05/05/2024
Dr. John Garang de Mabior's speech in 1990, a year after SPLA captured Torit in 1989.
Nationalists, Patriots, Comrades, Fellow countrymen:
We are not anybody's burden; we are masters in our own house. We are confident in ourselves and of the future. There are those who might entertain false beliefs that we cannot govern ourselves, we should not and cannot let their thought patterns influence us. Let us collectively go down in the history the generation of South Sudanese that turned around by putting an end to discrimination, racism, inequality, division, exploitation, and marginalization at best, and slavery and causal murder at worst. Let us unite against the ethnic, religious, and racial divides to personal dignity for us all. Let us move from total economic dormancy to total vibrancy; from relegation and resignation to a cycle of poverty, destitute and misery activism, hope, and excitement.
Let us reject being mere spectators in life, to becoming masters of our own destiny. A Bishop friend of mine yesterday told me a joke that three people went to see God, and God asked them what they wanted. One of them said he wanted wisdom, the second said he wanted riches, and the third, a South Sudanese, said he was just accompanying the two. You will guess who wanted wisdom and who wanted riches, but what I want to tell South Sudanese is to stop accompanying others and be masters of their own destiny; I say the same for all Sudanese and for all people of Africa.
People accuse me of killing their sons and eating people's farm for nothing, but let me tell this, our blood will be shed because I hate oppression and marginalization of our people but I will not live to enjoy the fruits of this struggle. There are people sleeping comfortably right now, they don't know the hunger or the sound of a gun. After our job is done they will cut a large piece of land with pangas and sell it cheaply with a bottle of beer.
I have been commanding SPLA officers and men of various ran.
