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Radio Zid Sarajevo,
Ise Jovanovica 8, 71000 Sarajevo
tel/fax (via USA)  1 412- 339 47 38
E-mail:         Radio_Zid@zamir-sa.ztn.zer.de
Bank account:
HCA-Radio Zid 3483 - 7118 / 0400
Zivnostenska Banka, Na Prikope 20, 113 80 Praha 1


Dear friends,

what follows is an information about most famous Sarajevo independent FM
radio station - Radio Zid. More will follow very soon, with some good
ideas for cooperation. But feel free to approach us with your ideas and
suggestios already now. We are still ready to share our creativity with
the Outside World!



ZID'S ROLE IN THE NEW SOCIETY OF SARAJEVO.

The war has changed the structure of our  society radically .Apathy is
one of the single most dangerous problems facing Sarajevo .We refuse to
let this apathy turn Sarajevans, who have not lost their dignity , into
lethargic zombies with little sence of self-worth or identity.

The nourishment of the body is essential to keep a population alive ,
but a population is not the same as a society.A society brings security
and permanence, keeps people sane and feeling like they belong
somewhere,that they are not just seperate isolated animals. To keep a
society alive you must nourish the soul .If the soul of Sarajevo is
dying  then only it's own citizens can save it.

Time and  time again cultures have been destroyed, populations turned
into scattered dependant children, because they have begun to believe
their own pathetic Press and Aid Agency stereotypes.

How would you feel if you were trying to think positively about your
future and the future of your children , if you wanted to believe that
you could rebuild your city and you  were told every day by powerful
foreigners who controlled your diet and much of your TV news,  that you
were so traumatised that you could not  trust your own thoughts.That you
should not feel proud but that you should feel terrified , hopeless and
forlorn.

Does the outside world really want us to retain our pride?

Pamphlets from the major aid organisations portray Bosnians  and in
particular Sarajevans  as desperate cripples and beggars, people beyond
dignity .The people of Sarajevo deserve to be respected ,not patronised.

As a Sarajevan organisation working from within the city , not as an
outsider , surely Radio Zid deserves to be treated with this respect ,
instead we are often treated as some kind of servicing organisation for
foreign agencies and reporters on the make .(Who want us to talk in
meaningless, sad soundbites ,preferably  of their own invention and in
their own languages)

If we are honest we have to admit that time after time it has not always
been  the traumatic events of war or famine that have  broken the spirit
of a people, but the way they have lost their independance to muddled
bureaurocratic foreign 'humanitarians'.

If local organisations like Zid , are  not encouraged Sarajevo may end
up in the deadly  embrace of a kind of Benevolent Mafia, providing all
that it's the people need except  independance and the chance to start
again , with difficulty ,but according to their own plans.

The future of Zid is linked inextricably with the real level of
conscern for it's listeners outside of Sarajevo as well as within.The
powers that be may say, "Why didn't you tell us you were in trouble.We
will answer ." We have been telling you .But we have not begged  and
perhaps you find it difficult to understand  someone from Bosnia who is
speaking without tears. If  there is real conscern without short term,
shallow pity Radio Zid may be saved. If not  'the Sarajevo media event
of 1993' will be the saddest media death of 1994.



CULTURAL WORK OF THE ZID PROGRAM (From founding to date.)

The Zid cultural program ,since  it's creation in October 1992,has
promoted all of the major Arts and communications projects in Sarajevo;
including the film and video collective SAGA  the MES Theatre and Film
Festival and the OBALA Art Gallery .We promoted the Joan Baez Concert at
the Imperial Cinema , Sarajevo in April 1993. We has also staged two
film festivals of our own ,'Beyond the End of the World'  in November
'93 incorperating many of the leading 'Art' films of that year including
Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula and Wim Wenders' 'Until The End Of The
World' and a season of 'Commercial' films at the Apollo Cinema Sarajevo
from April to June 1994. There are no political boundaries to the arts
and this is why we feel that it is our duty to support the work of
independant artists wherever they are. Our exhibition of  the work of
satirical cartoonist Predrag Koraksic , who works in Belgrade and
regularly lampoons all of the former Yugoslavia's political leaders ,
was a great success when it was shown at the American Cultural Centre in
Dobrinja, perhaps the most isolated suburb of Sarajevo, and at the
gallery in the Zid offices.

Zid   has become a publisher in order to give  Sarajevans  an
independant voice outside of their city and to show people here that
their brains are just as good as they ever were.'The  Sarajevo Survival
Guide', a handbook to everyday life in the city , was launched in
February 1994 to be followed by '101 Nights '  a book of 101 personal
stories from Sarajevo, in April.

Radio Zid Sarajevo, founded at the same time,  has been heaped with
praise by the world's media since it's first broadcast in December
1992.Zid's Hiroshima Day ,on 6th August 1993 was a major world event,
attracting the support of the world's most celebrated intellectuals and
culminating with a live link up with the rock group U2. In October 1993
Radio Zid became the joint recipient, with founder Zdravko Grebo, of
'The Extraordinary Award for Peace and against Racism and Xenophobia'
from the European Club  of Rectors.

In January 1994 Bosnia's most popular independant magazine BH Days
called Radio Zid  , "the premier media event of 1993"  and the Institute
for war reporting in London described the station as "one of the rare
remaining civil and humane voices in the territory of the beleagured
Bosnia- Herzegovina ".

A recent survey showed that over half the children in the city regularly
listen  to 'The Colourful Wall' our  daily  young peoples' education,
fun and contact program?. Why did major global news agencies state that
Zid News had stood 'as an example to the world 'of good independant
journalism,following it's coverage of the events surrounding the assault
on Gorazde .

Zid has been applauded for it's support of  Community Arts in Sarajevo.
We work  to involve our listeners, adults and children, as much as
possible in our programming, and we regularly co- produce cultural
events   in the city, deliberately accessable to everyone*. We encourage
positive involvement in the future of Sarajevo (recently winning yet
more praise for our work on the Dystopia Architectural conference.) We
have reached all of the targets  we set ourselves when we were founded,
on nothing but words and good will, in October 1992.Words and good will
will take us no further.

We know that our work is good ,professional and  right now essential ,
but we can not work miracles  every day with our resources constantly at
crisis point.


WHAT IS CULTURE? ZID'S DEFINITION

If we are 'The voice and conscience of democracy' in Sarajevo'
Why then are we struggling to exist?

Who has benefitted most from the endless handshakes, photo opportunities
and seemingly earnest discussions on 'the urgent need to keep the
remaining embers of culture alive in Sarajevo'? Not us. We applaud those
writers, journalists and volunteers who came to Sarajevo and decided to
try to really help us. There have been so few .

Sadly, it seems that even our' would-be' saviours often only see the
survival of a healthy  cultural life in Sarajevo, and therefore Zid's
Cultural Mission as a rather useful designer label . They visit for the
photo' opportunities and the after dinner speech value. Then they add
the Radio Zid Window Sticker to their list of Sarajevan trophies like
another ribbon on a general's chest.

So what is culture? This thing that we are supposed to stand for .Is it
something that one  can wear like a fake  fir stole or is it something
that involves a whole community , that links peoples and continents
something in which we all share a common interest?

The latter description is exactly the kind the kind we might expect in
our deep box of press cuttings.Such definitions render Zid nothing,
except a place in the impotent archives of posterity.

To simplify. Most people would say that we all have a culture. It can be
described in several  ways. The Director of Radio Zid describes it
simply as the thing which takes up the greatest part of your thinking
time in a day.

To be of a certain culture means then that you are a person who's life
revolves around a one thing in particular. When we talk about a society,
as in a city like Sarajevo we find that there are groups of people who
share the same conscerns and have a particular way of looking at the
world.They form cultural groups.

We believe to be cultured is to develope ones' sence of the world, to
keep it healthy by cross pollenation with other peoples' ideas and
honest debate .We also call ourselves 'Art Radio.Art can be described as
the pursuit of beauty. When you link these two together you find Zid's
basic aim .To preserve an independant culture and  encourage study of
the arts in Sarajevo thereby  keeping peoples' minds alive and
constantly developing; giving them the chance to influence and enrich
others' lives with their thoughts and ideas ,without fear of censorship
or repression.That's about as simple as we can make it.

Before the war the sound of the  calling to prayer of many  different
creeds was an audible sign that Sarajevans, perhaps more than any other
Europeans, had the tolerance and the will for a civilised existance.

Unlike many other cities in Europe and throughout the world  people in
the street in Sarajevo, can often give you their  considdered definition
of Culture and the Arts immediately.Without exception those who answer
will tell you that they still value them very  very much.That a healthy
cultural life should not be a luxury but a necessity.


Zid Sarajevo. Culture, Art and who cares?

Reposted from the APC amarc.radio conference by:
________________________________________________________________
AMARC - ASSOCIATION MONDIALE DES RADIODIFFUSEURS COMMUNAUTAIRES
WORLD ASSOCIATION OF COMMUNITY RADIO BROADCASTERS
ASOCIACION MUNDIAL DE RADIOS COMUNITARIAS
3575 boul. St. Laurent, Suite 704	Tel: +(514) 982-0351
Montreal, Quebec  H2X 2T7		Fax: +(514) 849-7129
CANADA					Email: amarc@web.apc.org
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