/REPEAT/ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT/CULTURE-MEDIA: Radio, the Voice of the Indigenous

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Marwaan Macan-Markar

MEXICO CITY, Sep 28 1999 (IPS) - “Finally it has arrived, the voice of the valley, located in my beautiful San Quentin,” sings a man in the tone of a balladeer.

The “it” in his song is not some mythical subject nor the appearance of a legendary figure from Mixteco culture but rather the advent of a medium to serve the interests of the singer’s people: community radio.

And that it aspires to foster the culture of an indigenous group, living in the North-Western state of Baja California, is revealed by more lines from the song: “It is for we Mixteco-speakers, telling us of our language, our customs, our traditions and the scars that time has left on us.”

Similar songs can be heard on other community radio stations here which cater to listeners numbering close to five-and-a-half million.

If not the lyrics, then letters in any of the 31 indigenous languages in which programmes are broadcast tell the tale of the importance of community radio. The letters pour in to the radio stations usually when there are festivals to mark an important event in a community.

“These stations talk to the people directly; they are like an extension of the oral tradition with which the people are familiar so it is understandable they are well received,” says Mercedes Miranda, the national coordinator of Community Radio Programmes in Mexico.

That can be explained partly because those who work at the stations are predominantly from indigenous communities – more than 80 percent in some instances. As a result the listeners feel “they can trust them to be voices of their culture,” Miranda says.

The other reason is the manner in which the broadcasts are fashioned. Often they come in the form of songs, story-telling, discussions among the community leaders and news that matters to the audience.

Then there are the featured themes that range from recalling legends that have shaped their cultures and how their communities grew to the way food was prepared, the secrets of embroidery and even marriage customs.

This explains why Miranda feels the community radio stations have acquired an “important position” among the indigenous people since they hit the airwaves 20 years ago. “They are very essential to their survival,” she observes.

Such importance also is true of community radio in other countries.

Ghana, in west Africa, is a case in point, where a new entrant joined the club of indigenous broadcasters in that continent this year. Radio Ada began broadcasting to the Dangme community in February to be a voice and to “sustain the growth” of its culture.

Already it has been welcomed by a listenership of nearly 500,000 – the majority of whom are illiterate

In the Phillipines, the Tambuli community radio has struck a responsive chord. So has Radio Sagarmatha, in Nepal.

According to the World Congress of Community Radio Broadcasters, stations working for indigenous people do matter in advancing such marginalised cultures.

At its seventh congress, held in Milan, Italy, in August last year, the participants underscored such a cultural contribution in the Milan declaration, adopted at the end of the sessions.

This document declared that “Community media can play an important role in strengthening cultural rights and, in particular, the rights of linguistic and cultural minorities, indigenous peoples, by providing them access to the means of communication.”

In Australia, Kalinga Seneviratne agrees with that view. A community radio broadcaster and a lecturer in communications, Seneviratne says that the indigenous aboriginal communities have turned to community radio to enhance the life of their culture.

The aborigines give “high priority” to these stations because they “see it as the only medium which gives them a voice and also allows them to keep their culture alive,” Seneviratne says.

His studies on the subject also have revealed another trend that echoes why this medium is thriving – the efforts by adults to get young Aboriginals involved in programming, a feature prevalent both in Mexico and in some African countries, too.

In some arfeas of north and central Australia, “community radio stations have become the mainstream media,” Senevirtne says.

Such signs need to be heeded, since they suggest the strengthening bonds between the station and the community.

However, to get a sense of how intrinsic they have become to indigenous communities, the anniversaries of the radio stations in Mexico offer a vivid picture. The event often serves as the most important festival in the villages.

Says Miranda, “People come from miles around, dressed in their traditional clothes. They dance, they sing, they recite poems, and in turn, the radio people put on shows, little dramas about rituals and traditional events.”

For the children, she adds, “the anniversaries are days when they can learn who they are.”

Such occasions drive home the point that these stations are more than merely educators of a communities history. They are “the souls of the communities,” Miranda says.

After one anniversary, a listener wrote a letter, thanking his station. He said: We are happy that someone has given a new life to our language, Mazateco, and our culture.