Ethnicity

The catastrophe in South Sudan refocuses on ethnicity genocide, and famine due to its ongoing civil war

The podcast “Famine declared in South Sudan, thousands at risk of starvation” talks about South Sudan, which is one of the youngest country in the world that gained its independence six years ago. The United Nation has declared South Sudan’s first famine and according to UN more than 100,000 people are starving and more than half of South Sudan’s population are seeking help. In fact, the famine in South Sudan is man-made, due to its internal divisions, economic collapse and ongoing civil war. George Fominyen. Simona Foltyn, Jok Madut Jok explains the current catastrophe and issues that is happening in South Sudan. George Fomiyen, who is a communication officer with the World Food Programme, explains the current starving people in South Sudan are having hard time. Many people are lacking basic needs such as home or shelter, food, and water. Also, there are many armed forces due to South Sudan’s civil war, that interrupts international help teams such as UNICEF and NGOs. Moreover, a freelance journalist, Simon Foltyn pointed out an important issue about genocide. The current catastrophe is not only about starvation and famine, but those issues are related to ongoing civil war, that is now lead to an ethnicity genocide, targeting innocent civilians. However, Jok Mandut Jok who is a history professor explains the historical aspects about South Sudan and but argues South Sudan has nothing to do with ethnicity genocide and points out that war needs to be stopped in order for the country to be stabilized. From this podcast, poverty and ethnicity are 2 related topics from sociological concept. Poverty is a consequence of inequality and there is absolute poverty and relative poverty. Relative poverty is when people are relatively poor compared to others and they are still available to acquire basic necessities. On the other hand, absolute poverty is when people lack basic needs such as home, water, food and their life could be threatened by poverty. “Ethinity is a shared cultural heritage. People define themselves as members of an ethnic category based on common ancestry language, or religion that gives them a distinctive social identity” (Macionis et al., 2017, p. 346). Ethnicity is topic about background and cultural aspects of people that is unique. The difference between race and ethnicity would be where race is more biological but ethnicity is more cultural issues. For example, Muslim women wearing hijab is a cultural aspect not a biological aspect. The podcast “Famine declared in South Sudan, thousands at risk of starvation” reflects our learning in class about ethnicity and poverty. Also, poverty is related to the concept of poverty rate by country where South Sudan is lacking economic development and lack of effective government. Also, global inequality is going on from ethnicity, where many wars and armed forces are targeting innocent civilization because of the ethnicity issues. Due to the ongoing civil war and ethnicity issues, there are many people who is experiencing absolute poverty compared to relative poverty. Although some sociological concept is related in this catastrophe, more of political issues are related to South Sudan. Also, many people are in life threatening situation in South Sudan due to ethnicity reasons, the professor Jok Mandu Jok from the podcast points out there is a fight focused on ethnic fights but it is not going to end up as ethnicity genocide because current civil war in South Sudan is more about resources more than ethnicity issues. The problems of poverty and global inequality can be dissolved by help of international associations and an effective government. Poverty that is driven from global inequality and ethnicity issues have solutions that only a right government that can stop the war will bring back South Sudan to a stable country.

Bibliography

Macionis, J. J., Jansson, M., Benoit, C., & Burkowicz, J. (2017). Society, the Basics, Sixth Canadian Edition. Pearson Education Canada.

Anna Maria Tremonti (2017, March 10). The Current Presents : Famine declared in South Sudan, thousands at risk of starvation [Audio blog post]. Retrived from http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-march-3-2017-1.4006937/famine-declared-in-south-sudan-thousands-at-risk-of-starvation-1.4007267