Radio Gives Air to Baghdad Residents’ Steam

BAGHDAD —  When Iraqi talk radio host Majid Salim recently asked his listeners whether Saddam Hussein should be imprisoned, executed or set free, the switchboard swiftly lighted up.

Some attacked Hussein. But others attacked Salim, accusing him of being either pro- or anti-Hussein. One caller threatened to cut out Salim’s tongue.

“Even when they swear at me, I say, ‘Thank you very much,’ ” said Salim, of Radio Dijla, or Radio Tigris.

Welcome to the nascent Iraqi Talk Nation.

With an emphasis on call-in shows, the 3-month-old station stands as a sort of unofficial ombudsman for greater Baghdad -- fielding the frustrations and hopes of a metropolis with much on its mind.

Amid unceasing insurgent attacks, chronic unemployment, a shaky infrastructure and a foreign military presence, Radio Dijla executives describe their creation as a societal steam valve.

“Before they go out on the streets and protest and fight, they can call us,” assistant manager Kareem Youssef said.

Broadcasting in a 90-mile radius from a two-story Baghdad villa, the station features a mixture of music-request shows, radio plays starring prominent Iraqi actors, and religious and legal advice programs. But the centerpieces are the morning and afternoon call-in shows -- sometimes posing a specific question, but often opening the lines for a daily gripe session.

Nadia in Mansour, for example, called to lament the plight of her brother-in-law, a former intelligence officer who is now unemployed and fears vigilantes seeking vengeance against members of the Hussein regime. “We need to learn to deal with these people in friendship, not revenge,” Nadia pleaded.

There are complaints about unemployment, Baghdad rents, retirement benefits, even the occasional relationship rant.

The No. 1 topic, however, is the nation’s teetering infrastructure.

“We specialize in electricity complaints,” Youssef said.

In accordance with the temporary broadcasting license the radio station was granted by the now-disbanded Coalition Provisional Authority, coarse language, personal attacks and statements advocating violence or sectarianism are banned.

Beyond that, everything else is fair game.

“The Iraqi citizen speaks with freedom and honesty now,” said Salim, Dijla’s signature voice and a name familiar to Iraqis from his days with Youth Radio, a government station that was run by Uday Hussein, one of the slain sons of the former dictator. Back then, Salim had a call-in show that was ostensibly live. In reality, the show was broadcast with a brief delay, and the limitations imposed on staff members and callers were “too many to count,” he said.

Radio Dijla operates with no delay, but founder Ahmad Rikaby says he’s thinking of introducing one -- “just to stay on the safe side.”

“Before there was fear,” Salim explained. “Now [the callers] only fear God.”

The veteran broadcaster prides himself on being a cool hand on the microphone. But occasionally that practiced composure breaks down. When sovereignty was returned to Iraqi hands on June 28, Salim pleaded with his listeners, “Please let this day pass without violence or military operations.”

He looks sheepish now when asked about it. “Sometimes you have to speak not as a radio host, but as a citizen,” he said with a shrug.

Dijla’s morning “Service Period” show fields a steady stream of complaints called in by listeners about overnight water and power outages. The host patiently notes details about the caller’s neighborhood, address and length of outage, then ends by saying, “God willing, your voice will be heard.”

Some officials in Iraq’s fledgling interim government seem to be listening. Rikaby said the beleaguered Ministry of Electricity often tracks the station’s broadcasts. Occasionally, braver members of the ministry even appear on the air.

“We’ve got a lot of complaints about the electricity in the Karkh area,” another call-in show host said, “but first let’s hear about your achievements.”

There are no ratings measurements to reveal how Radio Dijla is faring against competing stations -- which include the U.S. State Department-funded Radio Sawa, BBC’s Arabic broadcasts and a handful of new local music and news channels.

But none offer Dijla’s emphasis on caller interaction, and Rikaby said the station’s jammed phone lines were proof of its word-of-mouth popularity. Listeners, he says, come from all age groups, although young people seem to do much of the calling. In true talk radio fashion, there’s a large following among taxi drivers and others who spend a lot of time in their cars.

“They talk about the world, people’s concerns, unemployment,” said driver Amaar Mahdi, 26. “They talk about reality.”

Then there’s the demographic that listens, but doesn’t call in. Rikaby said the station is a huge hit among the inmates in Abu Ghraib prison, about 20 miles west of Baghdad. “Prisoners are telling their families to call in and say hello to them on the air,” he said.

Rikaby, 35, is well-known despite never having stepped foot in Iraq before April 2003. Born in Prague to a family on the run from Hussein’s government, he lived in several European and Arab countries before becoming London bureau chief for Radio Free Europe.

In January 2003, he received a call from the Pentagon, asking him to head up the post-invasion information campaign. He arrived with U.S. troops immediately after the fall of Baghdad and began broadcasting from a tent at the Baghdad international airport.

Rikaby’s first radio broadcast began, “Welcome to the new Iraq. Welcome to an Iraq without Saddam, without Uday and Qusai.” That sentence, and Rikaby by extension, has become a part of modern Iraqi lore, signaling to many the official end of the Hussein era.

He went on to found the U.S.-backed Iraqi Media Network, which produced the Iraqiya TV channel and two radio stations. Three months later he quit, frustrated, he said, by the lack of financial support and by political interference from the U.S.-led occupation administration.

Rikaby, who lived in Sweden for seven years and was host of a TV program there, secured a $300,000 grant to start Radio Dijla from the Swedish organization Foundation for Development and Globalization.

The radio station is nearing the end of its self-proclaimed “experimental period” and is selling advertising space to private companies and the Ministry of Electricity.

Dijla’s focus on water and power problems reveal the quality-of-life issues that Rikaby says are a higher priority for many Iraqis than the country’s ongoing political experiment.

“Would you sit and think about Kofi Annan when there’s no electricity and it’s [125] degrees?” he asked, referring to the U.N. secretary-general.

Gradually, Dijla staffers say, the station will take on more of a political focus. A program called “Parliament,” set to debut this month, will gather government officials, political party representatives and activists for a round-table discussion. News director Seif Khayat said the topic planned for the first show would be, “Is the violence in the country terrorism or resistance?”

But even staffers admit a healthy amount of self-censorship remains when it comes to the topics they plan to discuss on air. The lawlessness of modern Iraq and the new ability to openly debate sensitive topics makes them wary of touching a raw nerve and prompting attacks on the station or its personnel.

“We can talk about the government from morning until night,” Khayat said. “Try to say something about [radical Shiite cleric] Muqtada al Sadr or the kidnappings or even the old Baathists and see what happens to you.”

For the first “Parliament” broadcast on the resistance, Khayat says, only half-jokingly, he’ll only do it if he can get a major pro-insurgency sheik to take part. “That way we know somebody won’t bomb the studio during the show,” he said.