In 2001, a group of young Malaysians set up a project to help their fellow citizens rediscover the potential of radio. Radiq Radio, started with the assistance of a few jaded journalists, was designed to be something a bit different from the commercialised diet we’re typically fed. Over the years — and through financial crises — Radiq evolved from a purely news-oriented project to a community-based radio station. If you want to make your own radio programme –\u00ad and air it someplace other than iTunes — Radiq could be the place for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s through Radiq that I ended up\nin Amman, early November, for the week-long Ninth General Assembly of the World\nAssociation of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC, from the French:\nAssociation Mondiale Des Radiodiffuseurs Communautaires). Over 200 community\nbroadcasters from all over the world were present. AMARC’s board alone has\nrepresentatives from the US, Mexico, Haiti, Senegal, India, the Philippines,\nthe UK — and other parts of Africa, Latin America and Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And there was I, a representative\nfrom the Asia-Pacific region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Listening to the World<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n When it comes to radio media, Asia\nlags behind the rest of the world. Africa has more community radio stations\nthan we do, by a long shot. Never mind Europe or North America — or Latin\nAmerica, birthplace of the medium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the assembly, it was easy to feel\nlike a child, uninitiated into the rituals of community communication. The most\nhumbling moment of my time there was while I shared a panel with Zara Mahamat\nYacoub, a pioneer for non-commercial independent radio — and the arts, and other\nforms of communication — in Chad. She described the violence amidst which she\nis now working: the fear of genocide seeping across the Sudanese border; the\nsteps the government of Chad is taking to shut down all dissent, including the\nvoices of peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Listening to her (and this before I\ncame home to the UMNO General Assembly) I was quietly grateful to be living in\nMalaysia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But I also discovered that some of\nthe problems with running community radio were identical, everywhere. Not\neverywhere in the world are people faced with genocide — but the threat of\nuniformity and censorship imposed through the commercialisation of the media,\nand the increasing concentration of ownership that this results, is universal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dystopia<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The mechanisation of labour promised\nmany things: shorter working weeks, an abundance of goods produced by an\nunderclass of robotic servitors, the freeing of the human mind from the labours\nof the body. We would, it seemed, be able to do more in less time — the elite\nof humanity would be free to ponce around, sipping champagne and creating\nartistic challenges for itself. A science fiction future, much like Michael\nMoorcock’s lords at the end of time, or anyone from lain M Banks’s Culture<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Statistics have a way of playing\nhavoc with expectations, unfortunately. Globally, less people are involved in\nthe arts as an industry (see Arts Under Pressure by Joost Smiers). Before the\neasy reproduction of recorded music, it played a less pervasive role in our\nlives — but more of us were involved in its creation and performance. Now, we\npassively receive the offerings of MTV, Era or XFresh, available in an earphone\nnear you, 24-7-365.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Digitisation exacerbates this trend.\nWith unlimited choice, we turn to the palates of our somewhat sanitised DJs to\nfind out how to be hip and happening. It doesn’t seem important how good the\nmusic is — it is important how new the music is. Siti’s latest offering is\ngiven enough airplay in the short span it is ‘new’ to ensure that we are all\nfamiliar with the lyrics, but it is quickly turned over for Amy Mastura’s\nlatest. Rapid turnover on the turntables. Don’t let the market be bored, make\nsure they’re on to the next purchase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are lots of reasons to be\nconcerned about this, but one of them is the way it sanitises censorship. Do we\nhave a dearth of political songs on our airwaves because they are not\ncommercially viable, because there is a limited space for local music and it\nshouldn’t be given over to political lyrics, because foreign political music\nhas no resonance in Malaysia, or because of censorship?<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is a chicken and egg situation\nhere. People don’t buy an album because it isn’t on the radio. Album sales show\nthat the album isn’t popular, so it isn’t going to get airtime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I’m not only talking about party\npolitics. Anti-war songs, despite our anti-war stance, haven’t much of a\npresence on Malaysian playlists. Feminist songs are far outnumbered by those\ncommoditising women or sex — or both. We are severely limited in what we\nlisten to. Worse, these trends — of sanitised music and soulless\ntechno-babble, of increasing commercialism and monopolisation — are not\nlimited to the airwaves. Nanyang Siang Pau and China Press, just to cite one\nexample, have now entered the happy world of multinational media conglomerates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Power to the People<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Community radio (CR) is defined by a\nfew simple principles. First: it is non-profit and volunteer-driven. Second: it\nis owned and managed by the community in which it is rooted. Third: it operates\non a principle of open access. You make the programmes, you’re responsible for\nthe content. This has a few implications:<\/p>\n\n\n\n First, it means that if you’re\nunsatisfied, say, with the sanitised rap content of mass media stations, you\ncan start up your own street rap station, belting out the rap rhymes of your\nfavourite underground rappers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Second, producers aren’t chasing\nadvertisers. They don’t need to follow consumerist and apolitical commercial\npriorities, with a high record turnover and the continual pressure to purchase.\nGood music can be played long past its commercial expiry date — while the\nlatest albums aren’t guaranteed air time on the sole basis of being new.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because community radio, usually\nthrough a low-powered FM station, is cheap to set up and cheaper still to\noperate, community radio is an increasingly popular form of communication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Radiq Radio is still waiting for AM\ntransmission to begin — but the station is now working with a wide range of\ncommunities: groups in Sarawak and Perak; children from Kampung Medan; women in\nsquatter communities in Kepong; the wives of factory workers in Kajang; Orang\nAsli women in Pulau Carey; refugees (oh, sorry: Nasty, Illegal Migrant Workers\nWho Should Be Chucked Into Prison); and others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Elsewhere, the CR bug has infected communities in the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand. It gives communities –\u00ad including indigenous musicians — the opportunity to hear themselves. A scary thought for governments and corporations across the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ~~~ <\/p>\n\n\n\n Sonia Randhawa is also the director of the Centre for Independent Journalism <\/p>\n\n\n\n First Published: 21.12.2006 on Kakiseni <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 2001, a group of young Malaysians set up a project to help their fellow citizens rediscover the potential of radio. Radiq Radio, started with the assistance of a few jaded journalists, was designed to be something a bit different from the commercialised diet we’re typically fed. Over the years — and through financial crises […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"iawp_total_views":5,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[3893,3892,712,2844,3890,3891,3896,3894,3895],"language":[7523],"writer":[7635],"class_list":["post-27533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","tag-amarc","tag-association-mondiale-des-radiodiffuseurs-communautaires","tag-censorship","tag-centre-for-independent-journalism","tag-community-radio","tag-radiq-radio","tag-sonia-randhawa","tag-world-association-of-community-radio-broadcasters","tag-zara-mahamat-yacoub","language-english","writer-sonia-randhawa"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27533"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38722,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27533\/revisions\/38722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27533"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=27533"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/writer?post=27533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}