Analyzing Racism and Ethnic Prejudice in the Sudanese Political Discourse: A Critical Discourse Analysis

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of the discursive strategies of the political discourse reflected in the media discourse in the development, reinforcement, legitimating, and hence reproduction of racism and ethnic prejudice. It aims to investigate the role of the media, the proverbs and the used discourse strategies in developing racism and ethnic prejudice. The study investigates three types of discourse : the discourse of media elites , the discourse of a Sudanese newspaper, and the discourse of the Sudanese proverbs that contain any racial or ethnic content. The researcher used two methodologies : the first is the discourse historical approach , in particular, the strategies of positive self \ negative other presentation, in which the discourse is analyzed according the representation of self and others , this method used to analyze the media discourse of the newspaper Akhbar Alyaom, where the researcher traced the news coverage of the events in Darfur at the very beginnings of the conflict from January to June 2003, the same method is used to analyze the cultural heritage of Sudanese proverbs as a way to construct the collective mind . The second methodology is the semi structural interviews, which the researcher has conducted with four of the media elites who have a wide opportunity to speak and communicate their ideologies to the public. The findings of this study revealed that the media has an influential role in the developing, reinforcing, legitimating, and hence reproducing racism and ethnic prejudice. Moreover, there are certain discourse strategies that indicate the increasing under-lying ethnic or racial ideologies in the media and political discourse. Finally, the study finds that there are more than 30 racial proverb that used regularly in our every day discourse.