AMARC Asia-Pacific – http://asiapacific.amarc.org/ – is part of an international non-governmental organisation serving the community radio movement, with almost 3,000 members and associates in 110 countries.
The goal of the “Association mondiale des radiodiffuseurs communautaires (World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters, AMARC) is to “support and contribute to the development of community and participatory radio along the principles of solidarity and international cooperation”.
“AMARC Asia-Pacific was launched in February 2003 by the global meeting, AMARC 8, in Kathmandu. That meeting decided to officially establish AMARC Asia-Pacific,” says Suman Basnet (37), AMARC Asia-Pacific’s regional coordinator, based in Kathmandu.
Adds Basnet, a former television man and documentary filmmaker himself: “It took us all this time till November 2005 to meet in Jakarta and do a regional assembly and elect the first official board of the region.”
AMARC’s Asia-Pacific president is the Bangalore-based Ashish Sen, whose non-governmental organisation, called VOICES, now an APC member, has long been associated with the campaign for community radio in India. (See https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/cr-india, a mailing list that has been pressing for this).
Its deputy president is Sonia Randhawa from the Centre for Independent Journalism in Malaysia. She has initiated a community radio station that, due to difficulties in broadcasting from Malaysia, has set up its transmitter in neighbouring Indonesia, broadcasting over shortwave.
“There are some very progressive groups involved, and they also work with migrant workers (in Malaysia),” Basnet says.
AMARC Asia-Pacific’s treasurer Shane Elson, from Alternative Radio, Australia, is also vice-president of the Community Broadcasters Association in Australia (CBAA).
“Our office (in Kathmandu, Nepal) is very small. We have only three people. A colleague who looks after finances, and a messenger, who helps us with running around and cleaning,” says Basnet.
But so far, AMARC Asia-Pacific has been able to mobilise nearly 200 members in the region. Basnet says the largest numbers, about 40, come from Indonesia, with members in Australia, Fiji, thirteen in Nepal, and three in the India and Bangladesh (VOICES, and two others), in a region that has not been very conducive to the idea of community radio, as Asia has long been accustomed to state-monopolised (and more recently, commercialised) broadcasting.
AMARC Asia-Pacific accepts applications for two types of members. Voting members are community radio stations or an organisation earnestly planning to start such a station. Associate members are those supporting the idea. The latter cannot vote.
How is a ‘community radio’ station defined?
“Community radio is a station that is governed by communities. Governance, management and running of the station also belong to the community. It is mostly volunteer-run and with very few paid staff.”
Would they be open to networking with ‘campus radio’ stations, now being set up in some larger educational centres in India, for instance?
“Strictly speaking, these aren’t community radio stations. But it would be important to associate with them in a positive manner. They would be welcome to join AMARC in its activities. This development has to be seen in a positive light (at least as a starting point),” says Basnet. “The policy to say either all (full-fledged community radio) or nothing is not a good step.”
There are many different concepts and names from the world of community radio – community radio, rural radio, cooperative radio, participatory radio, free radio, alternative, popular, educational radio – so, what is it that makes a radio station a community radio station?
AMARC quotes its members saying: Radio stations, networks and production groups that make up the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters refer to themselves by a variety of names. Practices and profiles are even more varied.
Some are musical; some are activist and some mix music and activism. They are located in isolated rural villages and in the heart of the largest cities in the world. Their signals may reach only a kilometre, cover a whole country, or even be carried via shortwave to other parts of the world.
Some stations are owned by not-for-profit groups or by cooperatives whose members are the listeners themselves. Others are owned by students, universities, municipalities, religious communities or trade unions. There are stations financed by donations from listeners, by international development agencies, by advertising, and even by governments.
How does Basnet see the situation in the region, as far as community radio or “CR” go?
“It varies a lot from country to country. There’s still a huge struggle (in the Asia-Pacific) for a community radio-friendly atmosphere and enabling environment. Legislation is still largely not in place,” he adds. But airwaves are opening up in terms of accessibility to citizens, in diverse ways.
In Indonesia, there are “hundreds and hundreds” of “pirate” stations. Their number varies between 1,500 and 2,500. These are very small, and no action has been taken against them. They exist in very far-flung rural places. These are sometimes even little radio stations run by farmers from little huts. Their antennas are homemade. Some are not even recognisable as antennas.
In Thailand, you come across a similar situation. “Depends who you’re asking, they might number at as high as 500. Those are mostly not registered,” says Basnet. Thailand itself has two agencies – the national ministry and district agencies – that can allow broadcasting. Nobody knows how many permits have been given to broadcast.
Broadcast permits go to a range of diverse players. “For instance, there’s a little monastery that wants to put out a broadcast. But there’s huge confusion over spectrum management,” Basnet observes.
In Indonesia, they have drafted legislation. Civil society and government-sponsored agencies came up with their own versions of the proposed law. This led to a huge debate as to which should be recognised by the president.
Indonesia has its own home-grown and very strong tech culture. “There’s a very activist kind of atmosphere there. They tend to be very charged-up people. I was told the government dare not touch them (the ‘pirate’ broadcasters). They’re firebrands who say, if the authorities dare to shut any station, “We’ll go and ‘gherao’ (physically protest before) parliament.”
“In South Asia, Nepal (which allowed the first airwaves in the sub-continent, Radio Sagarmatha in 1997) was a pioneer. It still is the only country with community radio stations, but these are greatly challenged (under pressure from the monarchy, which has been clamping down on the people’s rights since early 2005). Now it’s a pioneer in showing how CR can be sustained even in a hostile atmosphere,” says Basnet.
Bangladesh has in place draft legislation on community radio, which has been debated since 2003. It has NGOs and civil society groups like the Bangladesh Network for Radio & Communication (BNNRC). VOICE and others campaign over the issue.
Shifting to South Korea, which is the only country where community radio is coming second to the internet! “It’s a highly internet-enabled country. There are some organisations such as the MEDIACT, the South Korea Community Radio Research, the Korean Association of Community Radio Broadcasting, and the Korean Progressive Network ‘Jinbonet’ (APC member) that are very keenly lobbying for CRs.
Finally, their government gave out five licences (in 2004) on a test and experimental basis to five organisations. Transmission power was very, very low. Less than 20 watts,” says Basnet.
‘Security’ is still an issue in these parts of the globe. “Last year, I was speaking to a Japanese friend. Their biggest struggle is to increase transmission power from 2 to 10 watts. That would cover just one building or maybe a single house,” he says.
On Fiji, there is femLINKpacific, A Media Initiative for Women, which runs THE community radio station 89.2 FM. femLINKpacific, also operator of “suitcase radio”, is keenly involved in promoting women in broadcasting, and also works with AMARC around regulatory framework in relation to community radio in the Pacific. It is election time in Fiji, and 89.2 FM is speaking to lots of women, voters as well as candidates, to get their opinions on priority matters for development.
“In the region, Australia is the best example of how community radio can flourish. CBAA, the Community Broadcasters Association of Australia, has about 350 members,” Basnet says.
He is hoping that the continent wakes up to the potential of the cheapest and most-suited form of communication among the have-nots, as the lessons from Latin America and Africa have repeatedly shown.
Photo: Suman Basnet, AMARC Asia-Pacific’s regional coordinator. April 2006. Dhaka, Bangladesh. APC ICT policy meeting.
Picture taken by Frederick “FN” Noronha.