Without Co-operation, Our Ideal Human Nature May Cease From Our Lives

By: Ogeryath Oger

Where a family existed in the ancient African time, there existed wealth, courage, strength and leadership and therefore a strong household since the family’s pillar of existence was tied to their collective nature of performing various tasks in the society or family and therefore co-operation kept them propelling and progressing positively in all aspects of life be it political, economic or social. 

The co-operation that existed in the African ancient time, tied them to obedience to the rule of law that judged all the people independently and rightfully basing on their deeds or actions without any discrimination or favour. Life seemed easy and interesting simply because the ideas and wealth were shared and therefore no single person monopolized the society or certain things in the community on top of that, the leadership always had proper well planned solutions to the problems facing the community with the help of the genuine, upright and highly respected elders, the decisions made would fit well and eradicate the calamities be it human or natural. In this way, greed, corruption, violence and selfishness couldn’t find any vacuum to germinate and breed their seeds of misery and darkness since the ground were so infertile to them.

With this nature of life, the communities always stayed together united without any mistrust or discrimination. The secret behind this amazing ancient African lifestyle, was that above all, co-operation was highly prioritized as people believed that no human being was a monopolist in terms of knowledge and that any person can contribute and build the society no matter the age or sex, size or physical strength. 

As the king ruled with assistance from highly experienced, genuine and upright elders, the men and the youths provided protection to the community and at the same time they cultivated while the women harvested and took care of the community including feeding multiple people and countless young ones. Any failure in the system, would automatically bring a mess to the society. However, to avoid total collapse, problems weren’t encountered with pointing of fingers rather the laws were properly interpreted and solutions were found calming the situation and once again uniting the masses.

Innumerable questions rise from our minds today concerning our communities which have been crippled by the challenges we face today. Why are we divided and broken? This question keeps coming up several times. But in order to answer this difficult question, we must be honest, sit down silently to answer the question of the truth. The dominance of greed, corruption and selfishness together with the lack of rule of law have instilled ignorance, arrogance and poisonous characters into our lives making us empty of goodwill. What can we do then to restore our ideal human nature and live collectively as human beings without tribal lines, discrimination and mistrust?

The amazing ancient African lifestyle built from co-operation is the style that we must adopt and incorporate into our lives in order to correct our mistakes and move forward with confidence and courage. Co-operation can keep us away from falling into the swamp of arrogance, ignorance and permittivity. Education alone of which many elites boost of, can never rescue us but through co-operation among all the elites, we can build a powerful mind which can encounter and combat any kind of problem that is at our level be it political, economic or social. Through bringing the 64 tribes together with the purpose of building a common goal, would be like building a new Rome.

We have seen a lot in this country especially the results of our improper actions which have never built our communities but rather caused suffering, migration of masses and death of multitude of masses.it is only through one united family of South Sudan that we can be able to courageously stand together shoulder to shoulder with trust and build this country through reviving our natural bond that for long kept us together without any discrimination and mistrust. ”Co-operation is always more powerful than competition and great discoveries and improvements involve the co-operation of many minds”. May God bless South Sudan and Africa. 

The writer is a concerned citizen of South Sudan.