Abstract
Turkey has the highest number of journalists in prison in the world and yet a liberal radio station poking fun at the government has managed to stay on the air, so far.
İnsel, a leading dissident figure in Turkey’s academic circles, is among the frequent contributors to a local radio station that has refused to self-censor despite the current situation in Turkey, a country where more journalists have been arrested than in any other country in the world. When Open Radio’s first broadcasts began in Istanbul in November 1995, it was not easy imagining this small station would become such a major force on Turkey’s cultural and political scene.
In the increasingly hostile atmosphere, Open Radio has made a name for itself because of its irreverence, intellectualism and joie de vivre. The channel broadcasts programmes with titles like Metropolitics (a programme devoted to Istanbul’s gentrification) and The Story of Sound Through Different Places and Times (a classical music programme). It also has shows on the controversial subject of Armenian-Turkish relations and Turkey’s human rights record. Significantly, the channel has covered all of the recent censorship cases in the culture and arts fields.
And yet the censors have still not gone after Open Radio, even in 2016 when a number of radio stations, including Özgür Radyo, were shut down by an executive order under Turkey’s state of emergency. One of Open Radio’s hosts, İştar Gözaydin, was recently imprisoned on terrorism charges for three months, but these charges did not relate to anything she said on air. Rather they related to articles she wrote elsewhere.
This might be partly thanks to its status as a highbrow channel. Over the years Open Radio has secured a reputation as a Turkish version of BBC Radio Four. Not only Istanbul intellectuals, but also high-ranking politicians, view the channel’s listeners as a distinct group of people.
In the immediate aftermath of the environmentalist uprisings at Istanbul’s Gezi Park in 2013, Turkey’s education and now culture minister Nabi Avci joked: “When the dust settles young people might be surprised,” he said. “They might see listeners of the Open Radio, with a novel by Orhan Pamuk in their hands, standing next to ultra-nationalists wearing white caps.”
Despite playing such a significant role in the cultural scene, and despite its recent unfiltered coverage, there has been no recent surge in Open Radio’s popularity, which again might have worked to its advantage.
People practice yoga in Gezi Park during the 2013 protests. Turkey’s current culture minister said he thought Open Radio listeners, deemed to be part of the elite, were amongst those protesting
CREDIT: Osman Orsal/Reuters
The station’s listeners have always been graduate students, young professionals and intellectuals from different sectors of Istanbul and this has remained a constant. And thanks to donations from loyal listeners and advertising revenue, the station is in a good financial shape.
Taking risks with content has been a defining feature of Open Radio since the start. In 2012, for example, the channel broadcast The Death of the Dog, a censored radio play by one of Turkey’s leading novelists, Adalet Ağaoğlu, which had never been broadcast before.
“I do think that we may have played a somewhat humble role in slightly enhancing the frontiers of democratic culture, and in the defence of the rule of law in general,” said Ömer Madra, host of the channel’s flagship morning show The Open Newspaper, which is broadcast every morning from 8am through to 10am.
Open Radio does not just discuss sensitive topics, it pokes fun at them. “These foreign spies, of course, held their meeting in a public hotel on Istanbul’s most touristic island,” joked the presenter of the programme where İnsel, the academic, recently discussed the spy charges for the staff of Amnesty International.
“In Turkey’s political culture, one’s political positions are often very stiff and deep, like trenches in a battle,” Madra said. “So this humour that we have, which, admittedly, is quite a black one, may serve as sort of a cushion to soften the usually very rigid political atmosphere reigning in Turkey. It may thus pave the way for some empathy and for a larger ground for discussion between different and even conflicting views. I think that discussion between different views has always been the only real and vital basis of democracy anywhere.”
But such attempts at softening the political culture or using humour to discuss it have met with animosity in the past. Back in 2005, following a lengthy and fierce legal battle, Open Radio’s broadcast was temporarily banned for 15 consecutive days by Turkey’s Higher Board of Radio and TV (RTÜK). The reason behind the Open Radio ban was The Most Beautiful Woman in Town, a short story by US poet, novelist and short story writer Charles Bukowski. According to RTÜK, Open Radio was guilty of broadcasting a story that violated “public morals, social peace and Turkish family values”.
“The funny part of the whole drama was that, this was a rebroadcast,” Madra said. “It was not picked up on at its original reading. It was banned in its rebroadcast, after four years. Our programmer friend, who had originally read the story, died tragically at a very young age. Rebroadcasting the show would be a way to commemorate our friend, right after her untimely death. But, to add insult to injury, the Higher Board, which had not objected to the original reading, was now insisting upon punishing this ‘violation of Turkish family values’.”
According to Turkish law, a radio or TV station that has been banned is obliged to cite the relevant article of the law as a public warning just before the ban begins. Open Radio played it according to the rules, but only seemingly so.
“This is the Open Radio 94.9 FM,” the presenter said in a serious tone. “We hereby announce that our broadcast has been banned for 15 days on the grounds that it was against public morals, social peace… So, we hereby leave you with a great piece of music to be continuously performed for 15 consecutive days by the Open Radio Symphony Orchestra. Recently composed by one of our music programmers, it is called Variations on John Cage’s Four minutes, 33 seconds… We’ll be back in a fortnight’s time…”
Once the broadcast of Cage’s silent symphony was over, 15 days later, Open Radio was back on the air at exactly midnight. They started with the announcement: “Now, where were we?”
In recent years Madra and his team have experimented with modern techniques of broadcasting, such as using podcasts, but they have religiously preserved the formula of the channel in terms of content and style.
“Maybe, it could be said that we have, over 22 years of broadcasting, tried to be loyal at all times to our original motto: ‘Open Radio is open to all the sounds, colours and vibrations of the universe’,” Madra said, with a sense of modesty that defines not only his character but that of his radio station.
“Which, after all, means that holding to our belief in the values of democracy, equality and solidarity has perhaps been the only constant in our constantly changing constellation.”