26/08/2026
STOP SHOUTING “REFORM” WHILE FEEDING THE TRIBALISM YOU CLAIM TO HATE
There is a dangerous kind of political hypocrisy that deserves to be confronted directly: condemning tribalism in government while practicing tribalism in your own political language.
You cannot spend your days shouting about reform, justice, equality and national unity while reducing fellow South Sudanese to labels such as “Dinka” or “Bahr el Ghazalian” whenever they disagree with you.
That is not courage. That is contradiction.
Reform is not a slogan, a microphone or the ability to loudly accuse everyone else while conveniently exempting yourself from the standards you demand from others.
If you genuinely believe tribalism and regional division are among the greatest obstacles facing South Sudan, then have the courage to confront them everywhere, including within your own political thinking.
Otherwise, your criticism becomes nothing more than selective outrage.
You accuse the government of dividing citizens, yet you divide people in your own conversations. You condemn tribal politics, yet tribal identity becomes your weapon against those who challenge your opinions. You demand that citizens think beyond ethnicity, yet you continue interpreting political disagreements through ethnic and regional labels.
That is the very mentality you claim to be fighting.
South Sudanese should not be expected to applaud such hypocrisy simply because it is wrapped in the fashionable language of “reform.”
Let us be brutally honest: changing political slogans without changing political mentality is not reform.
If you disagree with President Salva Kiir, criticize his policies. If you believe government institutions have failed, present evidence and demand accountability. If you believe the country needs political transformation, explain what should change and how it should be achieved.
But dragging people's tribes and regions into every disagreement does not strengthen your argument. It exposes the weakness of your argument.
A serious reformer attacks bad policies, poor leadership, corruption, incompetence and injustice. A tribalist attacks identity.
There is a profound difference.
If you cannot recognize that difference, perhaps the first reform you need is not in the State House, it is inside your own head.
You cannot build national unity while constantly reminding people which tribe they belong to. You cannot demand an end to division while feeding those divisions through your own words. And you cannot claim to represent a new political generation while recycling the same tribal thinking that has poisoned our national discourse.
Most importantly, you cannot ask South Sudanese to trust you with the future while your language keeps dragging them back into the past.
Reform begins with self-examination.
Before accusing everyone else of being tribal, examine your own words. Before demanding accountability from government, ask whether you apply the same standard to your political allies. Before presenting yourself as a national voice, demonstrate that you can speak beyond tribe, region and faction.
South Sudan does not need people who merely want to replace one set of tribal interests with another.
It needs citizens capable of saying: my tribe is not my political argument, my region is not my weapon, and disagreement does not make another South Sudanese my enemy.
That is the foundation of genuine reform.
So, to those constantly shouting about change while practising the very division they condemn:
Stop preaching what you are unwilling to practice.
Take tribalism out of your language. Take regional prejudice out of your politics. Take hypocrisy out of your definition of reform.
Because South Sudan will not change simply because those shouting for change change positions.
The country changes when its political culture changes.
And that change must begin with you.
KOLONGDIT MEDIA
Truth First. Consequences Always.
