KAMPALA —The minister for Investment in the Government of South Sudan, Dr Dhieu Mathok Diing Wol on Wednesday June 14, addressed the United Nations General Assembly at the UN headquarters in New York, calling for concerted efforts from all stakeholders across the world to end the vice of religious and cultural intolerance.
Dr Mathok, an expert in peace and conflict resolution, was speaking in his private capacity at the assembly attended by top UN officials that included Shaykh Dr Mohammad bin Abdulkarim Allssa, the Secretary General of the Muslim World League, Csaba Korosi, the President of the UN General Assembly, Ms Amina J. Mohammed, the United Nations Deputy Secretary General, Miguel Angel Moratinos, the High Representative for United Nations Alliance of Civilizations, Arthur C. Wilson, the Special Advisor, United Nations Multicultural Study of Faiths of the UN Staff Recreation Council.
The dialogue themed “Intercultural and Interreligious Dialogue: Building Bridges Between East and West, was also attended by religious leaders from across the faith spectrum, faith-based organizations, civil society organizations and academia.
The event is a culmination of an initiative launched in November 2022 by the the Muslim World League to support dialogue among civilizations. The initiative aims to foster mutual understanding and peaceful coexistence among the world’s diverse cultures and nations. It strives to contribute to this goal by mobilizing religious, social, economic and political leaders throughout the world to ensure their commitment and willingness to work in order to prevent manipulation of religious, ethnic, national and cultural identities in justifying violence and exclusion of “the other”.
It also aims to strengthen public discourses that call for bridging cultural and religious gaps and divides in Muslim and nonMuslim societies.
In his remarks Dr Mathok shared his experience growing up in a mixed religious family. The former Professor of Peace at the University of Juba, who is a practicing Christian but married to a Muslim woman of Sudanese origin, narrated to the gathering that the differences in religion and ethnicity between him and the wife have not hindered their marriage in which they have had four children.
He went on to explain that he was born to a Christian father but whose elder brother was a Muslim. “I come from a mixed religion family. Some of my relatives are Christians, some are Muslims, while others practice African traditional beliefs,” he said, adding: “My uncle the late Paramount Chief Reec Diing Wol was a Muslim and my father Mathok Diing Wol, his younger brother was a Christian. My entire community remembers the late Paramount Chief Reec as an honest chief. There are no complaints from the community about being ruled by a Muslim.”
Mathok further told the UN that when his uncle died, his Christian father inherited the chieftaincy and there were no complaints from the community about a Christian taking over power from a Muslim.
According to Mathok South Sudan is known for religious tolerance. “My President Gen Salva Kiir Mayardit is a protector and guarantor of the rights of Muslims in the country. I can confidently state that my country the Republic of South Sudan is among the top on the list of countries that observe religious tolerance in the World. Our laws do not discriminate between members of the community because of their beliefs,” he states, calling on the UN to study the pattern of religious tolerance in South
Sudan.
Mathok, who has authored a book and several publications on peace and conflict resolution, refered the audience to his book “Politics of Ethnic Discrimination in Sudan: A Justification for the Secession of South Sudan 2nd edition, 2022, which he said is in bookshops in East Africa and on Amazon.com, where he says he wrote on the situation between the Reizegat tribe of Sudan and the Dinka of the South Sudan, which situation led to the escalation of bad relations that ended in the secession of South Sudan from Sudan in 2011.
In the book, first published in 2009, Mathok writes about a group of elites in the Arab dominated Sudan who took advantage of tribal differences between the Arab Reizegat and the Dinka and created a conflict that looms on todate.
