Category: Radio 3
Date: 02.09.2005
Printable version
On Wednesday 28 September, presenter Zeinab Badawi hosts a special 91Èȱ¬ Radio 3 evening celebrating the spoken word in all its guises across the African continent.
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In three hours of features, discussions, interviews and performances Radio Africa explores the current life of oral culture in Africa and discovers how and why story-telling continues to play such an important part in many countries.
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The evening will trace the vitality and threats to indigenous languages, of which thousands still exist.
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It will look at the powerful role of radio itself - from urban talk shows to local community stations.
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And it will tell its own story on how all these elements, from the village story teller to the urban DJ, have intimate connections in the oral life of many African nations.
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Zeinab discovers why the spread of mobile phones has transformed the radio talk show in Africa.
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At a time when democracy and free speech are being encouraged in previously censored societies, the talk show and phone-in have been boosted by the mobile and the callers it brings.
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Zeinab meets some of the array of new radio hosts, and talks to the aid agencies who have gone as far as to organise international conferences for them.
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World-renowned Nigerian man of letters Chinua Achebe will be talking to Zeinab about the unique influence that oral tradition has had on modern African writing.
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And Gcina Mhlophe, one of South Africa's best known oral story tellers, will take listeners on a journey through the rich life of a 21st century practitioner.
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Radio Africa travels to Sierra Leone to hear how reconciliation and radio are going hand in hand in a land that has only recently emerged from a bloody civil conflict - people on the front line explain why radio is the best way to get to the heartbeat of a wounded nation.
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Zeinab will play host to a round table of guests with an ear for the African word.
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Performers, story tellers, musicians, anthropologists, journalists and cultural commentators will be debating its strengths and weaknesses today - with examples of the best.
