When Gaza is Seduced: A Different View on Media Coverage of the Renaissance Dam

A follower of the media coverage templates, especially the Arab media, notes the issue of the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile, and its potential effects on my downstream country, Sudan and Egypt, that this media coverage is affected by prejudices, and tends mostly to the logic of the pre-Islamic poet who says: “And what I am Except from Ghaziyeh Ghut Ghawit ... And guided Ghaziyeh Arshad ". While she could follow the approach of "support your brother unjust or wronged," by helping him to gain his right if he was wronged and to return the rights of others if he had obtained it unjustly.

By analogy with this, the victory that the Arab media could have provided to the brotherly people of Egypt should not be at the expense of the people of neighboring Ethiopia, nor at the expense of the brotherly and neighboring people of Sudan together.

This role, by its nature, requires that the media, in the Arab and African public spheres, take up the matter of filling Al-Nahda with the full sensitivity it represents for Ethiopia and Egypt primarily and for Sudan to a lesser degree.

The Renaissance Dam, which started construction in 2011, means to Ethiopia in very short a "project of the century" that is awaiting more than 100 million Ethiopians to transfer their lives from extreme poverty and unemployment to the runways of light and prosperity, providing it with electric energy that illuminates homes and moves the industry and production and exports its surplus to generate income In free currency on the state treasury.

It - meaning the dam - means to Egypt, in short, also, a serious threat to its historical share in the waters of the Nile, which amounts to more than 55 billion cubic meters.

It also means for Sudan to enable it to take full advantage of its historical share in the Nile waters amounting to more than 18 billion cubic meters, in addition to providing it with some dam production of cheap electric energy.

Is building trust the matter of the media people or the people of politics? Once again, we answer that it is primarily a matter of media

This is how the equation appears, at first glance, a hope equation in the Ethiopian situation, an equation of anxiety and fear in the Egyptian case, and an expected gains equation in the Sudanese case, so how can Ethiopian hope be strengthened, Egyptian anxieties and fears are dissipated and the Sudanese gains secured? What role can the media play in this? For me, the answer lies in two words, "building confidence". Doubting the intentions of any of the three parties concerned would weaken the confidence factor, and push each party to search for supporters and adhere to the utmost types of guarantees, realistic and virtual.

The question that arises here is: Is building trust the affair of the media people or the people of politics? Once again, we answer that it is the media’s concern in the first place. The media has put enormous pressure on negotiators in both Egypt and Ethiopia, and it has become the one who shapes the agenda and expectations of its results before negotiators begin to negotiate. This pressure has turned into something similar to popular alignment and internal congestion in countries. The issue of the dam has been transformed a while ago - due to the media approach - from an engineering and technical issue for a development project to a political issue of the first degree, for which people and armies mobilize in both Egypt and Ethiopia, and each party tries to mobilize its successors, Arabs or Africans, and meets for consideration by the International Security Council .

What the media does here in general can be counted, in the language of the media itself, "looking at the empty half of the cup", as it focuses on Egyptian fears even if some of them are based on hypothetical matters, and ignores the obstruction of the Ethiopian and Sudanese gains achieved.

A number of media outlets painted a bleak picture of the water conditions in Egypt if the dam was completed, and these media did not complete the sentence; The rest of the sentence without which understanding can not be arranged is: “Without ensuring that Egypt’s historical share of the Nile’s waters is not affected.”

It is clear that the media here was not preoccupied with searching for the guarantees provided by the previous agreements, foremost of which was the agreement to announce the principles signed in Khartoum in 2015, and the results of the talks in the various negotiating rounds, most notably the Washington rounds that ended last February, but rather an endeavor that pursues a series of concerns that promoted Some of them have in the context of identifying with the Egyptian point of view, ignoring the Ethiopian and Sudanese responses to those concerns, and little effort has been made to examine these concerns from the perspective of dams and water experts, both internationally and regionally.

On the other hand, the Ethiopian media found themselves crammed in the defense field, as a bunch of people mobilized to confront an "existential danger" from a country that wanted to steal its dream and its future.

The media has turned the issue of the dispute over the Renaissance Dam from a measurable and scientific issue to a gelatinous issue. There are no means to measure the success and failure of negotiators except with the criterion of patriotism or betrayal.

The thing that all reliable studies have proven is that the Renaissance Dam, upon completion, will bring significant benefits to Ethiopia and significant benefits for Sudan. Is it permissible to disable the expected benefits of the two countries simply because of Egyptian fears of the impact of its historical share, or is it natural to address the fears wherever they are, dispel the subjective ones, and provide Compelling and sustainable answers and solutions? With the start of negotiations on the dam issue several years ago, the Egyptian concerns were mainly concerned with ensuring that the dam, during its filling years and after its operation, does not affect Egypt's historical share of the waters of the Nile, and Egypt increased and added the topic of the "safety rate of the dam" that concerns Ethiopia and Sudan Primarily, Ethiopia was involved in practical steps to reassure Sudan and Egypt, and the three countries formed an international committee to review design and implementation, as this committee recommended the implementation of several recommendations that Ethiopia had responded to, which increased the total cost by about 3 billion dollars.

The media has transformed the issue of the dispute over the Renaissance Dam from a measurable and scientific issue to a gelatinous issue, there are no means to measure the success and failure of negotiators except with the criterion of patriotism or treachery, and this would contribute to undermining confidence between the three partners of the Renaissance Dam, and open the future to scenarios It could have a profound negative impact on Egypt and Arab-African solidarity.

I think that the media can play a positive role, and push the Egyptian side towards non-escalation with Ethiopia, both bilaterally and internationally. This is because any international arbitration would nullify the idea of ​​the historical right to the waters of the Nile, and set new standards for the shares of the three countries, and then Ethiopia would claim its share, too, and that would be a deduction from the shares of Egypt and Sudan.