Kuirthiy's Word

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Published on www.kuirthiy.com on July 27, 2024

What I have noticed about Dr. Riek Machar is that he believes if he sticks to the truth and facts, then things will work out well. For some strange reasons, he has internalized this morally necessary but politically unpalatable reality. For a politician, this is odd, and very much so. He has been pushing this narrative now for well over a decade, that the world would side with him because he says the truth and President Kiir does not. But as he very well knows, truth in politics is a casualty of political schemes, interests and hypocrisies.

This does not mean there is no such a thing as truth or that truth does not matter. The issue is this: Truth, yes; but cui bono, who benefits?

Since August 17, 2015, when President Kiir and Dr. Riek Machar signed the agreement for the resolution of conflict in South Sudan (ARCISS) and then revitalized it on September 12, 2018, Dr. Riek Machar labored under the bewildering assumption that President Kiir will implement the agreement as stipulated in all its provisions. He also believes that if President Kiir does not implement the agreement, then peace partners and mediators will force him to ensure that all the provisions of the agreement are implemented.

This is a strange state of mind in politics, especially in countries Stuart Hall has described as complexly structured societies. I can say South Sudan is one of them.

President Kiir has shown time and again that he is either not interested in implementing the agreement or he does not know how to implement the agreement. This is a warranted presumption. Why Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-in-Opposition (SPLM-IO) still believes that President Kiir will change and implement the agreement is beyond me.

SPLM-IO has no political leverage. They only believe that truth and facts are on their side and that regional leaders will see who is at fault. But Kiir is the president so how regional leaders approach him is not as a subordinate or someone they can force to accept their punitive dictates.

This is something SPLM-IO must understand. Hear this again: They cannot, and will not, force Kiir’s hand! He is their colleague even when they at times act condescendingly toward him. IGAD leaders tried threatening Kiir like an infant in 2015. We know what happened.

If President Kiir must change, then that condition of change must be a political leverage Dr. Riek and SPLM-IO develop, either within the region or within the country. The agreement itself is not a leverage, but SPLM-IO believes it is.  The case of the Tumaini Initiative is a good example. It shows they neither have political leverage nor are they taken seriously in the region.

Running to mediators and regional leaders regularly to share grievances and the contravention of the agreement by President Kiir will only prove to Kiir that you are politically impotent and potentially becoming irrelevant. When regional leaders share Riek’s grievances with Kiir as casual advisories among colleagues, then any chance of Kiir taking you seriously dwindles with time.

Mediators and regional leaders can only urge the parties to the agreement to work toward the implementation of the agreement. That is all they can do. The people of South Sudan suffer when the agreements are not implemented; but President Kiir does not. He suffers no disincentive when he runs SPLM and ARCISS through the mud. As a frustrated former Ethiopian Prime minister, Hailemariam Desalegn, once said about the South Sudanese peace talks in Addis Ababa in 2015, the peace process had become meta-talks, talks about talks, not talks about peace.

SPLM-IO and Dr. Riek must find a way, through their own internal political mechanics, to force President Kiir to implement the agreement. No one outside Juba will do that. When President Kiir removed the minister of defense, Angelina Teny, on March 3, 2023, all SPLM-IO could do was share their displeasure and disenchantment with his actions. That was all.

It is time to realize that SPLM-IO political relevance in South Sudan should no longer be through the revitalized peace agreement. It must grow as a political entity. This is time for a political make-over. Even when we all know SPLM-IO is not necessarily on the wrong about ARCISS, and we know that facts and truth are on their side, being doggedly fixated on R-ARCISS is a dangerous political naivete. SPLM-IO’s long-term relevance should be through an institutionalized, coherent platform as a political party. That is the future, and that is the future of South Sudan. If Riek has no political leverage against Kiir, and facts to this date show he does not, and if regional leaders only convey advisories to Kiir, then it is time for Riek to change course. Political and strategic monotony is a sure path to political oblivion.

SPLM risk becoming, or it has already become, politically irrelevant. Unless of course being in government and occupying functionless, but fat government positions is how SPLM-IO wants to remain politically relevant in perpetuity.

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NB: Feel free to share the article; but make sure you credit this website or The Philosophical Refugee (www.kuirthiy.com)
 

Published on www.kuirthiy.com on December 23, 2023

 The peer-review process can be frustrating and, in some cases, downright depressing. You can spend excruciating months slaving on a paper only for the paper to be rejected by the journal editor before it even goes through the peer-review process. I have experienced this!

Sometimes your manuscript passes editorial review only for the reviewers to recommend the rejection of the manuscript. The editor usually follows this advice and rejects your paper. I have experienced this too!

In other cases, your paper can pass editorial review, then the reviewers after extensive reading of the paper ask for minor revisions or major revisions to improve the paper before they recommend it for acceptance. The onus is on the editor to ask you to address the reviewers' comments. These comments are usually sent to you (author) by the editor. There is no direct communication between you, the author, and the anonymous peer-reviewers. 

Here is an important reminder. Addressing the reviewers' comments can test your patience, professionalism, and the ability to accept being corrected or challenged by your peers. Some reviewers are kind and very professional. They only want to help you improve the quality of your paper. Some, however, can be unreasonable. They can ask for revisions that would completely overhaul your paper. Sad! But true!
Yet, the onus is on you professionally to address or reject some of the suggestions and respectfully explain why you are not going to include their suggestions in the paper, or how you have addressed the suggestions/concerns. 

Sometimes reviewers may ask you to address what you have already addressed in the paper. You have to, respectfully, remind them. At times they misunderstand or misconstrue your argument. Again, you must respectfully and professionally, however annoyed you are, explain how and where they may have misunderstood or misconstrued your argument. 

Another reminder. Be careful when reviewers say "these are only suggestions. You can choose to ignore them." You don't have to accept all suggestions, but you must show how you have addressed all suggestions including the "only suggestions."
Note that failure properly to address the reviewers' comments may lead to the rejection of the paper by the editor even after the 'minor revision' suggestions.

Patience! This process can take months to years. Imagine...for just one paper! (One of my papers was with a journal for nearly three years before it was accepted.)
Here are some pointers to note if you are considering sending a paper to a peer-reviewed journals.

1. You need patience, a thick skin, and humility. You will be reviewed by people who have been researching the topic for decades. Sometimes graduate students start to doubt themselves after several rejections: "May be I'm not cut out for this!"
2. You can send your manuscript to colleagues for some valuable critiques before you submit the manuscript to the journal. This is recommended. 
3. Pick a journal before you write a paper. Check the journal's aim and scope. The first thing the editor does is to check if your paper fits within the journal's scope. Journals only publish within a defined scope. Your paper may be excellent. But it will be rejected outright if it is outside the scope and aim of the journal. Some courteous journal editors may recommend another, suitable, journal for your manuscript. This is rare but it happens.
4. Keep the words count in mind and adhere to the referencing style the journal uses. They are very strict on this. If they want APA, do not send them a manuscript written in Chicago or MLA.
5. If the paper is within the journal's scope, the next thing the editor checks is whether your paper contributes anything new to the body of knowledge. If the answer is "no" then the editor will reject it through a professionally written rejection email. That's it. Some editors, depending on their reading of the manuscript, may ask you to address the weaknesses in the manuscript to improve it beyond its current form. They may ask you to send it back for review consideration. Remember, no guarantees it will pass editorial review the second time. If the editorial review answer answer is "yes" then the paper is sent for peer-review. Then you wait! It can be an excruciatingly long wait. Anxiety high!
6. Reviewers check the manuscript for its location within the scholarly literature. Sometimes reviewers will suggest authors you have not referenced if they believe they will help enrich the paper. They check what the paper contributes that has not been addressed. Sometimes you think your idea is new but then the reviewer points you to a scholar who has already made the same argument/discovery.  They ask if your argument is persuasive? They also look for structural coherence, theoretical/conceptual framework (is there one?), methodology, and whether or not the paper is actually theoretically informed. An author may use a theory that does nothing to advance the argument in the paper. Some reviewers check for grammatical errors, typos, and sentential coherence, and clarity. Sometimes the journal will give reviewers guidelines regarding what to check in a manuscript as they review the paper.
7. During the review process, things are unpredictable. Reviewers may say, "Reject" and explain why; "Accept" with minor revisions or major revisions. They suggest how to improve the paper or where they disagree with you. Sometimes they say "minor revisions" but the revisions can be extensive...not so minor. It is up to you to assess which suggestions to accept and which ones to reject. But you must remember that without reviewers' recommending your paper for publication, the editor will reject your paper. You must make responding to reviewers sound like a professional discourse between peers. Be open-minded. You must also respond to the reviews within a specified time-frame (by the editor) otherwise the paper would be considered a new "submission" even if it was recommended for publication. Be time conscious when responding to reviewers' recommendations/suggestions. 
8. Sometimes Reviewer 1 can say "Accept", but review 2 says "Reject." The paper is then sent to a third reviewer to break the deadlock. Note that the reviewers' don't know who you are. The paper is reviewed anonymously. Reviewers only know your identity once the paper is published. The reviews are mostly anonymous unless the journal de-anonymizes the peer-review process as a matter of policy. There are journals like that. This must be stated clearly in the "about" section of the journal. 
9. Some journals charge article processing fees while others charge article publication fees. Some journals, in fact most of the reputation ones, do not charge any fees. Check the journal guidelines.

So, my friends, go ahead and write on! Here is the link to some of my peer-reviewed publications:  (https://kuirgarang.com/research). Click on the publications to go to the journals. Check what I have called "aim and scope" of the journal. They all have it.

NB: Feel free to share the article; but make sure you credit this website or The Philosophical Refugee (www.kuirthiy.com)
 

Published on www.kuirthiy.com on May 28th, 2022

The mass anti-racist protests that followed the murder of George Floyd by Derek Chauvin of Minneapolis Police Department on May 25, 2020 provided a glimmer of hope for victims of racism. For the silent men and women of African descent who experience constant societal stigmatization and police brutality, the protests showed that societal attitude can change. 

While the protests were emblematic of what is possible in the fight against systemic marginalization and its mitigation, these protests have a way of ending up becoming events rather than sustained anti-racism processes. 

To change social attitudes and bring about sociocultural and systemic changes, therefore, sustained and accessible educational and cultural strategies become necessary. Fighting Anti-Black Racism or Afrophobia need a multi-sectorial, multi-layered approach. 

There are now calls and petitions to teach “Black history” in all Canadian schools following George Floyd’s murder. 

This essay suggests that reading fiction and history should be encouraged among elementary and high school students. This suggestion may sound odd. In the age of social media and Netflix, however, reading books has become less attractive. 

I once asked a teenage mother during an intake if she had an email. I wanted to send her some resources. She told me she had Facebook but not an email. When I asked how she could have a Facebook account if she did not have an email. She told me she did not know. 

When I asked another young man about reading, he told me he liked to read. When I asked what he reads, he couldn’t really tell me. He then smiled and said, "some articles…online.” He couldn’t even tell me the website and the topics he likes. 

Reading books is not everything. But it opens a world one does not see every day. It makes you travel without travelling. 

While students are encouraged to read in school, most students take up reading because it is required. For young people brought up to face the reality of racism, this is a travesty. 

However, reading for self-empowerment or to develop empathy among children and the youth needs the involvement of parents and community mentors. This, I hope, would make reading part of children and youth social and cultural growth. Emotional strength in the face of racism is a necessity.

Reading may encourage students from dominant social groups to develop a sense of empathy with “racialized” students. 

“Racialized” students may not only develop empathy, but they may also be empowered to resist misinformation about their history. Students of African descent are confronted by two things in the school curriculum: Lack of history about them, or a distorted version of their history. This is a consequent of institutionalized racism.

But we cannot leave corrective measures to people who are not affected by a distorted history. It is like making racism fix racism.

There is now, however, a cautious optimism in Canada’s campaign against racism.

People in positions of authority are thinking of curriculum changes to include ‘Black history’ for all students. This a hopeful beginning. But this is not enough. It is more mechanical than sentimental. We need both. People are more motivated if they have a sentimental connection with the moral issue in question. Why would people care about racism if it doesn’t affect them? 

Making reading a cultural pastime for young people therefore becomes important. It may take a young Toronto teenager to Nigeria of Achebe’s Arow of God, the South Africa of Peter Abrahams’ Mine Boy, the Barbados of George Lamming’s In the Castle of My Skin, the Ohio of Toni Morrison’s Beloved, or the West Africa of Leo Frobenius’ The Voice of Africa….etc.

Consequently, reading fiction, African and African diaspora history become important. This can be buttressed through literacy programs at young age.  In a multicultural country like Canada, this is vital in the fight against racism.

It is important to note that Canadian immigration was openly racist as late as 1962. Racism, according to David Matas, was the immigration policy. 

Below are important examples of reading programs.

In Toronto, The Reading Partnership  works with parents and children to help develop a reading culture at an earlier age. 

As Camesha Cox, the founder of The Reading Partnership has argued, encouraging literacy and reading at an early age can create “a culture of reading and learning.”

Using the work of late American novelist David Foster Wallace, the California-based Reading Partners writes that reading helps ‘build developmental skills of emotional intelligence and empathy, enabling our young readers to better connect with other perspectives and human experiences.’ 

Maria Nikoleja, a professor of children literature at Cambridge University argues that ‘the main attraction of fiction is the possibility of understanding other people in a way impossible in real life.’ 

For young people whose histories and cultures do not feature in Canadian educational curricula, this aspect of reading becomes important.

What exacerbates marginalizing experiences when young people find themselves stereotyped are lack of constructive strategies they can use to push back while informing others and remaining safe. 

When they encounter racism, they either fight or become sad.

‘My brother is always getting into fights over’ the N-Word, said Zora, who was interviewed by Jennifer Kelly in her book, Under the Gaze. 

This violence is instigated by a sense of helplessness. But when these young people fight, they are easily stigmatized and criminalized.  

Even a child as young as a six-year-old has been handcuffed by the police without parental consent.

This would not happen if this child was not of African descent. 

In a multicultural Canada where meaningful inter-ethnic and inter-racial cross-cultural exchange is extremely limited (or non-existent), equipping young people with historical knowledge about themselves and others can help in combating stereotypes. 

Not only does reading enable young people to develop positive feelings towards others, but it also offers them constructive ways to express their emotions. 

In the age of negative social media influence, encouraging students to read fiction is something teachers, parents and youth workers need to encourage in all students because research supports its usefulness.

Reading may also help “racialized” youth to self-educate. This may help them resist stereotyping through corrective engagements. 

One of Jennifer Kelly’s participants said he knew a historical fact his social studies teacher didn’t know. “I told him,” Desmond said to Kelly, ‘that the first lady in the newspaper industry was a Black lady [Mary Ann Shadd], and he didn’t know.” 

Desmond added that these “Black stuff”, which are supposed to be taught in social studies, are missing. 

More than 20 years later, what Desmond said is sadly still the case. "I would love to see more about Black history and about racism in our society today and how we can face it in the future,’ said Bayush Golla to CBC on June 17, 2020. 

Desmond felt empowered, but he was not alone. “Last year I was able to teach people stuff about Steve Biko,’ said Grace. ‘You feel so much better,’ added Kathleen, ‘You walk away thinking, “yeah we did we did that.” You want to brag. I would go to school and say, “did you know?”’

Like Desmond, Grace and Kathleen, Dagmawit Worku, a year 12 student in Cameron Heights Collegiate in Kitchener, Ontario, is still self-teaching “Black History.”  

This is an educational, community-based empowerment racialized youths, especially Africans and students of African descent, do not have access to in school curricula. 

If there is anything history has taught us, then it is this: It is morally dangerous to assume that people will do something because it is morally important. A sentimental connection is most of the time a moral motivator. 

Therefore, parents and students resort to ways of getting this empowering knowledge. Lorraine, another student Kelly interviewed said that her father ordered books from the United States “books you don’t see around here.” Kathleen puts it well when she said that “If it was your own culture…you would work hard so much harder.” 

Canada may be multicultural de jure, but it is monocultural de facto. 

Encouraging children to improve their literacy at an early age and then urging them to take reading as a cultural activity may help raise informed and compassionate youths. Excluding “Black history” today is not a question of malice or racism per se; it is a question of sentimental connection. 

As Kathleen has put it, “If it was your own culture…you would work hard so much harder.”

To cite: 

Garang, K. ë. (2022). The autodidactic: Reading for social resistance and empathy. The Philosophical Refugee. https://www.kuirthiy.com/2022/05/the-autodidactic-reading-for-social.html