Fwd: [sudans-john-ashworth] Words matter: Hate speech and South Sudan
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Elisabeth Janaina
Sep 6, 2017, 1:09:33 AM9/6/17
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From: "John Ashworth" <ashwor...@gmail.com>
Date: Sep 6, 2017 07:35
Subject: [sudans-john-ashworth] Words matter: Hate speech and South Sudan
To: "Group" <sudans-joh...@googlegroups.com>
Cc:
Words matter: Hate speech and South Sudan
IRIN - 5 September 2017
Lisa Clifford
“South Sudan terrorists need to be killed in order for peace to reign.
Lawful killing has been practised by states since time immemorial.”
These are the words of Gordon Buay, deputy chief of mission at South
Sudan’s Washington embassy, as posted on his Facebook page. Buay
claims he’s simply defending his government, but some of those working
for peace in South Sudan call it hate speech and accuse Buay and other
prominent figures in the diaspora of fuelling the terrible conflict in
this newborn nation.
But how much influence does angry writing on social media thousands of
kilometres away from the fighting actually have in a country with
limited internet and mobile phone penetration? About 21 percent of
South Sudanese have phones and around 17 percent can get online – but
these people are mostly those in towns, leaving rural communities
largely excluded from tweeting, liking, and sharing.
Theo Dolan, director of PeaceTech Lab Africa, which works to reduce
violent conflict using technology, media, and data, believes words do
matter. He says PeaceTech’s research has shown that online hate speech
– mainly coming from South Sudan’s diaspora in the US, Canada, the UK,
and Australia – is contributing to the violence.
“The guys on the ground in Greater Upper Nile [one of the conflict’s
front lines] may not have Facebook, but they have large family
networks,” said Dolan. “They use their phones but also interact with
their peers in person. They can spread the [hate speech] regardless of
whether they have access to internet or not.”
Achol Jok from the #defyhatenow project, which works to counter online
hate speech, agrees that the diaspora’s influence on the conflict is
strong and says its writing is being passed on by word of mouth and
phone calls.
“There is the perception if you live in the West you are educated and
better informed,” she said. “When they write something or say
something it is difficult for people to differentiate between what is
true and what is not.”
Born to rule
A famine has been declared in parts of South Sudan caused by the civil
war, which began in 2013 when President Salva Kiir, a Dinka, accused
then vice-president Riek Machar, a Nuer, of plotting to overthrow him.
The Dinka and the Nuer are the country’s two largest ethnic groups.
Their leaders are accused of having “born-to-rule” mentalities that
not only discriminate against other communities but have also led to
atrocities being committed by their soldiers and allied militias on
the basis of ethnic targeting.
South Sudan has splintered into ethnic fiefdoms. The UN office
coordinating humanitarian aid estimates more than 3.86 million people
– one in every five South Sudanese – have fled their homes, including
1.89 million internally displaced people.
Dolan says Facebook, WhatsApp, and to a lesser extent YouTube and
Twitter, are all popular with those in the diaspora who are spreading
messages of hate.
But not everyone sees the link between social media and the violence
of the civil war.
Saskia Baas, a South Sudan researcher who has spent time in rural
areas, doubts that posts on social media platforms have much impact on
the extreme violence in remote communities where the modern world is
far away and many residents are illiterate.
She attributes the violence to national and local politicians
spreading rumours and stirring up deeply entrenched beliefs and
unresolved conflicts of the past.
“If you go to Malakal where the violence is extreme, or Bor, these
places are so isolated,” Baas said. “The conflict is more about
historical grievances that people have towards the other tribe – more
than what someone is writing on the internet in Washington.
“When you interview them you hear a lot of stereotyping and racism,
people saying things like, ‘they are inferior to us, they always
fight, they are cannibals, they rape women, they are wild and
uncultivated’.”
Jacob Bul, the co-founder of Ana Taban, a South Sudanese artists’
collective that campaigns for peace, says the country’s politicians
are using online and offline tactics to manipulate young people to
fight.
“It’s not just online,” said Bul, whose Ana Taban means ‘I am tired’
in Arabic. “Hate speech comes out in regular conversations, and most
of our politicians create hate speech when they are addressing the
public.”
Searching for identity
Back in Washington, Buay insists that his Facebook writing is intended
for a diaspora audience only – simply to counter the rumours and
misinformation swirling around that community.
Buay compares his words to threats by Western politicians against the
so-called Islamic State. “If the British government says they would
fight [IS leader Abu Bakr] al-Baghdadi, is that hate speech?” asked
Buay.
“I didn’t mobilise the army to fight the rebels. I have never
mobilised one group of people to go and kill another group of people.”
The long war for independence from Sudan, the bloody internal conflict
that followed, and the desire for a more comfortable life or better
education have forced many South Sudanese from their country and into
the diaspora.
Susan Benesch, director of the Dangerous Speech Project and faculty
associate of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at
Harvard University, says it is only natural that some have taken their
ethnic identities – and prejudices – along with them.
“If you come from a society that is deeply divided, in which groups of
people fear and despise one another, why would you magically shed that
when you move?” she asked.
“It’s not that they start disseminating hateful speech, it’s that they
failed to stop. That sort of speech is very widespread in South
Sudan.”
Others are compensating for leaving behind loved ones or trying to
maintain contact with their much loved and missed homeland, according
to Benesch.
“Maybe the strongest weapon you have is your words, or at least that’s
how you see it,” said Benesch. “You mistakenly think that in some way
you are doing your part or helping out – especially if you feel your
people are in jeopardy at the hands of another group of people.”
Benesch says hate speech is a poorly understood term that is difficult
to define.
This makes prosecution tricky, and despite its potentially damaging
effects, convictions for those who spread hateful messages have been
sparse – with just one in international law so far.
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda found Ferdinand
Nahimana guilty of inciting listeners of the Radio Télévision Libre
des Mille Collines station to commit genocide in 1994. RTLM was
notorious for broadcasting messages of hate about Tutsi “cockroaches”
and urging Hutu to turn on their neighbours.
“Often, observers are looking for a smoking gun of incitement, where a
specific speech leads to acts of violence, but that is very seldom how
it works,” said Richard Ashby Wilson, the Gladstein Chair of Human
Rights and professor of law and anthropology at the University of
Connecticut.
“You need an insider saying, ‘I heard the speech, and I didn’t have
the intention of committing the offence until I heard the speech, and
then I committed the offence’. That kind of evidence has proved hard
to get hold of it.”
Codes
Dolan admits the online hate speech being monitored by PeaceTech
doesn’t always contain direct threats, but instead uses coded language
that might not appear obviously menacing.
PeaceTech has developed a lexicon of words that are offensive and
inflammatory, including the term “MTN”, which the lab has linked to
incidents late last year when buses travelling along the road from
Uganda were stopped by armed gunmen asking if any MTNs were on board.
Dinkas were then pulled out and killed.
At the time, the term MTN (a large mobile phone provider that uses the
slogan “everywhere you go”) was being widely used on social media to
refer to Dinkas, though they have since taken on the term to describe
themselves.
“To me this is a direct case of language being used to catalyse
violence,” said Dolan. PeaceTech Lab is using data from its research
to develop tools to predict when violence may occur.
“Nyagat” or traitor is another common social media insult aimed at the
rebels, and “Nuer Wew” (Nuer of money) refers to those politicians,
regarded as sellouts, who have opted to work for the government.
For Ana Taban’s Bol these terms are more than just words: “The more we
dehumanise people, the more we see them as ‘others’, we will not see
them as human beings and can do anything to them.”
https://www.irinnews.org/analysis/2017/09/05/words-matter-hate-speech-and-south-sudan
END
______________________
John Ashworth
ashwor...@gmail.com
+254 725 926 297 (Kenya mobile)
+211 919 695 362 (South Sudan mobile)
+44 787 976 8030 (UK mobile)
+88 216 4334 0735 (Thuraya satphone)
Skype: jashworth1
PO Box 52002 - 00200, Nairobi, Kenya
This is a personal e-mail address and the contents do not necessarily
reflect the views of any organisation
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From: "John Ashworth" <ashwor...@gmail.com>
Date: Sep 6, 2017 07:35
Subject: [sudans-john-ashworth] Words matter: Hate speech and South Sudan
To: "Group" <sudans-joh...@googlegroups.com>
Cc:
Words matter: Hate speech and South Sudan
IRIN - 5 September 2017
Lisa Clifford
“South Sudan terrorists need to be killed in order for peace to reign.
Lawful killing has been practised by states since time immemorial.”
These are the words of Gordon Buay, deputy chief of mission at South
Sudan’s Washington embassy, as posted on his Facebook page. Buay
claims he’s simply defending his government, but some of those working
for peace in South Sudan call it hate speech and accuse Buay and other
prominent figures in the diaspora of fuelling the terrible conflict in
this newborn nation.
But how much influence does angry writing on social media thousands of
kilometres away from the fighting actually have in a country with
limited internet and mobile phone penetration? About 21 percent of
South Sudanese have phones and around 17 percent can get online – but
these people are mostly those in towns, leaving rural communities
largely excluded from tweeting, liking, and sharing.
Theo Dolan, director of PeaceTech Lab Africa, which works to reduce
violent conflict using technology, media, and data, believes words do
matter. He says PeaceTech’s research has shown that online hate speech
– mainly coming from South Sudan’s diaspora in the US, Canada, the UK,
and Australia – is contributing to the violence.
“The guys on the ground in Greater Upper Nile [one of the conflict’s
front lines] may not have Facebook, but they have large family
networks,” said Dolan. “They use their phones but also interact with
their peers in person. They can spread the [hate speech] regardless of
whether they have access to internet or not.”
Achol Jok from the #defyhatenow project, which works to counter online
hate speech, agrees that the diaspora’s influence on the conflict is
strong and says its writing is being passed on by word of mouth and
phone calls.
“There is the perception if you live in the West you are educated and
better informed,” she said. “When they write something or say
something it is difficult for people to differentiate between what is
true and what is not.”
Born to rule
A famine has been declared in parts of South Sudan caused by the civil
war, which began in 2013 when President Salva Kiir, a Dinka, accused
then vice-president Riek Machar, a Nuer, of plotting to overthrow him.
The Dinka and the Nuer are the country’s two largest ethnic groups.
Their leaders are accused of having “born-to-rule” mentalities that
not only discriminate against other communities but have also led to
atrocities being committed by their soldiers and allied militias on
the basis of ethnic targeting.
South Sudan has splintered into ethnic fiefdoms. The UN office
coordinating humanitarian aid estimates more than 3.86 million people
– one in every five South Sudanese – have fled their homes, including
1.89 million internally displaced people.
Dolan says Facebook, WhatsApp, and to a lesser extent YouTube and
Twitter, are all popular with those in the diaspora who are spreading
messages of hate.
But not everyone sees the link between social media and the violence
of the civil war.
Saskia Baas, a South Sudan researcher who has spent time in rural
areas, doubts that posts on social media platforms have much impact on
the extreme violence in remote communities where the modern world is
far away and many residents are illiterate.
She attributes the violence to national and local politicians
spreading rumours and stirring up deeply entrenched beliefs and
unresolved conflicts of the past.
“If you go to Malakal where the violence is extreme, or Bor, these
places are so isolated,” Baas said. “The conflict is more about
historical grievances that people have towards the other tribe – more
than what someone is writing on the internet in Washington.
“When you interview them you hear a lot of stereotyping and racism,
people saying things like, ‘they are inferior to us, they always
fight, they are cannibals, they rape women, they are wild and
uncultivated’.”
Jacob Bul, the co-founder of Ana Taban, a South Sudanese artists’
collective that campaigns for peace, says the country’s politicians
are using online and offline tactics to manipulate young people to
fight.
“It’s not just online,” said Bul, whose Ana Taban means ‘I am tired’
in Arabic. “Hate speech comes out in regular conversations, and most
of our politicians create hate speech when they are addressing the
public.”
Searching for identity
Back in Washington, Buay insists that his Facebook writing is intended
for a diaspora audience only – simply to counter the rumours and
misinformation swirling around that community.
Buay compares his words to threats by Western politicians against the
so-called Islamic State. “If the British government says they would
fight [IS leader Abu Bakr] al-Baghdadi, is that hate speech?” asked
Buay.
“I didn’t mobilise the army to fight the rebels. I have never
mobilised one group of people to go and kill another group of people.”
The long war for independence from Sudan, the bloody internal conflict
that followed, and the desire for a more comfortable life or better
education have forced many South Sudanese from their country and into
the diaspora.
Susan Benesch, director of the Dangerous Speech Project and faculty
associate of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at
Harvard University, says it is only natural that some have taken their
ethnic identities – and prejudices – along with them.
“If you come from a society that is deeply divided, in which groups of
people fear and despise one another, why would you magically shed that
when you move?” she asked.
“It’s not that they start disseminating hateful speech, it’s that they
failed to stop. That sort of speech is very widespread in South
Sudan.”
Others are compensating for leaving behind loved ones or trying to
maintain contact with their much loved and missed homeland, according
to Benesch.
“Maybe the strongest weapon you have is your words, or at least that’s
how you see it,” said Benesch. “You mistakenly think that in some way
you are doing your part or helping out – especially if you feel your
people are in jeopardy at the hands of another group of people.”
Benesch says hate speech is a poorly understood term that is difficult
to define.
This makes prosecution tricky, and despite its potentially damaging
effects, convictions for those who spread hateful messages have been
sparse – with just one in international law so far.
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda found Ferdinand
Nahimana guilty of inciting listeners of the Radio Télévision Libre
des Mille Collines station to commit genocide in 1994. RTLM was
notorious for broadcasting messages of hate about Tutsi “cockroaches”
and urging Hutu to turn on their neighbours.
“Often, observers are looking for a smoking gun of incitement, where a
specific speech leads to acts of violence, but that is very seldom how
it works,” said Richard Ashby Wilson, the Gladstein Chair of Human
Rights and professor of law and anthropology at the University of
Connecticut.
“You need an insider saying, ‘I heard the speech, and I didn’t have
the intention of committing the offence until I heard the speech, and
then I committed the offence’. That kind of evidence has proved hard
to get hold of it.”
Codes
Dolan admits the online hate speech being monitored by PeaceTech
doesn’t always contain direct threats, but instead uses coded language
that might not appear obviously menacing.
PeaceTech has developed a lexicon of words that are offensive and
inflammatory, including the term “MTN”, which the lab has linked to
incidents late last year when buses travelling along the road from
Uganda were stopped by armed gunmen asking if any MTNs were on board.
Dinkas were then pulled out and killed.
At the time, the term MTN (a large mobile phone provider that uses the
slogan “everywhere you go”) was being widely used on social media to
refer to Dinkas, though they have since taken on the term to describe
themselves.
“To me this is a direct case of language being used to catalyse
violence,” said Dolan. PeaceTech Lab is using data from its research
to develop tools to predict when violence may occur.
“Nyagat” or traitor is another common social media insult aimed at the
rebels, and “Nuer Wew” (Nuer of money) refers to those politicians,
regarded as sellouts, who have opted to work for the government.
For Ana Taban’s Bol these terms are more than just words: “The more we
dehumanise people, the more we see them as ‘others’, we will not see
them as human beings and can do anything to them.”
https://www.irinnews.org/analysis/2017/09/05/words-matter-hate-speech-and-south-sudan
END
______________________
John Ashworth
ashwor...@gmail.com
+254 725 926 297 (Kenya mobile)
+211 919 695 362 (South Sudan mobile)
+44 787 976 8030 (UK mobile)
+88 216 4334 0735 (Thuraya satphone)
Skype: jashworth1
PO Box 52002 - 00200, Nairobi, Kenya
This is a personal e-mail address and the contents do not necessarily
reflect the views of any organisation
--
--
The content of this message does not necessarily reflect John Ashworth's views. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, John Ashworth is not the author of the content and the source is always cited.
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sudan-john-ashworth" group.
To post to this group, send email to sudan-john-ashworth@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sudan-john-ashworth-unsub...@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.co.za/group/sudan-john-ashworth
---
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