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COULD IT BE DANCING WITH THE DEVIL?

CIVIL SOCIETY ADVOCACY AND THE MEDIA IN UGANDA’S


PETROLEUM DEVELOPMENT;

Whether national, district or community


based organization, CSO activists are rarely
featured in the news, seldom have I seen a
newspaper article by any of our leading
CSOs advocates on petroleum development
in the newspapers, radio or television. We
have largely left the newsmen and
newswomen to consider and write about the
issues in the sector that interest them. As
CSOs and CSO coalitions, do we have a
specific strategy for engaging with the
media or do we consider it dancing with the
devil?

One of the legendary civil rights activists


from which many civil society actors around
the world draw great inspiration is Martin
Luther King and he had a favorite saying, "One tiny little minute, just sixty
seconds in it. I can't refuse. I dare not abuse it. It's up to me to use it."
Today we call it the sound bite.

Martin understood the importance of the role of the media. This


understanding is the 1960s, but today the media has even got better
particularly with the new technology of television, blogging, Facebook,
Twitter, newspapers, radio, SMS etc. Martin Luther knew that to move the
Kennedy administration into supporting a broad civil rights bill, he had to
have public opinion on his side.
CSOs engaged in issues surrounding petroleum development in Uganda are
promoting various issues including social responsibility, human rights,
equity, transparency, economic growth, and environmental sustainability
among others. However, if they are going to get the government and private
sector to act and uphold these principles in Uganda’s petroleum industry,
they have to get the Ugandan public on their side, to achieve this, they must
have the media on their side.

The lessons of the civil rights movement under Martin Luther King are just
as valid today as when they were being employed in the in the civil rights
campaign in Birmingham, Alabama in the early 60's. The civil rights leaders
understood the necessity of linking a media strategy with their local actions
to amplify the Movement message to the American public in order to help
their lobbying in Washington to pass a broad civil rights bill. Likewise, to be
successful in progressive campaigns involving public policy on petroleum
development issues within Uganda, CSOs need to use the media in
mobilizing public opinion to support their efforts.

We risk standing on the wrong side of history if we continue to remain a


handful of isolated activists; no matter how dedicated or righteous we are,
we shall not achieve our goals if the majority of the public does not support
our efforts or sympathize with our goals. Whatever we are doing there are
basic questions we should keep asking ourselves, environmental
conservation? Why should the lay man and woman care? What is in it for
them? Social and economic rights? Why should they be concerned?

We must also learn to put a human face to our advocacy strategies.


Conserving streams of flowing rivers is good but the message can get home
faster if it is tied to a factual story of how a poor farmer in Hoima now has to
move 10km per day to fetch 20 litres of life-giving water because all the old
springs are dry owing to deforestation as a result of an influx of new oil-job
prospecting immigrants in the area.
Surely CSOs working with the media is not dancing with the Devil. Andrew
Young was the resident Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
expert in dealing with the media understood the importance of the role of
the media. In the planning session for Birmingham, Young emphasized the
need for a new kind of daily message, one that was visual and which would
dramatize the purpose of the campaign each day. As Young demonstrates, a
relatively small number of CSO activists can achieve dramatic results when
their message is amplified and dramatized through the mass media.

Robert Ddamulira
WWF Uganda Country Office.

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