Strategic Use New Media Peaceful Social Change

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Strategic Use of New Media for Peaceful Social Change
movement in Sudan that can propel them further. The ones that
make it in Sudan, like Taha Suliman, are very popular but there’s
not that much of a scene outside of the weddings and the shows
that he does. There’s a few of these concerts, like Igd Algalad and
such, which you can find posters for publicly and they appeal to a
wider audience. But they have been around for decades; that’s why
people know them and love them and they go to them.
Q4. In a country where freedom of expression and association
are under attack, is the Sudanese blogosphere coalescing into
a safe haven for communities of interest? In other words, is it
allowing discussion of topics that are off-limits otherwise? Is
it allowing communities of interest to form online?
Absolutely. Not only are people allowed to talk about politics, which
is something that they might not have the ability to speak of in a
public setting, but Sudanese outside of Sudan and Sudanese inside
of Sudan are finally meeting to talk about shared interests. Also
internet penetration in Sudan is high, especially for mobile phones,
so you have Facebook and Twitter. People are on these devices,
connected to other people talking about topics of interest.
But I also think that, because we don’t have a big publishing
industry, poets for example (they don’t have topics that they can’t
address publicly) have created names for themselves online. If they
try to publish their work offline it would be very difficult because there
are a lot of restrictions on publishing houses and there are not a
lot of funds going to that industry. So they navigated through this
challenge and found an online haven that can provide for them and
they could have a network to publicize their work. They can grow
and even form interest groups where they give each other coaching
lessons or creative writing lessons and workshops, which is actually
happening.
Can you give us examples of these platforms and such
writers?
NubianQ has a blog and she is a brilliant writer. 38 She is a short
story writer but also writes poetry. You’ve got someone like Jogs
of a Pen (@Shahdinator on Twitter), which is a brilliant poetry blog
that has been there for years and has beautiful pieces. 39 But also on
Twitter, for example, the “Jogs of a Pen” author with another author/
blogger called Halloya (@Hallaloyaa), they often go into freestyling
battles with each other by writing [poetry] lines to each other. Some
of these people online I see at offline events, like with the Nas with
Notepads events, where I see some of the people online share their
38 http://nubianq.com.
39 http://jogsofapen.blogspot.com.