Update From PEN Secretariat
By Allieu S.H. Kamara

International PEN, Sierra Leone chapter, is ever determined to achieve its goal in the country.

May 13th this year marks the center’s fifth year in existence.

Over the years, the PEN centre has created a channel of communication for published and unpublished writers to express their interests and seek advice on all aspects of writing and publishing.

The centre continues to promote Sierra Leonean writers and literature. It is striving to enhance the culture of reading and writing especially among the young.

Since its establishment on May 13th 2003, our PEN Centre has undertaken several literary activities including literary training workshops, writing competitions and advocacy for freedom of expression in the media. We also continue to expand the school clubs project across the country.

The country’s first National Writers Award Ceremony was held in 2005 when 14 writers were presented with plaques.

The Talabi Aisie Lucan writers workshop which is named in honour of an accomplished and distinguished Sierra Leonean woman writer has become an annual event. Every year, the Sierra Leone PEN with support from the United States Embassy organises a writers workshop.

The first National Short Story Competition was held in February last year. The Centre in collaboration with the Conservation Society of Sierra Leone (CSSL) conducted the second annual Essay, Poetry and Art Competition in April as part of the activities in celebration of the 39th anniversary of World Earth Day. Attractive prizes are always awarded to the winners of these writing competitions.

Local publishing is one of our main objectives. We have already established links with the regional publishing outfit African Publishing

Network (APNET). Our aim is to set up a local publishing house that could promote Sierra Leone literature.

Meanwhile, PEN Sierra Leone had launched the Book of Voices in London in collaboration with the Flame Book Publishers in 2006. The centre has also published three editions of its literary magazine, the PEN Point which is a major publication of the centre.

The Centre has seen some changes in its organizational development and activities beginning last year. Through the support of the International PEN, The Sierra Leone chapter conducted the Induction/ Strategic Planning Workshop on December 3rd 2007. The essence of the workshop was to consolidate its members to work together to develop and implement a long term plan for the centre. During the workshop, members were identified who would be in the different standing committees of International PEN and the Sierra Leone chapter to make the latter viable.

Our current activities include the expansion of the PEN school clubs. Also supported by PEN International, the goal of the project is to increase PEN membership and promote interest in reading and writing among school children in the regions across the country. The number of the Sierra Leone PEN school clubs has now increased to eleven.

The first five pilot school clubs in the Western Area are the Annie Walsh Memorial School (AWMS), Freetown Secondary School for Girls FSSG), St. Edwards Secondary School, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Secondary School (AMSS) and the Methodist

Boys
High School (MBHS). This pilot project was supported by the Christian Literature Crusade (CLC).The six new PEN school clubs in the regions are as follows:

Our lady of Guadalupe

Secondary School in Lunsar, Port Loko District, the St. Francis Secondary School in Makeni, Bombali District, all in the Northern Province; the Koidu Girls Secondary school in Kono, Kono District, Government Secondary School Kenema, in the Eastern Province and the Government Secondary School Bo, (Bo School) and the Harford Secondary School for Girls in Moyamba District in the Southern province.PEN Sierra Leone has a very good working relationship with both the civil society organizations, foreign mission and the government.

As most of the centre’s programmes are funded by donors its main challenge is how to be self sustaining. We want to build the capacity

of the centre. We want to set up an internet café and desktop publishing services to generate income. We are also interested in opening bookshops in Freetown and the provinces. We therefore encourage members to enhance our collective efforts in the pursuance of our mission, according to the following commitment:

“I commit to serving PEN (Sierra Leone) diligently, selflessly,

steadfastly and conscientiously in various capacities within my competence in order to enhance its viability, effectiveness and growth.”

read by both old and new members during the Sierra Leone PEN Strategic Planning Workshop successfully conducted in

Freetown in December, 2007 at the Grassroots Gender Empowerment Movement (GGEM), 57 John Street, Freetown YOU ALSO COULD COMMIT YOURSELF TO ENHANCE PEN WORK HERE

The Traveling of the Olympic Torch along with Shi’s Poem “June” and its translation into Various Languages as it Traverses the Globe

Author: Arthur Edgar E. Smith

The International PEN Poem Relay website was launched, March 25 as the Olympic Torch was being lit and as it was starting its journey across Greece towards

Athens. At the same time Shi’s poem ‘June” virtually left

Taiyuan

City, Shi Tao’s hometown and traveled to

Greece. On March 30, the poem arrived at Greek PEN Centre (at the same time the Olympic Torch arrived in Panathinaiko Stadium in

Greece).T his relay follows as far as possible the track of the Olympic torch but unlike it, it has not generated so much fuss and controversy, for this one is focused around the poem “June” by the imprisoned Chinese poet and journalist Shi Tao and though it may draw as much attention if not more than the torch it does not seek to do so by being disruptive nor competitive.PEN Centres around the world have translated and recorded “June” in more than 90 languages including krio, Yoruba, Ibo, Hausa, Swahili, Lingala and, through the internet, the poem is now virtually traveling around the world, from centre to centre, language to language, adding new translations as it goes ending in Beijing to coincide with the start of the 2008 Olympics in August.Translators and poets at PEN centres around the world have used the spirit of the Olympics to bring to life Shi Tao’s message in the languages of the world,’ As the poem spreads from language to language, it spreads PEN’s concern for freedom of expression in China and the writers who are languishing in its jails.Through a map of the world the special website www.penpoemrelay.org shows the progress of the poem relay, which takes its cue from the Olympic Torch Relay itinerary. Through clicking at a country on the world map on the site you will be alerted to the arrival of the pen poem relay in that country. 

 On its arrival in Sierra Leone on Sunday 13th of April visitors to the site read and listened to the poem in krio and learnt about the work of PEN in Sierra Leone as well as other African countries like Guinea, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, Algeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa, Somalia and the Afar Speaking Peoples.

The troubles of Shi Tao who is serving a 10-year sentence in prison came through the advanced technology used to monitor, survey and track down those suspected of violating Chinese laws by exercising their freedom of expression on the internet.
He was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment for “revealing state secrets abroad”. For in April 2004, Shi Tao had taken notes on a document read aloud at an editorial meeting of the Dangdai Shangbao (Contemporary Commerce News) issued by China’s Propaganda Department instructing the media on how to cover the 15th anniversary of the military crackdown on June 4, 1989 in Beijing shutting down the Tiananmen Square protests at which he was present. He sent those notes to an overseas website using a Yahoo! email account. According to court documents, Yahoo! (Hong Kong) Holdings Ltd provided the Chinese authorities with Shi Tao’s identity.

The poem ‘June’ written on June 9, 2004, shortly after the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests and just three months after Shi Tao sent that email meditates on the tragedy of the military crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests in June 4, 1989, which remains a censored topic in China.

Visitors to the website track the poem’s progress around the globe, reading and listening to new translations as the poem arrives at each new centre. The poem has been translated into more than 90 languages including Adnyamathanha, one of Australia’s Indigenous languages; Wolof, one of the most widely spoken languages in Senegal; krio a language widely spoken in Sierra Leone as well as being intelligible across much of West Africa;Tamazight, a Berber language spoken in Algeria, Morocco, Niger, Mali and Libya; Basque; Uyhgur; Tibetan; Chechen; in addition to major languages such as Japanese, Russian and others.

The translation of this poem into the world’s languages is a testament to PEN’s concern for Shi Tao, to its concern for the many other writers in prison in China, and to its respect for the Chinese people and their literary creativity, says Chip Rolley, translator of the poem to English and one of the organizers of the relay. In the spirit of the Olympics and the international cooperation it embodies, Shi Tao’s poem ˜June” is a torch in its own right, said Swiss German PEN’s Kristin Schnider, also one of the organizers. It’s a light for freedom of expression, the celebration of poetry and linguistic diversity, and a beacon for writers who are under pressure or imprisoned.

On April 6, the poem arrived at English, Scottish, Irish, Norwegian, Swedish and Icelandic PEN centres with translations and recordings in Gaelic, Scots, Scottish Gaelic, New Norwegian (Nynorsk), Regular Norwegian (Bokmal), Icelandic, Swedish, Persian (from a member of Swedish PEN), Welsh, and English (recited by actress Juliet Stevenson, perhaps best known for her role as Keira Knightley’s mother in the movie Bend It Like Beckham).

The poem has visited over 70 locations throughout Europe, the Americas, Africa and the Middle East, and centres and recordings have been posted. Centres and locations visited so far include: Greek, Austrian, German Speaking Writers Abroad, Polish, Czech, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatian, Central Asian, Turkish, Kurdish, Chechen Writers, Slovak, Serbian, Macedonian, Slovene, Romanian, Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Lithuanian,and Finnish Centres, and Almaty, Kazakhstan, India, Maaysia (to coincide with the Beijing Olympic Torch).

As the poem arrives at each centre, more voices are added to those from all parts of the world in calling for the immediate and unconditional release of all writers and journalists currently imprisoned and, appealing for the Chinese authorities to put an end to the practice of detaining, harassing, and censoring their writers and journalists so that that great Chinese culture will continue to flourish proudly alongside the freedom-loving cultures of this fastly modernizing and liberalizing world.

According to Yu Zhang, of Independent Chinese PEN Centre, another organizer, as long as Shi Tao and other writers and journalists on PEN’s case list are still behind bars, his poem ˜June” will continue to be a reminder of the reality behind the Beijing Olympic motto ˜One World, One Dream.”

The relay moved through the south east Asian flank traversing India,and Malaysia as it was been eagerly awaited in Australia, another organizing centre. The Australian leg will include translations into Aboriginal and other languages. It is now within China making it rounds right low bidding its time for next month 

Resource Box: Original Article URL: The Traveling of the Olympic Torch along with Shi’s Poem “June” and its translation into Various Languages as it Traverses the Globe Arthur E Smith a Senior Lecturer at Fourah

Bay

College, from which he holds a Masters in African Literature has taught English at various institutions. He participated in a seminar on contemporary American Literature sponsored by the U.S. State Department in 2006 and was made Honourable Citizen Louisville. His thoughts and reflections on this trip could be read at www.lisnews.org and ezinearticles.com His other publications include: Folktales From Freetown, Langston Hughes: Life and Works Celebrating Black Dignity, and ‘The Struggle of the Book in

Sierra Leone’ Keywords: PENpoem relay, Olympic torch, Chinese poet and journalist, the internet, map of the world, languages of the world
View Count: 200
Date Submitted: 4/22/2008Most recent articles in News and Society category: ·         

       Other related articles in News and Society category: ·                   Recent articles by Arthur Edgar E. Smith:  ·                  The Re-emergence of Science Fiction as a Reckonable Literary Genre ·                  The Fate of Equiano Determined at Last ·                  A Long Arduous Journey, Prayer and Quest for Freedom: Olaudah Equiano’s Dream ·                  Celebrating with Black Boy on the Centennial of Richard Wright. ·                  Anna Politkovskaya’s life Sacrificed for Social and Political Justice: Slain Russian Writer and Journalist,. ·                  Abiodun’s Changing Fortunes ·                  Orality and Historic Echoes Running Through Yambo Ouloguem’s BOUND TO VIOLENCE ·                  The Passing of another Collosus in the Black Literature and Negritude - Aime Cesaire ·                  A Dream of Coming into Great Wealth Turning Sour ·                  A Vibrant, Diverse, Lively, Active and Varied Art Scene in Louisville  

Letter from Mike Butscher 

Dear All,

I was reflecting few days ago on the road from Mexico, 2003 Congress when the first meeting of the PEN African Network (PAN) was held and attended by some African delegates. One of our key resolutions was to encourage International PEN to strengthen existing centres and open up new ones that qualify. As I write to you this day, International PEN is supporting nine initiatives in several African countries:

Malawi PEN -           in promoting reading and writing in disadvantaged schools

Sierra Leone PEN  -  in the expansion of existing school clubs into four regional areas

Uganda PEN  -          in a project to write Ugandan childhood memories

Zambian PEN -          in developing a programme of school clubs

Guinea PEN  -           in developing a mobile library bus

Somali Speaking PEN  - in organising readers and writers events in a week-long celebration of Mother    Tongue Week
Egyptian PEN  -             in a project to organise literary workshops for less fortunate groups

Algerian PEN  -              in  literary readings to get writers engaged with the public on their writings

 International PEN is also supporting a Twinning/Mentoring Programme as follows:

Egypt and Somali PEN,Malawi and Zambia PEN, Uganda and Sierra Leone PEN and Algeria and Guinea PEN

You will agree with me that we have made a lot of gains as African centres. The challenge we have is how to sustain or maintain these gains. We have to be ready to take these programmes on with zeal and dedication. International PEN has obtained some funding for Africa for three years. There is a possibility that the Open Society Foundation may also approve funding

Africa programmes.
I thank you all once again for voting me into the board during the July board election in

Dakar. I promise to live up to your expectations provided you will give me your support. The kind of support I am talking about is active communication among us as members of centres and centres to centres. Please let us resolve that in 2008, we will try to quickly reply to correspondence and sometimes just drop a line to some PEN colleague who is a friend. We have to keep our communication lines open. Now, demonstrate this commitment by responding to this mail when you finish reading it.On behalf of the Board of International PEN, I want to wish you a more successful 2008.

Mike Butscher ( mike.butscher@gmail.com)

SPREADING HUMAN VALUES ACROSS THE WORLD THROUGH THE WORD
By Arthur Edgar E. Smith
Senior Lecturer of English, Fourah Bay College

I was amongst 200 delegates from over 70 countries participating in the 73rd International PEN Congress held in the prestigious Meridian Hotel in the historic city of Dakar under the theme ‘The Word, The World and Human Values’.

The Congress, opened officially by Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade in a very colourful occasion where he announced dramatic increases in government funding for the arts, providing for a new publishing house, literary prizes amongst many others, closed on July 11th calling for ending insult and defamatory laws worldwide and committing itself to supporting and protecting languages that are under threat worldwide.

International PEN celebrated and applauded the wealth and diversity of its’ members’ work particularly so, that of African PEN members and writers. But it deplored the prevalence of insult and defamation laws across Africa and resolved to continue protecting and defending the freedom to write in all corners of the world.

The extreme situation for Iraqi writers, many being forced into hiding or exile, was raised. The U.S. Government was urged to take greater responsibility for the resulting upsurge in refugees and provide more for their protection and resettlement.

The International PEN President Jiri Grusa expressed pleasure in meeting in Africa particularly so in the cultural and literary city of Dakar, home to such immense literary figures as late President Leopold Sedar Senghor, internationally renowned as a poet as well as former Vice President of International PEN.

As first President of Senegal, Senghor left a rich heritage and respect for African culture and writing in Senegal. Other notable Senegalese writers include the late Sembene Ousmane and Mariama Bah were remembered.

 Welcoming, hearty and hospitable, Senegal is a crossroads of ethnicities, rich cultures and traditions drawn from the Wolofs, Pulaars, Soninke, Dilas, Lebous, Sereres from Sine and the Mandingos. Such wealth of human spirit and culture was experienced everywhere especially when delegates as well as participants were accorded the opportunity of sailing by ferry to the well preserved, picturesque and habited island of Goree where memories of the greatest dehumanization of man was perpetrated in the name of human commerce.

For Jiri Grusa, Goree is a stark reminder of such violations of human beings and the need to remain ever vigilant and bonded in the spirit of brotherhood and sisterhood to combat the tyranny that would deny the humanity of another human being.

Three new centres, the Afar-speaking, the Iraqi and the Jordanian were pleasurably inducted into PEN.

Literature whose world-wide dissemination is one of the principle pursuits of PEN International, the PEN International President said, is geared to decipher the puzzle of life and to make our world somehow more inhabitable. Authors, he went on, are like good teachers with much influence as they can explain our world and inspire us through their explanations. The very power of the word is the tension between things and their names, he said. As our happiness in life depends on our ability to properly combine emotions and facts, he emphasized, good literature symbolizes reality, regardless of the language in which it was written, thus presenting the balance between names and frames. The problem he posed is that of how to confront the widening discrepancy between both.

Much interest was generated by the four sessions on the sub-themes revolving on African Literature. These included: ‘The role of contemporary African Literature in intercultural dialogue,’ ‘Literature and the oral tradition’ and ‘Writers and the creation of Peace’ Though the discussions were as lively and informed as the papers were, it would have been much more balanced if a more representative panel from both Anglophone and Francophone Africa had been made. Because of this lapse the analysis and conclusions of the panels were mostly restricted to Francophone West African texts. Though I must confess that it was most enlightening as I became aware of more of those authors than I would have ordinarily come to know.

Programmatic work with 15 active African PEN centres were also consolidated with funding from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency for the next five years guaranteed. As agreed at a regional meeting in Ghana, their priorities would be learning and community access, focused towards a continued engagement with reading and writing to bring about social change and empower groups who can otherwise be excluded from the world of ideas and civil society.

The evenings of the 1-week event were marked by receptions given by various government officials including the Mayor of Dakar, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs  and that of Culture.

Cultural performances by the Ballets Africaines and other dance ensembles took place at various locations like Theatre Sorenan. Poetry readings and buffets were hosted at the luxuriant and expansive lawns at the Ministry of Culture.

But the highpoint of the cultural programme was ‘Freedom’ a night of African Literature hosted by Kenyan writer Binyavanga Wainaina celebrating some of the established and emerging voices in Africa : Jack Mapanje , Maliya Mzyece-Sililo, Binyavanga Wainaina and Ekbal Baraka  who read from their works and discussed the rich variety of African writing today. These are published in the autumn 2007 online edition of PEN International Magazine devoted wholely to Africa.

Trust Africa, the co-organizer of this event hopes to begin collaborating with African centres through encouraging and supporting activities and writing facilitated by International PEN. It funded five delegates to attend the Congress. Trust Africa which is a new African foundation promoting peace, economic development and social justice in one of the sessions explained its formation, objectives and opened the floor for wider discussion of its prospects and future in promoting African writings.

PEN International a non-political organization with Category A Consultative status at UNESCO and the United Nations, spent much time in choosing a suitable venue in South America that would not compromise its reputation nor pose too serious risks or send approving signals for repressive regimes. It will therefore continue its regional focus work in Latin America where the next Congress should be held in 2008 specifically in Bogota, Colombia.

Central to PEN’s work is freedom of expression which it has been vigorously pursuing as well as defending in all corners of the globe. This was reflected in 12 resolutions passed condemning the imprisonment of writers in China, Iran, Uzbekistan, Eritrea, Cuba and Vietnam, killings of journalists in Mexico and Afghanistan and the forced closure of a television station in Venezuela.

PEN International has throughout the year been defending Russian PEN from closure by the government, initiating dialogue for peace in the Middle East and assisting threatened writers to resettle in safer countries.

Two courageous writers, each of whom played a vibrant role in promoting free expression in their countries, Anna Politkovskaya, the Russian investigative journalist and writer who was assassinated at her Moscow home in October and Hrant Dink, the Armenian Turkish editor working for reconciliation between the two communities who was killed at his office in Istanbul in January had their lives and works remembered. So too were other writers who have continued to be harassed and threatened due to opinions expressed in their writings. Notable amongst these was Salman Rushdie whose recent knighthood sparked a resurgence of threats against him. Focus was given to Turkey as well where the issue of insult and defamation laws have been used to silent dissent.

Many Centres had during the course of the year been protesting the killing of the special correspondent for Novaya Gazetta, Anna Politkoeskaya, who had been known and supported by International PEN for her pioneering reporting and her commitment to the people of Chechnya. Unflinching in her narration of contemporary Russia, her books include A Dirty War, Putin’s Russia and the book she completed shortly before her death, A Russian Diary. PEN members have been marking her death with remembrances including vigils, tributes and events.

PEN International Secretary, Joanne Leedom-Ackerman, noted that this was the second time in its 86-year history that International PEN was holding its Congress in Africa which reflects PEN’s growth there over the last decade actively engaging in promoting literature, defending freedom of expression and reaching out to youths with literature.

Taking over from Joanne as International Secretary is the Norwegian writer and human rights activist Eugene Schoulgin who saw his elevation as a great honour. Expressing his belief that International PEN has an extremely important role to play in the world today, he pledged his ambition ‘to make our voice louder and clearer, to promote literature from every continent.

Two new Vice-Presidents, Canadian writer, Margaret Atwood, and Niels Barford joined a long line of other distinguished writers including Nadime Gordimer, Toni Morrison and Boris A. Novak occupying that position. Eric Lax of Pen Centre USA got elected as International Treasurer along with four new members of the Board amongst whom was Mike Butscher from Sierra Leone Pen Centre. Mike expressed great pride in being elected to such a prestigious Board of writers and pledged himself to strive to uphold and intensify the ideals of PEN particularly in Africa and extend the networking amongst centres already started in Africa to other parts of the globe. These words were translated into immediate action with the twinning of Sierra Leone Pen Centre with Pen Centre USA just a day after. Sierra Leone Pen Centre has in the past received significant support from Pen USA in terms of material as well as logistical support including the construction of a website for the centre.

Established in 1921, with English writer John Galsworthy as its first president, this worldwide association of writers today boasts of 144 centres in 101 countries all promoting literature, defending freedom of expression largely through four committees- Writers in Prison, Translation and Linguistics Rights, Writers for Peace and Women Writers – and the Writers in Exile Network.

The Writers in Prison committee works on behalf of persecuted writers worldwide monitoring cases of writers imprisoned, tortured, threatened, attacked and killed for the peaceful practice of their profession. It campaigns to end these attacks and opposes suppression of freedom of expression wherever it occurs.

The Translation and Linguistic Rights Committee has from 1978 been working to promote the world’s linguistic and cultural differences, the translation of contemporary literature and the promotion of the Universal Declaration of Linguistics Rights. Last year its multilingual E-Collection of poetry, fiction and essays expanded to include a total of 20 authors from 14 countries across the world.

The writers for Peace Committee founded in 1984 at the height of the Cold War is still dedicated to promoting the cause of peace and celebrates Writers for Peace Day each year on 3rd March. Its annual meeting in Bled last year featured papers and contributions discussing the themes of Globalization of the World- Marginalization of Literature?-The Role of PEN in the Contemporary World, and Freedom of Expression as a Means Against Terrorism.

From 1991 the Women Writers Committee has been working to promote women’s writing and publishing and to encourage women to know, translate and popularize one another’s work

The Writers in Exile Network formed in 1999 establishes placement opportunities for exiled, immigrant and refugee writers at universities, colleges and learning centres around the world in collaboration with other organizations.

Among early PEN members were Joseph Conrad, George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells and Anatole France, Paul Valery and Thomas Mann. PEN membership has also embraced many Nobel Prize winners and other eminent writers from all over the world. Henrich Boll, Arthur Miller, Mario Vargas Llosa and Gyorgy Konrad form part of the long list of previous PEN Presidents.

Aminatta Forna launches her latest book in Freetown. She is seen presenting a copy to Mike Butscher and Esme James of the S.L. PEN Centre.

African PEN Centres meet during the PEN Congress in Berlin, 2006.

The Sierra Leone Association of Journalists, with assistance from the United Nations, the National Election Commission (NEC) of Sierra Leone and other civil society groups agreed on a media code of conduct.

The code of conduct will guide the electoral campaign leading to presidential and parliamentary elections set for July.

It was the first time journalists in the country formulated such a code to guide media behaviour during elections, according to the UN Integrated Office for Sierra Leone (UNIOSIL).

A national roundtable in Freetown brought together Friday Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ) delegates from all regions with high-level UN representatives, NEC, Political Parties Registration Commission and civil society organizations to consolidate the findings from regional seminars in a final Electoral Code of Conduct for Media.

The document was ratified and signed the following day by regional executive members of SLAJ, newspaper and magazine editors, radio and TV station managers at a signing ceremony.

The ceremony was attended by cabinet ministers, leaders of political parties, senior members of the NEC, the Political Parties Registration Commission, UN and diplomats, as well as activists of national and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

The two-day event also attracted participants from across the country including traditional and religious leaders, women and youth groups, trade unions, local councillors and members of the armed forces and police.

The Executive Representative of the UN Secretary-General and UN Resident Coordinator in Sierra Leone, Victor Angelo, emphasised the historic importance of the decision by Sierra Leonean journalists.

“The United Nations is engaged in this process, because we recognize the maturity and professionalism of the journalists in the country,” Mr Angelo said, reiterating the UN’s determination to ensure credible and transparent Presidential and Parliamentarian Elections on 28 July.

The Media Code of Conduct for the elections resulted from a collaborative effort between SLAJ, UNIOSIL and the UN Development Programme (UNDP).

The compliance of media with the Code is to be observed by a Monitoring and Refereeing Panel which will include members of SLAJ, the UN Country Team and other organizations.

Alhaji I. B. Kargbo, President of SLAJ, said his Association’s formulation of a code of conduct is “part of a general goal to make sure that the elections do not get out of hand,”

He added that the media has a key role in the upcoming elections, especially in informing voters about the main messages of the political parties.

Journalists will be most effective in assuring successful elections if their contributions are within a self-regulated framework.”

In Sierra Leone the 2007 election is widely regarded as a watershed in democratic development, because the country is still recovering from an 11-year long civil war.

The Media Code of Conduct complements the Political Parties Code of Conduct which was a collaborative effort between the UN in Sierra Leone and the Political Parties Registration Commission. The Political Party Code of Conduct was signed by eight active political parties on 20 November 2006.

 

 

THE ROLE OF WRITERS IN SIERRA LEONE
By Raymond De’Souza-George

culled from Junior Pen Point Magazine May 2008

As I thought about presenting a paper on the role of writers in Sierra Leone, the importance of building a bridge over a gaping valley, which you and others can safely go across, assumed a significance and magnitude which I had hitherto, never been aware of or never given thought to. I go for the imagery of a bridge because – a bridge is a thing that provides connection, contact. A common language is a bridge between cultures-a writer uses language –writing is communication- writers are communicators with an obligation to create access into the hearts of their audience and also for their audience into their minds. Writers may build or destroy relationships within their communities. So considering the importance of a bridge in linking two blocks of territory which may be home to people of like or diverse orientation and cultures, I also came to realize that the necessity for the writer to be a responsible and skilled contractor cannot be over emphasized. Let us come to an agreement that writers are people who write under whatever genre they choose, with the intention of having their material read or accessed by a target group within their world.

Because wisdom and experience have it that “the pen is mightier than the sword”, I want to advice and believe that all who wield the pen must at least have some awareness of its potency, and also of the gravity of its consequences both for its audience and themselves. Just as no word should be carelessly spoken so none should be written and broadcast or published without thorough examination of its implications for the minds of all to whom it will be exposed. You might choose to communicate with your society by writing a novel, play, short story, screenplay, song, poem or article. Whichever you choose, never lose sight of your responsibility to your audience. It is sacred. Whether as an entertainer, educator or just to inform- a journalist, you are affecting minds that you may guide one way or the other, either to make, break or mar the existence or co-existence within an environment.
Sierra Leone needs healing and stability for development especially after its recent brush with the senseless and diabolical savagery that many use as an identification card for our nation. Writers therefore have a very delicate balancing role to perform in bringing about restoration to sanity and laying a runway for our future development to take off. In effect writers in

Sierra Leone have a responsibility to help build a new nation. In that vein let me invite you to come along with me as we consider some of the thoughts of Chinua Achebe between 1964 and 1966 writing on“The Role of the Writer in a New Nation”, ‘The Novelist As Teacher” and “The Black Writer’s Burden.” Confronted with the idea that African writers should deal with the here and now rather than the past, Achebe states “African peoples did not hear of culture for the first time from Europeans;…. Their societies were not mindless, but frequently had a philosophy of great depth andvalue and beauty,— they had dignity. It is this dignity that many African peoples all but lost in the colonial period, and it is dignity that they must now regain. The writer’s duty is to help them regain it by showing them in human terms, what happened to them, what they lost….. In Africa he cannot perform this task unless he has a proper sense of history.”

In “The Novelist As Teacher” Achebe wants us to know that “the writer cannot expect to be excused from the task of re-education and regeneration that must be done. In fact he should march right in front….” Repeatedly returning to the topic of colonization, its impact,and its legacy in” the Black Writer’s Burden” Achebe tells us that “without subscribing to the view that the African gained nothing at all in her long encounter with Europe, one could still say, in all fairness, that she suffered many terrible and lasting misfortunes. In terms of human dignity and human relations the encounters was almost a complete disaster for the black race. It has warped the mental attitudes of both black and white.

— Black writers have shown again and again, in giving expression to the plight of their people, how strongly this traumatic experience can posses the sensibility. I do not believe that anyone of us would question the necessity for a proper sense of history if we are to effectively attend to the demands and pressures of the present which must also eventually make way for us to enter the future with purpose, focus and determination. However, I am convinced that the tendency to access, reside, inhabit and dwell in and on the past has been a neutralizing gear in our drive for peaceful co-existence stability and development. It is this tendency that feeds a spirit of self pity that justifies stagnation and nurtures the evil of vendetta which sometimes informs our creativity as artists and our views as journalists. We do know of instances in both world and our local history when writers have influenced,guided, directed and controlled the thinking of their people for good.

In the 20’s both dramatists and journalists in Sierra Leone dictated the mood socially and politically and when those same writers who had authored the change stood up against those they had swept to power through their pens, they were pursued. That for me is the past which should concern us, much more directly as we try to direct our people’s thoughts to positive lanes of aspiration, rather than the all- too- frequent focus on imperialists, capitalist and western barnacles and handcuffs that we too readily invoke as excuses. As the krios say, “if yu nor no usay yu de go, tray no usay yu komot. “But when we are eternally focused on where we come from we are unaware that we are progressively losing sight of where we want to go or where we are going. We may have allowed negative sentiments for others to imprison and confine even our ability and capacity to think positively of ourselves to the extent that a sense of balance may have been better banished or exiled from our thoughts.

According to Ed Howe, “any man, who will look into his heart and honestly write what he sees there, will find plenty of readers.” Of equal importance is the submission of William Dean Howells who said. “If I were authorized to address any word directly to our novelists, I would say: Do not trouble yourselves about standards or ideals, but try to be faithful and natural.” We all need courage to ply our trade if honesty, truthfulness and faithfulness must be accolades that our writings will attract.

Oinam Anand tells us that “the writers’ vocation is to explain to the people the essential meaning of today’s world, which contains the seeds of tomorrowand future hope. Courage and determination are essential for that mandate in Sierra Leone as everywhere else. In this our current complex world the writer’s mission or role cannot be seen as other than complex. Even in that light we cannot ignore the fact that there are certain features shared by writers through theworld. Again Anand goes further to say that “the writer’s mission today is, as it has always been, to testify about man and his circumstances, and to seek to have a mark in literature by striking a blow at the indifference and ignorance which doom society and the world to stagnation and mutual misunderstanding. “The germs of the future should be discovered in the foundation of the present, and the foundation of the present for the use of the future is only laid by writers, philosophers and thinkers……. “The chief mission of the writer is to struggle for peace and upliftment of the society in which he lives. This role is determined not only by his place in literature but also by the degree of his involvement in the society’s public life. “What is your involvement in that context?“Since life is the source of all inspirations serious writers cannot ignore the problems which confront people from day to day. Therefore, they set out to expose and condemn all manifestations of evils wherever they appear. “We need to be the people’s people in the sense of seeking our society’s interest. It is vital for us as writers to realize that “society’s moral health and the intellectual climate in which people live are in no small measures determined by literature and art.

As writers in Sierra Leone, we have a war at hand, but we can only achieve success if we fight our unique battles with commitment,passion, discipline and truthfulness. Let us be responsible to our society, be aware of our social responsibility and our commitment to our nation. If we should be able to stand up to the challenges at our doorsteps, let us develop writing kits which contain curiosity, passion, determination, awareness, energy, openness, sensitivity, perseverance, a listening ear andan observant eye. The kind of interest which will feed a sense of nationalism is the least we need as writers to enable us to understandand perform the role which our aptitude has invested in us. Approve that however, let us protect our sense of honesty and also accept that if we cannot address the nation, we certainly can talk to a community.If any community that we attend can attend to those around it, we would have successfully built the bridges which are stipulated in our contract.

• Written and presented by Raymond de-Souza George, at the literary Evening held on 22 December 2007 in honour of a visiting Ugandan PEN centre delegate to Sierra Leone PEN centre

Book of Voices
Edited by Michael Butscher

‘The Book of Voices’ is an anthology published to support Sierra Leone PEN, part of the international writers’ organisation. The stories highlight the effects of war and repression, and the importance of words and writing — and the telling of tales — in the midst of it.