Freedom of Religious Media in Southern Sudan

Today, religious institutions are playing a big role in the area of media. Media is a means of communication, which as the communication writer Baran says, “is a transmission of a message from a source to a receiver”. The church in South Sudan has endeavoured to be an agent of change, which uses communication seen in several forms. Media can be either electronic or print. We can also think of communication in terms of oral transmission of messages, where I think most religious communication can be placed. To be more specific, the most popular media now is either radio or TV programmes, Christian videos, Christian literature, magazines or books. These can be very influential in a society since the role of communication since time immemorial has not changed. This role of the media is to inform, educate and entertainment. As of now, I am not sure that there is any religious institution which has a radio, television or even a newspaper or magazines operating in Southern Sudan. If they are there, then they are not widely circulated or their frequency and coverage is limited. So far, I have not heard of any serious threat on the existing media in the South. In Southern Sudan, the freedom of religious media can be said to be guaranteed by the existing laws. Previously, this freedom was curtailed by the Northern-led Islamic government. Just by the fact that the mainly Christian South was being persecuted, it meant that anything Christian – be it literature or any other form of media – was under threat. Persecution of the Church meant that the existing media could not freely circulate, especially in the Islamic strongholds in the north. But with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005, things have changed a lot and Christian media does not face the kind of hostility it faced in those early days. Looking at the Church today, we can see that it is striving to reach out to people through various media. The most dominant form of media used by the Church today is Christian literature like books and other written forms of communication. These are distributed widely and freely among the people in the South without any hindrance. Churches are also coming up with video productions since the video camera is readily available. These productions, however, have not been widely circulated because of a number of reasons, which we will not look at here. The new media like the internet and blogs is another form of media that is currently in use by different people in the Church circles. The new media is a medium that defies distance and time and therefore it is hard for any interested party to impose any restrictions on its use. It is also one of the fastest growing forms of communication since people can get access through their mobile phones, which are readily available among a large section of the population. The mobile phone too has increased the level of communication between people. Looking at all this from hindsight, the probable reason why religious media may be enjoying a lot of freedom in the South could stem from the history of the country. For the past two decades that there was animosity between the North and the South, the Church was the only institution that spoke for the southerners who were oppressed. They thus gained credibility and acceptability among the Southerners. The situation in South Sudan as far as freedom of the media is concerned may be borrowing heavily from other East African countries like Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. In Somalia, Eritrea and Ethiopia on the other hand, there is a different story as far as the Christian religion is concerned, and any media that is associated with it. There is a lot of persecution of the Church in these countries. The situation there is more or less what existed in Sudan generally and specifically in Northern Sudan, before the signing of the CPA as far as Christian institutions were concerned. Fortunately, the Church is still one of the institutions that the people have a high regard for in the South and no one would be willing to interfere with the freedom that the Church enjoys. This may continue or it may come to an end after the people of Sudan vote in the referendum that is set for January 2011. The relationship between the governed and the governors will determine how much freedom the governors would be willing to give to other institutions of the land like the Church. To help illustrate this, one would need to look at what happened in Kenya during the reign of former President Daniel arap Moi. At one point, the government felt so vulnerable and thus became oppressive. The government could not tolerate any kind of criticism. At that point in time, the Church was the only institution that spoke for the people against a regime that they felt was becoming tyrannical and unresponsive to the needs of the people. The National Council of Churches of Kenya had a publication called ‘Target’, which was critical of some government policies. The Moi government responded by banning the magazine in order to suppress the voice of the Church and the people. This is the unfortunate situation that may befall religious media in the South if it matures to become too critical of the government that will come into place after the referendum in 2011. Our prayer is that things will not go that low.