What’s so scary about community radio?

I’ll be honest with you: I don’t consider the radio a necessity. If I want to listen to music, I have CDs and an iPod. If I want the news, I have it all on the internet. If I want to listen to testosterone-crazed dudes arguing about sports or politics… well, I don’t. But if I did want to listen to music or news or emotionally charged debate on the radio, I’d have a lot of options. We all do. That’s part of what makes our country great. Everyone, theoretically, is entitled to their opinion and can make it known. It might take persistence and creativity to make one's voice heard, and it will certainly require some money and technical expertise, but within clearly defined boundaries, you and I are free to broadcast what it is we have to say. And if you want to start a radio station for some odd reason, the government isn’t going to stop you.

This, unfortunately, isn’t always the case for indigenous communities in Guatemala. Though there are over 200 low-powered community radio stations throughout the country, broadcasting in indigenous languages and featuring music and news updates by and for indigenous people, a quirky piece of legislation gives police the right to shut down these stations at any time. Only commercial stations and government-run stations are given freedom to broadcast as they wish.

Why would police care what these 500-watt stations are broadcasting, you may ask? Well, because they are often the only - or at least the primary - source of communication related to these communities' pressing everyday concerns. So, for instance, when a Canadian mining giant moved into the communities of Sipakapa and San Miguel Ixtahuacan in the highlands of western Guatemala to begin extracting gold without the free, prior and informed consent of the people of these communities, it was the local radio station that stepped in. The station played a central role in disseminating information leading up to a community-initiated consultation on mining, and in ensuring transparency during the consultation itself, in which the community voted nearly unanimously against the mining operation. This sort of free-flowing information in indigenous communities is seen, apparently, as a threat to government priorities - which have lately tended to be multinational business interests.

Cultural Survival, which partners with indigenous communities around the world to “defend their lands, languages and cultures,� is working to strengthen this network of community radio stations and to ensure that they are made completely legal:

Nonprofit community radio plays a critical role in the daily lives of hundreds of thousands of Indigenous People in Guatemala. Francisco Xico, a Mayan priest who volunteers at his local community radio station says, “The radio helps keep our culture and language alive.� As Cultural Survival staffer Ancelmo Xunic says, “It is by the community, for the community.� Community radio volunteer Angelica Cubur Sul says, “As an Indigenous women, I can say that the community radio is the only place that I can express my views and opinions and be sure that they will be heard by the entire town. The Mayor expresses his opinion on our radio, so do the police, and so do I.�

That the voice of an indigenous woman would be considered just as valid as the voice of a mayor or a police officer seems to me a pretty reasonable proposition. If you agree, President Colom and the President of the Congress of Guatemala are waiting to hear from you.