01/08/2026
By Jok WäMonychok, Juba, South Sudan| 1st August, 2026|
Football will always be translated into real life examples. After just opening my eyes and seeing that there is no real friendship and enmity, I compare everything to childhood football games we used to play. We would divide ourselves into two, three or four teams defending on the number of people present. Your brother or best friend may end up in another team. Eventually, you become rivals, tackling yourselves, and sometimes fighting.
When the ball burst or the owner took it home, another ball would be brought in and the players would be mixed up and divided again, bringing you together in a team with your rivals from the previous teams. And the cycle continues.
In today's conflicts, people are divided into parties, tribes/communities or factions. Sometimes, you may lose your best friends because of where they belong, not knowing that some people are doing businesses during conflicts. People in different factions, parties, or tribes/communities of the conflict are building their relationships using those on their sides without them knowing. They can even give up their colleagues' lives to sustain their friendship and businesses.
If you don't get it clearly, how did you feel when Robbin Van Persie joined Manchester United from Arsenal after finishing a stellar season with the Gunners in which he won the English Premier League Golden Boot? Or how do you feel about derbies or crucial games where players don't bother to fight for the team when they should have fought harder to avoid defeat and secure a win?
That is how it is with conflicts. I grew up being oriented by my father against Arabs. In 1995, he sent my mother, siblings and me to Abyei when insecurity was too much. My mother took me to Abyei Elementary School now Abyei Boys Primary School, which was using Arabic curriculum. I refused to study and played instead. I didn't want to learn Arabic or be sent or punished by an Arab as my father had oriented me. I ended up a complete failure because I remember results being announced and my name wasn't there, that means I didn't sit for exams.
Again, while playing for Amal Al Horra FC in Kuajok, a team founded predominantly by brothers from Sudan and Muslims, I was very cautious not to get converted to Islam or do things that would present me as a Muslim. It almost spoiled my relationship with the administrators especially when I refuse to eat with them during Muslim festivals.
However, after some years of independence of South Sudan and experiencing some conflicts, I have realised that everything was and is a division, akin to our childhood manner of playing football. There's no permanent or there is even no enemy. People have just been divided.
The Arabs who killed our uncles and abducted our brothers, sisters and mothers are now our brothers. The same to the traitors who betrayed our people, raided our cattle and burned our houses are now our liberators who receive our blessings and have our sacred bulls slaughtered for them to jump over.
Those we adored and we could cry with tears of love upon hearing their names are now different people, worst than Arabs they claimed to be our enemies and colonisers. They are brutally killing us in a manner Arabs never did.
To conclude, everyone is after their interests and relationship. With this realisation, I have made a decision that, I will never judge anyone based on party, tribe/community, or faction. You can do the same if you have learned the same.
