:: Gurtong Peace Project ::

The Government of Southern Sudan’s Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports in conjunction with the United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on 9 June 2009 organised the World Day of Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development
at Nyakuron Cultural Center in Juba town.

Gurtong’s Clement Lomornana had an exclusive interview with the Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports about the event.

Honourable Gabriel Changson Chang: I Am Honorable Gabriel Changson Chang, the Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports in the Government of Southern Sudan.

Lomornana: South Sudan just celebrated the World Day of Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development. In simple terms what is culture and cultural wellbeing in the context to the South Sudanese traditional values?

Hon Chang: There is always a problem with definitions and they vary from person to person and especially with me in the new field. I would say culture is a way of life and the things we do on a daily basis as a people. They are consolidated by the passage of time and passed on from generation to generation and that develops to what we call culture heritage. South Sudan also being part of the international community or world community and it also has its own cultural diversity because it has got many tribes and these tribes have different lifestyles and cultures which they follow.

So then culture, like I said before, is a way of life and culture and religion are given preference and valued by the people as valuable cultural activities and that way it takes time for any cultural heritage to die out.

Lomornana: What is world cultural diversity and national heritage in regard to present South Sudan?

Hon Chang: I think UNESCO has recognised the diversity of our culture as human beings, different races all over the world and that for us to accept and appreciate what we do as a people we should first accept our cultures and our different ways of life, so as to promote a co-existence that will be possible. The same thing relates to South Sudan, and as I said earlier it’s a diversified community with different cultures and for us to accept ourselves as South Sudanese with different cultures, we should accept these cultures then we can live in a united South Sudan with all our diversity; whether it is languages, tradition, religion; all those things are part and parcel of the cultural diversities.

Lomornana: South Sudan is a well diversified cultural country in terms of tribes, languages and traditional leaders among other things. How is your ministry highlighting the importance of protection and promotion of this cultural diversity?

Hon Chang: Well, as a priority we need to promote our cultural heritage. We need to preserve it as well as to protect it. So in our programmes, I hope in the coming few months, we shall have to specify cultural programmes, which will be produced by the Ministry covering the entire cultural diversity in South Sudan so that they are aired on the media (radio and television). We will also ensure there is equal opportunity to these diversified cultures as a way of fair treatment and to avoid marginalisation of any culture. Hence, we are going to give them prominence such that when people see them, they can associate them either with some tribes or part of the south. For instance, cultures that are coming from the greater Upper Nile, greater Bahr el Ghazal and the greater Equatoria will be immediately noticed once one comes across them.

Preserving these cultures means creating activities that will always keep the cultural shows on the spotlight. Additionally, through preserving these cultures, we need to create instruments to use in preserving them like recording them, establishing museums and as we move forward, we develop tools for preserving these cultures.

Lomornana: Your ministry in conjunction with UNESCO has organised a World Day Festival of Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development, has this been going on or is it going to be an annual event?

Hon Chang: Well, the cultural world day is a day set aside by UNESCO and it’s an annual event celebrated yearly on 21 May. The importance of this day is to enable the different cultures come together to display their cultural activities and dialogue with one another. This dialogue brings out acceptance and understanding of each other’s cultures. Once this understanding is there, then the groundwork is already laid down for common understanding and with this common understanding comes peaceful dialogue and development. That’s why culture is very instrumental in bringing about any reconciliation and co- existence between different nationalities.

Hon Chang: The objective is what I have just stated because when you celebrate this important day you want to bring the people together to give them the opportunity to display cultures which may not be known to others. You give them the opportunity to appreciate the cultures of others and give them the opportunity to dialogue with one another. As I said these events are always marked with happiness. When you are happy, and doing something you like then a peaceful and conducive atmosphere is created and this atmosphere is good for keeping people in touch and good for preserving and keeping people away from violent activities but instead engaging them in peaceful activities because the culture day is about singing songs, displaying your culture and everyone is happy.

This is another orientation; if we can co-exit and display our cultures among ourselves without any difficulties, why can’t we also co-exist as tribes and nations in peaceful atmospheres? Hence this is the intention and it also comes with development because when you do develop your cultural activities or heritage, then it follows that there is peace and then you can also involve in other development projects within that context and you are encouraging co-existence and not violence.

Lomornana: Do you think that this event will help in creating a culture of peace among our ethnic communities, considering the current volatile situation of inter-ethnic clashes in South Sudan?

Hon Chang: Yes! If properly used, it can help in reducing these tensions. For us in the Ministry we recognise that the youth as a people have a very important role to play in the society and their role must be made positive rather than negative. So through cultural activities, if well designed, we will be pulling out many youth who are engaged in cattle rustling and fighting with their fellow youth to come and concentrate on useful programmes, cultural activities being one of them. This is because in culture you can display your cultural heritage, you can also become a musician as well as an artist and those are useful cultural tools that can positively engage our youth and transform them form this violence into useful youth.

Moreover, in the Ministry the other two parts are equally important and that is the youth activities. We will create activities and programmes for youth empowerment where they will be engaged in activities that are good for the community. The same applies to sports where we will create programmes that will engage the youth in useful activities and give them the opportunity to develop their talents, whether it is in football, basketball or volleyball. Hence the Ministry will be engaged in planning programmes and projects that will keep our youth engaged in useful activities.

Lomornana: On the establishment of the World Day of Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development by UNESCO in 1988-1997, the day was highlighted for development of culture and ensuring the awareness that culture plays in the fundamental human rights. What role is culture playing in the fundamental promotion of the rights of South Sudanese?

Hon Chang: Well, again it goes back to the definition of culture. Culture is a way of life and if the ways of life are good then they help in shaping the society. The importance of this cultural day in the world is that if every year we highlight this event by colorful celebrations like we did in Nyakuron, we will be creating a conducive atmosphere where people will feel that when they move away from violence then their life will be improved and their understanding of one another will improve. Their acceptance as they are is also crucial just like the perception of an imperial culture, the human being.

You can prove through culture that violence is not good and has no value in society. Now, what does the abuse of human rights mean? It means that those who do not have the least respect for human rights will treat others in their own way, but with culture it means preaching the gospel of peace, reconciliation and development. Hence once we embrace all these things through our cultural activities then we will be fighting the abuse of human rights in a peaceful manner by beats and not by words alone.

Lomornana: On the establishment of the world cultural day, UNESCO came up with a recommendation that all folklore form part of a universal heritage of humanity and all nations safeguard to safeguard their cultural and social identity of languages and music among others. However with the current influx of western culture into South Sudan, what role is your ministry playing in safeguarding our national heritage?

Hon Chang: Cultures come and go and they do exist like the theory of ‘survival for the fittest’. Those cultures that are not usually practiced will disappear, even if it’s a language and other languages come to the society and the tendency of the society not to practice a certain language means that such a language vanishes because it would have been absorbed by other languages and the same thing happens with cultures and that is why we don’t have static cultures. Normally, in this dynamic world, what you do to preserve your cultures is to get rid of the bad aspects of that culture when you notice and learn from other cultures and then you maintain the good aspects as well as incorporating some from other cultures while maintaining the core aspects of your culture. So for us in South Sudan to protect our cultures, we need to go through them, highlighting and educating the people about the importance and preservation of these cultures.

For instance, the intangible cultural aspects like songs, if not recorded, will disappear and so to preserve them we have to record them, protect them through building shelter such as museums as a source of tourism and development. We also need to preserve our cultures through the use of the media as the role of the media is important simply because if something is kept in darkness nobody will know about it but if highlighted in the media, it will enable the public to pick out the good aspects of that culture that will benefit their society, their tribe and the south at large, thus leading to encouragement of people to preserve their cultures as an obligation and keep away foreign cultures.

Hon Chang: We have a lot of issues and challenges to address to enable us preserve our cultural heritage and in view of that we are going to create programmes that will support and preserve our cultures. For instance, one of the main programmes we are planning as a Ministry is to establish a recording studio for the South Sudanese artists as a way of protecting our cultural activities. We have come up with this as a way of encouraging our local South Sudan artists to record and preserve our cultural heritage. This also came after we learnt that there is only one recording studio which is very expensive for most of the artists, some of whom have been forced to travel outside the nation to Uganda, Kenya or even Khartoum. Hence, establishing our own studio here would subsidise our musicians.

We will also advice our musicians that if they are to preserve our tradition and cultures; there are two conflicting issues that they need to be aware of. These are:

Tradition: They ought to create their own songs based on our traditions and be able to compete with modern music. And if they neglect the traditional values then their songs will have nothing to do with South Sudan but foreign cultures thus not preserving our cultures. We will also help them in building their capacities through improving their skills through conducting trainings or by providing them with equipment to enable create a body/ association to assist them as a group.
Building of a museum for the protection of our cultural heritage: Once we have such a facility, we would then be able to collect all the art pieces from all over the south that are related to South Sudan then have them preserved and as we need to have a printing press to print our recorded folk songs and stories among other literature transcribed into word and printed for further preservation and forwarded to the print media for publication to educate and inform our masses about their respective cultural values.