Putting Leaders to Ridicule

In Acoli, just as in many other progressive traditions, leaders were in the real sense servants of the people. And the example of Rwot Awic of the Payira personified that trait.

Leadership came out of demonstrated competence and personal qualities that included a balanced temperament. Respect was earned, not bestowed by birth, neither by skills alone. Woe unto the leader who overreached his power or was incompetent. Soon the poets would fill the air with songs of ridicule that brought the culprit down to earth or put fire under the wayward loser.

Fast forward to present-day Acoli: how does this tradition translate? The traditional leadership, as encouraged by the present government, has little influence, if any, on people’s lives. Now, the leadership that really counts, apart from may be the Church, is the elected officials from local to national offices. While the playing field has changed, and there are temptations to cultish personality adoration, it is a pleasure to see that we can still put aspirants to leadership through the wringer.

Some would say that the ridicules amount to demeaning of our own in a neighborhood in which we, as a people, have been under intense put-downs for years. Effectively, this would amount to a counter-productive exercise of demeaning the community, so the wisdom goes. As the man is fond of saying, this is an exercise in obscurantism. Whatever the challenges of the Acoli, personality cultism is not the answer to the solutions. In fact, as witnessed by history, it is a recipe for disaster.

Practices that can build and uplift the community includes ability to laugh at ourselves—not excluding our leadership. If others join us in the laughter but with ill will, they will be mistaken. The last laugh will be on them when we rally behind the son or daughter who has passed the test of fire.

At issue was a picture of Mr. Otunnu staging a mock fight with a caricature of a traditional shield and a spear. In a chat room, some guys supposedly mocked Otunnu’s holding of the shield and the spear. The political correctness police jumped on their case. All kinds of disjointed and disconnected issues inundated the exchanges which amounted to much ado about nothing.

Otunnu has a stellar resume for himself. It is not uncommon and it is understandable that he has a hold on some people’s emotion and imagination. But what these people should understand is that not all of us share the same fascination—at least, not yet consideration the impacts of his past records to the community. We consider any ridicule of him is not equivalent to a ridicule of Acoli, as a community. While we are proud of his personal accomplishments, he is not the definition of Acoli. So, even any endorsement of him for the IPC top dog by a group of some whimsical old men with over-inflated view of their self-importance is just a fancy which they are free to exercise. But any claim to clout is a figment of their imagination.