The Refugee Mentality

I thought I would give you a bit of the background against which Cece Primary School operates.

Here in Nimule, it is impossible to find anybody who has not been a refugee at some point in their lives.  First the war for independence from the Arab north of Sudan, and then the current civil war have caused massive instability due to the conflicts themselves.  There has been almost ceaseless war for many years.  People have been displaced from their homes repeatedly over all this time.  They have had to go back to square one each time, starting afresh with no possessions, with missing or dead family members and ever increasing numbers of orphans.

As a result of so many episodes of displacement and the resulting refugee status, traditions of self-reliance have been almost entirely destroyed.  It is accepted that the United Nations, World Food Program and all the many other Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) will shelter, feed, clothe and care for everyone over long periods of time.  Generations of children in South Sudan have grown up seeing this is a normal way of life.  A society of beggars and thieves has been created.

I became particularly aware of this phenomenon in June 2016, when conflict came close to Nimule for the first time since I arrived in the country.  At the first hint of trouble elsewhere, people left for the camps like flocks of birds, and yet Nimule did not suffer at all.  I have remained here without incident for almost six years.

At the same time, many young, uneducated men and soldiers took advantage of so many empty homes to loot and carry off the possessions of those who had left.  They also looted their smallholdings (locally called ‘gardens’) of all their subsistence crops.  

It did not take long for many of these people to return, clutching ‘goodie bags’ of UN-issued equipment such as solar torches, blankets, mosquito nets and other things intended for those who were going to stay in the refugee camps.  They also came with large sacks of food.  All of the returnees were officially registered as refugees living in the refugee camps.  Each family had been allocated a plot of land in the camp for their own use, including land for cultivation.  They all left relatives behind to keep that plot of land going. 

They came back to find their homes broken into and all their belongings missing.  Their gardens were also destroyed, leaving people reliant on the UN issued food at least until the next harvest.  Many decided not to go back to farming and instead remain completely idle, waiting for the next handout.  For those with plots far out of the town, there was reason for this initially; people working in solitary locations have suffered rape, press-ganging into one or other of the rival armies and sometimes also been murdered.  However, this has now ceased.

Since 2016 a routine has developed.  Relatives living in the camps contact their Nimule-based family members whenever there is to be a census of the refugee population, so they can rush to the camps to be included in the official statistics and make sure they do not miss out on all the perks of being a refugee.  Whenever there is to be a distribution of ‘rations’ there is a similar exodus.  People then come back triumphantly loaded with food stuffs.  The whole economy of the town relies on the smuggling of food from the camps.  To give just one example, local restaurants and street vendors use the UN-issued maize flour to make chapattis and other bread products, supposedly making extra profit because of the freely issued flour.  That is the theory.  In fact they have to pay exorbitant taxi fares to and from distant refugee camps, which cancels out that profit.  Given the complete lack of education of the vast majority of people, this is not realized.

Children from Cece Primary School as well as all the other schools in Nimule are affected by this refugee culture.  They are often removed from school to take part in UN head-counts and to have their photos and fingerprints taken by the UN as though they were truly resident in the refugee camps.  This disrupts their education and teaches the children that it is right to lie to the authorities.  In some cases parents keep their children out of school for weeks working hard at various manual jobs in order to find the transport fares to make these trips.

The UN and other humanitarian agencies have created a great dependency on outside help, when people really need to learn to use their own initiative to make a living.  In my day-to-day life I am constantly stopped in the street by people who assume that because my skin is white I am there to give them hand-outs, particularly of drink and cigarettes, which are not provided by the UN.  And yet, there is no reason for their inability to care for themselves apart from the ingrained refugee mentality.

The same mentality causes people to see everything they are given as ‘throw-away’.  The solar lamps handed out in 2016 are no longer to be seen because they have been treated very roughly and were broken very quickly.  Mosquito nets are used as fishing nets because people have too many due to the large number of NGOs who give them out.  And yet the local fishermen traditionally make their own nets.

The UN creates the illusion that life is impossible in South Sudan and that the refugee camps are essential to save lives.  This is not the case, clearly, as so many people are abusing the system and living their daily lives in South Sudan.  Instead the UN is encouraging dependency and making it hard for people to learn to stand on their own two feet.

I was brought up in London at a time when there was a sustained IRA bombing campaign across public transport networks and tourist areas.  It went on for years.  To get to school each day I had to use that same transport and pass many targeted places.  When I talked to my parents about my worries, they told me that when they were my age, it was the Second World War.  The Government promoted a campaign with the motto, “Keep calm and carry on”.  They said I needed to do the same.  No running away.  When you run away you are giving up.  Whether it is the Nazis, the IRA or the civil war in South Sudan I believe the same principle applies.

If the South Sudanese people were to join hands and refuse to be moved, I believe that the war here would die out remarkably quickly.  People could then receive outside help that actually builds them up, with living skills, rather than remaining perpetual victims.  That is the purpose of Cece Primary School and also our partner organization Humans Must Access Essentials (HUMAES).  We are trying to build the resilience of the Nimule community and particularly of the children of the very poorest and most marginalized families.