The silence on Sudan

by Tracy Fehr

In American society today our media controls not only what we see as a nation, but also our reality of the world. If something occurs and is not covered in the mainstream media then for most Americans the event never happened. This is why the silent role the media has played in the Sudan genocide and in the current Darfur conflict is so paramount.

South Sudanese villages are raided by the northern militia—which is supported by the Sudanese government—because of the “Jihad” or Holy War of the northern Arabs.

In 2005 Amnesty International said that over the past 21 years of fighting in Sudan, an estimated 2 million people have died and 6 million have been displaced from their homes. In addition, thousands of women have been raped and thousands of children have been abducted in the south and taken north to be sold into slavery.

“There is perhaps no greater tragedy on the face of the Earth today than the tragedy that is unfolding in Sudan”, said U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell to the House International Relations Committee in 2001. Although even at that point the tragedy had already been unfolding for some time. Our own president referred to the situation in Sudan as“genocide”, and the United Nations have called the Sudan bloodshed, “the Worst Humanitarian Conflict on Earth”.

So if Sudan is such a major crisis, then we have to wonder why do we not see it covered more in the media? Well, some could argue the recent lack of coverage is due to the Comprehensive Peace Accord—signed on January 9, 2005, to establish peace in south Sudan—but it’s not. Although this agreement helps to try to secure peace is one area, the rest of Sudan is still suffering. According to the UN News Service, the Darfur region of Sudan is experiencing attacks which have killed 180,000 people and displaced 2 million since that area’s fighting began in 2003.

The Sudanese government has gotten away with supporting militia against their own people for as long as the conflicts have been occurring in south Sudan and Darfur. Recently, the Sudanese government has made it increasingly difficult to obtain a visa for Sudan and has added difficulties for journalists once they arrive in the country. “Those reporters awarded visas are required to get permission to travel to Darfur, and once they get them, must be accompanied there by a government escort. Even then, soldiers can limit access to pillaged villages or displacement camps,” said Kenneth H. Bacon, President of Refugees International.

“There is such a small group of us [journalists] covering it [Sudan]. When we don’t go in, it means Americans don’t see what’s happening here,” said Washington Post reporter Emily Wax during an interview with Sherry Ricchiardi of American Journalism Review.

“The war in Sudan may be ‘invisible’ to Americans and others in the world, but to us south Sudanese it is a constant and painful experience,” said Francis Bok author of Escape from Slavery. Bok is a former slave who was abducted into slavery at the age of seven, when his south Sudanese village was raided by the north government-backed militia.

Although the Washington Post and the New York Times have slowly been setting the precedent for increased Sudan coverage, the television news remains drastically behind. In the year 2004, the three nightly newscasters—ABC, NBC and CBS—aired an insufficient 26 minutes on the Darfur and Sudan crisis. A television news analysis conducted by the American Progress Action Fund studied the amount of collective coverage Sudan received during the month of June 2005 on the ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and MSNBC networks. Sudan’s coverage was 12 times less than the collective coverage on Tom Cruise and 50 times less than the coverage on Michael Jackson.

Placing more priority on celebrities’ lives than on an international crisis affecting millions of lives is an injustice not only to the people of Sudan, but also to the viewing public of America. It is time for the American public to speak out against the increasing celebrity and domesticated media and to demand appropriate coverage for the most significant news stories—especially regarding Sudan. The mainstream media will only continue to ignore international conflicts and sensationalize domestic stories and celebrities as long as its viewers allow it to.

According to Harvard Research Fellow, Ethan Zuckerman, more press coverage on an international conflict leads to more public awareness on the issue and more pressure on the government to act. Thus, the amount of media attention an international conflict receives is positively correlated to the likeliness of peacekeepers and aid being sent.

Perhaps the seriousness of the incredible lack of coverage on Sudan can be summed up in a quote by Rabbi Irving Greenburg, chairman of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, in a Washington Post opinion editorial: “…the horror that afflicts Sudan is staggering…Remembering of the Holocaust has instilled in us a profound appreciation for the cost of silence.”

At this point of the Sudan struggle, we can only hope to cut that cost of silence and finally bring a voice to Sudan.

Waiting for Winter in the Wake of Disaster

by Haley Duschinski and Alex Keefe

Three weeks have passed since the Kashmir Earthquake of October 8. As the death toll continues to rise, the mainstream media has turned its attention elsewhere, cloaking the preventable deaths of tens of thousands of people in silence. Winter is descending on the survivors who remain in the high mountains of Kashmir. Now is the time to act.

The earthquake had devastating consequences throughout region. The estimates are staggering: at least 79,000 dead, many more injured, and three million displaced, with all of these figures expected to rise. Multitudes of people lost family members, homes, and livelihoods. The disaster destroyed essential infrastructure, including hundreds of hospitals, road networks, water supplies, school buildings, and government offices. These problems have complicated the relief effort, as aid workers have been unable to reach more than 3 million people living in remote mountain villages. UN officials have called it the worst disaster that they have seen.

Tragically, the world community has been slow to respond. The UN has been operating for more than three weeks without adequate financial support from many of the world’s largest and wealthiest nations. Relief workers are facing a race against time to provide shelter and food to people in Kashmir before the onset of the winter in the high Himalayas. Their current concern is that the number of deaths taking place after the earthquake will exceed those that took place during the actual tremor itself.

Concerned students and faculty of Ohio University are committed to the idea of raising funds and channeling them to two existing non-partisan humanitarian organizations operating on the ground in Kashmir: The Edhi Foundation (http://www.paks.net/edhi-foundation), and The Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (www.jkccs.org).

Both groups have established strong distribution networks in the region through their prior development and assistance work at the community level. They are responding in ways that have real consequences for people’s lives, and they desperately need money.

Please consider making a donation in support of this cause. We are processing donations through People to People Aid in Support of Nurani Dunia, a registered 501(c) organization, based at OU. All contributions made through this organization are tax deductible. Checks or money orders should be made payable to “P2P Aid in Support of Nurani Dunia” and sent to: Haley Duschinski, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Bentley Annex 131, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio 45701. For more information on how to donate, please contact Alex Keefe (keefea@ohio.edu) or Haley Duschinski (duschins@ohio.edu).

The earthquake was a natural disaster with immense destructive power. We may not be able to control this force of nature, but we are able to shape the form of our humanitarian response. In this globalized world, we are all interested parties with a stake in the future of Kashmir. Humanitarian responses and political processes are delicately intertwined. Our donations, channeled through grassroots agencies that operate across international boundaries, will have critical consequences for the future of Kashmir.