Cush Renaissance - South Sudan media: minimize hatred, capitalize on fairness
April 21, 2008 (Edmonton, AB, CA) - When the veteran Sudanese journalist, writer and politician, Arop Madut Arop, author of Sudan’s Painful Road to Peace, was in England last month, I talked to him on the future prospects and direction of media in South Sudan.
“We should not import journalism. We should have it based on our culture,” Arop contended. He said there were two types of journalism; socialist journalism where newspaper is a tool for political control, and Western journalism based on profit making, and feeds on sensationalism. Arop said, like Pan-Africanist Kwame Nkrumah once proposed, African journalists should pursue a midway journalism between the East and the West - that which “informs and motivates the people.”
Arop also noted even though Western journalism professes to be “objective” and “fair”, while in Britain, he wondered about the notion of “objectivity” as far as coverage of Zimbabwe in British press, where anti-Mugabe bashing goes on unabated.
But let’s bring the discussion closer to home. For the first time in the history of South Sudan, it should serve as good news that we have more media presence now than before.
Online, we have The New Sudan Vision, South Sudan Nation, Gurtong, Sudan Radio Service and last but not least, Sudan Mirror. And in print, there is The Citizen, The Juba Post, The Sudan Mirror and Khartoum Monitor.
When I and some of my colleagues initiated The New Sudan Vision in January 2006, it was, personally, to create a forum of ideas and generally, to bridge the information gap brought about by years of war in Sudan by disseminating news from home and abroad to Sudanese readers and the world. At the time, I used to contribute to the online Sudan Tribune (ST) [caters largely to South Sudanese but owned by northerners] and South Sudan Nation (SSN). I recall how at times I felt my desire to explore grander themes, such as Cush Renaissance, the name of my column, were out of place. Nevertheless, SSN was great in that there was always a lively debate going on, and one would say, ‘democracy in motion.’ However, my greatest worry with SSN was lack of news. It appeared to be a dangerous development to have a website based solely on opinions. So in other words, we couldn’t lay a foundation for a South Sudan Nation on [uncompromising] opinions or the country would explode.
When I informed Peter Wankomo, the moderator of South Sudan Nation website on Feb. 8, 2006, about the creation of NSV, he sent me his congratulation. “I was extremely delighted to receive your email and immediately I accessed your website,” he began. “Frankly, it is good to have another site which will eloquently propagate for the freedom of our suffering peoples and get rid of Arab oppression in Sudan,” he said.
Perhaps, you may question why I am devoting most of my article to South Sudan Nation?
Well, it’s a very active website, one that generates so much controversy and may be a perfect example of “sensational writing.” SSN’s obsession with conflict is enormous. At best the website can be pathetic and at worse, intolerable. Currently, there is a lot of bickering there on its discussion forum on Madi land, ‘Dinkanization of Equatoria’, corruption in South Sudan and other contentious topics.
Here is a sample of some of the letters:
“Keeping SPLM/A as a ruling party in south Sudan will completely take south back to square one,” said a letter on SSN, titled (SPLM/A Terrorists in UPPER NILE STATE).
Here is a classic case of the news that the SSN provides, which are by any standards, propagandistic, extreme and unpublishable. “This is to bring to your attention that thousands of guns that reached to Nimule few days ago had been distributed to Dinkas in the above [Nimule, Mugale etc] places for unknown reason. These guns are distributed not only to men, but women and teenagers alike. These happened as a result of the long discussion about Acholi and Madi land issues. (Illegal Distribution of Guns to Dinkas In Nimule, Mugale, and Acholi Land of Lobone.)
Another letter published on SSN dwelled on the Equatoria land issue:
“We all fought for the liberty of our people, we are almost on the brim of full freedom. Thus I'd kindly ask Dinkas who are there in Equatoria doing nothing to go back home and start developing our own motherland instead of causing chaos of which we will achieve nothing but the lost of more brothers and shedding of blood after the signing of the CPA.” (How To End the Issue of Dinkanization). The writer of this article mixes good message “kindly asking Dinkas who are in Equatoria” with biased language, hence where he says the “Dinkas who are doing nothing and causing chaos,” to incite fellow Equatorians that the Dinka IDPs are just loitering in Equatoria.
Even though the content on SSN is unabashedly anti-Dinka, there is also hateful language against Equatorians, while the moderator is Equatorian. “The primitive mindset of Equatoria, and the way of thinking may make the south to be impossible to organize the country's economy,” writes a Dinkaman on SSN in a letter called (Primitive mindset of Equatoria? )
But all in all, there are peacemakers and moderates on South Sudan Nation, such as the writer of this letter. “It is really sad to see southern Sudanese who suffered together for very long time struggling to get to decide their own affairs.” This writer is being assertive, not aggressive and chances are his message is much more effective. No amount of Dinkaphopia or Equatoria bashing would solve any of the issues these SSN readers care about. We have to realize that we can “disagree without being disagreeable” as U.S. Presidential Candidate Barack Obama put it.
To many observers, including myself, SSN is teetering on the edge of the precipice and is dangerously hate filled. The moderator Wankomo, however, rejects that his website is preaching hatred. “All that I publish are opinions of southerners, Dinka and Equatorians, who see or don't see a lot of injustice in the current situation in so-called Madi and Acholi land, vis-a-vis the perceived attempt to occupation of their land,” is his explanation for the relentless and endless negativity on his website. Despite his assertion, Wankomo is not a spectator or a moderator for that matter; he is a partisan. Recently, he published two outrageous political cartoons. On one cartoon is imprinted, “It’s a draw,” supposedly says President Kiir to Omar Bashir. “Your Janjaweed in Darfur and my ‘Jiengeweed’ in Dar Madi.” Essentially,[he is] regrettably comparing the role of the Dinka IDPs in Equatoria to that of the notorious Janjaweed militias in destabilizing Darfur.
The cartoon goes on to condemn what it calls “crime of occupation” of Madi land. Matter of fact, the cartoon is no longer on his website, for reasons known to him. The other cartoon is reproduced below.
Finally, as a friend once said, “freedom of speech does not mean saying everything one wants.” Conversely, we would be better off publishing fair minded articles and avoid genocidal and incendiary opinions on our fledgling media.
*Mading Ngor is a second-year student of journalism in Canada. He is the News Editor with The New Sudan Vision where he maintains a column dubbed, Cush Renaissance. He can be reached at: madingngor@gmail.com.
