Majok Nyithiou is a blip on the map – a border town between war-torn Sudan and South Sudan, which relies on trade from both countries. When the borders between the two embattled states close, people on both sides suffer.
But in this bustling little trade town is an incredible example of peace at work.
The Misseriya nomadic groups and Dinka cattle herders and farmers have been forging peace agreements here for centuries. It’s very important for avoiding violence in a volatile environment, and also provides a foundation for continuing trade.
Peace organisation Build Up went into the area with cameras to see what people there had to say about peace, and encouraged local residents to film their versions of what peace looks like to them.
Here’s what a group of young Misseriya and Dinka men had to say:
“When I arrived in Majok, I found a good market. A big market, full of people, a peaceful market,” one interviewee said.
“People are open-minded, people are good. These are people of peace. Majok now has services, it has institutions. It has a school. Majok now has a hospital. Majok has a council that we have built. We have also built shops in the Majok market. And around the hafir (well) we have four or five brick-making sites. People are working to develop this place.”
But it’s not just the men who had something to say. One of the benefits of participatory films is that marginalised groups are able to explain their values to their community, and speak up about what peace means to them. For women of the area, peace depends on water supplies.
“We need water to wash clothes, to wash utensils, to wash our children,” one of the women interviewed explained.
“Water is a basic need. You can give your children food, but there is no water to wash their hands. Germs in their nails can cause disease,” she said.
“If there is water, people can live freely. Majok needs a future, it needs a big future. Dinka Malual and Miseriya can live together. All of us living peacefully together.”
Build Up co-founder Michaela Ledesma said she was impressed with how participatory films can empower marginalised groups and contribute to peace-building in a community like Majok’s.
“One of the women told us that on the day of the first screening she had put on the group t-shirt, which said “Our Films, Our Peace”,” Ms Ledesma said.
“Her son looked at her and laughed, saying ‘What are you doing wearing that, you can’t even read.’ To which she replied ‘I might not be able to read, but I know how to make films’.”
Over the past 35 years, the people of Iraq have had little peace. The country has been the central theater for the Iran-Iraq War, with an estimated 1 million deaths, the Gulf War and International Sanctions Regime, where up to 1 million people died, the Iraq War, with an estimated 115,000 deaths, and now the war against ISIS.
However, one photojournalist was fed up with how the media portrayed his homeland. Jamal Penjweny comes from a border town in Kurdistan, and has worked for The New York Times, The Washington Post and National Geographic.
He was frustrated with the media’s focus on devastating images of Iraq. Jamal wanted to show that his country is capable of more than just violence. So he created an exhibition called Angels of War. It’s a stunning reminder of the tenacity of Iraqi people, and of the hope that doesn’t make into mainstream images of the war-torn region.
In the series, ordinary people are depicted with angelic wings – an attempt, Jamal said, to show the people of Iraq that angels are all around them, in the everyday people they encounter. Jamal told us that after speaking with accused terrorists in custody several years ago, he was inspired to create the exhibition.
He said he wanted to counter the ideology of reaching paradise through suicide bombing – he wanted to show people who might be tempted by extremism that they are already surrounded by angels.
He also wanted to show the wider world another side of Iraq.
“We have art, we have culture, we have life. I want to show people the other side of the war,” he said.
Juliet den Oudendammer from Art Represent said the London gallery is excited to host such an insightful exhibition, and that art offers a different view of conflict, and people’s experience of it.
Juliet’s favorite piece is an image depicting a young child looking through metal bars.
“You see this little boy in a complicated situation, with a really complicated story at the beginning of his life already, and because he has those wings it shows that even in a bad situation, there is always hope,” she said.
She said art offers a different view of conflict, and people’s experience of it.
“We can show a different perspective, and start a dialogue between what the media is saying is happening in these countries, and what is actually happening to these people who are a lot of the time very far away from the politics, or the fighting or actual conflict,” she said.
“Art can motivate people, to gather behind a movement or to pay attention to issues that aren’t ‘sexy’ enough to be portrayed in mainstream media.”
