Broadcasting human rights
How can citizens’ awareness regarding their rights and responsibilities be raised? This question will be elaborated on by George Weiss, in a lecture on Radio Benevolencija. This project has been set up in countries plagued by a history of conflict including Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and aims to increase people’s understanding of the cycle of conflict as well as stimulating critical views regarding incitement to hate violence. Media play a critical role in achieving these objectives by making information accessible to a large audience.
One of the programmes broadcasted by Radio Benevolencija is Musekeweya, (“new dawn”). This fictional radio drama has been running since 2003 and tells about the conflict between two families, reminding one of the tragic Romeo and Juliet history. Listeners are confronted with the story of manipulative leaders, inciting violence between different population groups, a process which is only halted after bystanders interfere. Musekeweya, with ninety per cent of listeners as its audience highly popular, tells a story of coming to terms with the past, enhancing understanding of ‘the other side’ and learning to process the 1994 massacre. The organisation employs academic research to create radio soaps like this, TV drama series and discussion programmes to teach the audience to resist indoctrination that move humans to violent behaviour.
Speaker: George Weiss
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