Kenya's Vernacular Radio Stations: To Ban Or Not To Ban?

Kenya’s ex-President, Daniel Arap Moi, wants the Government to ban the country’s “mushrooming” crop of vernacular radio stations, according to Saturday Nation of May 31, 2008. His reasons for this are that they are giving rise to “tribal chiefs”, and are fanning ethnic animosity by serving as vehicles for divisive politics. He justifies his call with the example of Rwanda in the early nineties, when broadcasts from such stations prompted anarchy and a genocidal orgy. The catalytic factor there, however, was not the existence of the stations per se but rather the assassination of the Rwandese President, Juvenal Habyarimana, when his plane was downed as it approached Kigali. The culprits remain at large still; as well camouflaged now, perhaps, as when they carried out their murderous act in 1994.

Still, the ex-President has a valid example. This is reinforced by Kenya’s own experience in January and February of 2008, particularly in the expansive Rift Valley. Protests against the announced presidential election results quickly took a violent turn. The violence then quickly became inter-ethnic because, in the eyes of ODM supporters in the Rift Valley and parts of Western Province, the “stolen presidential election” meant that there was not going to be a resolution of the land issue this time either. There was not going to be a resolution, just as there had not been during the 24-year presidency of Arap Moi, himself a son of the Rift Valley -- a 24-year reign during which Moi was, indeed, l’état.

The land issue – precisely who (or which ethnic community) really was entitled to the land that colonial farmers left behind at independence, or soon thereafter? -- had remained unresolved for much longer than the 24 years, in fact; that is, since independence on December 12, 1963. During the 2007 campaign, ODM supporters had been promised by their political leaders, in subtle and not-so-subtle ways, that this time around the issue would at last be resolved, upon the much-anticipated victory of ODM’s presidential and parliamentary candidates. This time, the justice that Moi had failed or neglected to dispense for 24 years would e dispensed, with finality.

Needless to say, then, the inter-ethnic violence in Kenya was triggered by a disputed presidential election result, and by adverse message it signaled vis-à-vis the land issue, not by the existence of the radio stations as such. There have been claims, to be sure, that certain radio stations in the Rift Valley and elsewhere did prompt their listeners to xenophobic pillage and murder – and revenge. In Rwanda, fortunately, such urgings were recorded by those who would subsequently prosecute the perpetrators. I am not aware that similar recordings exist in Kenya to serve as evidence for the prosecution – perhaps I have not paid sufficient attention to the adduced evidence. If such recordings exist, they should be used in court without fear or favour.

The said Saturday Nation issue reminds the reader that Moi made a similar but unsuccessful banning call in August 2000, when he was still president, arguing that radio stations should broadcast only in English and Kiswahili – Kenya’s official and national languages, respectively. But his own Minister for Information at the time, Mr. Johnstone Makau, would hear none of it, arguing that “vernacular is part of the Kenyan culture.” It is intriguing that Moi allowed his minister to win that particular argument.

That “vernacular is part of the Kenyan culture” is precisely the point, but we can say more: These radio stations are the only viable, nearly always-on and commute-free channels of contact with the world beyond the confines of the village for a wide cross-section of Kenya’s rural communities, where English and Kiswahili remain at the margin of daily life. They are an indispensable source of broadcasts rich in locally relevant content: news (local, regional and national), announcements (including funeral announcements, the occasional obituary and visits by dignitaries and government officials), entertainment (particularly music, comedy and story-telling), radio-evangelism, language-teaching (particularly of urban youth, since many of these broadcasts reach urban areas as well) and the growth of the vernaculars themselves, as broadcasters struggle to domesticate new concepts or standardize usages arising from day-to-day local living or from farther afield. Lately, mobile phones (some 13 million Kenyans have them now, out of a population of 35 million) have emphatically arrived to challenge the vernacular radio stations as channels of communication, but not in the domain of impersonal or mass communication.

Vernacular radio stations are tailor-made avenues for reaching members of local communities during emergencies and disaster situations, and should be recognized as such in emergencies, scenario-building and disaster plans. When easily accessible and trusted information sources, and easily understood messages are at a premium, vernacular radio stations are an asset, not a liability.

What is more, these stations already offer sustainable jobs to more Kenyans than, I believe, are employed abroad in our embassies and high commissions. They also extend marketing and advertising channels to parts of the Kenyan market which manufacturers and service providers, usually based in the cities, would find it harder to reach than they now do. Viewed thus, they are an essential component of wealth-creation in the country. Demand for their services grows demand for radios and batteries, thereby further sustaining local industries and jobs, to the extent that these are not undercut by subsidized or cheaper imports.

The foregoing suggests that the use of vernacular radio stations in ways that subvert the national good tends to coincide with the onset of transitional periods, or periods of high anxiety that cut across ethnicities and regions to engulf a whole country – such as during general elections. If that is the case, then the challenge to policy-makers is how to put in place measures that effectively monitor and punish, early enough, errant stations in their specificities – during those periods of great risk. The policy solution should not be unimaginative and too unself-critical. We should not impose blanket punishment against vernacular radio stations as a generic category, in the mistaken calculation that one offender implicates and damns all. During periods of normalcy, live and let live is clearly the norm across the country – and should be the catch-phrase.

In conclusion, it needs to be said that to ban vernacular radio stations would be to ban the future, or certainly to attempt to do so. In the sense that these radio stations are almost by definition, given their foregoing characterization, an integral part of the African renaissance -- which several thinkers have been calling for or endeavouring to realize, in our time. That is, moreover, if one defines the African renaissance as the simultaneous re-flowering and re-configuration – indeed, the elevation (or levitation?) to a distinctly higher plane – of the African way of life, and of the associated modes of expressing it.