Dear All, Please, find below a comment from Gordon Wagner.
Enjoy your weekend if you have one. Cheers, e j ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: gordon wagner <[email protected]> Date: Fri, May 18, 2012 at 7:08 PM Subject: Re: [SouthSudanInfo] Juba: ‘Filthy’ is an understatement To: [email protected] Steve Wondu's suggestions for a permanent on-going Juba clean-up is right-on! I have one question: If the Boma structure is still in place why not every Boma neighborhood in Juba (how many blocks is this?) mobilize its neighborhood to do precisely this job. What happened to this decentralized government structure? Also, it amazes me that after 7 years of freedom that the small farmer is not the centre of attention for increased food production. It's a fool who concludes small farm practices are not viable. Or possibly these people (outsiders, donors, big people) are more keen on making the big bucks through alternative uses of land, e.g. bio piracy, etc. If the small holder does not become the foundation for development in the new South I predict the worse fate possible. It's alarming! Note also that in the U.S. there is a movement afoot to revive the small farmer. Some people here are convinced its the only viable alternative for this nation. We all need a wake-up call. Gordon Wagner [email protected] Ithaca, NY 607 793 8561 On Fri, May 18, 2012 at 3:37 AM, Elisabeth Janaina <[email protected]> wrote: > > Juba: ‘Filthy’ is an understatement > > > > By Steven Wöndu > > May 17, 2012 — President Salva Kiir was being polite on May 16th when > he said Juba was a filthy habitat. The truth of the matter is that > Juba is not only dirty; it is dangerous and much worse. People > disappear without trace. Citizens cannot call for police help because > the streets have no numbers or names. Homes and buildings have no > numbers or addresses. The security personnel cannot radio for backup > in pursuit of a suspect because of the lack of street names and > numbers. It is even impossible to direct a guest to a house by phone. > Telling someone to turn left after passing the brown dog is useless. > This is despite the fact that Juba is well planned with adequate > provision for streets. There is no credible explanation for the chaos. > > Garbage collection is not rocket science. We do not need Professor > Albert Einstein’s intervention. We need not invent our own model of > waste management either. We only have to do what other urban > authorities do. Make a law or regulation that requires every landlord > or tenant to display the number of the property in a specified manner > at the entrance. Failure to comply would attract a hefty fine. Make > another law or regulation that requires every household or office to > buy a rubbish bin supplied by the authorities. Days of collection are > agreed between the authorities and the contractor. Again, failure to > comply is punishable. The town has already been cleverly zoned out. > There is money to be made through the scheme of waste management. Let > us award contracts, in a fair competitive manner, to several garbage > collectors for Munuki, Kator, Hai Tarawa, Hai Jalaba, Rujal Mafi, Hai > Mayo, Tonyping etc. I’ll have a word about these names later. > > There is no reason I can think of why we do not have a scientifically > safe treatment for the rubbish we generate. Pouring it on the Yei Road > is like relocation trash from the bedroom to the living room. If we > cannot invest in public hygiene, we cannot call ourselves an urban > authority. > > One year into our independence, we have not thought of indigenizing > our names. We have decided to keep the name ‘Sudan’. But that does not > mean we also have to retain all other Arabic names. Central Equatoria > State got rid of ‘Bahr el Jebel’. We are looking forward to the return > of Western Upper Nile. If you ask me, I would indigenize the names of > areas like Buluk, Mayo, Jalaba etc. Someone told me that Nzara was > Zande for Ansar. If true I would ask Western Equatoria State to change > that. > > Professor Peter Tingwa can speak for himself but I remember him > telling me that there was need to ensure that we, the indigenous > citizens of this country, must retain our names. Ideally, we should > dump the European and Arab names adopted to indicate that we are > Christians or Muslims. My neighbour Deng Alor and many others in the > Dinka and Nuer communities have done it. Most people find it difficult > to emulate his example but a compromise is always available. Let > everyone be limited to only one foreign name if he/she so desires on > the basis of human rights. Let us not have Mary John, Joseph Edward, > Doctor Cook, Joyce Joseph, Mohammed Jibril, Abdelrahman Ibrahim, > Awadia Morris. All these people do have real African family names, but > for some twisted logic of inferiority, strange names are preferred. If > we cannot rescue the current generation from this kind of domination, > can our education system save the next by requiring children to > register in their real family names in schools? > > This takes me back to President Salva Kiir’s mild criticism of the > state of affairs in Juba. One disaster I wish he knew is that two of > our school campuses are now walled in by shops. The former Juba Girls > Secondary School, renamed after Dr John Garang, is now a market. The > entire campus of former Mahad Intermediate School, later used by the > occupying Sudan Army mechanized division, is now a commercial > warehouse. The cemetery nearby is now an industrial park. As Dr John > Garang would say, I am not making it up. That, Mr President, is the > Juba we live in; filthy, stinky, dangerous, chaotic, confused, no > protection of children and no respect whatsoever for graves. > > The author is the former Sudanese Ambassador to Japan > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "South Sudan Info - The Kob" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/SouthSudanKob?hl=en. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "South Sudan Info - The Kob" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/SouthSudanKob?hl=en.
