By Dr. Mahamud M. Yahya
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Mr. Abdirahman Yabarow
Chief, Somali Service
Voice of America Radio, USA
Dear Mr. Yabarow,
First of all, I would like to send my warmest greetings and best wishes to you and the rest of the able team of “VOA Somali Service”. Establishing this excellent radio station about three years ago was, in my opinion, one of the greatest assistance that the U.S. Government could have extended to the Somali people at this very critical juncture of the history of our unlucky nation. And we shall remain grateful for this important gesture for many years to come. In my view, it is today the best radio station in Somali language.
I listen daily to your programme and I like it very much ( I used to be a great fan of the “BBC Somali Service”, but I’ve stopped listening to it after almost 50 years of devotion to its radio station because of its bias and other serious shortcomings). I enjoy listening to VOA-Somali because of its objectivity, impartiality and truthfulness in its reporting. More specifically, I like my daily encounters with VOA-Somali for several reasons:
(1) Wide Coverage: VOA-Somali reports the latest news and current events of the whole of the Horn of Africa region or the entire Somali inhabited areas: from northern Somali districts of Kenya, to the Somali Regional State of Ethiopia, passing – of course – through Somalia, “Somaliland” and Djibouti.
(2) Impartiality: When you cover the news of, say, the former Somali Republic, you cover equally the news of its current components, i.e., South-Central Somalia, Puntland and Somaliland. You don’t devote almost all your overage to Somalia’s capital city, Mogadishu, as the BBC-Somali often does (there is no news from that city except death and destruction, anyway).
(3) Diversification: Your daily programme contains diverse items of current events, politics, commerce, sports, culture, entertainment, etc. In this context, I wish to commend highly your recent decision to include in your menu a weekly programme on Somali culture and literature (Hiddaha iyo Dhaqanka), which is narrated by the renowned Somali literary/linguistic scholar, Mr. Ahmed Farah Ali “Idaajaa”. This is an excellent, educative and even entertaining program. Listening to the beautiful Somali poetry through this programme reminds me about the good old days when we used to have normal life in Somalia without daily mass killings, un-Somali suicide bombings, senseless destructions and very violent Islamic extremism. Furthermore, this latter programme and similar ones – whereby you talk about political elections in Somaliland or developmental and business activities in Puntland – are a badly needed relief from the stress of the terrible news that constantly comes from our ill-fated country – particularly its capital city, Mogadishu – almost every day. We are sick and tired it, after almost 20 years of turmoil. (I know some of my colleagues who have stopped listening to Somali speaking radios at night, because all they will hear is death and mayhem – and thus they would lose sleep over something they can’t do anything about!)
(4) Gender Equality: In my estimation and that of other regular listeners, VOA-Somali today employs the highest percentage of female broadcasters anywhere in the world. Some of them are the finest and most professional reporters in Somali language at the present time. (I’m sorry you’ve lost your former staff members, Ms. Fathiya Absiye and Mr. Ahmed Hassan “Awke”. They were both very good journalists and had wonderful broadcasting voices).
(5) Good Timing/Scheduling: The fact that you release your programmes at four different times per day (i.e., early morning, afternoon and evening – and through the internet and satellites – enables me to tune to your service at the time that is most convenient for me (particularly your interesting Evening Edition, which comes to the air, after working hours, when it is 7 p.m. here in East Africa).
My advice to you is to continue with your diversified, well-balanced and interesting programmes and to give sufficient time of airing to the peaceful and normal socio-economic activities that are taking place in those stable regions with functioning governments in Somalia or other parts of the Horn of Africa – to learn from them how they were able to achieve such peace and security. (Somalia will not remain in this catastrophic situation forever, and we have to prepare ourselves to lead normal lives once again). Besides, I advise you to lessen the use of English in your broadcasts – especially in your interviews with outsiders (mainly Somalis). If one of these other Somalis uses English words or phrases – normally for the sake of show-off – your announcer who interviews him/her should explain these foreign terms in Somalis language for the benefit of your Somali listeners, the overwhelming majority of whom are illiterate.
Last but not least, I advise you to minimize the opportunities for interviews that you give to the leaders of the extremist, self-appointed outfits, like Al-Shabaab and Hizbul-Islam. Otherwise, they will utilize VOA-Somali for spreading their pernicious, un-Islamic ideology – free of charge! I think you would agree with me that it will be truly unfair to use VOA-Somali, which is funded by the American taxpayer, to attack America openly and to spread the cheap, false propaganda of these fanatical Somali thugs who are branded as Al-Qaida linked terrorists by the U.S. Government. Even if it becomes exceptionally necessary to give the platform to one of the leaders/spokesmen of these radical Islamic fundamentalists, you should endeavor to assign the task to one of your strong, eloquent and very professional announcers who will challenge the extremist interviewee when he attempts to sell his blatant lies to us – your devoted listeners.
Keep up the good work; and thanks a lot for ending BBC-Somali’s monopoly.
Sincerely yours,
Mahamud M. Yahya, PhD
[email protected]
cc: Mr. N. Mengash
The Head, Horn of Africa Services, VOA
NOTE:
I wish to dedicate this article to the memory of Mr. Sheikh Nur Mohamed Abkeey, reportedly one of the best and most professional broadcasters of the government sponsored “Radio Mogadishu”, who was brutally murdered in that city on May 5, 2010 by the extremist Somali insurgents (better known as al-Shayaadiin or the Devils and not al-Shabaab, the Youth), without any plausible justification. May God almighty bestow his abundant mercy on the late Sheikh Nur.