A Life Forged in Turbulent Times
News of Bona Malwal Madut Ring’s death on 3 October 2025 echoed through Eye Radio, stirring collective memory across South Sudan (Eye Radio tribute, 2025).
Born in 1928, he entered public life during Sudan’s fraught post-independence years, quickly earning a reputation for candour and resilience that Dinka elders likened to a buffalo.
Journalism as Shield and Sword
In 1964 he co-founded The Vigilant, a Khartoum weekly that named victims of a wedding-party massacre, defying military censors and landing its editors in court—a case still cited in Sudanese law faculties.
Later, his English-language daily The Sudan Times championed Southern voices and, despite fierce criticism from northern parties, upheld the idea that journalism must speak truth without malice.
Ministerial Resolve in Khartoum
As Minister of Culture and Information in the 1970s, Malwal launched the magazine Sudanow, promoting literature amid political uncertainty.
During the 1976 assault on Khartoum, President Nimeiri and several colleagues took cover, yet Malwal stayed at his desk, coordinating official communication; former Foreign Minister Mansour Khalid recalled that he was often the lone voice to tell Nimeiri “no” in cabinet.
Scholarship and Exile
Following the 1989 coup, Malwal settled in Oxford as a visiting researcher, later attending conferences at Durham University to debate Sudan’s future with exiled peers.
Friends said exile refined rather than muted his voice; academic papers and books such as People and Power in the Sudan interrogated authority with characteristic directness.
Friendships, Family and the Buffalo Legacy
Malwal’s personal alliances spanned political divides, evidenced in 2008 when he chartered a plane so colleagues could attend Gordon Muortat’s burial in Rumbek.
His children continue public service; Deputy Foreign Minister Akuei Bona’s cadence reportedly echoes his father’s, prompting elders to urge a future parliamentary bid.
Across Africa, Malwal’s story endures as proof that principled speech, like a buffalo’s stand, can shift the course of history.