried rocks, barren environs, and dwarfed cactus trees are some of the features which make it a classic colony of the sun, just like the Arabian desert. Sometimes, I would think the Arizonians cold war with the sun needs some magic intervention from the one who regulates it before the sun could unleash her heartless offspring to bake all that oxygen. Could this take some form of a peace pact with the sun, perhaps? No, can I describe it as a flat edge baking pan which people mistakenly referred to as the state of Arizona? Possibly, the pan could be on a slow coal fire to roast. My strong-hearted attitude almost disparaged cruel human greed which contributed to environmental degradation. How I wished I could borrow bags full of snowdrops to bribe the angered sun above us.

This was self-dialectic appeasement to wane off two months of induced stress. In an ideal or natural economy, the sun isn’t only supposed to ration heat but also work collaboratively with helpless souls beneath it. It should not always be an era of the atomic nucleus. The endless thoughts of being part of this beautiful program called Humphrey Fellowship kept me on, however, I would still think the Arizona sun might need some foreign blood to appease it. Daily, my meditation is to beseech this blazing heat to rain softly on us, or else it would take us alive.