How Sudan and Palestine reached the Super Bowl | Views

On Sunday night in the show of the SUPER BOWL Half Show, raised artist raised the flags of Sudan and PalestineS In case, so thoroughly controlled as a superbul, its interruption was short, quickly processed by security and did not show in live broadcast. But the moment, fleeting, was deeply symbolic.

It reflects the determination of the Sudanese and Palestinian people to break through the censorship of their stories imposed by the main platforms and to speak. This was another example of how when they encountered systematic suppression, they brilliantly found cracks in the system to hear their voices.

In fact, for more than a year, the Sudanese and the Palestinian people have made every effort to speak. They protested, organized and risk their lives to draw attention to their struggles. But the world refused to listen.

This was not the first time the Super Bowl was the backdrop for erasing their suffering. Last year, while millions of Americans watched the game, Israel made slaughter, killing at least 67 Palestinians After a few hours in Rafa, an area designated as a “safe zone” by the Israeli army, where 1.4 million Palestinians shelter. The weather was no accident. Israel knew the US media would be too distracted to pay attention to too complicit to care.

And many of us as activists knew that we needed to find ways to oppose distraction. In collaboration with Know Collective I released a DIFFERENT TYPE OF SUPER BOWL advertisement – No seller or cars, and a person who reminds people of the crimes our government actively enables Gaza. The advertising, widely shared on social media, had a simple but emergency message: America is distracted. As we have fun, the children kill our tax dollars. As we cheer on the teams, our government provides weapons that turn Palestinian homes into mass graves.

The Romans called it “bread and circuses” – keep the tables fed and entertained and they will not rise from oppression or even notice it. Super Bowl is the largest circus of modern America, carefully produced distraction from the atrocities that our nation.

But there are times like the protest on Sunday at night that show that not everyone is ready to be distracted.

There are also moments like the protest on January 15, 2024 when More than 400,000 people Collected in Washington, Colombia County to call for the termination of US complicity in the Israeli Palestinian genocide, an unprecedented act of mass mobilization. It was a protest that downplayed many historical demonstrations in the nation's capital – however, the media almost did not cover it. If 400,000 people had gathered for another cause, it would have brought the evening news, dominated social media, and filled titles the next morning. But for Palestine, silence.

It was not supervision. It was a deliberate effort to suppress the voices calling for the release of Palestin.

Palestinians have always had to fight for visibility. When their votes are blocked by the main platforms, they have joined the social media. When their protests are ignored, they organized more bigger. When they were deleted, they made it impossible to forget.

Sudan is a similar story in many ways, but it has its own unique considerations. If Palestine is deliberately censored, Sudan is almost completely ignored. The Sudanese people were devastated by a war that destroyed their country. Almost every war crime that can be presented was committed against the Sudanese people. The scale of suffering is staggering: tens of thousands of civilians have been killed, over eight million people have been forcibly displaced, entire villages burned on the ground, and hunger is outlined. Nevertheless, Sudan remains barely a footnote in the Western media.

Sudanese activists reacted with the Heshtega #Eyesonsudan, a desperate request for the world to pay attention. But their cries, like those of the Palestinians, are greeted with deafening silence.

Suudan's suppression is a consequence of a media system that gives priority only to conflicts that serve political interests. Sudan, unlike Ukraine or Israel, does not fit well into the Western foreign policy program. There is no stimulus to cover. There is no rally from politicians. There is no flood of help. Only millions of people were left to suffer. The eclipse of the media in Sudan is not just a neglect; This is complicity in the deletion of an entire nation.

And so for Sudan and Palestine what happened in the Super Bowl was not just an act of challenge. It was part of the long tradition of people who had to break through silence when all the official channels failed them. It was a reminder that as much as he tried to wipe away Sudan and Palestine's suffering, the truth would break.

He breaks through the streets, where hundreds of thousands of people continue to march for Palestine, despite arrests, blacklist and violent suppression. He breaks into Sudanese and Palestinian communities, where activists risk their lives to attract the attention of the world. He breaks into the digital sphere, where independent journalists and local movements are ahead of corporate media in telling the true story.

And last night, she broke on the stage of one of the most watched events in the world.

The anger expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazee's editorial position.