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Somalia: where music is a matter of life and death
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Posted on April 22, 2010 at 09:09:06 PM by mb2

Somalia: where music is a matter of life and death

What happened when rebels in Mogadishu decreed all music un-Islamic - and banned radio stations from playing it

by Ash Smyth, April 22, 2010

Last week, in the Somali capital of Mogadishu, more than a dozen radio stations switched off their music in accordance with an ultimatum from Islamist rebels.

Apparently seeking to bolster their global-jihadist credentials, Somali extremist groups Hezb al-Islam and their sometime-allies al-Shebab decreed that all music - Arab, East African or Britney Spears - ­ is "un-Islamic", and ordered all radio stations to cease playing it, in any form, or face "serious consequences".

Broadcasters were quick to devise light-hearted alternatives to their scheduled music, re-recording ads and replacing bridging jingles with the sounds of car horns, frogs croaking, roosters crowing and, with grim irony, gunfire. ­ The situation was bizarre enough to earn the beleaguered Somalis a spoof-tribute on America's National Public Radio.

The bigger picture, though, is less amusing. Of the 16 FM broadcasters in Mogadishu, all but two complied. The proud hold-outs were Radio Mogadishu, run by Somalia's Transition Federal Government (TFG) and protected by African Union forces, and Radio Bar-Kulan, funded by the UN and broadcast from Kenya.

Notwithstanding radio's vital role in Somalia as the principal medium of both entertainment and news broadcasting, media bosses have said they had little choice but to toe the hardline. In the capital, predominantly controlled by Islamist extremist groups, this is, very unmetaphorically, a matter of life and death: nine journalists were killed in Mogadishu last year, several others held for ransom.

The National Somali Journalists Association quotes one radio editor as saying that, however discomfiting the Islamists' musical edict may be to their professional ethics, the reality was crystal clear: to deny the ban outright could mean the end of journalism altogether in the capital, and of many journalists.

Other journalists, though, are asking how station owners will respond to future threats. "If they go on like this, next time they will tell us to broadcast only war chants," lamented an official from the National Union of Somali Journalists in an interview with the South African press.

The Somali government is not helping matters. The TFG's Mogadishu regional head this week accused acquiescent broadcasters of colluding with the Islamists, and the National Security Agency (double bleak irony) threatened to close four stations within government-held territory if they didn't turn their music back on. Two stations - ­ Somaliweyn and Tusmo - ­ shut themselves down, fearing rebel reprisals; the other two restored their playlists, fearing government ones.

The TFG Information Ministry has invited all stations to relocate to government-held areas of the capital (hardly a safe bet, in the context of Somalia's 20-year instability nightmare). But the government's retributive counter-edict was quickly condemned as being less an attempt to right the nation than a punishment to radio stations for snubbing (and/or highlighting) the non-existent authority of the TFG.

By Tuesday night, the TFG Information Minister, Dahir Mohamud Gelle, had rescinded the counter-order, and sought to distance himself from the actions of the National Security Agency.

Somaliweyn and Tusmo are back on the air, for now. But these are tough times for Somali journalists, who yet again find themselves caught, politically and literally, in the crossfire.

Read more: http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/62479,news-comment,news-politics,somalia-where-music-on-the-radio-is-a-matter-of-life-and-death-mogadishu?print=print#ixzz0lpNCezU5

Source: The First Post

http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/62479,news-comment,news-politics,somalia-where-music-on-the-radio-is-a-matter-of-life-and-death-mogadishu?print=print#ixzz0lpNCezU5




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