Iraq – Radio Al-Mahaba – First & Only Independent Radio Station in Iraq Designed for Women

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PEACE X PEACE – Peace Times: May 30,
2008

https://www.peacexpeace.org/content/en/publications/peace-times/edition-82

IRAQ: Radio Al-Mahaba-First &
Only Independent Radio Station for Women

IRAQ: Al-Mahaba Radio: From Baghdad With Love, Without Fear

By Mary Liepold

In Baghdad right now, refrigerators, electric stoves,
heaters, air conditioners, televisions, and computers operate for one or two
hours on a good day. There are plenty of days when it isn’t safe to go outside
to shop or work or visit neighbors. And even when there’s light to read, Iraqi
sources estimate that as many as 75% of women in Iraq are illiterate—a rate
that has grown steadily over the past 10 years of warfare and civil strife.
Here and in the rest of Iraq, people count on transistor radios for news and
entertainment, to lift their spirits and to let them know what’s happening in
the world.

Until recently, the only radio programming available came from Al Jazeera,
from the state-run station, or from a few highly sectarian stations operated by
political parties. And it was designed primarily with men in mind, though women
probably made up the majority of the audience even then. Radio Al-Mahaba is the first
and only independent radio station in Iraq specifically designed for women.

Al-Mahaba means love in Arabic, and the station’s saga is a triumph
of love over countless obstacles. It was the brainchild of Bushra Jamil
(pictured), her American friend Debbie Bowers, and Kamal Jabar, who now heads
the board of directors.

Jamil is a former teacher, now human rights officer, who left Iraq for
Canada with her husband during Saddam’s regime and returned in 2003. Jabar
and Bowers applied for a grant from UNIFEM (the United Nations Fund for
Women, our partner in the current series of the Women’s Global Roundtable) that
allowed Jamil, Jabar, and a team of Iraqi activists and government and NGO
officials to build the station. It launched its first broadcast on April 1,
2005. In October of that same year a massive car bomb aimed at a neighboring
hotel destroyed the station’s transmitter and some of its equipment. Though the
courageous staff had it back on the air in less than two days, a smaller
transmitter rented to replace the first soon failed. They made do with a much
smaller, rented, gasoline-powered model, a diminished reach, and reduced
advertising income.

In spring of 2006 Jamil visited the US and made the case for Al-Mahaba to
audiences around the country. New York Representative Carolyn McCarthy attended
one of the sessions. In July of that year, the US House of Representatives
passed a resolution commending Radio Al-Mahaba, introduced
by Rep. McCarthy and supported by many of the women in the House. The
House rules had to be bent to allow even this, and no tangible support was
attached to the resolution.

Support from US citizens and other international sources did allow the team
to replace some damaged equipment. In September 2006, the US-based Harris
Corporation donated a full-power 5-kilowatt transmitter. Though the
station’s present location is relatively safe, it’s still struggling with cash
shortfalls and the occasional bombing raid. Zina Ibrahim, a Peace X Peace
member and Al-Mahaba Board member, tells us that about 70% of the budget
currently comes from Board members’ own contributions, and that the 16 staff
members worked without pay for several months this year and last. Those who had
families to support left to take other work. Some have left, come back, and
left again because of what Zina calls “a very large lack of funds.”

“We are not popular,” Jamil told a New York audience in 2007, when she
accepted that year’s Ida B. Wells Award for Bravery in Journalism from Women’s eNews.
“We’ve been rejected. We’ve been fought. Religious groups are not fond of us –
not even the American groups there, though we share the same language and the
same objective. But we ARE determined. And we don’t let fear get into our
hearts. That was the agreement we made with everybody in the beginning: No
fear!”

When it’s operating at full power, Al-Mahaba’s signal covers Baghdad and six
surrounding governorates: Diyala, Wasit, Babil, Karbala, Salah-Eldin, and
Anbar, and reaches more than 10 million listeners. It broadcasts 16 hours a day
in two local languages plus English, with programming that includes news,
music, interviews, law and politics (“though they tell us that’s not women’s
business,” Jamil notes) entertainment, and enormously popular call-in shows. In
the first year programs primarily addressed educated women, but the staff moved
fast to accommodate a broader audience. The 7-8 p.m. prime time slot covers
family and relationship issues (including forced marriages of girls as young as
12) and welcomes contributions from the listeners, which may include songs,
poetry, jokes, and scientific information as well as opinions on the issues.

The station sees its mission as “contributing to the establishment of a
secular democratic society where all are equally treated and their rights are
protected by law… and as joining Iraqis with love, kinship, commitment,
respect, and most important, cumulative knowledge.” In an NPR interview, Jamil
gave one small example of how that works in practice. “On our legal program, a
woman called crying because her husband beat her. She had children and no job,
and didn’t know how she could get by without him.” The next caller and the one
after that both asked the host to pass their numbers on to the first, so they could
share experience and support.

International support for the station is not always adequate, but it does
take some creative forms. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
awarded a scholarship for one staff member to earn a master’s in broadcast journalism
for the benefit of the station. Zina Ibrahim was chosen because of her facility
with English, and has just completed her first semester. She earned high marks
despite the challenging process of adjustment.

One of her classes produced audio and video programming on how the Iraq war
affects Illinois. (The latest media research shows that after five years
Americans are bored with the war, and only the local impact holds their
interest.) Thanks to Zina, they could bring home the local impact on both
sides.

“When I was there I didn’t know how much I know about Iraq. Here I’m an
expert, and I see even better how important Al-Mahaba is. When there is
conflict in Baghdad City we have curfews, the roads are closed. Your only
companion is the radio and you can listen to it all the time. People are very
pleased to have our station because we talk about our country and we love it.
We focus the people on their own Iraqiness. During the curfew when no one can
go out they are with us all, while on the other side of Baghdad people are
fighting each other for no clear reason. Even the ministries in the government
are divided. Our station makes people feel like a nation. It makes them happy.”

Al-Mahaba has ambitious plans for the future. It is building a website—a
grueling process even under ideal conditions—and hopes to upgrade to a
satellite station with a nationwide reach. Long-term plans include an Al-Mahaba
library for youth and educators, to partly replace the National Library that
was looted and burned in 2003.